Before continuing with our study, I would like to explore some truths about the topic of love. I think this is necessary because works of faith are works which main motive is love. This is the teaching of the New Testament. Galatians 5: 6 speaks of this truth:
Galatians 5: 6:
“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.”
Everything is said here in one phrase. There is faith, love, and deeds! Nothing can be excluded from this list. Deeds without faith are meaningless, as are deeds without love. In 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3 Paul says:
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. “
Then he begins to explain in detail the deeds of love:
1 Corinthians 13: 4-8, 13:
“Love is longsuffering, merciful, love does not envy, love does not exalt itself, is not proud, does not rage, does not seek its own, does not get irritated, does not think of evil, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth; Covers everything, believes everything, hopes everything, endures everything. Love never ceases, although prophecies will stop, and tongues will cease, and knowledge will be abolished … And now these three abide: faith, hope, love; but love is the greatest of them. “
Love is not passive.
There is no benefit in doing things that we do without love as the main motivation. But love without deeds cannot be called true love. John tells us:
1 John 3: 16-18:
“We know love in this, that He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. And whoever has prosperity in the world, but, seeing his brother in need, closes his heart from him – how does the love of God abide in him? My children! Let us love not in word or language, but in deed and truth. “
Love is true love when it becomes action, when it manifests itself in our deeds and words.
Thus, faith, works and love go hand in hand. They cannot exist separately from each other. James says that faith without works is dead (James 2:17), just as works without love are of no use, as Paul tells us. John continues by arguing that love without works is not true love. What kind of faith can be called true faith? Faith, which contains everything that was mentioned above. Scripture makes it clear that this is “faith working by love.”
