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This morning's gospel reading from the lectionary (BCP 2019) was Mark 9—the story of the man who begs Jesus to heal his son. It has always been one of my favorites because I have always felt like the father: "Lord, I believe; Help thou mine unbelief!" Mark's account of this
healing and of the father's words to Jesus are a good reminder of why I find myself suspicious of the Puritan's and later Reformed's intense emphasis upon interiority and discerning the quality of one's faith so as to make certain one's assurance of salvation. The earlier
Protestant model and now-Lutheran model, which emphasized the objective and external means of grace as grounding assurance (not exclusively, but primarily), is crucial precisely because our faith is never perfect. Every Christian prays "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."
It is faith's object, not the quality of one's faith, which gives salvation sola fide. And the object of our faith—Christ—gives Himself to us ordinarily in Word and in Sacrament, and our imperfect faith receives Him.
