Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Uses of the word Faith

As a final note before the heavy lifting begins, I thought I'd quickly point out (on borrowed time) another interesting facet of the Greek word commonly translated faith.

PISTIS, rather than having a single meaning, has a range of them. We see two principle translations: "faith" and "faithfulness." The latter is considerably more rare, but we see its sense in, for example, Ro 3.3: "Shall their unbelief make the faith[fulness] of God without effect?"

I understand the phrase "from faith to faith" (Ro 1.16,17) to refer to the regenerative faithfulness of Christ ("from faith") resulting in our own faith ("to faith").

It's not uncommon in Paul's letters to see such a construction. For example, in Ga 2.16, we read, "... man is not justified by works of law but by faith of Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by faith of Christ, ..."

See also Ro 3.22 ("faith of Christ...believe") and Ga 3.22 ("faith of Christ...believe"). There are other places to look at the faith of Christ that are also relevant.

As time fails me, I'd like to suggest replacing "faith of Christ" with "the faithfulness of Christ." It may provide some different, and worthwhile, readings.

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