Thursday, February 08, 2007

I can say it better than God did, III.

But now the righteousness of God without hte law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all whem that believe. - Romans 3:22 KJV

Thanks now to all the helpful exegetes who have somehow ignored the genitive case ("of Jesus Christ"), here and elsewhere (Gal 2:16, 20, 3:22, Eph. 3:12) to make us better aware that it is our faith in Jesus, rather than Jesus' faith, that renders us righteous. Might it not be, though, that faith of Jesus is not a reference to Jesus' faith, but to the faith is of Jesus, i.e., about Jesus, having Jesus as its object, the faith which is about Jesus? Faith of Jesus is then not meant to be a reference to anyone's condition of believing, but rather to the content of faith (for the Latin lovers among us, that's fides quae creditur), thus defining what the true saving faith is. Which, of course, our experts have missed. Ah, what would we do without experts?



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

...," he said expertly.