HIS FAITH?
RESPONSE: I have in the first two presentations endeavoured to explain through the scriptures and theology the meaning and relationship of belief and faith. I found it necessary to also address the question of whose faith we are saved through under this very question.
Confusion in this subject begins from the point we assume that faith and belief are the same things. It even goes further, when we are convinced that faith like belief needs an object to be placed into. The truth is that while faith is the object that our instinctual belief ultimately ought to aim at. It doesn’t matter how much a believer one is and regardless of how positive and successful they are in life, if their belief doesn’t open for faith to be exhibited in their lives, then they have eternally failed.
Faith is a Seed
In Mathew 17:14-20 the disciples (believers and followers of Jesus) failed to rebuke the devil and the Lord addressed them as ‘Faithless’ and ‘Perverse’. So it is possible that our churches are filled with many faithless believers. I hope we won’t be surprised when many churchgoers are not saved since salvation is ‘through’ faith (Ephesians 2:8).
The disciples were troubled by this experience and privately inquired about the matter and Jesus told them they did not have even the smallest faith in them, for if they had, even mountains would move and nothing would be impossible for them.
From the surface view of Jesus’ words, one might think the passage is about the ‘Size of faith’, it looks like the disciples did not have enough faith in their tanks. What a lay reader of the Bible might draw from the text is exactly what the disciples themselves understood according to the Lukan account when he records them asking Jesus to increase their faith (Luke 17:5-6).
What Jesus was communicating, however, was that the disciples failed not because they did not have enough faith, for there is nothing like insufficient faith, the disciples failed because they did not have the kind of faith.
Our Lord gave the example of a mustard seed not to emphasise its size but to communicate its kind. If the Lord was about the size, then the mustard seed is not the smallest thing to function as a suitable example, what the Lord wanted us to know was that ‘Faith’ is a seed and therefore particular and exclusive.
The faith that moves mountains and the faith that is omnipotent (Mathew 17:20) is not a SIZE that can be decreased or increased (Luke 17:5) but a SEED. It is of a KIND. It is particular, one that is sown in us as the ground and grows its own kind. Therefore while we can bear belief instinctively, for us to exhibit faith, it has to be sown in us (1Corinthians 3:6-8; Mark 4:1-32).
Faith; the seed, can only be sown (access) into your life by a preacher (the sower), through your ears (instinctual belief and recognition) and you calling upon him (Romans 10:12-17). Faith (Pistis) is not original with us, it is something that accesses us from without (Romans 10:8), what is original with us is Belief (Pisteuo) and it is the one we apply to life areas (Romans 10:9). Since faith is a seed, it cannot be original with us and neither can it be required from us by heaven as a prerequisite for salvation. We are the ground, it is Jesus the farmer who has the seed.
One Faith
It was revealed to Apostle Paul that there is nothing like the faith of God and our faith, but rather that there is just one faith (Ephesians 4:5). The faith through which we are saved does not vary from one person to another. It is one and the same faith and it has no human thread in its fabric.
Christian teachers and believers must understand that there are seven articles that the Bible declares mono (Lord, Body, Spirit, Hope, Faith, Baptism, Gospel = Ephesians 4:4-5; Galatians 1:6-9; 2:15-16) and these have the monopoly in their specific assignment. If we are saved ‘through’ faith, then there is nothing like faith, and neither can faith be duplicated or even reproduced. It is one faith since the past and throughout eternity.
Belief can vary from one person to another but not faith. Faith is one and the reason it is one is that it is original with one God. The belief that makes some people succeed in one field might not be the level of belief in the lives of others who fail or even actually succeed in the same.
However, with faith, it is the same faith that operated from Abel through the prophets (Hebrews 11:4-32) to-date. When the New Testament teaches that we are justified by grace through faith (Galatians 3:11; Romans 1:17; Hebrews 10:38) it is re-echoing the Old Testament teaching of the Just shall live by faith (Habakkuk 2:4).
There is one faith with its two sides of objective and subjective. The objective side is the natural faithfulness of God (Aman) and the same that he maintained after he got incarnate into a vulnerable human body; while the subjective faith is when he sows that very faith in believer-willing individuals (Galatians 2:20; 5:22; 2Corinthians 3:18).
Through Whose Faith?
Yes, we are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8), but whose faith is it? If it is our faith then we have something to boast of in contrast to Ephesians 2:9. The point of how we are saved is always missed when we forget that we are always the OBJECT of salvation and not the SUBJECT of salvation.
We are entirely worked upon, and neither are we worked with for our salvation; ours is to accept a finished product. Even the faith we thought was ours, it is clear from the word of God that the faith through which we are saved (saving faith) is not ours too.
Let us briefly look at Romans 3:22 and other related verse that help us understand this concept. In Romans 3:22, the Greek reads “dia pisteos ‘Iesou Christou”, which literally translated is “through faith of Jesus Christ” or “through Jesus Christ’s faith.” Most modern translations read “faith IN Jesus,” which is a wrong translation.
I insist it is a wrong translation because the grammatical debate surrounds the issue of whether “dia pisteos Iesou Christou” is an objective genitive (Faith IN Christ) or a subjective genitive (Faith OF christ). In the New Testament Greek, both objective and subjective might be difficult to differentiate and the exegete is always left with one option and that is to observe the context.
According to the overall context (from the Old Testament) faith is not human but divine as I presented in the first two parts of this presentation. But even from the immediate context in Romans 1-3:19-21, it is clear that the apostle is preaching against human participation in the manner we are saved, and therefore am justified to conclude that it is a subjective genitive. Again the Apostle utilises both (Faith) and (Belief) in the same verse Romans 3:22; “his righteousness from God comes through faith (Pisitis) in Jesus” and the last phrase says: “Christ to all who believe (Pisteuo).”
He argues that our Belief-Pisteuo (one that cannot save us) must usher in Faith-Pistis (saving faith) for us to access the finished product of salvation (Acts 16:31; John 5:24). Our volitional makeup must be willing to take what the Lord has accomplished for us (Romans 10:17; Psalms 116:13; Luke 24:25).
Salvation is a product of divinity. It is made of divine Grace and divine faith (faithfulness) alone. A sovereign God exercises his nature (Grace) upon sinners and Paul in Romans 1:16 understood this as the power (dunamis) of God and in verse 17 Paul emphasised that it operates exclusively within the realm of faith (Pistos eis Pistin) alone. It is these divine supernatural endowments that work as the means through which we can access the product known as ‘Salvation’. We are saved by God’s divinity of grace and through his divine faith-fulness (Ephesians 2:8).
That is why Apostle Paul after stating Grace and Faith as the fabric of salvation (Ephesians 2:8), uses a demonstrative pronoun ‘Touto’. The pronoun ‘Touto’ is used in the neuter form against two feminine nouns (Grace and Faith) to indicate that the whole idea of salvation being referred to, is absolutely divine business. It is due to this evidence that I conclude salvation is a product of God’s Grace and his faithfulness and the beneficiaries are those who believe.
God bless you I invoke TRUTH, REASON and FAITH (2Tim 2:7)
Priest Isaiah White (+256-793/775 822833 for further inquiries)
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24)
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