The Faith That Saves
Quinquagesima| Luke 18:31-43| Pastor James Preus| Trinity Lutheran Church| February 15, 2026
“And Jesus said to him, “Recover your sight. Your faith has saved you.” Luke 8:42
We are saved through faith alone. Yet, when we speak of saving faith, we speak of two things, both of which are taught in our Gospel lesson. First, is the faith which is believed. Second, the faith which believes.
First, Jesus teaches us the faith which is believed, that is, the content of our faith. He says, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For He will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging Him, they will kill Him, and on the third day He will rise.” That sums up the faith which is believed. The faith which is believed is the Gospel, that is, the good news that Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose again from the dead to save us from our sins. This is what we believe so that we may be saved.
Jesus makes clear that this faith is taught by Holy Scripture. “Everything written about the Son of Man by the prophets,” Jesus says. Scripture is the only source of this saving faith. Scripture prophesies and records how Jesus suffered and died for our sins. The prophet Isaiah prophesies, “Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed.” (53:4-5) St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the Gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…” (vss. 1-5) The death and resurrection of Christ, which wins for us salvation, is the central teaching of Holy Scripture into which and out of which all doctrine of Scripture flows. So, Baptism draws us to Christ’s death and resurrection, as does the Lord’s Supper. Everything we believe and hold to centers on this Gospel truth.
Scripture alone reveals that faith which we must believe to be saved. This saving faith does not come from human reason, but from revelation of Scripture, as St. Paul declares in 1 Corinthians 1, “For the Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (vss. 22-24)
That is the faith which is believed. But what is the faith which believes? The faith which believes is the activity of the mind and will, which believes and trusts in the Gospel. This faith is not simply head knowledge, but a firm trust in the promises of Christ. The faith which believes does not simply know, but it trusts. The faith which believes does not simply know that Jesus is betrayed, died, and rose again on the third day, but it believes that Jesus was betrayed, died, and rose for me. The faith which believes does not simply know that Baptism is a work of God, but that my Baptism is God’s work, which joins me to Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection (Romans 6), which forgives my sins, which gives me the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38), which clothes me with Christ (Galatians 3:27). The faith which believes not only recognizes that Christ has given His Church the authority to forgive sins, but it trusts that when the minister says, ‘I forgive you all your sins,” that my sins are forgiven before God in heaven. Faith which believes does not simply recognize the theological truth that Christ’s body and blood are truly present in the Sacrament of the Altar, but that when I eat this body and drinks this blood, I receive God’s pardon and strengthening of faith.
The faith which is believed is public. The Church proclaims it to everyone. The faith which believes is personal. Each individual Christian must believe for himself. We see this personal faith in the blind man, who, when he hears that it is Jesus going through his town, cries out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” With this cry, he shows both his knowledge of the faith and his trust in the promises of the faith. He recognizes that Jesus is the Christ, which is why he calls Him the Son of David, but he also cries to Him for mercy, showing that he trusts in Him. This blind man is the perfect example of one who has the faith which believes!
Yet Scripture presents this perfect example of saving faith immediately after Jesus’ disciples fail to grasp the faith which is believed. They did not understand the things Jesus said, the saying was hidden from them, and they did not know what He said. And this again teaches us something about the faith which believes. The faith which believes is a gift from God! “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God,” (Luke 8:10) Just as the faith which is believed is not revealed by human reason, but through revelation of Holy Scripture, so also the faith which believes does not come from the power of anyone’s senses but is a gift of the Holy Spirit. “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified, and kept me in the true faith.”
Jesus spoke clearly the truth of the Gospel, yet His disciples could not understand it. Yet the blind man saw clearly that Jesus was His Savior. Our human senses do not produce the faith which saves, but the Holy Spirit creates it in our hearts through the power of the Gospel. This is why Scripture says, “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:12-14) The Holy Spirit must make us spiritual before we can understand spiritual things! This is why Scripture also says, “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:3)
The blind man was a beggar. When he first started crying out to Jesus, the crowd told him to be quiet. They did not think this blind beggar was worthy of Jesus’ help. But the beggar kept shouting even louder. This again teaches us about the faith which believes. Faith does not consider whether you are worthy. Your faith has nothing to do with your worthiness at all. Rather, faith clings to God’s love for you in Christ Jesus. Faith makes you a beggar, who cries to God when you deserve none of the things for which you pray.
So, you’ve sinned against God. You’ve broken His commandments. You have let anger and selfishness control you? You have followed your lusts and ignored God’s Word concerning chastity? You have chosen the things of this world over God’s Word? Your reason tells you that you are unworthy to stand before God, unworthy to make requests of Him, that you must try to at least make it up before you can ask Him for anything. Faith tells you to ask for forgiveness, life, and salvation, for His Holy Spirit and Kingdom. Faith tells you to ask for all these things that you do not deserve, not on account of your own worthiness, but for the sake of Christ Jesus, who suffered and died for all your sins. Faith does not reason, “I have sinned against God. He must be angry with me. I better try to earn His favor.” Rather, faith reasons, “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not with Him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32) And so, the faith which believes is a beggar’s faith.
And it is this faith alone which saves you. Why does faith alone save? Because the faith which believes receives everything Christ gives. Yet, this statement, “Faith alone saves,” is very controversial. During the Lutheran Reformation, the Roman Catholic theologians objected to the claim that faith alone saves. They claimed that a person could have faith but be an unrepentant sinner. And so, faith alone couldn’t save, but rather faith and love. The Lutherans responded that saving faith repents of sin and produces love. But love does not earn salvation, but rather faith receives salvation as a gift. Lutherans denied that historical knowledge alone was faith. So, both Lutherans and Roman Catholics claimed that love was necessary. Yet they taught very different things. Lutherans taught that faith alone receives salvation, as a beggar receives a gift, but that love surely follows as a fruit of faith. Roman Catholics taught that love helped merit salvation. And this is still taught today, that by the help of the Holy Spirit, we can merit eternal life through works of love.
They argue that faith alone could not save, because St. Paul says that love is greater than faith and hope. So, let us take a closer look at St. Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 13. Paul writes, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Now, replace the word love with I. “I am patient and kind; I do not envy or boast; I am not arrogant or rude. I do not insist on my own way; I am not irritable or resentful; I do not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoice with the truth. I bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things.” Now, is that a truthful statement? Can you honestly say that about yourself? And so, can you be confident that your love is sufficient to merit eternal life?
Now replace the word love with Jesus. “Jesus is patient and kind; Jesus does not envy or boast; Jesus is not arrogant or rude. Jesus does not insist on His own way; He is not irritable or resentful; He does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Now, that is a true statement! Jesus certainly has fulfilled the Law of Love to earn eternal life for anyone! This is why love is greater than faith and hope, not because our love is so great, but because God’s love is great.
Romans 5 states, “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” St. John writes in 1 John 4, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” God’s love for us in Christ Jesus is the faith which we believe. We believe that God’s love has saved us, because God’s love sent Christ Jesus to wash away our sins in His blood. And our love is a response to our faith in God’s love for us, as St. John writes, “We love, because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) In this life, our love is imperfect. Yet that does not make us doubt our salvation, because our faith rests solely on God’s love for us. Yet, inch by inch, God’s love transforms us to be like Him, and finally, when this world passes away and the new one comes, our love will be perfected. In that world, faith and hope will no longer be needed, because who hopes for what he has seen? And faith is the evidence of unseen things. Yet love lasts forever.
Yet our salvation is received in this life through faith alone. The faith which we believe is God’s love for us found in Christ’s Jesus. The faith which believes is our trust in God’s love for Christ’s sake. And having received God’s love as a gift, our faith begins to produce love now. Faith believes in the love not seen. We believe in God’s love for us in Christ Jesus. And we believe that this love will perfectly transform us in the next life. Amen.