Galatians 5:6 For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision avails any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which works by love. Faith is one of the mightiest powers that the world contains. It is like the central fire of the earth, it is like the fountain of the great deep. But whether it be a power for good or evil depends entirely on the objects to which it is directed, or the way in which it "works." It may be a volcano scattering ruin and desolation around it, or it may be the genial heat and warmth which fuses together the granite foundations of the globe, and sustains the life of every human being on its surface. It may be a torrent tearing and rending everything before it; it may be diverted into a hundred insignificant streams; or it may be a calm and mighty river, fertilizing and civilizing the world. There is a faith which justifies and a faith which condemns. Faith which worketh by love justifies, sanctifies, elevates, strengthens, purifies Faith which worketh not by love, condemns, hardens, weakens, destroys. The ordinary means and ways by which the faith of a Brahmin, e.g., works are not love, and truth, and justice; but meats, and drinks, and washings. To eat the flesh of a cow is the most enormous wickedness of which a Hindoo can be guilty, and one for which there is no forgiveness in this world or the world to come. To bathe in the waters of the sacred river, is a passport to heaven which will avail though every moral virtue he cast aside. On the avoidance of this sin and the preservation of this virtue the Hindoo expends an energy, a courage, a faith, which would be sufficient to convert a kingdom, and the consequence is that the wilder passions of his nature are left either altogether unrestrained, or are actual]y stimulated and aggravated by the faculty which was meant to purify and elevate them. It is like any other power of the human mind, which, if fed on useless or poisonous substances, becomes unable to attend to what is useful and wholesome. There may be a gigantic memory, which lays up the most trifling details, and forgets the most important events. There may be a gigantic intellect, which wastes itself away in subtlety, or degrades itself in fraud and treachery. There may be also a gigantic faith, which squanders its powers on things without profit, which works by blindness of heart, vainglory, and hypocrisy, by envy, malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness. But Christian faith worketh always and everywhere by love. In this one broad channel, faith may work as it will; it will find enough to fill, enough to fertilize, many rough corners to be rounded off, many intervening obstacles to be washed away, many winding tracks to be followed. Do not divert the faith of Christ our Saviour, that world-controlling, world-conquering faith, from its proper functions; we cannot afford to lose its aid, we want the whole volume of its waters, the undivided strength of its stream, to moisten the dry soil of our hardened hearts, to feed and cleanse our dark habitations, to turn the vast wheels of our complex social system, to deepen our shallow thoughts, to widen our narrow sympathies, to sweeten our bitter controversies, to freshen our stagnant indolence. "Faith working by love," can do this, and nothing else can; and we can neither with safety spare its motive power, nor yet without danger open another path for its energies. (Dean Stanley.) Parallel Verses KJV: For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love. |
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