Sermon 168
SERMO 168
ABOUT THE WORDS OF THE APOSTLE (EPH 6, 23):
"Peace to the brothers, and love with faith."
OR CONCERNING THE GRACE OF GOD,
According to the confession of the chosen vessel
And doctrine, since the faith of the mercy of God is a gift.
He makes the children of Abraham's faith, he who promised.
May the Lord build your heart with readings, songs, and divine sermons, and most importantly, with His grace; so that what you hear as truth, you do not hear for judgment, but for reward. He will do this, for He who promised is able to do it. So Abraham believed, giving glory to God, thus also fully believing that He who promised is able to do it. Great is our joy; He promised us to Abraham; we are children of the promise. For when it was said to Abraham: "In your seed all nations shall be blessed," we were promised. Therefore, He made us the children of Abraham’s faith, who is able to do what He promised. No one should say: I did it. For God does not promise, and you accomplish. However, it can rightly be said that what you promise, God accomplishes. For you are weak, you are not almighty. Therefore, when you promise, unless God does it, your promise is in vain. But the promise of God does not depend on you, but on Him. But you say, I have believed. Granted. You speak the truth: you have believed, but you did not give yourself faith. From where did you believe, if not from faith? Faith in you is the gift of God.
The faith of Christians is different from the faith of demons. The faith of the children of God, with charity. Faith is the beginning of salvation. True peace.
Listen to the Apostle himself, the disputant of faith and the great defender of grace; hear him saying: Peace to the brothers, and love with faith. He mentioned three great things: peace, love, faith. He began from the end and finished at the beginning. For the beginning is in faith, the end in peace. For that which we believe is faith itself. But faith must be of Christians, not of demons. For, as the Apostle James says: Even the demons believe and tremble. And the demons said to Christ: You are the Son of God, we know who you are; therefore, will they reign with the Son of God? By no means! Therefore, the faith of demons must be distinguished from the faith of saints. Clearly, it must be discerned vigilantly and diligently. For Peter also said this when the Lord asked: Who do you say that I am? You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And the Lord said: Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah. O Lord, the demons also said this to you; why are they not blessed? Why? Because the demons said this out of fear, Peter out of love. Therefore, the beginning is with faith. But with what kind of faith? Which the Apostle defined: Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith. Say, what faith? Faith that works through love. The demons do not have this faith, which works through love; but only the servants of God, only the saints of God, only the sons of Abraham by faith, only the children of love, the children of promise; therefore it is said: and love. Those three words were spoken by the Apostle: Peace to the brothers, and love with faith. Peace to the brothers. Whence peace? And love. Whence love? With faith. For if you do not believe, you do not love. Therefore, the Apostle said, thus beginning from the end and coming to the beginning: Peace, love, with faith. Let us say: Faith, love, peace. Believe, love, reign. For if you believe and do not love, you have not yet distinguished your faith from those who trembled and said: We know who you are, the Son of God. Therefore, love; because love with faith itself leads you to peace. What peace? True peace, complete peace, solid peace, secure peace; where there is no pestilence, no enemy. That peace is the end of all good desires. Love with faith; and if you say it thus, you say well: Faith with love.
All good things, and faith itself, are from God. Full faith.
The Apostle therefore mentioned great goods: Peace to the brothers, and love with faith; great goods. But let him say from where these goods come; from where are they, from us, or from God? If you say: From us, you glory in yourself, not in God. But if you have learned what the Apostle himself also said: So that he who glories, may glory in the Lord; confess peace, love with faith, to be not from you but from God. But you respond to me: You say this, prove what you say. I prove; I will call the Apostle himself as a witness. Behold you have it; the Apostle said: Peace to the brothers, and love with faith. He said it himself. What did he say? Look, he follows: Peace to the brothers, and love with faith, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. What do you have that you did not receive? But if you received it, why do you boast as though you did not receive it? For if Abraham gloried, he gloried in faith. What is full and perfect faith? That which believes all our goods are from God, and even faith itself. Again the Apostle says: I obtained mercy. O confession! He did not say: I obtained mercy because I was faithful; but, so that I might be faithful, I obtained mercy.
Grace was given to Saul, an unbeliever and cruel persecutor.
Let us come to his beginnings, let us see Saul raging, let us behold him furious, let us see him breathing threats and thirsting for blood. Let us look upon him, brothers, a great spectacle. Behold, after the death of Stephen, after the blood of God's witness was shed by stones, where he kept the clothes of those who stoned him, so that he could even cast stones in their hands, then the brethren who were gathered in Jerusalem were dispersed; and he, raging, for whom it was not enough to have seen and shed the blood of Stephen, received from the chief priests to go to Damascus, and whomever he found there Christians, to bring them bound. And he went. This was the way of Paul, whose way was not yet Christ; still Saul, not yet Paul. He went. What did he have in his heart? What, except evil? Give me his merits. If you seek his merits, they are of condemnation, not of deliverance. Therefore he went to rage against the members of Christ, he went to shed blood, he went a wolf to become a shepherd; thus he went. For he could not otherwise go to those things for which he was going. And as he walks, he thinks, he breathes slaughter; as his feet lead him in anger, hatred moves his limbs, while he proceeds and walks, the slave obeys cruelty; and behold a voice from heaven: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Behold why he said: I received mercy to be faithful. He was unbelieving; it is not enough, he was even cruel in that unbelief; but he received mercy to be faithful. What will you say to God when He says: This I will? Therefore, Lord, he who did so much, who desired to do so much evil to your saints, do you deem him worthy of such mercy? This I will. Is your eye evil, because I am good?
Both faith and prayer are from the grace of God. The Pelagian objection.
Have faith; but in order to have faith, pray with faith. But you cannot pray with faith unless you have faith. For no one prays without faith. For how can they call on him in whom they have not believed? Or how can they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? Or how shall they preach unless they are sent? Therefore we speak, because we have been sent. Listen to us, listen to him through us. Therefore, someone says, we call upon God to give us perseverance in the good things we have, and to add the good things we do not have. So, therefore, faith preceded that which asks. Surely God gives everything. For I prayed in order that he might give to me; in order that I might pray, I first believed. Therefore I gave to myself by believing, and God gave what I believingly prayed for. The question stands, for it is not a small matter. I see you speak this way, because you claim that you first gave something to God, so that he might give you the rest. You gave him indeed your faith and your prayer. And where is it that the Apostle says: For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to him, and it shall be repaid to him? See what you wish to be. Therefore you first gave to God, and you gave that which God did not give to you? Did you find something to give? Beggar man, where did you have it from? Therefore, from where to give? Did you have something? What indeed do you have that you did not receive? Therefore you give to God from what God gave to you; from what he gave to you, he receives from you. For your beggary, if he had not first given, would have remained the emptiest.
Prayer made for the unbelieving Saul proves that faith is a gift of God.
Listen to how this can be proven more clearly. Behold, you who have believed, have received; what shall we say about those who have not yet believed, like Saul who had not yet believed? He received so that he might believe; after he believed in Christ, then he began to invoke Christ. From Him he received so that he might believe, and by believing he might invoke, and by invoking, he might receive the rest. What do we think, brothers? Did those who believed pray for Saul before he believed, or did they not pray? Tell me, if they did not pray for him, why did Stephen say: Lord, do not hold this sin against them? He was prayed for, and others who were unbelievers, so that they might believe. Behold, they did not yet have faith, and by the prayers of the faithful they received faith. They did not yet have what they could offer to God because they had not yet received mercy to become faithful. Indeed, after this Saul was converted, with one voice he was struck down and lifted up, struck down as a persecutor, lifted up as a preacher; after he began to preach the faith he once tried to destroy, what did he say about himself? But I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea which are in Christ; they only heard that he who once persecuted us now preaches the faith he once tried to destroy; and they glorified God because of me. Did he say: And they glorified me? But in me, who preached the faith I once tried to destroy, they glorified not me, but God. Therefore, it was He who made it so that Saul, putting off the old garment, tattered with sins, stained with blood, putting off that garment, would receive the garment of humility, and become from Saul to Paul.
Paul, that is, small, a preacher of the grace bestowed upon him.
What is Paul? "Least." For I am the least of the Apostles. Behold what Paul is. For Paul in Latin means "small." We speak this way when we say: After a little while I see you; a little later I do that. What does "a little later" mean? A little later; after a little while, after a small time. Why then Paul? Because he is small. Small, because he is the last. For I am, he says, the last of the Apostles, who am not worthy to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. You speak well; from where you deserved to be condemned, you received from Him whence you should be crowned. From whom did you receive whence you should be crowned? Do you want to hear from whom he received it? Do not listen to me, listen to him himself: I am not, he says, worthy to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God; but by the grace of God I am what I am. Therefore what you were, you were by your own iniquity; what you are, you are by the grace of God. And his grace, he says, was not in vain toward me. Behold he preaches the faith which he once destroyed; nor is that grace empty in him, who says: It was not in vain toward me, but I labored more abundantly than all of them. Observe, you began to lift yourself up. Where are you, Paul? Surely you were small. I labored more abundantly than all of them. Say from where? For what do you have that you did not receive? Immediately he looked back; and when he had said: I labored more abundantly than all of them; as if he was alarmed at his own words, and straight away he subjected himself, humble Paul: Not I, but the grace of God with me.
Pray for the unbelievers, that they may believe.
Therefore, my brothers, so that you may know that faith is also from the Lord God for us, pray for those who have not yet believed. If anyone has a faithless friend, I advise him to pray for him. Is it truly necessary that I should advise him? The husband is a Christian, the wife is faithless; does he not pray for his wife, that she may believe? The wife is Christian, the husband is faithless; does not the religious woman pray for her husband, that he may believe? When the one who prays prays this; what does he pray for, except that God may grant faith to him? Therefore, faith is a gift of God. Let no one boast, let no one arrogate to himself, as if he has given himself something. He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.