The Gospel: Faith (Part 2)

Romans 1:16d

¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.

Paul’s Concept of Faith: In the apostle Paul one finds the broadest and profoundest articulation of the concept of faith in early Christianity. Faith has as its object God (1 Thess. 1:8), specifically God’s salvific manifestation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 4:14). This act of God in Christ is preached (Rom. 10:17 : ‘So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ’) and is received by faith (Rom. 3:25), a faith that rests ‘in the power of God’ (1 Cor. 2:5). Those who have received the good news of God’s act in Christ, namely, the gospel, are called ‘believers’ (1 Thess. 1:7). There is only one gospel (1 Cor. 15:11) and its goal is salvation (1 Cor. 1:21).

For Paul the concept of faith is a dynamic one. Thus, he can refer to the ‘activity of faith’ (1 Thess. 1:23), an activity that manifests itself in love (Gal. 5:6 : ‘faith working through love’). Faith involves ‘progress’ (Phil. 1:25); it is not something static, captured once for all, but involves striving (Phil. 1:27 : ‘with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel…’) and it increases (2 Cor. 10:15) and it is an energy at work in believers (1 Thess. 2:13). Since faith is not a static possession, Paul urges that faith be established (1 Thess. 3:2) and made firm (1 Cor. 16:13 ; 2 Cor. 1:24), for it is possible not only to have deficiencies in faith (1 Thess. 3:10 ; Rom. 14:1) but also to believe in vain (1 Cor. 15:2 ; Rom. 11:20). Essential for Paul’s understanding of faith is the conviction that God assigns to each the measure of faith he wishes (Rom. 12:3, 6 ; 1 Cor. 12:9). Yet no matter what that measure of faith is, the obedience of faith is expected from all (Rom. 1:5 ; 16:16).

Paul on several occasions uses the three-fold formulation ‘faith, love and hope’ (1 Thess. 1:3 ; 5:8 ; 1 Cor. 13:13). On the one hand, as noted above, faith must be active in love; without love faith is empty. On the other hand, faith must be grounded in hope so that it recognizes that the first-fruits of God’s promises manifested in the death and resurrection of Christ will be fulfilled on the last day (Gal. 5:5 ; Rom. 6:8 ; Rom. 15:13 : ‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope’). The specific hope of faith is rooted in the resurrection of Christ as an anticipation of the fulfillment of the last day (1 Cor. 15:14, 17 ; 2 Cor. 4:14 : ‘knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence’). Yet this faith that is received in baptism (Gal. 3:27-28) and allows one entrance into the body of Christ, the church, is a faith that has as its model the suffering and death of Jesus and so during this earthly sojourn faith may well be called to a cruciform existence (Rom. 8:18 ; Phil. 1:29 : ‘For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake…’). Further, this new act of God in Christ received by faith involves not only new existence for the believer but for the world itself (Rom. 8:18-25).

Particularly in Galatians and Romans Paul links his concept of faith to terms like the righteousness of God and justification and to a negative attitude toward the works of the law. This development of his thought is brought about, on the one hand, by his conflict with certain Judaizers, and, on the other hand, his reflections of the relation of Jews and Gentiles. Thus, in Gal. 2:16 he can write that ‘a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ…’ and in Rom. 10:4 that ‘Christ is the end of the law, that every one who has faith may be justified.’ These points are articulated at length with much use of the OT, including Gen. 15:6, in such chapters as Galatians 3 and Romans 4 . For Paul the villain is not the law, but sin, which renders its usefulness ineffective. Thus the basic dilemma of the human situation is captivity to sin (Rom. 3:9-18). Christ has come to free humanity from this captivity; whether Jew or Greek, all have sinned and all can come to God in Christ only through faith (Rom. 3:21). Thus Paul can ask rhetorically: ‘Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!’ (Rom. 7:24-25a).

The same dynamic of faith is evident when Paul links faith with righteousness/justification language, as, for example, in Rom. 1:16-17: ‘For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.” The righteousness of God, which faith receives as God’s gift, is viewed as part of a much broader historical and eschatological context. It is for Paul God’s sovereignty over the world that reveals itself eschatologically in Jesus. When Paul speaks of the ‘gift of righteousness’ in Rom. 5:17 he is referring to a gift that is both present and future, already received and still expected. It is a gift that recognizes God’s sovereign power and the fact that the believer is placed under that power in obedient service. For the person who is justified, who has received the gift in faith, salvation is not yet completed in the present; it has still to be consummated and fulfilled on the last day. Only as Christians wait and hope are they saved (Rom. 8:23-25 ; Gal. 5:5). It is precisely for this reason that the apostle is so careful in his language about present and future as, for example, in Rom. 6:8 (‘But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him’) and Rom. 5:9 (‘Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God’). This process of the Christian life is similarly emphasized in Philippians (2:12-13 ; 3:9-14). While the Christian life is for Paul a single process, he does stress three different nuances of the process: justification, an initiating event that is actualized and made concrete through sanctification; sanctification, a present process, dependent upon justification, that has future implications, namely, consummated salvation; and salvation, a gift to be consummated in the future, already anticipated and partially experienced in justification and sanctification and definitely dependent upon them.

Other NT Writings: Other NT writings that stress the concept of faith include the Gospel of John, where only the verb form is found. The author describes his Gospel as intended to produce faith: ‘Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name’ (John 20:30-31). This Evangelist’s view of faith is very much linked to the contingency of his situation, especially his dialogue and polemic with Judaism, many of whom do not believe (9:18) and reject faith in Jesus (5:38) despite the signs performed (4:48) and the testimony of Scripture, Abraham, and Moses. The view of faith found in the Fourth Gospel is also closely linked to its understanding of Christology, namely, Jesus as the one sent by the Father as his revealer (John 6:29 : ‘Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent”). The Acts of the Apostles is also a rich witness to the NT concept of faith. Here the term ‘believer’ is used with frequency (e.g., Acts 2:44) and the object of belief is the preaching of the apostles (Acts 4:1-4). In James 2:14-20, the view of faith that insists that faith without works is useless is most likely not a criticism of Paul, but of those who have lost sight of the Pauline relationship between the activity of faith and its expression in and through love. The oft quoted verse from Hebrews, ‘Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen’ (11:1), has no specific Christian emphasis as it stands; the entire chapter serves as a model for the purposes of exhortation and reaches its culmination and Christian interpretation in chapter 12: ‘Therefore…let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross…’ (12:1-2). This reference to Jesus as ‘the pioneer and perfecter’ of faith expresses concisely the dynamic conception of faith found in much of the NT.

Faith is very obviously a major concept in the Bible.  It is of central importance to understanding God’s plan and purpose for men and for the created world.  It is deserving of far more time and study than we have to devote to it at this point in this study but there are indeed ample studies around and available to help us out with this topic. 

Salvation has no national, racial, or ethnic barrier but is given to every person who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. It was to the Jew first chronologically because Jews are God’s specially chosen people, through whom He ordained salvation to come (John 4:22). The Messiah came first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. 15:24). To the Jew first - First in order of time, Not that the gospel was any more adapted to Jews than to others; but to them had been committed the oracles of God; the Messiah had come through them; they had had the Law, the temple, and the service of God, and it was natural that the gospel should be proclaimed to them before it was to the Gentiles. This was the order in which the gospel was actually preached to the world, first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles. Compare Acts 2 and Acts 10; Matt. 10:6; Luke 24:49; Acts 13:46, “It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.” Compare Matt. 21:43.

And also to the Greek—To all who were nor Jews, that is, to all the world. It was nor confined in its intention or efficacy to any class or nation of people. It was adapted to all, and was designed to be extended to all.

All who believe may be saved. Only those who truly believe will be.

I need to preach and teach the importance of the exercise of faith in obedience and submission to the command of God for all men to repent and believe the Gospel.