The Way

Imputed Righteousness.  This seems hokey to me.  It's never been well explained.  Just the kind of theological leap they put together to fill in a gap in a system.

I feel that I understand the reality of things in an inexplicable way, but what salvation and faith are, then needs expressing and I can't get away from the training I was steeped in...which is the imputed stuff.

But now, I am having a glimmer of something new.  I believe it deep down, like I said, but am not sure I can express it fully yet.

Uncle George has been helping me.  He said through Robert Falconer that imputed righteousness is a lying doctrine.  That we must all be clothed with the righteousness of saints, our own righteousness, not someone else's.  This seems to make so many things fit together better.  I am not magically made clean, but strangely left the same through some wonky time-space split.  That's sci-fi!  But if Galatians 2:16 says (and indeed the Greek does bear it out) that we are saved through the faith OF Christ, not IN Christ as the modern translations put it, then salvation and the work of Christ were truly to be the first fruits.  Not to substitute innocent for guilty in some blood-lust psycho fantasy, but to pave the way.  His perfect faith in his father to save him shows me how to have faith in him and his father.  He makes the unknowable knowable and I am being made righteous.  Not instantly, but throughout my life.  I am being finished, perfected.  We all are.  Christ shows how that works, what that means, and makes it possible.  But my sins are my sins.  I must reap what I've sown; only through that, I can rise as Christ has.

So is my salvation through faith?  Absolutely.  Christ's faith, and in kind, my faith.  This perfect faith tells me I am in good hands and that frees me to act in ways that repair and grow me.  My work in it is not to say some stupid prayer like a magic incantation.  It is not even to believe without doubt, like wishing on a star.  But neither is it to earn my place.  It is simply to do as my big brother has done.  To learn to submit myself fully to what God has made me to be.

And this is done, as James says, by working out my faith in actions.  The actions God places before me to do, small or big, in every moment.  Without schemes and angles.  Helping when help is needed.  Patient when sick.  Compassionate with those who need it.  Ethical at work.  Gracious when driving.  Quiet when rest is required.  In doing the will of his father, Jesus demonstrated his faith.  I must do the same.  In this I find the only proof available that my faith is not in vain, but it is the surest proof.

So this understanding unties faith and works, explains the cross and faith, clearly shows what is good about the "good news" in a way that any person can see (not just those who contort in theological ways like Candide's teacher.) And gives clear direction for my life.  And does so in a way that doesn't require any unnatural explanation.  Even the simplest person could grasp it.  How is this wrong again?

God take me ever further up and further in.  Help my reply to the rhetoric to be my actions for you.  I am your sheepdog.

Whisper

I look up from my place and see the Shepherd coming in.  He sits down.  He seems tired.  My belly hurts.  I crawl over and place my head against his thigh.  He rubs my head behind my ear and under my chin.  It feels good, reassuring. 

Then he kneels in front of me and takes my head in both his hands.  He gently lifts my eyes to his.  Then he lays his forehead against mine.  His eyes match mine, his nose on top of my nose.  He whispers some words.  I can't understand them; I am just a dog.  But they sound wonderful, mysterious, full of meaning.  I wish I could understand them.

Then I feel the words pass into me; from my ears and face they go all the way down through me and into my belly.  And the pain there stops.