The circus in Berditche is on fire. All crowd toward the door, crushing each other in their efforts to open the door, which opens inward. A savior comes and says to them, ‘Move further from the door, turn back; the closer you all stand to the door, the less hope of safety there is for you. If you turn back you will find an exit, and you will be saved!’
Whether I alone hear the words and believe matters but little; but having heard and believed, can I do otherwise than turn back and call upon the others to follow the voice of him who comes to save them? I shall, perhaps, be smothered, crushed, or killed; but the sole hope of safety is in my going toward the only exit. A savior must be a savior indeed, i.e., he must save. And the salvation of Christ is salvation indeed. He appeared, He spoke, and mankind is now saved.
The circus burned for a whole hour; and it was necessary to make haste, or else all could not have been saved. But the world has been burning for eighteen hundred years; burning from the time Christ said, ‘I come to send fire on the earth; and how I languish until it is kindled.’ And it will burn until men are saved. Wasn’t man created, and doesn’t the fire burn, only that the happiness of man might be saved from it?
I know there is no other door, either for myself or for those who suffer with me in this life. I know that neither those around me nor I can be saved, except by fulfilling the commandments of Christ, which give the highest bliss to all mankind.
I may have more to suffer. I may die earlier, through fulfilling Christ’s doctrine. I fear neither suffering nor death. He who does not see how senseless and perishable his individual life is, he who thinks that he will not die, may fear. But, knowing that life for individual happiness alone is foolish to the highest degree, and that the end of that foolish life will be but a foolish death, I cannot fear it. I shall die, as all do, as those who do not fulfill Christ’s doctrine do – yet my life and death will have some meaning for myself and for all. My life and death will minister to the salvation and lives of all men; and that is what Christ taught us.
Chapter 9
Were all to fulfill Christ’s doctrine, the kingdom of God would be on earth. If I fulfill it, I do what is best for all mankind and myself. I should be helping that kingdom to come.
But where shall I find the faith that will enable me to obey Christ’s teaching, to practice it, and never to swerve from it? ‘I believe, Lord; help my unbelief.’
The apostles begged Christ to confirm their faith. ‘I desire to do good, yet I do evil,’ says Paul the apostle.
‘It is hard to be saved.’ This is what each says and thinks.
A drowning man calls for help. A rope is thrown him. It could save him; but the drowning man cries, ‘Confirm my belief that this rope can save me.’ ‘I believe,’ says the man, ‘that it can save me; but help my unbelief.’
What does that mean? If a man does not take hold of what alone can save him, doesn’t it prove that he is unaware of the danger he is in?
How can a Christian who professes to believe in the divinity of Christ and of His doctrine say that he would believe if he could? God Himself, when on earth, said, ‘You are on the eve of eternal torment and fire, of complete, eternal darkness. I bring you salvation; do as I tell you, and you shall be saved.’ Can a Christian reject the salvation offered him – remain unmindful of his Savior’s words, and say, ‘Help my unbelief?’
If a man spoke thus, would it not seem as if he not only refused to believe that destruction awaited him, but was convinced he should not perish?
Some children have leaped overboard into the water. The current, for a time, upholds them before their clothes are entirely soaked through. They swim about, unconscious of danger. A rope is thrown to them from the ship. They are entreated by those on board to take hold of the rope. (We find the same meaning in the parables of the woman who had found a farthing, of the shepherd who found the sheep that was lost, and in the parables of the supper and of the prodigal son.) But the children will not believe; not because they think the rope is an unsafe one, but because they do not believe that they are about to perish.
Thoughtless children, like themselves, have told them that they will go on bathing merrily, even when the ship sails away. The children do not believe that the time is near when their clothes will be wet through, their little arms tired out; when they will begin to lose breath, and that then they will choke and drown. They do not believe that, and therefore they do not believe in the rope of salvation.
Men are like the children who have jumped overboard, and are sure they will not perish. Therefore they do not take hold of the rope. They believe in the immortality of the soul and are convinced that they will not perish, and therefore they do not fulfill the doctrine of Christ-God. They do not believe in what is indubitable, only because they believe in what is beyond all possibility of belief.
And they cry, “confirm our belief that we are not perishing.’
But that is impossible. For them to believe they will be saved they must cease to do what brings destruction, and begin to do what will save them; they must take hold of the rope of salvation. But they do not choose to do this; they wish to be assured that they are not perishing, though their companions perish, one after another, before their eyes. And that desire to grow sure of what is not, they call ‘faith.’ No wonder, then, that they have little faith and that they long for more.
It was only when I understood Christ’s doctrine that I saw that what such men call ‘faith’ is not faith. It is only the false faith that the apostle James opposes in his epistle. The Church did not accept that epistle for a long time; and when it was accepted it underwent several changes. Some words were removed, and others transposed or incorrectly translated. I here give the accepted translation, only correcting what is inexact, according to Tischendorf’s text.
James 2:14-26: ‘What does it profit, my brethren, if a man supposes that he has faith, and does not have works? Faith cannot save him. If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them those things that they need; what good is that? Even so faith, if it does not have works, is dead, being alone. Yes, a man may say, “You have faith, and I have works.”
Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God; you do well. The devils also believe, and tremble. But will you know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? See how faith worked with his deeds, and by his deeds his faith was made perfect? … You see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith alone. … For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.’
The apostle says that the only proof of faith is in the works that proceed from it; and that faith from which no works proceed is but a word, with which we can neither feed any, nor justify ourselves and be saved. And therefore the faith that is not accompanied by works is not faith. It is only a wish to believe; it is only a mistaken assertion that I believe when I do not really believe.
According to this definition, faith must be allied to works, and works make faith perfect, i.e., true. The Jews said to Christ (Mark 15:32. Matt. 27:42, John 6:30), ‘What sign will you give us, that we may see and believe you? What will you do?’ The same men said to Him when He was on the cross, ‘Let Him descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe.’ (Mark 15:32) Matt. 27:42: ‘He saved others, but Himself He cannot save! If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him.’
In answer to their prayer that He may ‘increase their faith,’ Christ says that the wish is vain; that they cannot be forced to believe (Luke 22:67). He says, ‘If I tell you, you will not believe’ (John 10:25-26). ‘I told you, and you have not believed. You do not believe because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you.’
The Jews required some outward token to enforce their belief in the doctrine of Christ, just as the Christian followers of the Church do now. And He answers that
