Some Primitive Baptist Elders hold the view that texts of Scripture - specifically Galatians 2:16, Romans 3:3, 21-31 - refer to God's faith in Christ (Rom. 3:3, or his blood as in Rom. 3:25), and Christ's faith in His Father as in Gal. 2:16 and Romans 3:22.
First of all, I want to agree with the Elders that take this view that it is a faith that is OF God and OF Christ. What I mean is that in these texts θεοῦ and Χριστοῦ are nouns in the genitive case. To render these texts with the preposition "in" God and "in" Christ is not the literal translation; there is a way to state that in Greek according to the dative case, making these nouns objects of the preposition "in" or "to" or indirect objects. If Paul intended such meaning he could have easily stated it clearly with different suffixes.
However, as William Mounce states on page 52 of the Basics of Biblical Greek:
"Genitive
1. The most common use of the genitive is when the word in the genitive gives some description of the head noun (descriptive).
2. The head noun can be possessed by the word in the genitive (possessive)."
William Mounce gives Matt. 19:21 as an example of the possessive genitive in which a personal pronoun, "sou" - your - is in the genitive case.
PB Elders are right to object to translating or understanding these nouns as objects of a preposition that would imply the dative case, but they, in turn, claim that the use of the genitive case must show possession. The possessive genitive is usually indicated by the presence of pronouns. Besides, if the translators thought the genitive possessive was in context, the King James Version would have been rendered in these texts with personal pronouns, or, at the very least by the English words, "belonging to" or "possessed by". The fact the King James translators did not translate the "faith of God" as "His faith", "faith possessed by God", or "God's faith" all indicate that the genitive case of these nouns be understood in a generally descriptive manner.
Consult this sheet found here: http://www.ntgreek.org/pdf/genitive_case.pdf, which discusses the most common uses of the genitive case. The author states that a pronoun will most often be present, if the genitive possessive use of a noun is intended. They also state that contexts of possession are not always literal, so even if the nouns considered above were genitive possessive, it still would not prove that Paul intended to communicate that God or Christ has/had faith as an attribute.
There is no grammatical basis from a comparison of the textus receptus and the KJ translation to surmise the translators viewed these nouns as anything more than generally descriptive of faith.
As used as a noun, faith in these passages refers to the mechanism or mode of justification under the new covenant as distinct from the mechanism of justification under the law or the old covenant, it is not directly addressing any one's or any thing's subjective faith. This is clearly proved by context when one compares Romans 3:7 to Romans 3:3. Notice Paul is still considering the question of whether unbelief makes the 'faith of God' without effect. This text illustrates the manner in which the Jewish adversaries attacked Paul's gospel in that they argued it commended rather than excluded unrighteousness. They accused the faith of God as an ineffective method to attain righteousness because it - they claimed - was a tool of unrighteousness rather than what Paul claimed of it; namely, that it revealed God's righteousness.
It is evident that Paul is still considering the question of verse 3 in verse 7, yet he refers to the 'truth of God' rather than the 'faith of God'. Paul is using 'aletheia' here interchangeably with the 'pistin' of verse 3. God's subjective faith in Christ is alien to the grammar, and it is alien to any preceding context.
Coming to Romans 3:22 and Gal. 2:16, which refer to justification or attaining the righteousness of God 'by faith of Jesus Christ', it is not any one's subjective belief that is referenced by the grammar, but, again, the system of justification under the new covenant, as opposed to the law. There is abundant evidence that this is Paul's meaning in both passages. In both passages (really the whole book of Galatians is about this very point), Paul contrasts two systems of justification, one of Sinai, the other of the heavenly Jerusalem (Gal. 4:21-31)
However, the 'faith of Jesus Christ' as a concept, clearly refers to man's individual faith by which he is justified. Gal. 3:2 makes the contrast plain. The contrast is between man's works under the law and man's hearing of faith under the new covenant. Men know they have received the spirit when they hear and believe the gospel, as it is the earnest of inheritance until the end time.
Subjective belief is treated separately from the 'faith of Jesus Christ' in both Gal. 2:16 and Rom. 3:22. Subjective belief, indicated by the phrase 'even we have believed in Jesus Christ' in Gal. 2:16, and 'unto all and upon all them that believe' in Rom. 3:22, marks an intellectual distinction in Paul's mind between the mechanism or mode of justification under the new covenant, and specific examples of the justified by those who have evangelical faith.
Even Abraham's belief in God in Gen. 15, referenced in Romans 4, certainly cannot be said to be when Abraham was first justified. Did not Abraham believe God when he left Ur? Evangelical belief, like Abraham's belief in Gen. 15, evidences a righteous standing before God. It does not confer it. Paul states that it is God that justifies (vs. 26), so the idea that Paul made evangelical belief in the literal blood of Christ per 3:25 as a 'sine qua non' of justification does not follow. Abraham would not have passed that strict standard, manifestly, as the Bible gives no evidence that Abraham knew clearly of the historical events of Calvary.
Certainly, though, if we view 'through faith in His blood' as a reference to the full revelation of God (whom God hath set forth - revealed in the gospel), witnessed (but not revealed) by the law and the prophets (vs. 21), it is certain that to whom this revelation is made, they cannot be thought of as having been made just by God when they reject evangelical faith in Christ's blood.
It is God that justifies in regeneration when the measure of faith is given to all the seed, so that it is of faith that it might be by grace to the end the promise of eternal life might be sure to all the seed (Rom. 4:16).
So there is no doctrinal reason for PB ministers to insist that the 'faith of Jesus Christ' be Christ's subjective faith in God, as the thought process above strikes down the Calvinist notion that evangelical belief in the gospel is to be equated with the doctrine of justification, though Calvinist ideas of associating evangelical belief with justification are consistent with the truth for those in this gospel era that already have His seed remaining in them (1 John 3:9); they err in limiting justification to propositional knowledge about Christ rather than to Christ Himself. The true object of justifying faith is the person of Christ, as experienced in the new birth. The true knowledge that justifies begins with an experiential knowledge of Christ in which direct perceptions and affections toward Him are aroused by the Spirit alone.
As we have seen, there is no contextual, grammatical, or doctrinal basis to insist that these texts refer to God and Christ having faith. With the same logic used to establish this view, no scriptural interpretation could be invalidated. There is no evidence in the context of these passages to suggest this perspective.
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