This entry from Chambers is a bit hard to wrap my mind around. It is possible that he reached one of those language limits and had to make up English terms. “Revelation Sense?” I’ve never heard that one before. The idea think he is reaching for is the practical daily practice of faith in God. Although he says some rather peculiar things in that regard.
I know that God is a tad abstract, so I reach out as far as I can into the universe and worship Him there too. I wouldn’t say that God is so abstract I can’t have faith in Him. Abraham would be a difficult person to explain if that were true. He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. This was before he had a personal visit from God, so he had no physical frame of reference Chambers seems to require.
When he writes of life bringing faith and common sense into right relation, I think I get what he means. James says that faith without works is dead, and I believe that is for the same reason. If my faith never reaches into my life, affecting my decisions, my affections, my focus, and my priorities, then it’s not really faith, not in the Master of the universe anyway.
When I have a belief in what Scripture says about the Creator and Savior of humanity of this world, then that belief is expected to be evident in my behavior and thinking. If it’s not evident, then it may not really be there. It’s the difference between an ideal and a reality. My belief is ideal while it doesn’t affect the rest of my life. I don’t actually have that belief, but I want to. When that belief affects my life, and the degree that it does, the ideal become real. The unbelieving world has a phrase for this, “put up or shut up.” Church people are much more “nice” instead speaking of “where the rubber meets the road” (an analogy I don’t know if everyone understands that well).
The question that sort of floats around untouched here is what sort of faith saves, ideal or real? James asks that but with the implied answer of real, not ideal. So, only as my ideal faith becomes real am I rightly related to my Master and therefore saved? This is dangerously close to salvation based on my ability to achieve, a “works salvation.” That was the problem Martin Luther had with the Letter of James. He felt James went too far in focusing on works instead of belief. For Luther that was a real danger since the religious practice he had come out of was overly focused on works as well.
I think that the truth is that my Master gives me the real faith, not ideal faith. Ideal faith is when He reveals to me the truth of the work of Jesus, and the real comes as He leads me to see that this work was for me. The progression or development of ideal into real can take a long time, and the beginning of the process is where I was saved. My understanding was limited, my ability to work out the reality of my ideal was probably higher then, and I was more likely to grow up apart from or reject those things in this world that detracted from my faith. I was protected and able to see the positions of the world from a distance that enabled me to see their failure. That wasn’t me, that was my Master. He did that for me, though I’m not sure why.
What I have now is a faith split between real and ideal. I hope that my ideal is shrinking, that my real is growing, and that my Master gains all the credit for it. I lay the blame for any growth I have experienced at the feet of the Spirit of my Master. It has been the persistent work and consistent attention of my Master that has made any change in me at all. I have discovered these changes after they occur. My role has been to let go of my pride when I found it, and let my Master work as He desired. It was my Master revealing to me what and who I truly am and where my limits lie that enabled me to decide to take some very necessary and long term steps. I am different now because of what He has done and continues to do in me. Jesus has made and makes the difference in me. I just wish there were more of Him in me than there is. I still have a lot that I need to lose. Well, back to my Master’s workbench. I may be a while, don’t wait up.
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