I Believe in the Faithfulness of Christ Pt. 2

Last week I suggested that a valid interpretation of the phrase ‘pistis Christou’ is to read it as ‘the faithfulness of Christ’; in fact, I believe that this is the correct translation based on the context in which the phrase is found in the Scriptures. Now I want to suggest a couple benefits of this reading:

1) Although some fear that this reading is a threat to the doctrine of justification I would say that it actually reinforces what is sometimes referred to as ‘imputation’. When the Bible refers to the faithfulness of Jesus it does not speak of a ‘treasury of merit’ that is then placed into our account that God looks at and is satisfied. Rather, it refers to Jesus’ absolute obedience to the Father culminating in the cross. Whereas Adam, the original representative of the human race, failed Christ remained obedient. Likewise, whereas Israel failed to trust in God and worship him alone Jesus remained completely faithful to him in the wilderness. Jesus is God’s unique son and he joyfully submitted himself to his Father’s will, even when that meant that the nations would rise against him and crucify him like a criminal. Since Jesus is the Messiah, the true king of the world, he is the representative of all those who believe in him. Those who confess that Jesus is Lord are in Christ so that what is true of him is true of them. Even though we are sinner’s deserving of God’s holy wrath Jesus is the representative of every Christian so God can look at us and declare “Righteous!” He is our faithful Messiah. Christians are righteous because they are incorporated into Christ and all Jesus’ obedience is seen as being true for them; this is true of Jesus faithfulness to the Father in his earthly life, his death and his resurrection where God vindicated him.

2) The other day I was listening to a discussion concerning Tom Wright’s response to John Piper’s book. The panelist’s were Thomas Schreiner, Brian Vickers and Mark Seifrid. One of the issues that was addressed was Wright’s view that present justification is based on faith whereas future justification is based on works. Now, it should be noted, that a fair reading of Wright does not give the idea that we in anyway contribute to our own justification. I believe that Wright is saying something to the traditional reformed view that sees works as being the evidence that one was made right with God but does using poor wording. Thomas Schreiner, who is one of my favorite theologians, made the observation that our is justification is not based on works or faith but on Jesus. Many people place a target on Wright because he says, “Justification on the last day will be based on works” but then go around saying “Justification is always based on faith”. I know what they are saying but the wording is misleading.

All that to say that translating pistis Christou as the faithfulness of Jesus can help solve this issue. Our righteousness is not based on our faith but on the faithfulness of Jesus. Here’s Phillipians 3:9 in two different translations:

“…not because I have my own righteousness derived from the law, but because I have the righteousness that comes by way of Christ’s faithfulness – a righteousness from God that is in fact based on Christ’s faithfulness” (NET).

“…not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith” (NASB).

Notice that one translation says that the righteousness we receive a righteousness based on Christ’s faithfulness whereas the other one says that it is based on faith. All that this demonstrates is that translating pistis Christou is one possible way of avoiding this error and reminds us that we don’t look to ourselves in any way for our status of righteousness but look to Christ alone, the faithful man and faithful Israelite.

I Believe in the Faithfulness of Christ

I believe in the faithfulness of the Messiah. I am referring to the way a particular phrase is often translated as “faith in Christ” in our modern English bibles. There is significant debate about this of which I would like to make several points.

1) Sometimes certain scholars make it seem like the translation of pistis Christou as the faithfulness of Christ is nothing more than wishful thinking. In reality this is a very natural translation of the phrase. This isn’t to say that any other translation is un-natural but those who think this is the proper translation don’t necessarily have some sort of hidden agenda. There are many other genitives in the book of Romans, for example, that we translate “of” not “in” (i.e. the faithfulness of God). The faithfulness of Christ is a very legitimate translation of pistis Christou and those of us who think so aren’t heretical weirdos with no appreciation for the Reformation.

2) It is easy to shrug something like this off thinking, “Most modern translators interpret this phrase as ‘faith in Christ’ so they’re probably right; how much do I know any way?” Though it is true that most modern translators take pistis Christou to mean faith in Christ that does not mean they’re right. There has not been unanimous agreement among translators what this phrase means in the present or in the past. Examples from Romans 3:22:

The NET Bible: “…the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe”.

KJV: “Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe”.

Tyndale: “The rightewesnes no dout which is good before God cometh by ye fayth of Iesus Christ vnto all and vpon all that believe”.

Wycliffe: “And the riytwisnesse of God is bi the feith of Jhesu Crist in to alle men and on alle men that bileuen in hym”. (all emphases mine).

Now I know that most of these are translated faith of Christ not faithfulness but one thing to note is that those are the same word in Greek.

3) One big thing that determines the way things are translated is the immediate context of the passage. When Paul breaks out with his “But now” in chapter three we should look at what goes before and what comes after to see if our translation of pistis Christou makes sense in this particular context. To our surprise it makes perfect sense! Here’s what Paul says:

“Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?” (Rom. 3.1-3 ESV).

Even though the Jewish people did not live up to the covenant God would remain faithful. But how would he do that? Well if we go to verse 22 and translate pistis Christou as the faithfulness of Jesus Christ then we have our answer. Jesus is the faithful Israelite! That is how God remains faithful. To translate the phrase this way makes perfect sense of the context.

Sometimes we can be scared of things we aren’t used to. That is why next week I will offer a couple reasons why we should welcome this translation with open arms. It does not minimize the doctrine of imputation, as is often thought, but rather reinforces it. It also shows us that our justification is based on Christ and not anything or anyone else.

Kirk Wellum on Propitiation

Kirk Wellum, principal of Toronto Baptist Seminary, makes an interesting point about the word "propitiation" in our English bibles. You should also check out the comments on that post.

Declaration of Membership

Over the past month or so I have been devotionally reading through Paul’s letter to the Romans. Two tools that have been helping me greatly are the ESV Study Bible and N.T. Wright’s little book, “Paul for Everyone”. Using these resources have been giving me a fuller idea of what Paul means when he talks about being, “Justified” or “Declared righteous in Christ.”

The ESV SB has reinforced my strong conviction that Justification is a declaration whereby God declares sinners to be in a right relationship with himself. This is crucial. The greatest gift of the gospel is God himself and justification makes a relationship with him possible. If it weren’t for this doctrine we would all be enemies of God.

Paul for Everyone has helped me to appreciate the covenantal aspects of Justification. One of the greatest ways to see this theme in Romans is to read the letter all the way through in one sitting. Paul talks a great deal about Abraham and Israel in relation to Justification and if we’re not careful these can be sidelined. But for Paul, when God called Abraham it was all about God graciously acting within creation to deal with the problem of sin. Humanity had become evil through and through but God was determined to make a new humanity through which his grace and justice would be manifest.

When Abraham trusted God, God declared him to be righteous. This means that Abraham entered into a right relationship, a covenantal relationship. His sins were forgiven and he was given the glorious promise of inheriting the land of Canaan. God gave him the sign of circumcision after he declared Abraham to be in the right as a sign of the relationship that had come into being. Romans 4.11 says, “He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.” Genesis 17.11 says, “You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.”

So Paul says that circumcision was a sign of the “righteousness he had by faith” whereas Genesis says that it is a sign of the covenant relationship. God is passionate about creating a world without sin. As N.T. Wright says, “He will put the world to rights”. The way he does this in the present is by calling wicked sinners to himself, forgiving their sins through the atoning work of Christ, declaring them righteous, and by giving them all the promises that come along with being a member of the new covenant people. There is much more that could be said. Justification is truly a glorious doctrine; it gives hope to sinner’s and displays God’s great desire to put the world to rights.

Keeping the Messiah at the Center

In John Piper's book God is the Gospel he says, "The glory spoken of in 2 Corinthians 4:4 is not a vague, impersonal glory, like the glory of sunshine. It is the glory of a person. Paul speaks of 'the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.' The treasure in this text is not glory per se. It is Christ in his glory. It is the glorious Christ. He is the ultimate gift and treasure of the gospel. All other words and deeds are means to this: seeing Jesus Christ-the kind of seeing that is seeing and savoring simultaneously" (p. 65).

At the very heart of the gospel is the declaration that the Messiah is Jesus. The death of Christ accomplished what needs to be done so we can enter into the family of the Messiah and the resurrection is God's declaration of Jesus' status as God's 'anointed-one'. The point of the gospel is that we might come to Jesus and enjoy him as the crucified and risen Christ. We ought to always seek to deepen our understanding of what exactly it means that Jesus is the Messiah so that our hearts might rejoice in him for his glory and our good.

Toronto Baptist Pastor and My Spiritual Condition

My family owned a Christian bookstore that was pretty much like your average Christian book shop. The first thing you saw when you walked in wasn’t anything really deep but was the usual Max Lucado coffee table book (or at least something like it). Some people get annoyed with this aspect of Christian bookstores thinking, "We need deeper theology!" but a question I’ve been thinking about is, “How annoyed should we be?”

R.G. Mitchell Family Books was the largest Christian retailer and distributor in Canada so it was quite a shock to some when it went bankrupt. If you search “Mitchell Family Books Bankruptcy” you will get a variety of responses. One that interested me was by a guy named Toronto Baptist Pastor. The author’s real name is Pastor H. Schonhaar; he is the pastor of Toronto Baptist Church, a fundamentalist KJV-only church in Toronto, Ontario. The heart of his post was that Mitchell Family Books went bankrupt because the Mitchell family is spiritually bankrupt. I thought it strange that such a judgment should be made before I even met this man but it got me thinking about something, namely, “What kinds of products should a Christian retailer be selling?”

My grandfather, Robert Gordon Mitchell, was a conservative brethren lay-man who had a passion for the written word. He loved Jesus and served him with all his energy. His desire was to get good books into the hands of Christians. 75 years later Mitchell Family Books was quite a different store. It sold more general products under the broad heading “Christian”. These products varied from paintings, music, books, bibles, and a whole lot of trinkets.

Throughout the time I worked there I got to know many of the authors and titles we sold. Some were good and some were bad, some had all truth (i.e. the Bible itself), some had no truth, and some had a good amount of truth. So what should Christian retailers sell? Should they sell only Bibles? Should they sell any books by liberal authors? Should they only sell books that are faithful (keeping in mind that no book, other than the bible, is perfect) to God’s word? Is there a difference between a ‘theological’ bookstore and a ‘Christian’ bookstore? Is Pastor H. Schonhaar right that a person is spiritually bankrupt by virtue of the books they sell? These are all questions I have been pondering.

I am more inclined to think that there is a difference between a 'theological' bookstore and a 'Christian' bookstore. The first is aimed towards academics who are looking to study whether it be liberal or conservative (like the theological bookstore at the University of Toronto). The second, on the other hand, is aimed more towards the average Christian reader. It is important for Christian bookstores to carry the truth because many new Christians will pick up anything they can get their hands on. The question that I would ask before carrying a book in a Christian bookstore is, "Is it faithful to the gospel?" Is the book faithful to the message that Jesus, the crucified and risen messiah, is the Lord of the world and through his death forgiveness is available to all people? This allows for grace in the area of deciding which books to carry.

Any thoughts?

Know Your Audience

I love to preach. There aren’t very many things that get me more excited than studying the Bible and then figuring out, through the Spirit of God, how I am going to communicate my findings. Sometimes I get so excited that I just have to let it out. (I have a gracious wife who is often patient as I ramble on about the apostle Paul and the gospel that he proclaimed; but I don’t think she minds too much.)

A lesson that I have been recently learning is the importance of knowing your audience. I have had several opportunities to teach and they have all been to diverse groups of people. The grace kids that I taught for a couple years were aged 3-6, I lectured on the doctrine of justification to Grace Fellowship Church (my home) to a whole bunch of people, and my continuing ministry at the nursing home where I teach the seniors. Again and again I have to remind myself that different audiences require different methods, otherwise I may be preaching in vain.

I received some great advice from my friend, who is in his 80’s, who told me that I need to teach the seniors in a similar way as the grace kids. The folks at the nursing home aren’t just retirees, they are dying. Most of them can no longer walk and many cannot even speak. I have to keep things real simple and I can’t take anything for granted (e.g. I have to explain who Adam and Eve are).

At our church the elders often address the children during their sermons. This keeps them awake and, at least, helps them get something out of the sermon. I have put this into practice with the seniors and I’m finding that it is a very effective way of keeping people involved, both mentally and emotionally. I’m still learning but I’m always looking for ways that I could improve so that I can serve our king and his kingdom better.

P.S. I found a job…..and I am writing this on my lunch break ;-)