The New Testament (NT) writers call their
readers to believe—to have faith—“in” Jesus, specifically in regard to his
being God’s Anointed (Hebrew, Mashiach, or Messiah; Greek, Christos, or Christ: the one whom God
anointed to rule God’s kingdom), who died for the sins of all and whom God
raised from the dead and exalted to God’s right hand. This is common knowledge
among all who profess to be Christians. What is far less well known, however,
is that key texts in the letters of the apostle Paul explain that the
righteousness of God—a righteousness of faith that includes the forgiveness of
sins and the hope of salvation—becomes the possession of believers not due to their own faith in Jesus but due to the faith of Jesus himself.
The NT Jesus is, therefore, not only the object of NT faith but also the source, as well as the model, of NT faith. Which is simply to
say that to believe in Jesus is to believe what Jesus believed and,
therefore, sought to persuade others to believe: “the gospel of the kingdom of God
This means that faith that is in the NT Jesus is faith that comes from the NT Jesus. To have faith in the NT Jesus, then, is to take the
faith of Jesus as one’s own.
English NT versions typically render
Paul’s references to the righteousness of God and the faith of Jesus—in Romans 3:22 and 26; in
Galatians 2:16 (twice) and 3:22; and in Philippians 3:9—as faith “in” Jesus.
Concerning these texts, translators have been forced to choose between “in” and
“of” due to the absence of any preposition between the words “faith” (Greek, pistis) and “Jesus” (Greek, Iesous) and/or “Christ” (Greek, Christos) in the original language. (The
original language is pisteos Iesou
Christou in Rom. 3:22 and Gal. 3:22; pisteos
Iesou in Rom. 3:26; pisteos Christou
Iesou in Gal. 2:16a; and pisteos
Christou in Gal. 2:16c and Phil. 3:9; also, in Eph. 3:12 appears pisteos autou, which is typically
rendered “faith in him” but may also be rendered “his faith,” that is, the
faith of Jesus).
The original language allows for either
“in” (objective genitive) or “of” (subjective genitive) as possible
translations, meaning that immediate context must determine which preposition
is the more likely. English versions typically insert “in” rather than “of,” at
least partly in view of other “faith” texts in which the preposition “in”
(Greek, eis or en) actually does appear in the original language (for examples,
John 3:16 and Gal. 2:16b and 3:26, though Gal. 3:26 may also be translated
“sons of God in Christ through the faith,” that is, the faith of Christ).
Probably weighing even more heavily
against a decision by English NT translation committees to render Paul’s
testimony to the faith of Jesus has
been the Trinitarian bias of ecclesiastical translators, whose “Jesus” would
have had no need for his own faith in God since he himself was “God in the
flesh” and “the second Person of the Godhead.” The classic expression of this
Trinitarian viewpoint came from the Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas, who
wrote that “from the moment of conception Christ had the full vision of the
very being of God . . . Therefore he could not have had faith.”[1]
However, adding the preposition “of”
rather than “in” to those texts in which no preposition appears becomes the
more compelling alternative when the texts under consideration are compared to
Paul’s reference in Romans to “the faith of Abraham” (Rom. 4:16). In this case
also, no preposition appears between the words “faith” and “Abraham” (Greek, pisteos Abraau). All English NT versions
naturally render the phrase “the faith of
Abraham” because “faith in
Abraham” would not make sense.
The fact that Paul’s subject is “the
righteousness of God” in all the texts which refer to pisteos Iesou or pisteos
Christou, as well as in his single reference to “the faith of Abraham” (pisteos Abraau) makes rendering the
relevant texts in terms of the faith “of” rather than faith “in” Jesus even
more probably correct. A consideration of the relevant texts in Romans 3 and 4
supports this conclusion.
First, Paul referred to “the righteousness
of God through [Greek, dia] the faith of Jesus Christ [Greek, pisteos
Iesou Christou] to [Greek, eis] all who believe” (Rom. 3:22). That
is to say, “all who believe” in Jesus
receive “the righteousness of God” by means of “the faith of Jesus.” Most English NT versions suffer from redundancy by
making Paul say that “the righteousness of God” comes “through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe” in Jesus. What is the difference between
God’s righteousness coming through
faith in Jesus and coming to believers
in Jesus? This rendering makes Paul repeat himself in two successive
prepositional phrases.
Instead, for Paul, the faith of Jesus is the medium through which God’s righteousness comes to believers in him, that is, to those whose faith is informed by and modeled
after Jesus’ faith.
Second, Jesus’ death on the cross serves
“to show [God’s] righteousness at the present time, that [God] should be just
and justifying the one of the faith of Jesus”
(Rom. 3:26, the Greek words rendered “righteousness” and “just” and
“justifying” are all part of the same word family). In other words, God justifies—counts as righteous—all whose faith is “of” the faith of Jesus. To have faith in Jesus,
then, is to take the faith of Jesus
as one’s own, so that the righteousness
of God working in Jesus’ faith, shown especially in his crucifixion, comes to
all who are “of” his faith.
Paul’s reasoning in regard to both “faith”
and “righteousness” is dependent on a covenantal
rather than a legal definition of
righteousness and, therefore, of justification.
The legal
(and, not coincidentally, the ecclesiastical and, therefore, the popular)
definition of righteousness is God’s
obligation to his law: God has no choice but to justify the one who obeys
and to condemn the one who disobeys his law. (Note that forgiveness is not an
option for the God of legal righteousness: justifying sinners because Jesus paid for their sins is not the same as forgiving them in that
forgiveness is, by definition, the cancellation of an unpaid debt; more on
this below). By this legal definition,
Jesus’ righteousness was not a righteousness of, a justification by, faith but,
rather, a righteousness of, a justification by, works.
Accordingly, the God of legal
righteousness justifies sinners not
because he forgives their sins but
because of Jesus’ obedience to the law and Jesus’ payment for sins. This cannot be a matter of forgiveness
because forgiveness is, by definition, the
cancellation of an unpaid debt whereas God, according to the legal (and ecclesiastical)
interpretation of the atonement, justifies sinners not because he has forgiven their sins but because he has been paid (or, according to the Trinitarian gospel, has paid himself) by the blood of Jesus
to justify them. Ecclesiastical Christianity’s so-called (and misnamed)
“forgiveness” comes after the legal
justification, which itself excludes the possibility of real forgiveness in
that God’s justification of sinners is
equivalent to God’s acceptance of Jesus’ payment for their sins.
The same objection to the ecclesiastical
theory of the atonement is expressed in The
Racovian Catechism, the Socinian
treatise on biblical unitarianism:
But to a free forgiveness nothing is more opposite
than . . . the payment of an equivalent price. For where a creditor is
satisfied, either by the debtor himself, or by another person on the debtor’s
behalf, it cannot with truth be said of him that he freely forgives the debt.[2]
According to the ecclesiastical theory of
the atonement, God’s legal justice
demanded payment for sins, and Jesus’ blood provided payment so as to enable
God to be legally just and, at the same time, to legally justify sinners. Since law, due to its demand for payment, is
incapable of forgiveness (that is, of
canceling an unpaid debt), the ecclesiastical God of legal justice is equally incapable of forgiveness. (This, I
surmise, is why too many adherents of ecclesiastical Christianity have been
unable to receive God’s forgiveness and, therefore, remain guilt-ridden).
The widespread belief that God’s
righteousness is a matter of law-keeping—and, therefore, came to Jesus through
his obedience to the Mosaic law—ignores the definitive biblical text regarding
the human reception of God’s righteousness: “Abraham believed God and it was
counted to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:3; Gal. 3:6). Just as was
Abraham, Jesus was justified by faith in God’s promise. Jesus was not righteous because he obeyed the
Mosaic law; instead, Jesus obeyed the Mosaic law because he was righteous, that is, because he believed God’s
Abrahamic promise.
This interpretation accords with Paul’s
quotation of Habakkuk 2:4 as thematic for Romans: “The righteous one will live
by faith” (Rom. 1:17b). For Paul, Habakkuk 2:4 is arguably a Messianic
prophecy: Jesus, as God’s Anointed,
is the prophesied and coming “righteous one” who would, therefore, “live by
faith” and, in so doing, serve as the instrument through which God would
justify believers. As Paul explains, and supports with the Habakkuk quotation,
the gospel reveals “a righteousness of God from
[Greek, ek] faith to [Greek, eis] faith” (Rom. 1:17a). That is to say, God’s righteousness comes
“from” the faith of Jesus “to” the
faith of believers.[3]
And this interpretation accords with the covenantal (and biblical but largely
unheard of) definition of righteousness: God’s faithfulness to his promise (see
Neh. 9:7-8; Rom. 3:3, 5; 1 John 1:9), which conditions justification,
therefore, on ongoing faith in the promise. According to the covenantal definition, Jesus’
righteousness was a righteousness of,
a justification by, faith in that Jesus believed God’s promise to bless all
nations in Abraham’s seed (see Gen. 12:1-3; 18:18; Gal. 3:8)—believing himself
to be Abraham’s seed—and so was
justified by faith.
Accordingly, God’s justification of
sinners is a matter of forgiveness in
that, by forgiving sinners, God fulfilled his Abrahamic promise to bless all
nations, showing himself to “be just [that is, faithful to his Abrahamic
promise] and justifying [that is, counting as righteousness the faith of] the
one of the faith of Jesus” (Rom.
3:26).
If the blood of Jesus played the role of paying
God to justify sinners, the possibility of forgiveness (which, again, is the
cancellation of an unpaid debt) would
be excluded.
Instead, however, Jesus’ blood plays the
indispensable role of providing believers with the assurance of God’s
forgiveness: the assurance that God will, indeed, not hold their sins against
them on the day of judgment (as if they were under law) but, instead, will
welcome them into his everlasting kingdom. (Accordingly, unbelievers will
perish not because God holds their
sins against them, being obligated by his law to make them pay, but because of their unbelief regarding
God’s promise; just as the covenantal definition
of righteousness is faithfulness, so the covenantal
definition of unrighteousness is unbelief.)
This assurance of God’s forgiveness in the
face of the coming day of judgment is a true reflection of the faith of Jesus, who faced the judgment of the
cross with the assurance that his God and Father would raise him from the dead
and exalt him to God’s right hand in the coming kingdom. Accordingly, believers
in Jesus face the day of judgment
with the assurance of the faith of
Jesus, in the righteousness of his
faith, which they have taken as their own. (This is not a matter of “cheap
grace” in that just as Jesus expressed his faith in loving service and
sacrifice, so his faith persuades believers to behave accordingly.)
Therefore, God did not forgive sins because Jesus died on the cross;
instead, Jesus died on the cross because
God is forgiving, and so provided the blood of Jesus to believers as the
“assurance” of his forgiveness (Heb. 10:22), the demonstration of God’s
“perfect love [which] casts out fear [of] punishment” (1 John 4:18).
Regarding the third faith-of text in Romans, God’s “promise to Abraham and his seed...through [Greek, dia] the righteousness of faith” (Rom. 4:13) applies to “those who
are of the faith of Abraham” (Rom.
4:16). So, Paul established the connection between Abraham’s faith and Jesus’
faith: The “righteousness [not of law but] of faith”—exemplified initially, and
imperfectly, by Abraham, and exemplified finally, and perfectly, by Jesus—is
the instrument through which God’s Abrahamic promise was fulfilled and,
therefore, comes to all who align their own faith with the faith of Abraham,
whose faith was perfected by Jesus, Abraham’s seed.
Paul’s point that God’s promise to bless
all nations was given to “Abraham and his seed”—whom Paul made clear in his
earlier letter to the Galatians “is Christ” (Gal. 3:16)—is the key to
understanding the relationship between “the faith of Abraham” and “the faith of
Jesus.” Just as God’s righteousness came to Abraham through Abraham’s faith in
God’s promise—to give Abraham a son, through whom God would make of Abraham a
great nation, through which God would bless all nations (see Gen. 12:1-3;
15:1-6; 18:18; Gal. 3:8)—and through Abraham’s faith God’s righteousness came
to Israel, so God’s righteousness came to Jesus through Jesus’ faith in God’s
Abrahamic promise, and through Jesus’ faith God’s righteousness comes to
believers of all nations.
Jesus, then, is the true “seed” of Abraham
because he, just as Abraham before him, believed God’s Abrahamic promise and so
received God’s righteousness. And just as Israel’s righteousness came through
Abraham’s faith in God’s promise (and was eventually forfeited due to national
unbelief/idolatry), so the righteousness of the international community of
faith comes through Jesus’ faith in God’s promise to bless all nations in
Abraham’s seed.
The NT Jesus inaugurated the new covenant
between God and all nations by believing God’s Abrahamic promise to bless all
nations through Abraham’s seed. Jesus manifested his faith in God’s promise by
means of his proclamation of the good news of the kingdom of God, which led to
his crucifixion at the hands of the religious (Jewish) and political (Roman)
establishments (the “Church and State”) of first-century Judea.
That is to say, because Jesus believed—was
persuaded—that his good news of the kingdom
of God
Jesus’ proclamation and crucifixion, then,
manifested his faith in the promise of God, who therefore vindicated Jesus
(i.e., declared him righteous/faithful) by raising him from the dead and
exalting him to God’s right hand in the coming kingdom. And by doing so, God
revealed that he would fulfill his Abrahamic promise to bless all nations by
raising the international community of faith from death to life in the kingdom of God
While the Gospel of John does not, like
Paul’s letters, refer explicitly to the faith of Jesus, Jesus’ faith is nowhere more clearly expressed than in
Jesus’ words according to John’s Gospel.
Jesus’ faith, according to John’s Gospel,
was informed by “the word” that God the Father revealed to him and which Jesus
came to fulfill. The perfect faith of Jesus is
the sense in which “the word became flesh” (John 1:14).
Jesus’ references to his so-called
“preexistence” were not the product of recollection, memories of his personal
experience as “God the Son” with God the Father before time began. Instead, Jesus’
knowledge of his “preexistence” was the
product of revelation. That is, God the Father revealed to Jesus the Son
through the Spirit the knowledge of Jesus’ Messianic role in God’s purpose from
“the beginning” (John 1:1), and Jesus
believed God’s revelation. As a result, Jesus proclaimed his Messianic
glory as existing in the foreknowledge of God before time began.
John’s Jesus testifies to his heavenly
“preexistence”: “He who comes from heaven is above all. He bears witness to
what he has seen and heard . . .” (John 3:31-32). How did Jesus know that he
had come “from heaven”? What had Jesus “seen and heard” that gave him this
knowledge? The ecclesiastical interpretation is that Jesus’ knowledge of his
“preexistence” came from his recollection of his personal experience as the
so-called “pre-incarnate Word,” who existed as “God the Son” with God the
Father before creation.
This interpretation, however, rejects
Jesus’ own explanation of his knowledge about his having come “from heaven”:
“For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for [God] gives the Spirit
[to and through the Son] without measure” (John 3:34). According to Jesus’ own
testimony, “the words of God” which Jesus spoke about his coming “from heaven”
were given to him by “the Spirit.” Which is to say that this knowledge was revealed to him by God. The Father gave the Son
“the Spirit without measure” in the sense that Jesus received the complete revelation of God’s purpose,
the very heart of which was Jesus’ Messianic role in God’s purpose, a role that
existed in “the word” from “the beginning” (John 1:1).
What Jesus had “seen and heard,” regarding
his having come “from heaven,” was not, therefore, his divine recollection of
his personal experience as the so-called “preincarnate Word” (the way a human
being remembers what she or he has “seen and heard” from personal experience).
To the contrary, Jesus had “seen” the
angelic visions and “heard” the
angelic voices that were, throughout biblical history, the instrument of
God's revelation through “the Spirit” to his human messengers. (Biblical angels
are also called “spirits,” signifying their revelatory function as messengers.)
Whether in human form (see Gen. 18-19; 32:22-32) or in the form of supernatural
creatures (see Exo. 3:1-6; Isa. 6; Eze. 1-2), angels appeared to God’s human messengers and announced God’s word to them so that God’s human messengers could,
in turn, proclaim God’s word to God’s people.
The difference between Jesus and the
messengers of God who preceded him was not
that he, unlike them, “pre-existed” his birth as the “preincarnate Word.”
Instead, while Moses and the prophets had received God’s revelation in various
parts (see Heb. 1:1), Jesus received “the Spirit without measure” (John 3:34),
that is, the fullness of “the word,” revealing to him his role as God’s Anointed One in God’s purpose from “the
beginning” (John 1:1) as well as in God’s promise in “the scriptures” (John
5:39). Unlike the partial revelations of
God received by Jesus’ prophetic predecessors, the complete revelation Jesus received was about himself, the one whom God foreknew and foreordained from the
beginning to redeem God’s people.
Therefore, God’s revelation about Jesus’
heavenly “preexistence” as the purpose of God had come through “the Spirit” to Jesus, and through Jesus came to his apostles, who subsequently proclaimed to
all nations the revelation of Jesus’ Messianic role in God’s purpose for his
creation and in God’s promise to his people.
Jesus’ references to his so-called
“preexistence,” then, expressed not his memories of personal experience before
the creation of the world but his faith
in “the word,” which God the
Father had revealed to him through “the Spirit.” Jesus’ “preexistence,” then,
was not personal but prophetic, which is to say that Jesus
“pre-existed” his birth in the form of “the
word”: the original purpose (and later the Abrahamic promise) of God for
creation.
And so, when John’s Jesus says, “before
Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58), he expresses his faith in “the word” that his
coming—and, therefore, his existence—as God’s Anointed was foreknown and foreordained not only “before Abraham
was” but even before the world was created. And because of God’s
righteousness—that is, his faithfulness—whatever God purposes and promises, God
foreknows and foreordains, which means that it constitutes a “pre-existent”
reality from the instant God purposed it.
Likewise, when Jesus says, “And now,
Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you
before the world existed” (John 17:5), Jesus expresses his faith in “the word”
that “the glory” that he will soon experience through his death and
resurrection was purposed—and therefore existed as a foreknown and foreordained
reality in the mind of God—“before the world existed.”
This interpretation of Jesus’
“preexistence” is consistent with the biblical definition of faith: “Now faith
is the reality of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb.
11:1). Jesus believed that his “hoped for” glorification via resurrection from
the dead and exaltation to God’s right hand was “the glory I had with you
before the world existed” (John 17:5). Which is to say that Jesus’ “hoped for”
glorification had been a “reality” since the beginning because God had
foreknown and foreordained it, so that Jesus could ask the Father to “glorify
me in your presence” through resurrection and exaltation “with the glory that I
had with you before the world existed” (John 17:5). John’s Jesus, then, speaks
of his “hoped for” glorification as a pre-existent “reality” because God the
Father purposed it in “the beginning.”
In the case of Abraham, God’s promise came
with the words, “I have made you the father of many nations” (Gen. 17:5; Rom.
4:17), centuries before Abraham actually became “the father of many nations.”
The faith of Abraham was his persuasion
that his international fatherhood was as
good as done—a “pre-existent” reality—because
God had promised it. Which is to say that God’s promise was a reality of faith for Abraham centuries
before it became a reality of fact.
Likewise, Jesus’ glorification through
resurrection from the dead was a reality
of faith for him before it occurred—in truth, for Jesus, his existence as
the glorified Messiah had been a reality from “the beginning”—because God had
purposed it and revealed that purpose to him through “the Spirit.” Jesus’
faith, therefore, was “the reality of things hoped for [specifically, his
hoped-for glorification]” (Heb. 11:1a). And Jesus’ faith was “the evidence of
things not seen” (Heb. 11:1b): the evidence that God will indeed raise those of
the faith of Jesus from death to
everlasting life in the coming kingdom
of God
And so, though believers’ salvation from
death and entrance into the kingdom await the parousia of Jesus to raise the dead, judge the world and bring the
kingdom, believers “were saved” (Rom. 8:24), not when they believed or were baptized but when God raised Jesus from the dead. Believers have already entered “the kingdom of his
beloved Son” (Col. 1:13), not when
they believed or were baptized but
when God exalted Jesus to his right hand in the coming kingdom.
Which is to say that believers in the NT
gospel receive the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus. Accordingly, believers receive what God has promised,
first, as a life-transforming reality of
faith and then, at Jesus’ parousia,
an eschatological reality of fact.
This is the faith that the NT Jesus
modeled and, therefore, that NT believers are called to receive through the NT
proclamation of Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom.
If believing in Jesus means receiving the faith of Jesus through hearing and believing the NT gospel, then the
primary purpose of the study of scripture must, accordingly, be to identify and
understand Jesus’ faith, for the purpose of making Jesus’ faith one’s own.
Just as Paul summarized his gospel in
terms of “faith, hope and love” (1 Cor. 13:13), so to receive Jesus’ faith must
mean to take Jesus’ hope and Jesus’ love as one’s own.
Regarding hope, Jesus believed and so proclaimed “the gospel of the kingdom of God
Regarding love, Jesus’ faith in God’s Abrahamic promise to bless all nations
was expressed in a life of loving servanthood for the sake of his gospel of the
kingdom. Jesus evidently saw no contradiction between God’s revelation to him
of his role as the Messianic Son of Man, the ruler of God’s coming kingdom (see
Dan. 7:13-14), and his role as God’s suffering servant (see Isa. 53): “For even
the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a
ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Likewise, to receive the faith of Jesus is to believe as he believed in
the love of God for all nations and, therefore, to love others as God in Christ has loved one and all.
Paul’s letters (along with the other NT
writings) are, indeed, best understood as instructions for believing readers to
adopt and embrace the faith—and, therefore, the hope and love—of Jesus as their
own: “For through the Spirit, by faith,
we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope
of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision
counts for anything but only faith working
through love” (Gal. 5:5-6).
And so NT believers are called to run the
same race of faith that was run by Jesus himself, “looking to Jesus, the author
and perfecter of the faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross,
despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God”
(Heb. 12:2).
Footnotes
[1] Quoted
in Richard Hays, The Faith of Jesus
Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1-4:11 (Grand Rapids
[2] Thomas
Rees, The Racovian Catechism
(Indianapolis: Reprinted by Christian Educational Services, 1994), 305.
[3] Douglas
A. Campbell, “Romans 1:17: A Crux Interpretum for the [Pistis Christou] Debate” (Journal
of Biblical Literature, Summer
1994), 281, 284.
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