What we know today as Protestantism began when an Augustinian monk, Martin Luther, observed that the Bible teaches that God saves us, we don’t save ourselves. We can’t earn our way into heaven. God gives it to us because God is good, not because we are good. Luther enshrined this principle in the motto, “faith alone saves.” While this is true, the Bible says something else about what it means to have faith. Faith is not a mental process or an intellectual conversion but a change in way of life. As the Epistle of James puts it: Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves. In other words, you can’t stop at saying that Jesus is your personal savior, faith requires that we act as Jesus taught us how to live. And as our Lord reminds us, that requires an examination of our attitudes and a change of heart. “The things that come out from within are what defile.” St. James draws out the implications of what faith in Jesus requires: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world. The widows and orphans were those who have no one to care for them. So, yes, faith is what saves us but true faith necessarily transforms us into people of compassion, forgiveness, and generosity, particularly directed toward those who are suffering in this world.
