The Just Shall Live by Faith

Think of Amy Carmichael: a slim, brown-eyed, beautiful Scotch-Irish girl going off to India as a pioneer. Darkening her face, wearing a sari and sandals, slipping in and out of dangerous market places to rescue babies that were to be sold to become temple prostitutes. Imagine her bucking this evil custom of Hinduism with the weight of men and demons behind it! That small human being all on her own, with no money, and with only an Indian helper and herself to make a home for the first baby. Praying for the babies to be rescued, and for the money to care for them, and for protection from all the forces that would be against her—including some established missions at that time.

A rebel against all precedent? No. Simply one of “the just” living “by faith.” Her determination to live by faith set in motion an effort that brought more than a thousand girls and boys out of the system into which they would have been sold to the temples for evil purposes. It can be said of her, as Paul said of the believers in Rome, “I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world” (Rom. 1:8).

We are clearly told in Romans 1:17, “the just shall live by faith”—not “the missionary, the Christian worker, the pastor, the theological student, the enthusiastic new Christian” but “the just” are to live by their faith. Not “the poor, the downtrodden, the persecuted, the people wiped out by war or depression, those in the midst of earthquake or plague” but “the just” shall live by faith. Not “spiritual Christians, people with special gifts to live by faith, people with a special calling” but “the just” shall live by faith. Only one category is given—“the just.”

Who are “the just”? “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” Romans 3:28 reminds us that we are first justified by faith. ‘The just” already have faith which they have demonstrated in actually believing in the Second Person of the Trinity, who died so that they could be justified, who in taking the punishment himself made possible the one way in which sins could be forgiven. A “just” person is one who has real faith in Christ Jesus, who came to be born, and live, and die in history about two thousand years ago, in the geographic spot that today is the scene of great turmoil. A person who has really accepted Christ as his or her Saviour is one of “the just.”

In Romans 1 “the just shall live by faith” follows the statement about not being “ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” I feel that not being ashamed of the Gospel includes an active demonstration in day-by-day life of doing what the Gospel is meant to prepare us to do: to live by faith. Every Christian is meant to live by faith in really practical areas of life. But some feel ashamed or embarrassed to speak of praying about very down-to-earth things; they feel this would seem childish or fanatical. Some people keep watertight compartments for their “prayer life,” for their Christian activities, for their vocation, for their choices of where to live, how to use their money, where to go for a vacation, how to live as a family. There is little mingling of “faith” with “practical life,” which is unfortunate.”

But this is a serious command that each of us needs to consider and reconsider over and over again. Our lives are shifting and changing. No two periods are alike. The areas in which we were sure we were given the opportunity to “pray” may be removed, and we are in danger of saying, “Yes, I used to live by faith when I was a struggling student, or when we had to pray literally for bread during days of depression, but now—now it is different.” It is never meant to be different. There is no softening of the command with the passage of time; it is not “the just shall live by faith for a little while.…”

But how? True, if you have no job, your house is being taken from you because you cannot make the payments, there is danger of invasion, the stocks are all gone in the drop of the market, or a flood has ruined your crops; if you are in the place of Habakkuk 3:17, 18, where he speaks of the loss of everything; then you can “live by faith” simply by continuing to love the Lord, and to pray for the immediate day’s little loaf of bread. But how if you have everything you need?

The first consideration in being able to do anything the Lord asks us to do is found in what Jesus said to the disciples after he left the rich young ruler, that it was harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to go through a needle’s eye. Utter dismay was the reaction of the disciples, “Who then can be saved?” was the question. Does it depend on being destitute? Can no one else have saving faith?

Jesus’ reply was, “The things which are impossible with men, are possible with God.” Yes, it is possible for a rich man to be saved (although it is a difficult thing to contemplate), says Jesus, because with God all things are possible. A rich man can also come as a child, believing that he has nothing with which to pay for his salvation, and that he needs what Christ has paid on his behalf. Then the rich “just” can also live by faith.

Must there be a danger or a change on the horizon to push us into feeling the necessity of carrying out the practical reality of “living by faith”? Is there something needed to make us feel that faith is not just something to sing about in church, to thrill about as the choir sings, to feel with some emotion as the pastor preaches?

It seems to me that Hebrews 10:36–38 is incentive enough for each one who qualifies as one of “the just”: “For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.”

Habakkuk 2:3 had already spoken of the time of the end, which is to be waited for and will surely come. The connection was already there in Habakkuk, but now in Hebrews it is written in flaming words: The just are to live by faith until Jesus returns. The time may not be long, even though it seems to be long. If we “draw back” and stop living by faith in some day-by-day practical way, then, God has said, we spoil his pleasure in us.

It is so easy for us to outline a set of circumstances in which it would be “practical” to live by faith. We can look back with nostalgia to another period of life and say, “Back then it was real.…” Or we can look at other people’s lives and think what a great opportunity they have to live by faith (“If I had been Amy Carmichael.…”). But none of us can wiggle out of the category; if we are Christians, we are the just. We need to struggle in prayer to be willing for whatever living by faith might mean in today’s circumstances. When we trip and fall and smash our ribs, we must recognize this as the circumstance in which to say, “May nothing be wasted of what you, God, want to bring out of this.”

When the extremes of success come and there seems no material need, the day-by-day thing of saying, “I’m willing, O God, to give half away, or to do whatever you want with it. Make me real today in whatever way in which this combination of circumstances presents me the possibility of living by faith.” It is your today and my today that count in practical living by faith. “Drawing back” is a thing we can easily do, but we will sorely regret it when we discover what “my soul shall have no pleasure in him” actually means. May we hasten to stop wasting the time we have to bring him pleasure in today’s opportunity.

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