The Fork in the Road: The Man or the Plan, Part 10 (Why Faith?)

It’s not hard to see how learning to love helps us become more like Jesus, which helps us become more like God — and so helps restore us to God’s image, helping to set the world right. Doing it is hard, but the theory should be clear enough. Understanding the centrality of faith, however, is harder. After all, how could Jesus have faith when he’d come from heaven and had seen God himself? How does the idea of faith even come into play when applied to Jesus?

But the scriptures speak repeatedly of the faith of Jesus. Consider —

(Rom 3:21-22a ESV)  21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it — 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

Notice how the English is redundant: “through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” The Greek is presents an even larger puzzle. “Faith in Jesus Christ” translates  ??????? ????? ???????, that is, “faith of Jesus Christ.” Iesou Christou is plainly “of Jesus Christ.” Literally, the translation should be “the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ for all who believe.” Indeed, the KJV says,

(Rom 3:22a KJV) Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe:

The KJV translators weren’t idiots. That’s true to the Greek. As were the translators of the Geneva Bible, Tyndale, and Young’s Literal Translation. In fact, the Net Bible translates —

(Rom 3:22a NET) namely, the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe.

Ahh … surely you didn’t forget that pistis (=faith) also means faithfulness. It’s the faithfulness of Jesus that allows the faith/faithfulness of his followers to be saved.

The same translation issue appears in —

(Gal 2:15-16 ESV)  15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners;  16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

Again, the Net Bible gets it right —

(Gal 2:16 NET) yet we know that no one is justified by the works of the law but by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by the faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

Now, these translations don’t eliminate the necessity of personal faith in Jesus! Those concepts remains in the very verses. But the translations are truer to the Greek and eliminate redundancies. They just make better sense — and they open a window for us to better understand our own faith. It’s parallel to the faith of Jesus. We must have faith/faithfulness, because that makes us like Jesus.

A few posts ago, I explained how the Greek word for faith, pistis, carries three meanings —

* Acceptance of certain facts as true

* Trust in a person to keep his promises

* Faithfulness or loyalty to that person/faithfulness to one’s promises

These three senses carry considerable overlap, of course. If I believe what you tell me is true, I’m likely to consider you trustworthy and therefore would be willing to trust you to keep your promises. And I’m much more likely to be loyal to someone to tells me the truth and keeps his promises. And I’m much more likely to keep my commitments to someone who keeps his commitments to me.

Recall the passage we considered in the last post —

(Phi 2:5-8 ESV) 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,  6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,  7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Jesus’ own faithfulness to God is shown most powerfully by his obedience to the point of death.

(Heb 12:1-3 ESV) Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

Hebrews 11 is the “roll call of the faithful” — a listing of the great men and women of faith in the Old Testament, who so believed in God’s promises that they made great sacrifices for him. The author then tells us that these “witnesses” should encourage us to persevere, looking to Jesus “the founder and perfecter of our faith.” He is the perfecter of our faith/faithfulness because he showed the ultimate faithfulness by enduring the cross. His faithfulness founds our faithfulness. “Founder” translates a word literally meaning “one who goes first.” He was faithful first, and so we should be faithful, too.

How did Jesus — in human form — do it? How did he voluntarily take on human form and suffer torture, death, and humiliation?

* He believed God. He believed in the cause, the Kingdom, and his place in them.

* He believed God’s promises, not only that he’d be resurrected, but that his resurrection would bring salvation and the Kingdom. He believed the reward would justify the price.

* He learned obedience (Heb 5:7-8) and so kept his word. He kept his commitment out of loyalty to the Father.

(John 6:38 ESV) 8 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.

Jesus had faith/faithfulness.

That was tough enough. The next step is to show that God has faith/faithfulness. And, I’ll admit that those words are never used of God. But Jesus shows us who God is. He is the very image of God. And so, in some sense, God must have faith/faithfulness — but God’s faith/faithfulness would play out in very different ways, because God the Father hasn’t been incarnated as Jesus has been.

This takes us to the meaning of “righteousness” in Romans.