No, Mike, I am not out to attack you or your faith. I simply want to make sure we are talking about the same thing.
This is true. Faith is substance and evidence. It is not a "mental only" thing. You cannot sit in a chair, listen to a message preached, and exhibit faith. Faith is not a thought, nor is it a prayer.
I am sorry, please forgive me for my lack of understanding, but this one long sentence is very hard to follow. It is hard to tell where your thoughts end and another begins. Would you mind adding punctuation to your comments so that I can more easily follow your train of thought?
My point in asking you, "What is faith?" was to point out that you were correct when you said that all we need is faith. Our salvation comes as a gift from God and is received through faith (Eph 2:8-9), because faith is belief that causes action. Without the action, the belief is incomplete and dead (James 2:26). Without the action, there is no substance or evidence (Heb 11:1). It is faith that is credited to man as righteousness. So then, what remains if to identify in Scripture those actions that are commanded of God that He says "lead to" (or "lead toward") salvation, as opposed to those actions that "flow from" (or as a result of) salvation.
Nothing we do leads to salvation. Even the faith through which we are justified and saved is the gift of God, as it says in Ephesians 2:8, "it is the gift of God, not of yourselves", and we know that it is the promise and word of God that gives and creates faith from what the Apostle has written in Romans 10:17, "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ".
Thus the one who hears has faith given to them, and thus we are the passive recipients of God's gifts. So, very much so, the one who hears and believes is saved, because the righteousness of Christ is imputed to them. That is the righteousness of faith, the imputed righteousness of Christ. It is not our righteousness, but God's righteousness. This is why the Apostle has said in Romans chapter 1 that he is not ashamed of the Gospel "for it is the power of God to save all who believe, the Jew first and also the Greek, for by it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, so as it is written, 'The just shall walk by faith.'" (Romans 1:16-17).
The righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel is the righteousness by which He declares us righteous on Christ's account, and we are credited righteous because we receive the righteousness of Christ as pure gift.
So that through Word and Sacrament God works to give and create faith, to strengthen faith, to sustain us and hold us and keep us. So that the one who has faith is born again, which happens in the water of Holy Baptism as the Lord Himself said to Nicodemus, that one needs to be born again, that is, to be born of "water and the Spirit" (John 3:3-5), which St. Paul echoes in his letter to Titus (Titus 3:5). And, again, we see the power of God's word connected with the water of Baptism when Paul writes in Ephesians 5:26 that Christ has cleansed the Church "by the washing of water with the word". It is the word connected to and comprehended in and with the water that makes baptism baptism rather than just getting wet; and for this reason St. Peter can say "this baptism which now saves you, not as the washing of dirt from the skin, but as the pledge of a new conscience before God by the power of Christ's resurrection" (1 Peter 3:21).
Baptism, therefore, is God's work. Even as the Lord's Supper is God's work by which we receive the body and blood of the Lord (1 Corinthians 10:16) and thus partake of His once and perfect sacrifice which is for the forgiveness of our sins. So that wherever the word is preached and wherever the Sacraments are administered, God works to give, create, and strengthen faith, through which we are freely justified by His grace.
That this faith should not lay dormant and be choked by thistles and thorns, we must abide in Christ for He is the True Vine and we are the branches. So we abide in Christ by His word, the promises of the Gospel, which make us a new creation in Christ Jesus.
The good works we do are the fruit of the life of faith, for as the Apostle says in Ephesians 2:10, we were created for good works in Jesus Christ, God purposed us in Christ to be doers of good works, to walk in them, to inhabit these works. The works themselves do not render us righteous, as our righteousness is only the righteousness of Jesus Christ given to us as pure gift. But the good works are the product of that life in Christ, and the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, holding and keeping us in Christ through faith, now works to conform us to the image of Christ, that we should imitate Him, live as Him, pick up our cross and follow Him--to the love of God and neighbor. And so the fruit of the Spirit is love, peace, joy, gentleness, self-control, etc. And the works of love which flow from faith are in loving our enemy, caring for the poor, the hungry, and the needy.
So, St. James says, faith without works is dead; that is simply saying "I believe" is meaningless unless one actually believes and hungers after righteousness--but such is impossible without faith, such is impossible without that newness of life which is found in Christ alone by the grace of God through faith. Dead faith is "I believe" but not believing--for even the demons believe and they tremble.
Faith, living faith, is faith which God gives and which imputes the righteousness of Jesus. From which springs the whole Christian life of love, believing, and repentance. Day after day, abiding in Christ and His promises.
-CryptoLutheran
