The Third Power of Faith by Deacon Kathy Walzer

[joseph]

The Third power of Faith – Union with God in Christ
Deacon Kathy Walzer

The third power or benefit of faith, says Luther, is that it “unites
the soul to Christ as a bride to her bridegroom.” Picking up on
Paul’s characterization of marriage as a pointing to the relationship
of Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:31-32), Luther shows how the beauty
of grace operates in this relationship. Through faith we become one
with Christ, therefore “everything they have is held in common” - all
we have is His, and all He has is ours. Just as Christ gave His body
for the Church, so “the believing soul can boast of and glory in
whatever Christ has as though it were his own, and whatever the soul
has Christ claims as His own.” Christ is full of life, health,
salvation, riches, wisdom and blessing. The soul is full of sin,
death, and damnation. But by “the wedding ring of faith” Christ takes
our sin, death, and condemnation on Himself, while bestowing eternal
life, peace, health, salvation, and all the riches of His grace upon
us.

Because Christ is God and man in one person, “his righteousness, life,
and salvation are unconquerable, eternal, and omnipotent.” Therefore
when he takes our sin and condemnation to Himself, they are swallowed
up by Him, “for His righteousness is greater than the sins of all men,
his life stronger than death, his salvation more invincible than
hell.” Therefore we are free in Christ our bridegroom from all sins,
secure in our salvation, and endowed by Him with “eternal
righteousness, life, and salvation.” And since he has taken our sins
to Himself and swallowed them up, therefore He is able to take to
Himself “a bride without spot or blemish” in place of the unclean,
faithless, wandering harlot that he found before His grace led us to
faith in Him (see Hosea 2 and Ezekiel 16). And now, Luther tells us,
we are able to stand with confidence in the face of death and hell and
say, “‘If I have sinned, yet my Christ in whom I have believed has not
sinned, and all mine is His, and His is mine.’” (see Song of Solomon
2:16)

Christ, by his birthright, Luther goes on to tell us, is a King and a
Priest. When we participate in Him by faith, we also receive a share
in Him as a royal priesthood. All things become subject to us and are
compelled by Him to work together for our ultimate good and serve us
unto salvation. Further as we share in His priesthood, we have become
worthy to appear in the presence of God and to offer “prayers for
other and to teach one another divine things.” And as our Book of
Common Prayer says, we receive “all other benefits of His salvation” –
too numerous to list here and depth of which we will only realize when
we meet Him face to face at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.

Next time, we will begin to look at the place of works in relationship
to faith.