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Faith Is Useless
A book I wish I had time to read is entitled, “Five Volumes of Spiritual Wisdom” – It explores “many paths of faith” found from the Buddha, Koran, Torah, Mohammed, and Talmud. Missing, obviously, is the wisdom of Jesus. But there is another point worth making. “The many paths of faith” ultimately shows that faith itself is absolutely useless.
No, this is not about “faith only”. Even faith in the right God, the one true God, is useless. What is useful, powerful, and the only path is because we put our faith in the Way, the Truth, and the Life, that GOD COUNTS OUR FAITH AS RIGHTEOUSNESS (Romans 4:3).
The argument over “faith only” misses the point. Whether it is a faith that works (Biblical position) or just mental assent (not-biblical position), both have the person who is needing to be saved doing something: Thinking is doing something in the brain; and sometimes thinking takes time, and is tiring. The same is true with a faith that works. What we need to realize is that all the power is found – not in us having faith – but in the one who acts because of our faith. God counts our faith as righteous. Our faith saves us or makes us whole (as seen in Jesus’ miracles); but would that faith have made the woman with the bleeding issue whole if she touched the garment of the local rabbi? Because God has chosen to justify us by faith. God counts our faith as righteousness and therefore useful.
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