“But if you bear the name “Jew” and rely upon the Law and boast in God, and know His will and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth, you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal?”
Romans 2:17–21
Paul’s indictment of his Jewish brethren has something to say to us gentile believers. Do we rely upon faith? – a plug an play substitution of the law or is our hope different?
What is the nature of our faith and where does it come from?
I’ve heard the gospel described this way. In the Old Testament God required obedience to the Law but now God requires faith in Christ. Isn’t God good that He made it so much easier for us to be saved. All it takes is faith.
This telling of the gospel is not uncommon. Sadly it isn’t the gospel.
This is what I mean by a plug and play version of the Law. Faith takes the place of obedience and functions the same way. If this is true then my friend your faith is Jewish and not Christian; Paul’s indictment of his brethren applies to you too.
Faith is not the Christian’s version of obedience. It is not plug and play interchangeable. If in fact we think, talk or understand it this way then we are simply doing the same thing the Jews under indictment in Romans 2 were doing. Trying to please God without Christ.
Instead, Paul is bringing us to a new and better hope. Not a different shade of law keeping called faith. Faith is not acceptable to God in place of obedience it is a completely different animal all together.
Faith is a grace, not a work. Not a replacement for obedience but arising from the obedience of another – Jesus Christ. This is helpfully stated in the Westminster Confession of Faith in chapter 14.
“The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts”
WCF 14.1
There is no better place to find this stated explicitly than in the letter to the Ephesian believers:
“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”
Ephesians 2:8
The gift of God’s grace involves the entire transaction. Grace is not God’s part and faith our part, No, God’s grace is the whole of it. Faith is a grace and a gift to the saved. Faith is in this way not plug and play speak for our obedience. It is arising from His obedience and life.
I am always helped by analogy and I hope you are too. The transaction that is being referred to here of grace and salvation amounts to two conceptual buckets. Your bucket and Christ’s bucket. What is often presented as gospel, but is not, is that you use your faith to go get some of Christ’s bucket of righteousness and put it in your bucket. That my friend is NOT the gospel. That is a plug and play replacement of the Law keeping that Paul is indicting the Jews on.
In contrast to this non-gospel we have this grace gospel which is Christ comes and takes your bucket, fills it up by plunging it under the overflowing contents of His bucket and leaves your bucket in His big, infinite bucket of righteousness. Faith is a result of this transaction not the cause or help of it. Christ and His Spirit operate exclusively on your bucket by transporting it into Christ’s perfect righteousness.
Romans 5 provides a help by considering to figures: Adam and Christ. In Adam we understand all humanity in our fallen and corrupted state. In Christ, the 2nd or Last Adam we understand all that are redeemed. The only means to be taken out of Adam and placed into the Last Adam (Christ) is by a work of Christ in securing righteousness and the Holy Spirit taking you out of Adam and putting you into the Son, Jesus -the Christ, the Last Adam. This transaction results in justification - being made right with God. Only those in Christ, the Last Adam are right with God or justified.
The WCF chapter 11.1 is helpful
Those whom God effectually calls, He also freely justifies: not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.
Notice the portion highlighted in red. Faith is not evangelical obedience, it is not a plug and play version of obedience. It isn’t an easier more attainable version of Law keeping. Faith is a grace which ALWAYS points us back to Christ who possesses His righteousness which He gives to us. This faith is then the persistent reality (sign of life) that I am made right with God in Christ alone; never am I right with God apart for Him (the Christ and the Last Adam).
So where does this leave us.
The right telling of the gospel requires that we speak about and understand faith in the right way. We ought never to speak of faith as something that we have before Christ. Both Christ and His Spirit must do their necessary work upon us first. I am never believing (exercising faith) while in Adam; faith doesn’t take me out of Adam into Christ. Christ and His Holy Spirit do this taking, transferring and placing. Faith is ONLY an activity once I’m already in Christ. This is what is meant as the grace of faith.
To belabor this point a bit more. Man is not capable, while in Adam, to please God, either by obedience to the law or by faith because both lack perfect righteousness. It is not until Christ removes us from Adam and puts us in Himself as the Last Adam that we become a new creation. A righteous creation wherein faith is characteristic of life from Him in all His new creation. In this sense we have faith because we are something new in Christ. The old has passed away (Adam) and this too is on account of Christ in His death. Everything that pertains to Adam is put to death in Christ. This topic deserves its own post – maybe later.
The faith we have by grace and exercise is a real faith. It is not God doing the believing for us. We do believe and we do make decisions and this can be a source of confusion. How is it that we, fallen human beings (members of Adam), are making these decisions and choices? It is because the Spirit has already acted upon us bringing us from death (out of Adam) into life (the Last Adam) – before we even know what has occurred we are like newborn babes, crying because we are alive.
A crying baby is a really good thing, for it is the first sign that everything is alright and that they are alive. Panic ensues when a birth occurs and there is no crying. Something is wrong. Life always results in crying and so life in Christ always is accompanied by the exercise of faith.
Not even the dullest of dads ought to think, I sure hope that baby cries because the crying causes the mom to conceive and give birth. That would be plain silly and so we ought not to talk about the gospel that way either. Crying is a symptom of life not the origin or cause of life.
We end with this expression of our boasting in Christ. We boast not in our decision or our fitness to believe but we boast in Christ who has given us hope in grace whereby we cry (as a newborn), glory to God our Father, His Son and to His Holy Spirit who has done such a work as this in me and you.
Therefore, having been justified {made right with God} by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult {boast} in hope of the glory of God.
Rom 6:1-2
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