Faith Alone

⁸For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  Ephesians 2:8-10

The Christian truths rediscovered during the Reformation can be summed up by saying that we are saved or justified (declared righteous) by Grace Alone, through Faith Alone, in Christ Alone as He has given us in His Word Alone.

What does it  mean to be saved through faith alone?  It means the source (Jesus) of our faith and object (Jesus) of our faith gives us eternal life.  He did this by taking all of our sin and guilt from us.  Even though He was perfect He took our guilt and bore our sin in our place by being joined with with us in the waters of baptism and then dying on the cross in our place.  He lived a perfect life for us and gave us His life when we were baptized so that His Father now declares us righteous for Jesus sake.  When He was raised from the dead on the third day our HE gave us who He justified power over death and the grave.  Faith is not about anything we do.  Faith is a totally free gift of God.  Our Heavenly Father sends the Holy Spirit to us who creates faith in Jesus in us through His Word and Sacraments.  The Holy Spirit is always pointing us to Jesus and His death on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.  He is always calling us sinners to return to Jesus. 

How can we understand "our" faith?  We shouldn't look at faith as an object in and of itself that can be measured or quantified, i.e. "look at how much faith I have" or "do I have enough faith?", instead we look to the object and giver of our faith, Jesus.  When we look to Jesus who gives us all we need and more, instead of focussing on our trust and belief in Jesus, we can simply live the faith.   We live the faith in Jesus by attending church, meditating on Holy Scripture, daily repenting of our sins and sinfulness and thus remembering our baptism into Christ,  receiving Jesus' body and blood in the Lord's Supper and then going out and serving our neighbor.   This kind of faith doesn't need to ask "is my faith strong enough?", because we know that our Lord is strong enough, for us.  This kind of faith doesn't find meaning in our circumstances, it finds meaning in Christ.