Today on Truth Time.
But of late, the adamancy over preaching this doctrine has changed.
A new batch of adherents have come along and taken it to the extreme.
So extreme, in fact, that virtually every verse, every verse from Paul that uses the word, "faith," they contort it.
They contort it to be about Jesus having to have faith.
And it's turning into a systematic effort to almost completely erase the responsibility of the individual to believe much of anything.
We recently heard one say that it means you transfer your faith to his faith.
In your head, maybe.
Nowhere where you see the term, "faith of Christ," can you make it say that.
And in Ephesians 2:8, we've seen the, "through faith," get turned into, "through the faith of Christ," meaning through Jesus having faith.
And tagged with the comment, "See, it's not even your faith that saves you. It's his."
This is Truth Time Radio.
I'll start today by saying the faith of Christ is what we believe, not what he had.
In our last installment, we ended with Romans 3:20.
Verse 19 says all the world is guilty before God according to the law.
Verse 20 starts with, therefore.
So all the world is guilty before God according to the law.
And because of this, therefore by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight.
By the law is the knowledge of sin.
Some come here and they use this verse to say the law is the knowledge of sin.
But that's not what it says.
Skipping a word here and there, it can completely mess up the context.
And when we mess up the context, our understanding is tarnished.
The law isn't the knowledge of sin.
The knowledge of sin came by the law.
This means the law reveals what sin is.
If the law were just the knowledge of sin, then the law could not also be the righteousness of those who kept it.
Okay, let's pick back up here with verse 21.
Here we see Paul directly making reference to a dispensational change.
A dispensational change from what he has previously been speaking about regarding Israel.
And he does so by using the words, "But now."
He just finished telling his audience that all the world is guilty before God according to the law.
And verse 20, by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight.
Which is not the best news for someone who...
Romans 2:17, rest in the law.
But thankfully, he turns the page and says, "but now."
Oh, I love it.
Romans 3:21, But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
A verse that's similar to Romans 1:17, where we read, For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
Both verses here, you'll notice, both verses talk about the righteousness of God being manifested, revealed, and Romans 1:17 says the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.
Revealed from faith to faith within the gospel of Christ.
In part three of this verse-by-verse series, we talked about the phrase, "faith to faith."
And how it's a direct reference to the faith of Israel.
Which is based on the law and the prophets, and is carried forward to the present faith that Paul is preaching for the dispensation of grace that we're currently in.
And we'll talk a little more about that phrase, faith to faith, in relation to Romans 3:21 in just a minute.
But let's focus, let's focus more on the second part of this verse here.
Being witnessed by the law and the prophets.
You see, the righteousness of God without the law is literally manifested through the grace of God, which was brought to us through the finished crosswork of Jesus Christ.
But we've got to remember, we've got to remember, let's remember that Paul is still talking about, talking to, I should say, a mixed audience of those who knew the law and those who knew of it.
I told you early on in this study, never forget that.
Keep that in mind as you're reading through the book of Romans.
It's important.
So when our dear brother Paul says being witnessed by the law and the prophets, he's talking about the fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Messiah, and his coming was both prophesied and witnessed by the law and by the prophets.
Here's Moses, Deuteronomy 18 verse 15,
(15) The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;
(16) According to all that thou desiredst of the LORD thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.
(17) And the LORD said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken.
(18) I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
(19) And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.
Prophet Jeremiah, chapter 23 verse 5, Watch,
(5) Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.
(6) In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
See that?
And we've done the homework for you, so you can go find more examples of this in Luke 24:44, John 1:45, John 5:46 and 47, Romans 1:2, Romans 16:26, Acts 3:22-25, chapter 10 verse 43, and chapter 28 verse 23.
When this is studied out, oh, it's good, when this is studied out, what you're going to find, you'll find that Romans 1:17 and chapter 3 verse 21, fit perfectly together contextually.
Which, you know, that's not going to surprise anyone that's familiar with Paul's writings, because as you well know, he doesn't tend to subject hop from one sentence to the next.
Which makes it easy to spot a verse from Paul that's been cherry-picked from its context.
Also makes it easy to see when terms or phrases that he uses are being mis-defined.
We exposed some of that.
We exposed how some teachers do this in our five-part Defining the Terms series.
Now, if we take into account all we've gone over since the beginning of Romans chapter 1 up until now, it should be clear, that the phrase, "from faith to faith," is directly referring to the faith of God and the faith of Christ.
The faith of God and the faith of Christ.
And that's something we'll address soon.
Faith to faith has everything to do with how a person was justified in time past and ages to come, versus how a person is justified during this dispensation.
Justification is a result of the faith of Christ, not by Jesus needing to have faith, but because of what the actual definition of faith of Christ is.
My friend, the faith of Christ is what we believe, not what he had.
He didn't have to have faith.
The faith of Christ is data.
Data that's been written down, a body of doctrine.
And if you stay with us, you're gonna find this out.
A couple of episodes back in part eight, we went over exactly what the faith of God is and is not.
God doesn't have faith.
He doesn't have faith in anything or anyone.
Why should he?
He doesn't need it.
He's the object of faith.
He's the object of our faith.
We already proved this previously by explaining what faith is according to Hebrews 11:1.
We proved it and how it directly connects to hope.
In his first letter, his first letter to Rome, Paul states that hope which is seen is not hope.
So for you, Jesus had to have faith folks, you're at a crossroads here.
Look both ways and ask yourself, has God seen everything or can he be surprised?
Hopefully you'll agree that nothing can surprise him.
He knows all, he knows everything.
He sees everything.
He has no need of hope.
If he doesn't need hope, he doesn't need faith.
Even our good brother, Peter, who's a part of this same household, by the way, Peter talks about the believer's faith being made sight one day.
Paul tells us that we walk by faith, not by sight.
Faith and sight are opposites.
God has all sight of everything and is not constrained by time.
He sees the past.
He sees the present.
He sees the future.
He knows the end from the beginning.
He does not have faith.
And if the God you serve is required to have faith, then you're not serving the only one true and living God.
We come here today and we can confidently read Romans 1:16 and 17, and we can see that the righteousness of God is revealed within the Gospel of Christ from the faith of God, which was the law given to Moses according to Romans chapter 3 verses 1 to 3, to the faith of Christ which is the gospel of the grace of God given to our Apostle Paul.
Romans 3:21 confirms all this by saying that the righteousness of God that is revealed from faith witnessed by the law and the prophets, to faith the faith that Paul is presently preaching for salvation.
You've got to get this.
Okay, now that we have a clear contextual understanding let's read Romans 3:21, But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
Much better.
See, the faith that Paul is presently preaching for salvation, which is also called the faith of Christ, it reveals the righteousness of God without the law.
This is the contrast.
This is where the term, "faith of Christ," comes from.
The faith of Christ which, was preached by Paul, versus the law preached by Moses.
The faith that was preached before Paul is the faith of God.
Romans 3 verses 2 and 3, the written oracles of God.
The law.
Paul's literally telling the readers of this letter to the Romans that he's taken them from faith, the faith of God, that which is written, righteousness through the law of Moses, to a different faith.
The faith of Christ, righteousness of God, without the law, not written, kept secret.
Hence, from faith to faith.
The faith of Christ, which was preached by Paul, versus the law preached by Moses.
Oh, this is good.
The faith of Christ is what we believe, not what he had.
Verse 22, Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:
Paul gets straight to the point here.
The righteousness of God is by faith of Jesus Christ, and that righteousness is unto all and upon all that believe.
There is no difference.
No difference between who?
The same one that Paul has been saying that there's no difference in since chapter 1.
Jew and Gentile.
The Jew and Gentile who had two different bodies of information.
A body of information contained in the law, the oracles of God.
The previous body of information versus the faith of Christ.
The body of information given to Paul.
This should be super clear for all who have stuck with us thus far.
We're going verse by verse and staying right there in line with the contextual parameter.
Because once we begin to ignore the context, we end up with all sorts of mixed up doctrine.
And unfortunately, MUD isn't just something you'll find in the brick and mortars of denominationalism.
Okay, now.
Let's define this often mis-defined doctrine that has found its way in the greater grace space.
It's been around for at least three decades as far as we know in some form or another.
Initially, it was likely introduced as a rather benign opinion which began to turn into a full-blown doctrine and today some have taken it to the extreme, an extreme that its early proponents probably never imagined.
Something we've always taught and you may get tired of hearing it but there are two things we're going to keep pounding on.
Context and consistency.
Context and consistency.
Something I never had when I was in religion.
And get ready.
This faith of Christ study is going to take a few episodes to bear it all out correctly.
And one thing you're going to notice is, there's no consistency in using the term, "faith of Christ," to support Jesus having to have faith.
You can't do it.
You can't take all the verses and run them and see consistency.
It won't work.
And if you'll stick around you'll see what we mean by that.
Over the years we've heard the faith of Christ defined in various ways.
There are different levels of adherence.
The most clear-cut usage is to say that Jesus had to have faith during his earthly ministry.
But you also have some that say no, the faith of Christ is just another way of saying faithfulness of Christ.
And then you have the group that will vacillate between both of these and they'll do it so quickly it's hard to nail them down for the purpose of a profitable discussion.
Even among those that have been around for quite some time and are adamant in teaching that the faith of Christ means Jesus had faith, there are just some verses that they know better than to use as a proof text for that belief.
So we're well aware of those who do not claim Jesus had faith in Romans 3:22, but still believe that other verses claim that he did.
There are ministers of reconciliation whom we've known and appreciated for many, many years and still do, but believe they wrongly teach that Jesus had to have faith.
See, we believe Jesus is God and as we demonstrated with Scripture a couple of episodes back, we don't serve a God who is required to have faith.
As for us, we could end the discussion here and be satisfied and it's basically what we've done for going on 20 years now.
Until now, we've never taught on this subject.
Not because it's not important, but because from our observation, those whom we know and respect that also believe this, have not put it out in such a way that would overthrow anyone's faith.
So we've left it alone.
But of late, the adamancy over preaching this doctrine has changed.
A new batch of adherents have come along and taken it to the extreme.
So extreme, in fact, that virtually every verse, every verse from Paul that uses the word, "faith," they contort it.
They contort it to be about Jesus having to have faith.
It's turning into a systematic effort to almost completely erase the responsibility of the individual to believe much of anything.
We recently heard one say that it means, you transfer your faith to his faith.
In your head, maybe.
But it means no such thing according to context.
You can't make it say that anywhere.
Nowhere where you see the term, "faith of Christ," can you make it say that.
And we've even heard the faith of Christ in Galatians 2:16 being so strongly promoted as a supposition of Jesus having faith, that it could easily confuse a person into accepting universalism.
And in Ephesians 2:8, we've seen the, "through faith," get turned into, "through the faith of Christ," meaning through Jesus having faith.
And tagged with the comment, "See? It's not even your faith that saves you. It's his."
We know and love some pastors and teachers who believe that Jesus had faith during his earthly ministry, which we disagree.
But even they don't use Ephesians 2:8 to do so.
They know better.
They use other passages and those are the ones we're going to dig into during this study.
We know they've believed this for decades.
However, we cannot go against our own conscience concerning what we believe an honest, contextual reading of Scripture make clear about this topic.
As far as we're concerned, the fact that these faithful ministers of reconciliation have this belief that we disagree with, it does not tarnish the fact that they are still brothers, they are still sisters in Christ, and we're very grateful for them.
And we believe their initial intention behind doing so was to give Christ all the credit and take none for themselves.
And to that, we most definitely agree.
The good intentions behind them teaching this, we question not.
Now, there are some who, what they'll do, they'll cross over, they'll cross over and teach, instead of Jesus had to have faith, they'll say, "Jesus was faithful," which is at least a true statement.
I will say that.
Jesus is faithful.
But when you see, when you're reading your Bible, and it says, "faith of Christ," that's not what it's talking about.
It's not speaking of his faithfulness.
That won't work.
There's no consistency.
It isn't speaking of the fidelity or the trustworthiness of Christ.
We have plenty of scriptures that demonstrate that.
But they don't contain the phrase, "faith of Christ," anywhere near them.
Plus, our King James Bible already uses the words, "faithful," and, "faithfulness," when speaking of those things.
So if faith of Christ meant faithfulness of Christ, then why didn't God use the word faithfulness like he did elsewhere in scripture?
See, there's a problem.
We do know of a group of what we'll call mid-Acts Baptists who seem to think faithfulness means Jesus was full of faith.
We touched on this.
We demonstrated the absurdity of that idea in part 8, if I'm not mistaken, part 8 of this Roman series.
And hear this.
Modern day perversions, they're wrong.
They make the error of changing, "the faith of Christ," to, "the faith in Christ."
Hey, don't touch God's word.
There's a huge difference between the individual having faith in Christ, and the body of doctrine whereby the body of Christ operates, which is what faith of Christ is.
The faith of Christ, preached by Paul, versus the law, preached by Moses.
Faith of Christ is what we believe, it's not what he had.
The modern versions got it wrong, King James got it right.
Now, pertaining to the incorrect idea that faith really means faithfulness, hey, faithfulness does not require faith.
Let me say that again.
Faithfulness doesn't require faith.
Now, that may come as a shock to some, but as we already demonstrated in part 8, faith does not exist without hope.
It just don't.
And in order to have hope, one must have faith.
The writer of Hebrews 11:1 lays it out plainly, and Paul says, hope that is seen is not hope.
Hope is unseen, and faith is the opposite of sight.
So what does God see?
Everything.
Therefore, he doesn't need hope.
Because that which is seen is not hope.
You've got to understand that.
He does not have faith because he has sight of everything.
And he's already declared the end from the beginning. Isaiah 46:10.
Now, after we've laid out all the reasons why God is not required to have faith, I've got a question.
And we're closing out here.
We're closing out for now.
I'm running out of time, but, we're going to come back.
Hey, this is, we're going to continue to pound on this, and we will establish it according to context of the Scripture.
We're not going to take anything out of context.
You can do that.
You can take it out of context and make faith of Christ something it is not, but you, stick around, you cannot stay in context and make the faith of Christ anything other than what we're going to show you.
Now, question.
Is God faithful?
Of course he is.
You know that.
I know that.
It's not a mystery.
And there's a plethora of Scriptures that say this.
They prove it.
They say he is and why he is.
But God doesn't have faith.
He's faithful.
They're not the same.
Faithfulness is not a virtue that requires faith.
And for good measure, let me throw this one at you.
For good measure, think about this now.
You've read it.
You've seen it.
We also see in Scripture where Paul uses the term, "faithful saying."
"Faithful saying."
He uses it, I think, four different times.
I know twice in 1 Timothy.
There's one in 2 Timothy.
And you'll find one over there in Titus.
So I ask, is a saying, is a saying capable of having faith?
Does a saying believe anything?
Of course not.
But can a saying be trustworthy and reliable?
Oh, yes it can.
And that's what Paul's talking about when he says, "faithful saying."
His faithful sayings were part of the doctrine he preached.
So we see that faithfulness does not require faith in order to be faithful.
Get it?
But instead, listen, faithfulness is an attribute that makes one worthy of being trusted, depended upon, reliable, true.
And that's, that's why God is faithful.
It's not because he had faith.
Claiming that, "faith of," really just means, "faithfulness of," doesn't fit the context where the phrase is used.
You see, the reason why the context doesn't fit is the same reason why the assertion that Jesus had to have faith doesn't fit in context either.
We're going to dive right in next time using all the verses in Paul's epistles, all of them.
Get ready.
Using all the verses in his epistles that speak of, "the faith of Christ."
And we're going to even look outside his epistles where the faith of Christ is referred to.
We've still got a lot of information to share and we're going to take as long as needed to cover it.
This topic is multifaceted and it reaches into more areas than most might have considered.
Grace and peace, guys.
Grace and peace.
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