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Although Phil and Mac have left this conversation, we feel it’s important to present and explain the third of the three ways that we believe a Christian can fall from grace —

• A Christian falls away when he seeks to be justified other than by faith in Jesus.

This is a vitally important topic to the Churches of Christ, and yet it’s one where we’ve seen very little writing or discussion. Therefore, we’re going to approach the question by considering some background material, and from there, build the case.

The Meaning of “Faith”

N. T. Wright explains in Christian Origins and the Question of God: Jesus and the Victory of God, p. 263, how “faith” was used by First Century Jews. He refers to a story told by Josephus regarding a Jewish rebel named Jesus –

I was not ignorant of the plot which he had contrived against me … ; I would, nevertheless, condone his actions if he would show repentance and prove his loyalty to me.

[quoted by Wright at p. 250.)

Josephus notes that “believe in me” is translated “be loyal to me” in most translations. The phrase “show repentance and prove his loyalty to me” could be equally well translated “repent and believe in me.” “Believe in” or “have faith in” means “be loyal to” or even “submit to as lord.”

Wright explains,

Josephus asked Jesus the Galilean brigand leader, ‘to repent and believe in me,’ in other words, to give up his agenda and follow Josephus instead. Jesus of Nazareth, I suggest, issued more or less exactly the same summons to his contemporaries.

The same meaning shows up in modern Bible translations, where the Greek word for faith, pistis, is sometimes translated faithfulness.

(Rom 3:3)  What if some did not have faith [pistis]? Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness [pistis]?

(Gal 5:22-23)  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness [pistis], 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

You see, we begin our readings by assuming “faith” is somehow divorced from repentance, when in fact “faith” means faithfulness as well as belief.

And part of the confusion arises because we modern Christians tend to miss the full depth of meaning of other aspects of the gospel. For example, when we ask our converts to give the “Good Confession,” we ask them to quote Peter –

(Mat 16:16)  Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

But to modern ears, “Christ” sounds like Jesus’ last name. Let’s return to the original meaning: You are the Christ = Messiah = Anointed One = King promised by the prophets, the Son of the living God. “Christ” means “king” and not just any king — it means the king who would sit on David’s throne and rule all the nations as prophesied.

Now, compare this to –

(Rom 10:9)  That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

“Lord” is not a special word for heavenly beings. “Lord” is the word used in the Roman world to refer to Caesar as emperor. Quoting Wright once again –

The accession of the emperor, and also his birthday, could therefore be hailed as euaggelion, good news (we should remember of course that most of the empire, and certainly the parts of it where Paul worked, were Greek-speaking). The emperor was the kyrios, the lord of the world, the one who claimed the allegiance and loyalty of subjects throughout his wide empire. When he came in person to pay a state visit to a colony or province, the word for his royal presence was parousia.

With all this in mind, we open the first page of Paul’s letters as they stand in the New Testament, and what do we find? We find Paul, writing a letter to the church in Rome itself, introducing himself as the accredited messenger of the one true God. He brings the gospel, the euaggelion, of the son of God, the Davidic Messiah, whose messiahship and divine sonship are validated by his resurrection, and who, as the Psalms insist, is the Lord, the kyrios, of the whole world. Paul’s task is to bring the world, all the nations, into loyal allegiance — hypakoē pisteos, the obedience of faith — to this universal Lord. He is eager to announce this euaggelion in Rome, without shame, because this message is the power of God which creates salvation for all who are loyal to it, Jew and Greek alike.

In short, the confession of Jesus as Son of God, which we call “faith,” is also the confession of Jesus as Lord, ruler of the universe. It’s repentance. Faith and repentance are two sides of the same coin — we believe Jesus is God’s Son and Lord and we submit to that — faith and penitence — or faith and faithfulness — or pistis and pistis – or just “faith.”

You see, we’ve misread many of the faith passages as though they say nothing about obedience. And therefore we feel obligated to graft on to them other passages from radically different contexts. But they stand quite well on their own.

Now, let’s take a fresh look at a “faith only” passage –

(John 3:16)  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

All my life, this was a Baptist passage. We couldn’t read it without immediately flipping over to James, to wash the Baptist heresy off it. But let’s see how what we learned from Josephus changes our understanding –

(John 3:16)  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever [is loyal or faithful to] him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Is this right? Let’s check the context –

(John 3:19-21)  “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”

Immediately afterwards, the subject is plainly good deeds and evil. It’s about having a heart that wishes to obey — which makes sense if it’s about faithfulness or loyalty or submission to Lordship. If it’s about the purely intellectual exercise of belief — as we use the word in English, as in “I believe in ghosts” — well, then the passage makes no sense. Jesus does not call us to radical abstract thinking. He calls us to radical discipleship — and centuries of Augustinian/Reformation thought have clouded our reading.

Now, obviously enough, we can’t be loyal to someone if we don’t even believe in his existence. If we deny that the Son is the Son or that the Lord is the Lord, we can hardly submit to him as Son and Lord. “Believing in” is a part of faith. It’s just not the entirety of faith. It is, indeed, only the beginning of faith.

(I urgently note that in English translations, “believe” is simply the verb form of pistis. There is no distinction in the Greek. In English, though, “believe” often means a mere abstract intellectual acceptance. That is not how the word is generally used in the New Testament, except, for example, when the author is making the point that “faith” means more than intellectual acceptance, as in James.)

Faith/faithfulness and Works

And so — how do faith and works fit together? Faith saves. Salvation brings the Spirit. The Spirit helps us in our weakness, making us better people. And if we don’t resist the Spirit (and we sometimes do), the Spirit will help us put to death the misdeeds of the body and bear fruit. The Spirit gives us gifts. And all this is to equip us to serve — which we want to do. After all, when we first repented, that’s the commitment we made.

But notice this: salvation came first. We were saved and then we received the Spirit and then we began to work. We don’t work to one day be saved. We are saved.

Now, we can throw that salvation away, but we don’t need to earn it. We can’t. Rather, we just need to be true to what we’ve received.

And the “works” we do aren’t perfect, complete, sufficient works. No one can do that — other than Jesus. The test isn’t perfection. Nor is it great scholarship. It’s being led by the Spirit.

(Rom 8:13-14 ESV) For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

Therefore, if I obey God’s word as I understand it — as a penitent, believing Christian — I still believe and I’m loyal to Jesus, despite my fallen nature and imperfect understanding. But, of course, because I’m faithful and penitent, I will study God’s word so I can best please the Lord I serve. I love God, therefore I want to do his will. But if I get something wrong along the way but remain faithful, I’m still saved.

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This entry was posted on August 17, 2009 at 7:00 AM and is filed under Apostasy. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.