Romans 2:5-9

Emerson complains in one of his essays that society tends to overlook our essential humanity and to think of us as being what we do. There should be no farmers, he argues, or carpenters, or painters; there should only be men who farm and paint and do carpenter work.

This distinction is fine but vastly important, for the most vital thing about any man is not what he does or what he has but what he is. And first of all, a man must be a man--that is, a human being free in the earth, free...

The path of faith and that of well-doing are not diverse from each other; they are one. A man that is in the path of well-doing, and for whose deeds there is ever and anon dropping from the lips of God the expression, " Well done!" is already saved in an important sense. He has regained the footing from whence the world by transgression fell. He has certainly a large installment of salvation. But, it is faith that brought him into this heavenward path, and that enables him to continue...