Does Faith Mean Faithfulness?

With all the controversy that has raged about justification in the past generation, it is surprising that for some time the question of what faith is has remained more marginal. However, this issue has recently come into the foreground of both the church's and the academy's attention. The present essay aims to do justice both to Paul and James, and to clarify that faith is not itself righteousness but should be regarded as trust in Christ, which also has specific verbal content. It is also not an entity, however, which can ever be isolated in the Christian life from obedience, even though faith and obedience are not to be confused.

"Faith Reckoned as Righteousness" in Paul

 

As far as the interpretation of Paul is concerned, it is vital to recognize that God does not reckon righteousness to us on the basis of anything that we do in and of ourselves. One of the chief transformations that took place in Paul's conversion was in his understanding of sin: he came to see the true depravity of the human condition, that "the mind of the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to the Law of God, nor can it do so" (Rom. 8:7). This is in stark contrast to the understanding that he would probably have had as a Pharisee: that despite the internal struggle of the good impulse against the evil impulse, it was both necessary and possible to choose the good. After his conversion, he realized (we do not know exactly how and when) that only by Christ's atoning work and the power of the Spirit are new life and true obedience possible. 

Much of our attention here will be focused on Romans 4, which is one of the key chapters in the Bible on faith. The chapter is also taken up with a discussion of Abraham, and how Paul brings the patriarch as a key witness to his doctrine of justification by faith. Here the apostle is battling against the Jewish tradition of explaining Abraham as a model of piety and (in some cases) law-observance even before the law was given. The trials of Abraham, such as the offering of Isaac on Mount Moriah, are seen in Jewish exegesis as the basis for his justification:

Abraham was a great father of many nations, and no-one was found like him in glory, who kept the Law of the Most High, and entered into covenant with Him, and established the covenant in his flesh, and was found faithful in testing. (Sirach 44:19-20) This is the tenth trial with which Abraham was tried, and he was found faithful, controlled of spirit. [He begged for a place for burial in the land] because he was found faithful and he was recorded as a friend of the Lord in the heavenly tablets. (Jubilees 19:8-9; cf. 23:9-10) Abraham did not walk in it (sc. evil), and he was reckoned a friend of God because he kept the commandments of God and did not choose his own will. (Damascus Document 3:2-4) Was not Abraham found faithful in temptation and it was reckoned to him as righteousness? (1 Maccabees 2:52)   Continue at Simon Gathercole