At Christmas we celebrate the Word becoming Flesh, but what does this mean for us today? Fundamentally, it means that our faith is about things that are tangible. As human beings, we have bodies. We have a soul that is spiritual, but it is joined with a body that is physical and material. Hence, it is never enough for our faith to be only about thoughts, philosophies, concepts, or ideas. Their truth must touch the physical part of who we are. Our faith must become flesh; it has to influence our behavior. If that is not the case, then the Holy Spirit, speaking through John, has something to call us: liars!
Therefore, away with sophistry, rationalizations, and intentions. Our faith must become flesh in the way we act and move. God’s love for us in not just a theory or idea. It is a flesh and blood reality that can be seen, heard, and touched. The Word of God and our faith cannot simply remain on the pages of a book or in the recesses of our intellect. They must leap off the pages of the Bible and the Catechism and become flesh in the way we live our life, in the decisions we make, and in the way we use our body, mind, intellect, and will.
Consider the following passage from the liturgy of the Christmas Octave:
The way we may be sure that we know Jesus is to keep his commandments. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him. This is the way we may know that we are in union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to walk just as he walked (1 John 2:3ff).
Note some teachings that follow from it:
Faith is incarnational. What a practical man John is! Faith is not an abstraction; it is not merely about theories and words on a page. It is about a transformed life; it is about truly loving God and making His commandments manifest in the way we live. It is about loving our neighbor. True faith is incarnational. That is to say, it takes on flesh in our very “body.”
Too many people spout the phrase, “I’ll be with you in spirit.” Perhaps an occasional absence is understandable but after a while the phrase rings hollow. Showing up physically and doing what we say is an essential demonstration of our sincerity. We are body persons and our faith must include a physical, flesh-and-blood dimension.
Keeping the commandments is a sure sign. John said that The way we may be sure that we know Jesus is to keep his commandments. Now be careful of the logic here. The keeping of the commandments is not the cause of faith; it is the fruit of it. It is not the cause of love; it is its fruit.
In Scripture, “knowing” refers to than an intellectual understanding. It refers to deep, intimate, personal experience of the thing or person. It is one thing to know about God; it is quite to “know the Lord.”
In this passage, John is saying that in order to be sure we have deep, intimate, personal experience of God, we must change the way we live. An authentic faith, an authentic knowing of the Lord, will change our behavior in such a way that we keep the commandments as a fruit of that authentic faith and relationship with Him. It means that our faith becomes flesh in us. Theory becomes practice and experience. It changes the way we live and move and have our being.
For a human being, faith cannot be a mere abstraction. In order to be authentic, it must become flesh and blood. In a later passage, John uses the image of walking: This is the way we may know that we are in union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to walk just as he walked (1 John 2:6). Although walking is a physical activity, it is also symbolic. The very place we take our body is physical, but it is also indicative of what we value, what we think.
Liars – John went on to say, Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not keep his commandments is a liar. This is strong language! Either we believe and thus keep the commandments, or we are lying about really knowing the Lord and we fail to keep the commandments.
Don’t all of us struggle to keep the commandments fully? John seems so “all or nothing” in his words, but his point is clear. To know the Lord fully is never to sin (cf 1 John 3:9). If we know him imperfectly, we still experience sin. Hence, the more we know him (remember the definition of “know”) the less we sin. If we still sin, it is a sign that we do not know Him enough.
It is not really John who speaks too absolutely; it is we who do so. We say things like “I have faith,” “I am a believer,” “I love the Lord,” and “I know the Lord.” Perhaps we would be more accurate if we said, “I am growing in faith,” “I am striving to be a better believer,” or “I’m learning to love and know the Lord better and better.” If we do not, then we risk lying. Faith is something we grow in.
Many in the Protestant tradition reduce faith to an event such as answering an altar call or accepting Christ as “personal Lord and savior.” We Catholics do it too. Many Catholics think that all they need to do is be baptized; they don’t bother to attend Mass faithfully as time goes on. Others claim to be “loyal” even “devout” Catholics yet dissent from important Church teachings. Faith is about more than membership. It is about the way we walk, the decisions we make.
Without this harmony between faith and action, we live a lie. We lie to ourselves and to others. The bottom line is that if we really come to know the Lord more and more perfectly, we will grow in holiness, keep the commandments, and be of the mind of Christ. We will walk just as Jesus walked and our claim to have faith will be the truth, not a lie.
Faith and works cannot be separated. This passage does not claim that salvation is by works alone. The keeping of the commandments is not the cause of saving or of real faith. Properly understood, the keeping of the commandments is the result of saving faith actively present and working within us. It indicates that the Lord is saving us from sin and its effects.
The Protestant tradition erred in dividing faith and works. In the 16th century, Protestants claimed that we are saved by “faith alone.” Faith is never alone. It always brings effects with it.
Our brains can get in the way here and tempt us to think that just because we can distinguish or divide something in our mind we can do so in reality, but that is not always the case.
Consider, for a moment, a flame. It has the qualities of heat and light. We can separate the two in our mind but not in reality. I could never take a knife and divide the heat of the flame from its light. They are so interrelated as to be one reality. Yes, heat and light in a flame are distinguishable theoretically, but they are always together in reality.
This is how it is with faith and works. Faith and works are distinguishable theoretically, but the works of true faith and faith itself are always together in reality. We are not saved by works alone or by faith alone; they are together. John teaches here that knowing the Lord by living faith is always accompanied by keeping the commandments and walking as Jesus did.
Therefore, faith is incarnational. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, really and physically. Similarly, our own faith must become flesh in us, in our actual behavior.
Enjoy this incarnational Christmas carol:
Verbum caro factum est The Word was made flesh
Porque todos hos salveis. for the salvation of you all.
Y la Virgen le dezia: And the Virgin said unto him:
‘Vida de la vida mia, ‘Life of my life,
Hijo mio, ¿que os haria, what would I [not] do for you, my Son?
Que no tengo en que os echeis?’ Yet I have nothing on which to lay you down.’
O riquezas terrenales, O worldly riches,
¿No dareis unos pañales will you not give some swaddling clothes
A Jesu que entre animals to Jesus who is born among the animals
Es nasçido segun veis? as you can see?
Cross-posted at the Catholic Standard: cathstan.org/posts/dont-be-a-liar
Msgr. Pope – Brilliant! This is one to keep and share. Thank you & God bless you! Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to you & all your parishioners, and all who read this blog.
Msgr. Pope, thank you. I always enjoy reading your explanation of various Church doctrines, etc. I look forward to your Q&A column in the Our Sunday Visitor also. Happy New Year.
Faith and works cannot be separated….The Protestant tradition erred in dividing faith and works. In the 16th century, Protestants claimed that we are saved by “faith alone.” Faith is never alone. It always brings effects with it.
Rather than “faith alone” meaning to 16th century Protestants, they taught it is the faith that effects works that is salvific, saying what Pope states, that “Faith is never alone. It always brings effects with it.” No less a historical document on SS and Sola fide than the Westminster confession states that faith,
yet it is not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but works by love. – Westminster Confession of Faith, CHAPTER XI. Of Justification
Luther himself in sermons rejected the idea that a faith which did not effect characteristic obedience was salvific, stating,
faith is a living and an essential thing, which makes a new creature of man, changes his spirit…
Faith cannot help doing good works constantly…
if faith be true, it will break forth and bear fruit…
where there is no faith there also can be no good works; and conversely, that there is no faith.. where there are no good works. Therefore faith and good works should be so closely joined together that the essence of the entire Christian life consists in both.
if obedience and God’s commandments do not dominate you, then the work is not right, but damnable, surely the devil’s own doings, although it were even so great a work as to raise the dead…
if you continue in pride and lewdness, in greed and anger, and yet talk much of faith, St. Paul will come and say, 1 Cor. 4:20, look here my dear Sir, “the kingdom of God is not in word but in power.” It requires life and action, and is not brought about by mere talk.
Works are necessary for salvation, but they do not cause salvation…
faith casts itself on God, and breaks forth and becomes certain through its works…
faith must be exercised, worked and polished; be purified by fire…
it is impossible for him who believes in Christ, as a just Savior, not to love and to do good. If, however, he does not do good nor love, it is sure that faith is not present…
where the works are absent, there is also no Christ…
Christ is the priest, all men are spiritual lepers because of unbelief; but when we come to faith in him he touches us With his hand, gives and lays upon us his merit and we become clean and whole without any merit on our part whatever. We are therefore to show our gratitude to him and acknowledge that we have not become pious by our own works, but through his grace, then our course will be right before God…
For if your heart is in the state of faith that you know your God has revealed himself to you to be so good and merciful, without thy merit, and purely gratuitously, while you were still his enemy and a child of eternal wrath; if you believe this, you cannot refrain from showing yourself so to your neighbor; and do all out of love to God and for the welfare of your neighbor.
References by God’s grace.