Complete Gift:
Can We Accept It?
                                 --by Abbot Brian Wangler

This teaching goes contrary to almost everything in human experience. What good do we receive that we have not worked for? Well, I guess there are some things, even important ones, like rain, sunshine, being alive. We cannot work for them or earn them. They are free. But other than that, we earn things. We believe in the reward of hard work, of honesty, industriousness and creativity. The rewards they bring are deserved. We believe in getting paid for work done. But when it comes to God, all that breaks down. We cannot earn anything from God.

I do not intend to go into a theological discussion about the Catholic understanding of justification. For those who want a readable explanation, I suggest they read paragraphs 1987 to 2029 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) and related sections. The theological area of justification has been a very divisive issue between the Catholic Church and Protestant Churches. In recent decades the Catholic and Lutheran Churches have discussed this question at length. The book Justification by Faith, published in 1985, was the result of discussions between Catholics and Lutherans.

During 2000 a real breakthrough was achieved with the publication of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church. According to this declaration the issue of how we are justified should no longer be considered as a matter which divides Catholics and Lutherans. These three books are good resources for those interested in the theological aspects of how we understand and receive God’s free offer of salvation through Jesus Christ.

What I want to do is share a simple reflection on the doctrine that we cannot earn heaven. What does this doctrine mean to me? In what way is this doctrinal teaching life giving and uplifting? How is it good news? This reflection really is a question of making the central act of Jesus, namely, his passion, death and resurrection, meaningful to oneself. For it was in these events that Jesus carried the sins of the world and overcame them. Giving personal and communal meaning to these events begins with the realization that Jesus did all he did because he loves us, you and me and us together. He loves us! Freedom from sin is offered to us as a free gift. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (Jn 3:16). St. Paul puts it this way: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God prepared in advance, that we should live in them” (Eph 2:8-10).

In the Catholic Church we understand that a person receives the free and unearnable gift of salvation by faith and the good works God prepared for us. Both faith and good works are God’s grace working in a person. It may seem to us that both faith and good works are things we do on our own power. But it is not so. God saves us through us. Nothing is earned. All is gift. “I am confident of this: that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:6). A little later St. Paul says: “For God is the one who, for his good purposes, works in you both to desire and to work” (Phil 2:13). God begins good works in us, he sustains them and brings them to completion. When God completes them in us he rewards us with more of himself, more grace.

What this doctrine means to me is that God does all the work of saving me, yet I am not just a passive bystander. I am very much involved. We all experience the tension to obey or not obey God, to repent or not to repent, to change or not to change. God initiates, sustains and completes all these movements in a person. God involves us in saving us, but it is all his work. God works in us in such a way that we want to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow in Jesus’ footsteps and at the same time we know and experience that it is all due to grace, that it is all love.

Gratitude

What is one to do in light of this gift of heaven that God offers us through his Son Jesus? What can one do? Should I do anything? Perhaps just being present to the wonder of the love expressed by the cross is the most fitting thing we can do. “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins” (1 Jn 4:10). It seems to me that the most important thing a person can do in light of what God has done for us through his Son Jesus is to say thank you. And should I not also say thank you to the Father for sending his Son to us all? Thanksgiving is the first response that flows from the heart to God. The more fully I realize that the way to heaven and the cost of opening that way is all gift, the easier thanksgiving flows.

For many years I taught high school juniors preparing them to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. It was always interesting when we came to the part where we dealt with the question of whether or not we could save ourselves. The students usually had a hard time understanding unconditional love. They tended to think of love as earned, as a reward for good behavior. They almost automatically thought that the love of their parents and friends had to be earned. Bad behavior would lead to the loss of that love.

I would ask them: “Do you want to be loved for what you do or because you are?” It did not take long for them to realize that they want to be loved because they are. Then we would talk about how God loves them: that his love for them is because they are. After that they soon realized their parents loved them in the same way. They did not have to, nor could they, earn the love of their parents. Approval or disapproval of their actions was another matter. But their actions did not decide whether or not their parents loved them. Neither did their actions decide whether or not God loved them. Once they understood love was free and that approval or disapproval of actions does not make love present or absent, they were in a position to begin to understand God’s love in offering us salvation as a complete gift. The gift of salvation affirms that we are valuable in God’s sight. This affirms a person. It reminds us that God’s love is truly uplifting.

Threats to Gratitude

When love is free, gratitude comes easy. When someone, out of sheer love, freely does something so great as to carry someone else’s sins, blame and guilt, overcomes them all and then shares that victory with the sinner in the form of forgiveness, then thanksgiving looms large in the recipient’s mind and heart. It can happen, however, that one can take Jesus and what he did for granted. When this attitude invades people, God usually heals it in the following way: He reveals to them that they are sinners. God does this by allowing us to feel the guilt of our sins. Allowing this over and over eventually teaches a person of how horrible sin is and how greatly it offends God. Because we cannot make sin go away nor even avoid it entirely, we experience helplessness towards sin. Thus one will be inclined to turn toward God, who alone can forgive sins. Forgiveness becomes a healing balm that renews the soul. Since Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection are the source of that balm, gratitude to Jesus Christ and to his Father will come easy. It seems odd, but sin, which is opposed to God, is an instrument used by God to lead us to him. In the end a person cannot but be grateful for how God’s love works. For me, God’s love is all good news. Below I will show that forgiveness is not the only reason people turn to God.

But Do We Not Have To Do Something?

When students ponder the mystery of God’s free love for us they eventually sense that something is missing. They are right. What is missing is the doing. But doing what? “With regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man” (CCC #2007). We cannot earn anything as far as God goes.

This is a serious question. In the book Justification by Faith—A Matter of Death & Life, Gerhard O. Forde says that this is a question he often receives from his fellow Lutherans. Is there not something we are supposed to do, they ask, even have to do? “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another” (1 Jn 4:1). “We love because he first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19). I would ask the high school juniors: “If you say to someone ‘I love you,’ does that require anything from you?” They soon agreed that it did. They could see that it required acts of love. If anyone says to another “I love you” but nothing changes, then the words are empty and without meaning. The person was not in the words.

But if the words “I love you” are meant, then a way of life is required. And that way of life is the way of love. “If anyone says, ‘I love God’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 Jn 4:20). Can we accept what Jesus did for us on the cross and not love him and his Father? A relationship of love between God and myself is fostered as I, a sinner, receive and experience God’s mercy and forgiveness. In being so loved by God, I cannot but love God in return and be grateful. This love for, and gratitude to, God must express itself in my life as love for my brothers and sisters. “This is the commandment we have from him: Whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 Jn 4:21). The faith we are asked to put in God is not just an intellectual assent to certain norms, but a living commitment that completely orients us to the person of Christ and to a Christ-like life.

So the students were right. Love freely offered requires love in return. If there is no love in return, then the offer of love was not accepted. While the love we return to God by loving our neighbor does not “earn” salvation, it is a necessary part of accepting God’s love and forgiveness. When love for neighbor is inspired by God and not by self-interest, then we grow in faith and holiness. Disinterested love, which is concerned only for the good of the other, reflects how God loves us. God’s grace fosters in us the kind of love Christ has for us. When we love as Christ loves us, it is grace that creates this ability in us. Grace initiates it, sustains it and completes it. After that God rewards his work in us with an increase of the gift of himself in our life, and increase of grace. As mentioned above, in this way we grow in faith and holiness.

I will mention only one aspect of the things that can be said about purgatory. When the mercy of God through Jesus Christ is accepted and lived, but not totally so, then total acceptance will be effected in purgatory. If faith and the obedience of faith are really present in a person, that person can be morally certain of salvation. Whatever small areas of a person’s life remain unloving, in purgatory these areas are gently brought to the Lord’s love where they totally surrender to the Lord.

Praise

After gratitude, is there any other proper response to God’s love manifested to us through Jesus Christ? I think it proper to tell God how good he is in sending his Son Jesus to us. It is also proper to tell Jesus how good and loving he is. Telling God how good he is, is to offer praise to God. It really is quite natural. Adding praise to thanksgiving flows easily when someone does us a big favor.

It is easy to take Jesus for granted. In my own case, I have known about Jesus and about his passion, death and resurrection all my life. These events in Jesus’ life only become meaningful when I apply them to my life. But I will not apply them until I see and experience a need to do so. That need comes from the awareness and experience of being a sinner. Sin is what keeps me from salvation, and sin is what God’s grace uses to bring me to salvation. Thanks be to God there always is enough sin in me so that grace has something to use to turn me toward God.

This is not to say sin is the only reason a person turns to God. Nor is God’s way of dealing with sin the only reason to praise God. The experience of genuine goodness or serious evil can, and often does, turn a person to God. In this brief reflection I cannot mention everything. But I do want to emphasize that the love of God expressed in forgiving us and the cost of winning that forgiveness (the cross) is a major reason to praise God and his Son Jesus.

Freedom

Being unable to earn my way to heaven, but having it offered as a gift, brings freedom. It brings the sense of being loved unconditionally. Heaven is possible for me because Someone loves me. Being loved without conditions brings joy, peace and freedom. There is nothing to prove. It is no use pretending I am not a sinner, no use pretending I am beyond redemption, no use pretending I live in the absence of God’s love. There is no use to be down on myself because I fail. I am loved by God. Here is the freedom to be, to revel in being loved just because I am.

The Catholic Church teaches that we can have a moral certainty of salvation. This means we do not worry about it. We trust God. For example, we are morally certain that we will survive to the end of today and beyond. In the same sense we are morally certain of salvation because of faith in Christ and our attempts to live that faith. There is a freedom in being so assured. The loving tension of “love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12), and “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn 3:16) fosters the discipline of love – love for God and for neighbor as well as gratitude and praise.

Conclusion

I have no intention of covering every question that might be raised by this reflection, but I want to emphasize two things. First, God’s love is free as are all his gifts. Second, God’s love is not fully received until it is lived. In other words, God’s love, his grace, changes us. If it does not, then it has not been accepted. Our life is the proof of faith. “So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). When love from God in Christ is received by faith and lived with the obedience of faith, the recipient becomes loving. If that does not happen, God’s love has not been received, the heart remained closed. “May he (God) carry out in you what is pleasing to him (God) through Jesus Christ” (Heb 13:21b). God has freely chosen to associate us with the work of his grace (CCC #2008). That says it all for me. Allow God to do in you what is pleasing to him.

Love is the beginning, the middle and the end of the way we go to heaven. Sin teaches a person to rely on Christ and what he did for us and not on oneself. From this results joy, peace and freedom in this life and heaven in the next. Of course there will be struggles of all kinds, however that is another article. Remember that Christ is the victorious one. “But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15:57)