Welcome back to season five of Enter the Bible, a podcast in which we share "Everything You Wanted to Know about the Bible...but were afraid to ask."
In episode 4 of season 5, Lutheran theologian and author, guest Paul R. Hinlicky joins hosts Katie Langston and Kathryn Schifferdecker. He has served congregations in New York, New Jersey, and Virginia and is an eagerly anticipated speaker at church events and academic conferences alike.
Today our theologians will be answering the question, "When Paul Talks about "Faith of Christ" (pistis christou) Does He Mean It Like Our Faith in Christ or Christ's Faithfulness?"
Watch the video version on Youtube. https://youtu.be/dPob9Yf8nAA
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Enter the Bible podcast where you can get answers or at least reflections on everything you wanted to know about the Bible. But we're afraid to ask. I'm Katie Langston.
And I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker . And today we have as our guest again, Reverend Dr. Paul Hinlicky. He's the Tise professor emeritus at Roanoke College in Virginia, and also he's on the graduate faculty at the Institute of Lutheran Theology. And just to mention that Paul and his daughter, Sarah Hinlicky Wilson, who has also been a guest on our podcast, Paul and his daughter Sarah Wilson, also have a podcast that we highly recommend called Queen of the Sciences, where they talk about theology. And it's just a fascinating podcast and we we point you towards that if you want to hear more from Paul, which we're sure you will. So welcome, Paul. Thank you for joining us again.
Thank you. It's a real pleasure to be with Enter the Bible. And I think that's a great project. Let's get people into the Bible.
Yes, we agree.
We agree. That's one of the things that, to put in a, well, I will put in another plug, because one of the things I love about your podcast with Sarah, Paul, is the way that you engage so deeply with the Bible. And it's yeah, it's one of my favorites. Whenever it comes into my feed, I'm like, Ooh, yay, I listen to it first thing. So anyway.
We've taken up some unpopular books of the Bible too.
I know, I like that. It's helpful because like, sometimes you're like, I don't know what to do with this one. So appreciate it. Um, so today we're answering a question that I guess has had some controversy in, like, smart, scholarly circles, and I wasn't super familiar with it, but it has to do with this this phrase that is found in a lot of in Paul's writings that in Greek is I'm going to say it hopefully not too wrong. Pistis Christou.
Christou. I would say so, yeah.
Pistis Christou, which is. Kind of you're going to. I'm going to say what I understand it to be. You're going to correct me. It's going to be just fine. But it's sort of like broadly means, I think, the faith of Christ. Right. And the question is, does he mean it like our faith in Christ? So it talks about like there's this faith of Christ that that's supposed to help us be saved. I'm talking really great right now. And does it mean like our faith in Christ, that we have faith in Christ and that is the thing that saves us? Or is it actually Christ's faithfulness, Christ's faithfulness to God, the Father,to, I don't know us? Who is the thing? That is the thing that saves us. So it feels like it's an important distinction, but, um. Yeah, just. Like what? Tell us more about this.
Yeah, it's it's it's in the Greek language. It's an interesting and and ambiguous expression. It's in the genitive case, the possessive case. But genitives are ambiguous because they can be either subjective or objective. Okay, that can mean is it? I can say the faith of Christ. Is that Christ's own faith? That would be a genitive of the subject or is it the faith concerning Christ? That would be the genitive of the object, right?
Oh, I see. Okay.
So it's grammatically ambiguous. But here's the special thing. It only occurs in a handful of passages in Paul's writings, and it might be helpful if I just go through these various texts so that listeners can take a look for themselves and see what we're talking about. And notice every single one of these occurrences is in the heat of battle about Paul's controversial doctrine of justification. I want you to that that's very important. The context in which this unusual expression appears is in the context of heated battle about his doctrine of justification. So let's begin in Galatians, where this battle really starts. Galatians 2:16. "Yet we know that a man is not justified by works of the law, but through..." Now here you can say either through faith in Jesus or through the faith of Jesus Christ, even as we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order that to be justified by either faith in Christ or by the faith of Christ and not by works of the law, because by the works of the law, no one shall be justified. Now, it's clear that Paul can also very simply refer to believers believing in Christ with their own faith, and he has ample ways of expressing that. In fact, in this verse even, we have believed in Christ. Jesus is there in the clause in this Galatians 2:16, Paul knows how to use this objective sense. We believe in Jesus, right? So why in this context does he use this very ambiguous phrase, Pistus Christou, the faith of Christ or the faithfulness of Christ? By the way, listeners should know Pistus can mean either faith or can mean faithfulness. Okay. So that you have you have a decision about that as well. The next famous passage follows shortly after in Galatians 2:20. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ, who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh. I live now by faith in the Son of God or by the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Now, I think in this Galatians 2:20, it's pretty clear, isn't it, because of the oppositional phrase I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God, namely who loved me and gave himself for me. So what would be the faith or the faithfulness of Jesus Christ? It would be his life of love, culminating in his self donation. Paul's undoubtedly referring to the cross now from Galatians. Paul takes this innovation in his rhetoric into while writing of the letter to the Romans. Romans 3:22. Righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ or through faithfulness of Jesus Christ. Paul immediately adds, For all who believe. So it's clear that Paul knows how to say expressly that believe human believers believe in Christ. And he puts that right next to this unusual genitive pistis through the faith of the righteousness of God, through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe, right? Paul repeats the thought in Romans 3:28. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him, the one who, now this is hard to translate. He justifies the one the RSV has justifies him who has faith in Jesus. But the Greek can be translated "and justifies the one out of the faith faithfulness of Jesus, out of the faithfulness or out of the ground, on the grounds of the faithfulness of Jesus". The final passage in Paul is in Philippians 3:9 . I want to be found in Christ, not having a righteousness of my own based on law, but that which is through the faith in Christ or the faithfulness of Christ, the righteousness that depends on faith. Once again, you see, Paul uses the the faith of Christ expression and then immediately adds a more explicit statement that the benefit of this faithfulness of Christ is for those who believe in Christ. So Paul is adding this thought, it seems to me, of a subjective genitive. The faithfulness of Christ is the grounds for the justification of sinners who believe in him. That's what Paul is getting at. And why has this this suggestion now been controversial? Lutherans, Modern Lutherans typically prefer the objective genitive the believer's faith in Christ. And Luther himself, in his Galatians commentary translated it that way. But then he lovingly dwells on the Christ who loved us and gave himself for us. So Luther feels no tension between the believer's faith and the account of the loving faithfulness of Christ for him and for others for all, right. In the modern period, I think controversially, for some Lutherans, it was Karl Barth who picked up this this interpretation of the faith of Christ. Um, here, this is. I want to quote from Karl Barth Church Dogmatics Volume two, Part two. It has, Barth writes on Galatians 2:20. I live in the faith of the in the faith of the Son of God. My faith in him has its basis in the fact that he himself, the son of God, first believed for me. And so believe that all that remains for me to do is to let my eyes rest on him, which really means to let my eyes follow him, end quote. Now I'm, you know, a well known Lutheran Luther scholar and Lutheran theologian. I think Barth is right on spot on with this. I think that's exactly the right sense and the right way to interpret it. So maybe I'll stop there and let you query me. Why should this be controversial or whatever you want to say? But that's basically the substance of the of the of the matter.
That's a that's a really helpful summary. First, and I just want to mention that for those who for those of our listeners who want to explore this issue more, that that you Paul wrote a long article on faith on the topic of faith, and it's published in the Saint Andrews Encyclopedia of Theology. So if you want to delve, listeners, if you want to delve more into this, please check that article out. So but so w hat's the payoff, I guess, or what's why why is this a controversy, Paul?
Some of the ways the controversy has broken out I think is very misleading. But it's typical of the theological confusion of our times. There are some who think that what's at stake here is a purely forensic and individualistic doctrine of justification. If you if you don't say it means faith in Christ, then you are tending toward some kind of crypto Catholic doctrine of participation in God. And that would be a deviation from the pure Lutheran preaching of the extrinsic righteousness that is imputed to sinners from outside of themselves, which credits them with righteousness even though they remain sinners. Something I mean, I'm caricaturing a little bit to get, but those are really the terms of this exaggerated controversy. Sometimes the subjective, genitive, the faithfulness of Christ then gets pushed in a direction which is kind of like a kind of Christological universalism in the sense that Christ did it all. Everyone is saved. They just don't know it yet. And and and so we don't have to worry about people whether they really come to faith. We can just get on with other kingdom business and so forth, that kind of thing. And that's how the battle's been fought between those two groups. And for me, I say a pox on both your houses.
So what where do you, how do you, here do you land between? Between those? If if we could speak of it as a between.
Yeah, I think I think here's and I think this is deeply rooted in my work on Luther. I think that salvation, Christian salvation comes in the body of Jesus Christ. In the body of Jesus Christ. And that means it was in this particular male Jewish body of the first century that Israel's faithfulness and righteousness was achieved in his unique life of self donation, in which he surrendered his life to the uncanny will of his father in the Garden of Gethsemane by totally identifying with the sinners whom he had loved and forgiven, thus fulfilling the double love commandment. And that was, of course, a great crisis, because that means that the Son of God in His faithfulness to God and to us is extinguished. Dead, buried in the tomb. Right. And that confronts his father with a dramatic decision. Do I recognize my own love for the unjust and malicious world that I see is that is his love. Jesus loved my own love. And I think the answer to that question is the deep sense of Easter morning, that it is the vindication, the father's vindication of his son's obedience. Now, that's what the phrase faithfulness of Christ stands for. And I think in the modern period from Boltmann onwards, people shied away from that implication for two reasons. They doubted the historicity of the Gospels account of Jesus and didn't want to make faith rely upon the Jesus who donated Himself even to death. Death upon a cross. They didn't think it was historically credible, and so they had to find a different basis for faith. I think that's one motive. I think the other motive is this retreat from the militancy of grace, that the idea that Jesus should before God perish because he chose to clothe himself in the sin of the world and suffer the consequences of that self clothing as an act of faithfulness, as an act of fidelity to his God and father, as well as to the world. I mean, that's that's pretty that's pretty demanding theology. I mean, it means you have to preach the cross of Christ in a way that requires an encounter, a personal encounter. And that would be the genesis of of actual faith. And you can't just say faith as a matter of believing that God is nice.
Yeah.
Right.
So when you talk about the faithfulness of Christ. Faithful. What I hear you saying, and correct me if I'm wrong. Faithfulness, not just to God the father, but also faithfulness to sinful human beings. Is that...
Yes. Yes. Yes. In this, God showed his love for us while we were yet sinners. Christ died for the ungodly. Yes. Yeah.
And so is Paul being deliberately. I know you can't get into the head of the the Apostle Paul, but it seems like it's a deliberately ambiguous phrase that Paul is using in these in these various spots in Galatians and Romans and Philippians. Is it? Is it both at the same time? Right? Is it deliberately ambiguous that it's the faithfulness of Christ and it's also our faith in this faithfulness, in his faithfulness in in Christ.
Yeah, I think that's right, Catherine. I think that Paul, let's remember this is in the context of his controversies over his doctrine of justification. And I think he wants to indicate that the reason why God justifies or makes and regards righteous believers is not simply because their belief is some kind of special good work that God now rewards. He wants to make it clear that the reason why the believers' faith puts them in the right relationship with God is because the faithfulness of Christ has anteceded. He put the whole sinful world into the right relationship with God. So it's the this just Christou phrase is inserted. I mean, it only occurs in these texts that are dealing with the controversy over justification. And did Paul have the time to work out a 16,000 word essay on faith for the Saint Andrews Encyclopedia?
Would have been helpful.
No, he was preaching. He was you know, he was he was he was apostolic preaching. And and I think it's just a stroke of kind of of writer's innovation in the process that he throws in this phrase in these text to indicate why the believer's faith should make them righteous. It's not because faith is a good work. It's because the good work was the faithfulness of Christ.
Right?
And that is what elicits the trust that now justifies the believer.
I think, you know, having come from the Mormon tradition, that's like very works. You know, you got to qualify for salvation through your works . I've had lots of conversations. Some might call them arguments with people about the kind of who does it thing, you know. But it strikes me kind of what you were saying, Paul, is like how still self-focused that whole conversation is. It's like, well, do I have to believe or do I have to do good things? And what is the bare minimum of stuff that I have to do in order to be okay with God? And it feels like this is just a total sort of almost radical paradigm shift in which that conversation is almost meaningless because it's not really about me. It's about the thing that Christ has already done in his, on the cross, you know, and and then God, the father's vindication of him in the resurrection. And that, you know, maybe for a second we could just consider that it's about Christ and not about us and. You know, ultimately.
Katie, thank you very much. That I mean, on a on the level of certain things, I've been arguing for years in Lutheran theology, what got off on a bad track when it it after the time of Martin Luther it the focus became anthropology
Right.
And then the order of salvation. I should look that up some time about how you're supposed to be justified and what steps and stages you have to go through and so forth and so on.
Exactly.
And so the whole focus became anthropocentric. Yeah. And then even the 20th century Luther revival within existentialist terms kind of renewed this. And Martin Luther was interpreted as the anxious monk searching for a gracious God. If you've ever read the early Luther, he's the angry young man looking for real righteousness.
He was pissed off. Yeah.
Yes, he was. He's not an anxious monk. That's just a lot of mythology.
Yeah. So. So say more about that. He's angry about what?
About God.
No, no. He's angry about the false security. The false security that he sees in the practices of the church all around him. And he's attacking false security. He's attacking people who say it's all okay, I do my part. God does his part for sure and say, do what's in you, do what's in you. And God does the rest.
Right.
Luther is attacking that and saying, Say no peace, Peace when there is no peace. Do not say peace. Peace where there is no peace. And so, again, the theme of militant grace recurs here. If we understand the young Luther, I think properly so, we have to move the whole discussion from the plane of anthropology to the plane of Christology.
Exactly.
And that's but that's also where this becomes very controversial, because now you're saying that the son of God had to live a life of faith. And some people find that to diminish the divinity of the Son of God. It's a very diminished divinity of a son of God who must trust his father and live by faith, not by sight. Now, that's I think that raises a very powerful Christological question. Perhaps our preconceived ideas about deity need to be corrected by the actual performance of deity, which we see in the gospel narrative of Jesus, right?
Yeah, I will say like so like as a pastor, trying to make that shift for people is very hard because I've had so many conversations with parishioners. Um, some might call them arguments. They've been very friendly. Where it's like, what if we're nice? I say, What if it's not about you? What if it's about God? What if it's about Christ? People have a very hard time. I don't know whether that's just human nature or if it's something specific to our culture. They have a very, very hard time with that shift, which I think is why we have to proclaim it over and over and over again, because it's not natural for us to to be able to to change the plane on which the conversation takes place. Um.
Yeah, I think that's right. And I think one good scriptural antidote for that is to have a serious and patient Bible study on the Sermon on the Mount, which concludes with the admonition "Seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness" and all these other petty concerns of your little self will be taken care of.
Yeah.
Yeah. It's good. Well. This is this is heady stuff and important stuff. And this this controversy is more relevant than I had anticipated. So thank you for leading us through that. I know we probably only just skimmed the surface poll, but we really appreciate your your outlining the controversy for us and then talking about your own take on it, which which is persuasive.
Well, thank you. I'm happy to have shared it.
Good. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in to this particular episode of the Enter the Bible podcast. We delved more into theology perhaps here, but rooted in scripture and animated and informed by Scripture. So that's that's how we hope that you read Scripture as well, to see there the God who is revealed, who reveals God's self, though especially in the person and work of Jesus Christ. So thank you for listening. If you are interested in learning more, you can go to the Enter the Bible website. Enter the Bible org where we have videos and more podcast and writings about various ways to interpret and to understand scripture. Thank you for joining us and we'll see you next time. Bye bye.