Faith and Justification by the Holy Spirit
Let Saint Bernard(1090-1153) clarify for us,
…Noble birth, bodily strength and beauty, the glow of youth, estates, palaces, and sumptuous furniture, external badges of dignity, and, I may also add, the world's wisdom-all these are of the world, and the world loves its own. But for how long will they endure? For ever ? Assuredly not ; for the world itself will not last for ever ; but these will not last even for long. In fact, the world will not be able long to keep these gifts for you, nor will you dwell long in the world to enjoy them, for the days of man are short. The world passes away with its lusts, but it dismisses you before it quite passes away itself. How can you take unlimited pleasure in a love that soon must end? But I ever love you, not your possessions; let them go whence they were derived... In fact, if we love purely in our life, we shall also not be divided in death. For those gifts which I wish for in your case, or rather for you, belong not to the body or to time only ; and so they fail not with the body, nor pass away with time ; nay, when the body is laid aside they delight still more, and last when time is gone. They have nothing in common with the gifts above mentioned, or such as they with which, I imagine, not the Father, but the world has endowed you. For which of these does not vanish before death, or at last fall a victim to it? But, indeed, that is the best part, which shall not be taken away for ever. What is that? Eye had not seen it, nor ear heard, neither had it entered into the heart of man (i Cor. ii. 9), He who is a man and walks simply according to man's nature only, he who, to speak more plainly, is still content with flesh and blood, is wholly ignorant what that is, because flesh and blood will not reveal the things which God alone reveals through His Spirit. So the natural man is in no way admitted to the secret ; in fact, he received not the things of the Spirit of God (i Cor. ii. 14). Blessed are they who hear His words. I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known to you (S.John XV. 15). O, wicked world, which will not bless thy friends except you make them enemies of God, and consequently unworthy of the council of the blessed. For clearly he who is willing to be thy friend makes himself the enemy of God. And if the servant knew not what his Lord does, how much less the enemy? Moreover, the friend of the Bridegroom(Jesus Christ) stood, and rejoiced with joy because of the Bridegroom's voice; whence also it says, My soul failed when [my beloved] spoke (Cant. v. 6). And so the friend of the world is shut out from the council of the friends of God, who have received not the spirit of this world but the spirit which is of God, that they may know the things which are given to them of God. I thank Thee, O Father, because You have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babes ;even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight (S.Matt. xi. 25, 26), not because they of themselves deserved it. For all have sinned, and come short of Your glory, that You mayest freely send the Spirit of Thy Son, crying in the hearts of the sons of adoption : "Abba, Father". For those who are led by this Spirit, they are sons, and cannot be kept from their Father's council. Indeed, they have the Spirit dwelling within them, who searches even the deep things of God. In short, of what can they be ignorant whom grace teaches everything? Woe unto you, ye sons of this world, because of your wisdom, which is foolishness! Ye know not the spirit of salvation, nor have share in the counsel, which the Father alone discloses alone to the Son, and to him to whom the Son will reveal Him. For who had known the mind of the Lord? Or who had been His counsellor? (Rom. xi.34). Not, indeed, no one ; but only a few, only those who can truly say : The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He had declared Him. Woe to the world for its clamor ! That same Only Begotten, like as the Angel of a great revelation, proclaims among the people : He who had ears to hear let him hear. And since he finds not ears worthy to receive His words, and to whom He may commit the secret of the Father, he weaves parables for the crowd, that hearing they might not hear, and seeing they might not understand. But for His friends how different! With them He speaks apart: To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God (S.Luke viii. 8-10) ; to whom also He says: Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom (S. Luke xii. 32). Who are these? These are they whom He foreknew and foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first born among many brethren. The Lord knows who are His. Here is His great secret and the counsel which He has made known unto men. But He judges no others worthy of a share in so great mystery, except those whom He has foreknown and foreordained as His own. For those whom He foreordained, them also He called. Who, except he be called, may approach God's counsel ? Those whom he called, them also He justified. Over them a Sun arises, though not that sun which may daily be seen arising over good and bad alike, but He of whom the Prophet speaks when addressing himself to those alone who have been called to the counsel, he says: Unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise (Malachi iv. 2). So while the sons of unbelief remain in darkness, the child of light leaves the power of darkness and comes into this new light, if once he can with faith say to God: I am a companion of all them that fear Thee (Ps. cxix. 63). Do you see how faith precedes, in order that justification may follow? Perchance, then, we are called through fear, and justified by love. Finally, the just shall live by faith (Rom. i. 17), that faith, doubtless, which works by love (Gal. V. 6). So at his call let the sinner hear what he has to fear; and thus coming to the Sun of Righteousness, let him, now enlightened, see what he must love. For what is that saying : The merciful goodness of the Lord endured from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him (Ps.ciii. 17). From everlasting, because of predestination, to everlasting, because of glorification. The one process is without beginning, the other knows no ending. Indeed, those whom He predestines from everlasting, He glorifies to everlasting, with an interval, at least, in the case of adults, of calling and justification between. So at the rising of the Sun of Righteousness, the mystery, hidden from eternity, concerning souls that have been predestinated and are to be glorified, begins in some degree to emerge from the depths of eternity, as each soul, called by fear and justified by love, becomes assured that it, too, is of the number of the blessed, knowing well that whom He justified, them also He glorified (Rom. viii. 30). What then? The soul hears that it is called when it is stricken with fear. It feels also that it is justified when it is surrounded with love. Can it do otherwise than be confident that it will be glorified ? There is a beginning ; there is continuation. Can it despair only of the consummation? Indeed, if the fear of the Lord, in which our calling is said to consist, is the beginning of wisdom, surely the love of God-that love, I mean, which springs from faith, and is the source of our justification-is progress in wisdom. And so what but the consummation of wisdom is that glorification which we hope for at the last from the vision of God that will make us like Him ? And so one deep called another because of the noise of the water-pipes (Ps.xlii. 9), when, with terrible judgments, that unmeasured Eternity and Eternal Immensity, whose wisdom cannot be told, leads the corrupt and inscrutable heart of man by Its own power and goodness forth into Its own marvelous light. For instance, let us suppose a man in the world, held fast as yet in the love of this world and of his flesh ; and, inasmuch as he bears the image of the earthly man, occupied with earthly things, without a thought of things heavenly, can anyone fail to see that this man is surrounded with horrible darkness, unless he also is sitting in the same fatal gloom ? For no sign of his salvation has yet shone upon him ; no inner inspiration bears its witness in his heart as to whether an eternal predestination destines him to good. But, then, suppose the heavenly compassion vouchsafes sometime to have regard to him, and to shed upon him a spirit of compunction to make him bemoan himself and learn wisdom, change his life, subdue his flesh, love his neighbor, cry to God, and resolve hereafter to live to God and not to the world ; and suppose that thenceforward, by the gracious visitation of heavenly light and the sudden change accomplished by the Right Hand of the Most High, he sees clearly that he is no longer a child of wrath, but of grace, for he is now experiencing the fatherly love and divine goodness towards him-a love which hitherto had been concealed from him so completely as not only to leave him in ignorance whether he deserved love or hate, but also as to make his own life indicate hatred rather than love, for darkness was still on the face of the deep-would it not seem to you that such an one is lifted directly out of the profoundest and darkest deep of horrible ignorance into the pleasant and serene deep of eternal brightness?. And then at length God, as it were, divides the light from the darkness, when a sinner, enlightened by the hot rays of the Sun of Righteousness, casts off the works of darkness and puts on the armor of light. His own conscience and the sins of his former life alike doom him as a true child of Hell to eternal fires ; but under the looks with which the Dayspring from on high deigns to visit him, he breathes again, and even begins to hope beyond hope that he shall enjoy the glory of the sons of God. For rejoicing at the near prospect with unveiled face, he sees it in the new light, and says : Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us ; Thou hast put gladness in my heart (Ps. iv. 7) ; Lord, what is man that Thou hast such respect unto him, or the son of man that Thou so regards him? (Ps. cxliv. 3). Now. O good Father, vile worm and worthy of eternal hatred as he is, he yet trusts that he is loved, because he feels that he loves ; nay, because he has a foretaste of Thy love he does not blush to make return of love. Now in Thy brightness it becomes clear. Oh! Light that no man can approach unto, what good things You have in store for so poor a thing as man, even though he be evil ! He loves not undeservedly, because he was loved without his deserving it ; and his love is for everlasting, because he knows that he has been loved from everlasting. He brings to light for the comfort of the sorrowful the great design which from eternity had lain in the bosom of eternity, namely, that God wills not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live. As a witness of this secret. Oh I man, you have the justifying Spirit bearing witness herein with your spirit that you thyself also are the son of God. Acknowledge the counsel of God in your justification; confess it and say, Your testimonies are my delight and my counsellors (Ps. cxix. 24). For thy present justification is the revelation of the Divine counsel, and a preparation for future glory. Or rather, perhaps, predestination itself is the preparation for it, and justification is more the gradual drawing near unto it. Indeed, it is said, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (S. Matt. iii. 2). And hear also of predestination that it is the preparation : Come, inherit, He says, the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (S. Matt. xxv. 34). Let none, therefore, doubt that he is loved who already loves. The love of God freely follows our love which it preceded. For how can He grow weary of returning their love to those whom He loved even while they yet loved Him not? He loved them, I say; yes, He loved. For as a pledge of His love you have the Spirit ; you have also Jesus, the faithful witness, and Him crucified. Oh ! double proof, and that most sure, of God's love towards us. Christ dies, and deserves to be loved by us. The Spirit works, and makes Him to be loved. The One shows the reason why He is loved : the Other how He is to be loved. The One commends His own great love to us; the Other makes it ours. In the One we see the object of love; from the Other we draw the power to love. With the One, therefore, is the cause ; with the Other the gift of charity. What shame to watch, with thankless eyes, the Son of God dying -and yet this may easily happen, if the Spirit be not with us. But now, since The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us (Rom. v.5), having been loved we love ; and as we love, we deserve to be loved yet more. For if, says the Apostle, while we were yet enemies, we have been reconciled to God through the death of His Son ; much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved through His life (Rom. viii. 32). For He that spared not His own Son , but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Since, then, the token of our salvation is twofold, namely, a twofold outpouring, of the Blood and of the Spirit, neither can profit without the other. For the Spirit is not given except to such as believe in the Crucified ; and faith avails not unless it works by love. But love is the gift of the Spirit. If the second Adam (I speak of Christ) not only became a living soul, but also a quickening spirit, dying as being the one, and raising the dead as being the other, how tan that which dies in Him profit me, apart from that which quickens? Indeed, He Himself says : It is the spirit that quickened, the flesh profited nothing (S. John vi. 63). Now, what does '' quickened " mean except "justified?" For as sin is the death of the soul (The soul that sinned it shall die, Ezek. xvIii. 4), without doubt righteousness Is its life; for The Just shall live by faith (Rom. i. 17). Who, then, is righteous, except he who returns to God, who loves him, His reward of love? And this never happens unless the Spirit by faith reveal to the man the eternal purpose of God concerning his future salvation. Such a revelation is simply the infusion of spiritual grace, by which, with the mortification of the deeds of the flesh, man is made ready for the kingdom which flesh and blood cannot inherit. And he receives by one and the same Spirit both the reason for thinking that he is loved and the power of returning love, lest the love of God for us should be left without return. This, then, is that holy and secret counsel which the Son has received from the Father by the Holy Spirit. This by the same Spirit He imparts to His own whom He knows, in their justification, and by the imparting He justifies. Thus in his justification each of the faithful receives the power to begin to know himself even as he is known; when, for instance, there is given to him some foretaste of his own future happiness, as he sees how it lay hid from eternity in God, who foreordains it, but will appear more fully in God, who is effecting it. But concerning the knowledge that he has now, for his part, attained, let a man glory at present in the hope, not in the secure possession of it. How must we pity those who possess as yet no token of their own calling to this glad assembly of the righteous. Lord, who had believed our report? (Is. llii. i). Oh! that they would be wise and understand. But except they believe they shall not understand. But you, too, ye unhappy and heedless lovers of the world, have your purpose far from that of the just. Scale sticks close to scale, and there is no airhole between you. You, too, oh! sons of impiety, have your purpose communicated one to another, but openly against the Lord and against His Christ (Ps. ii. 2). For if, as the Scripture says. The fear of God, that is piety (Job xxviii. 28), of course anyone who loves the world more than God is convicted of impiety and idolatry, of worshipping and serving the creature rather than the Creator. But if, as has been said, the holy and impious have each their purpose kept for themselves, doubtless there is a great gulf fixed between the two. For as the just keeps himself aloof from the purpose and council of evil men (cf. Ps. i. 6), so the impious never rise in the judgment, nor sinners in the purpose for the just. For there is a purpose for the just, a gracious rain which God hath set apart for His heritage. There is a purpose really secret, descending like rain into a fleece of wool-a sealed fount whereof no stranger may partake-a Sun of Righteousness rising only for such as fear God. Moreover, the prophet, noting that the rest remain in their own dryness and darkness, being ignorant of the rain and of the light of the just, mocks and brands their unfruitful gloom and confused perversity. This is a nation, he says, that obeyed not the voice of the Lord their God (Jer. vii. 28). You are not ready, oh! miserable men, to say with David, I will hearken what the Lord God will say with regard to me (Ps. Ixxxv, 8), for being exhausted abroad upon [the quest of] vanity and false folly, you seek not for the deepest and best hearing of the truth. Oh! ye sons of men, how long will ye blaspheme mine honor, and have such pleasure in vanity and seek after leasing (Ps. iv.2). You are deaf to the voice of truth, and you know not the purpose of Him who thinks thoughts of peace, who also speaks peace to His people, and to His saints, and to such as are converted in heart. Now, he says, ye are clean through the word which I have spoken to you (S. John xv.3). Therefore, they who hear not this word are unclean. But do you, dearly beloved, if you are making ready your inward ear for this Voice of God that is sweeter than honey and the honey-comb, flee from outward cares, that with your inmost heart clear and free you also may say with Samuel, Speak, Lord, for thy servant hears (i Sam.iii. 9). This Voice sounds not in the market-place, and is not heard in public. It is a secret purpose, and seeks to be heard in secret. It will of a surety give you joy and gladness in hearing it, if you listen with attentive ear. Once it ordered Abraham (Gen. xii. i) to get him out of his country and from his kindred, that he might see and possess the land of the living. Jacob (Gen. xxxli. 10) left his brother and his home, and passed over Jordan with his staff, and was received in Rachel's embrace (Gen. xxix. 11). Joseph was lord in Egypt (Gen. xxxvii. and xli.), having been torn by a fraudful purchase from his father and his home. Thus the Church is bidden, in order that the King may have pleasure in her beauty, to forget her own people and her father's house (Ps. xlv. 11, 12). The boy Jesus was sought by His parents among their kinsfolk and acquaintance, and was not found (S. Luke 11. 44, 45). Do you also flee from your brethren, if you wish to find the way of salvation. Flee, I say, from the midst of Babylon, flee from before the sword of the northwind. A bare sustenance I am ready to offer for the help of everyone that flees. You call me your abbot; I refuse not the title for obedience' sake-obedience, I say, not that I demand it, but that I render it in service to others, even as The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many (S.Matt. XX. 28). But if you deem me worthy, receive as your fellow-disciple him whom you choose for your master. For we both have one Master, Christ. And so let Him be the end of this Letter, who is The end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth (Rom. x. 4).
Book: Life and Works of Saint Bernard by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux