Harmonies of Faith, a sermon series for the Summer on the core beliefs of harmonious faith, week 10 of 14, preached Aug 4, 2024
Context
We believe different things and differences can help us or divide us. Some believe the best way to resolve the conflict side of differences is to make everyone believe the same things.
I don’t think God’s goal is for us is to all believe the same things. I do believe God’s will and goal for us is to tune all our different beliefs, our different faiths, to God and God’s faithfulness, until all our faiths, beliefs, are in harmony with God’s. That’s why we’ve been calling this summer series, Harmonies of Faith.
Lets group up in 2s or 3s, and wonder with one another this question…
Question of the Day
" What does faith mean to you?” Ready? Go!
(Open YouTube livestream, muted, on iPad, and chat with online attendees?)
Great! For anyone wishing to share, in person or online, what did you come up with?
Prayer for Illumination
Let’s pray… God as we open your word, may it open us. As we read your word, may it read us. Amen? Amen.
Scripture Ephesians 2:4-9, 3:8-12
2:4 but God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which God loved us 5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ[c]—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places[d] in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come God might show the immeasurable riches of God’s grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast.
3:8 Although I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to bring to the gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ 9 and to make everyone see[f] what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in[g] God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich harmonies might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.[h] 11 This was in accordance with the eternal purpose that God has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have access in boldness and confidence through faith in him.[i]
This too is the word of God for the people of God… (Thanks be to God)
Sermon Salvation by Grace THROUGH Faith
Our question of the day was about the word faith, because the English translation… through faith in Christ Jesus, or through faith in him… are perhaps the most important, overlooked, assumed, nuanced, dismissed, and debated words in all of the New Testament for Christians. The Greek phrase Bibles often translate as through faith in Christ affects everything we think and feel about God, about our relationship to God and God’s to us, our responsibility to God and to one another, how we read the rest of the Bible, and how we understand the work of God in and through Jesus.
Here are a few examples of this phrase in English from the New Testament.
Romans 3 says it this way:
21 now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been made known… 22 This righteousness is given through faith in[a] Jesus Christ…
Galatians 2 says it this way:
15 “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles 16 know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ…
Philippians 3 says it this way:
8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in[a] Christ…
Or as we just read in Ephesians 3:
11 This was in accordance with the eternal purpose that God has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have access in boldness and confidence through faith in him.[i]
The Greek word behind the English word faith is pistis… In the Bible, that Greek word is translated as faith, or trust, or belief. Those are all fair and good translations, and our question of the day came up with those and some others.
The other Greek words in our phrase might be Iesous, or Christos, or autos. Kind of obvious, isn’t it. Iesous is ? Jesus. Christos is ? Christ. Autos is ? the Greek male pronoun referring to Iesous Christos. Thus, the English translations… faith in Christ Jesus, or faith in him.
So, where are we going, Joel? Little help from ushers please?
Any English teachers here? Or foreign language teachers or speakers, like Spanish, French, Italian, even Latin? Or how about any self-identified grammar police? (come on Joanne and Lanny. Y’all are the ones who catch my grammar issues.) Today we’re going to work on some English and Greek grammar.
Let’s look at this sentence:
Joel is teaching the letters of Paul to the congregation.
What is the subject of the sentence? Great! Joel is the subject. And what part of speech is that word Joel? Yes, a noun, a proper noun.
What is the verb in this sentence? Yes, to teach.
What is the object of the sentence? Nice, the letters. Which letters? The letters of Paul.
What is that little phrase “of Paul” called, in grammar? It’s called a possessive. It is expressing who possesses the letters. Paul does. What’s the other way we often say possessives in English? We might say Paul’s letters instead of letters OF Paul.
And what is… to the congregation? A prepositional phrase, or maybe an indirect object. The preposition there is TO, and the object of the preposition is the congregation. Yall are doing great!
Now Greek is like Latin, or Spanish, or French. Nouns in Greek change their endings to tell us how each word is to be understood in Greek grammar. English doesn’t do this. But in Greek, a noun’s ending tells us its gender – masculine, feminine, or neutral… its number – singular or plural… and its Case. Case is what tells us how that noun functions in the grammar of the sentence.
In Greek, if a noun is the SUBJECT of a verb, it will be in the NOMINATIVE case. The noun Joel in our sentence, if it was in Greek, would have endings that tell us Joel is masculine, singular, and would be in the Nominative case, as the subject of the sentence.
The most common use of the GENITIVE case is if a noun is being used for possession. Paulos is the nominative singular masculine ending for Paul, but if we change it to Paulou, its still masculine and singular, but now in the Genitive case, meaning possessive… OF Paul, or Paul’s apostrophe S.
A noun in the DATIVE case is usually the object of a preposition. Sometimes, the preposition will be right there to tell us which one the author wants us to hear. But sometimes, the writer or speaker won’t include a specific preposition, and they don’t have to. The noun is in the dative case, so that tells everyone it’s an indirect object or the object of a generic assumed preposition. In English, we can’t do that. We need a preposition so if the Greek doesn’t give us one, we have to guess one.
Last, if a noun is the object of the verb, the ending changes again to the accusative case. Both words, THE and LETTERS, the article and the noun, since they are the object of the verb, would have both been in the accusative. Articles in Greek match their endings with the nouns they are attached to.
With all that in mind, let’s look at the Greek behind the passages we read.
Romans 3:22 This righteousness is given
through faith in[a] Jesus Christ…
διὰ ! πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ
We have the Greek preposition dia which translates as through. That makes sense. The dia-meter of a circle is the line that goes right through the middle of it. But we just learned most Greek prepositions are followed by nouns in the DATIVE case. This Greek preposition DIA takes its objects in the GENITIVE case. So pisteos is the Genitive form of the word for faith, and those other two words Iesou Christou are also both in the Genitive. Hmm…
In Galatians 2:16 “(We) know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but
by faith in Jesus Christ…
διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ
They chose to put BY there instead of THROUGH this time, but we get it. In English, we might say I only made it through the grace of God, or I only made it by the Grace of God, and those things say almost the same thing. We don’t literally mean we went right through the middle of the grace of God, but that God’s grace was the reason by which we made it.
Then Philippians 3:9 “…not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is
through faith in[a] Christ…
διὰ πίστεως Χριστοῦ
We are back to through again, but no Iesou this time, just the Christ part.
Finally, Ephesians 3:11 “This was in accordance with the eternal purpose that God has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have access in boldness and confidence
through faith in him.[i]”
διὰ τῆς πίστεως αὐτοῦ
It’s pretty much the same again, except for the pronoun… autou, HIM… at the end, referring back to Christ Jesus… AND one other little change. The definite article is there. That little word taes is the Greek word for “the”… dia taes pisteos autou… would more accurately be through THE faith… Him.
Did you notice something about all four of these English translations? Where did they get the English word IN?
Let’s see. IN is a preposition. There is a Greek word for IN. Earlier in Ephesians, when Paul mentions the “faithful in Christ,” the Greek reads pistois en Christo… literally faithful (ones) (plural) in Christ… with the preposition EN and Christ in the dative. In Ephesians 1:15, when Paul says “faith in the Lord,” the Greek reads pistin en to kurio… pistin for faith, the preposition EN and THE Lord, to kurio, in the Dative. But in Ephesians 3, and in Romans, and Galatians, and Philippians, there is no preposition IN there.
AH! But we said that’s okay. They don’t HAVE to include a preposition. If something is in the DATIVE case, we know to assume an English preposition of our choice. Except in all four phrases… dia pisteos iesou Christou or dia tns pisteos autou… the Iesou and Christou and autou are in the genitive case… not the dative.
Well, okay, but we said the preposition dia takes the genitive case, not the dative, so maybe that’s why? Then, why did the translation add another preposition, IN? They already have dia, through. If we try to translate this assumption into English, it sounds really clunky. Through faith Jesus Christ. Through THE faith Him. To help it sound right in English, translators assume a preposition anyway, which would be fine IF Iesou Christou and autou were Dative, but they are not. They are Genitive.
What was the other more common use of the Genitive? Anyone remember? The letters OF Paul. Genitive shows possession. There’s a cleaner better way to translate this Greek into English without having to bend the rules of grammar. The preposition dia through has a Genitive object, pisteos, faith. Then the other Genitives, Iesou Christou, autou are possessive. Through whose faith? Through faith of Christ Jesus. Through the faith OF him. Through Christ’s faith.
So many Bibles assume the preposition IN there, and say “through faith IN Him.” That’s what our pew Bible says. If we accept, believe the translation is “through faith in Christ Jesus,” or “through faith in him,” then the center of our theology, the Good News, becomes that it is our individual choice to believe, to have faith in Him is what gives us confidence, and boldness. It is our faith in Him that gives us access to God. If the authors really meant “through my or our faith in Him,” then they were telling us it is our belief and trust in Him that lets us perceive the mystery of Christ, that makes us fellow heirs and members of the body, and sharers in the promise of Christ Jesus. If the Bible is saying through faith in Him, then I can be saved if I believe in Him.
Remember what we read in Ephesian 2.
8For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9not the result of works, so that no one may boast.
If the translation is through faith in Christ, then what saves is not God’s grace, but our faith. If the translation is through faith in Christ, then we decide our salvation with belief, and it’s no longer a gift of God but a choice of ours. If the translation really is through faith in Christ, then the work of believing earns me salvation and wholeness with God, and I can boast about the great thing I have done for myself, when I believed in Him. If the translation is through faith IN Christ, then not only do we bend the rules of Greek grammar, but we take away the grace, the gift, what God does for us that we cannot do for ourselves, that we did not earn or deserve through any work or belief of our own.
There’s a better way to translate this, as “through faith OF Christ Jesus” or as Ephesians 3 puts it, “through THE faith of him.” Then it is not our ability to believe, to be fully faithful yesterday, today or tomorrow that saves, but it is God’s faith, God’s faithfulness in Jesus Christ, even to death on the cross, that saves. That is the gift of God, given freely. That is the work of God, not some decision or work of our own, so we cannot boast.
If we read this as written in the Greek, through faith OF Christ, then God is not sitting back waiting to see what we will choose to believe. God races toward us in the person of Jesus, one of perfect faithfulness, and gives God’s own self for us long before we were born or can choose to believe.
If we translate this as “through our faith in Christ,” we will not baptize infants and children but will wait for them to be old enough to believe and choose for themselves, which implies their choice for God is what makes the difference. But if we trust the Greek and translate this as through the faith, the faithfulness of Christ Jesus, we baptize infants and children, knowing God’s gift and God’s grace toward them is what saves.
If we translate this as through our faith in Christ, we will spend the rest of our lives trying to convert, or save people, by making them believe in Christ like we do, and we will awkwardly boast about how many converts we’ve baptized and saved. But if we hear the Greek translation as through the faith, the faithfulness of Christ Jesus, then we will see our neighbors and enemies, strangers and friends as somehow equally already caught up in the gift of grace God has given for all humanity and all creation, not because of our beliefs or faiths but because of God’s faithfulness. We won’t invite or expect anyone to believe like us in order to be saved, but we will invite everyone to imagine God’s gift of God’s grace through God’s faithfulness is big enough to save everyone, even them.
The Reformed doctrine is Salvation BY Grace THROUGH Faith. Will we translate faith as faith IN Christ or faith OF Christ? If we go with faith IN, the gift dangles there, waiting for us and only applies to those individuals who do the work of believing. But if we trust God is gracious, and gives salvation as a gift, then we trust it is through God’s faith, the faithfulness of Jesus Christ that saves.
Some Bibles have started putting a tiny little footnote. Look for it next time you’re reading along and see through faith IN Christ. Look for the little footnote, that says, or faith OF Christ, and believe that footnote.
Prayer
Amen? Amen.
Charge
Benediction
Now blessing, laughter, and loving be yours, and may the love of a great God who names you and holds you as the earth turns and the flowers grow be with you this day, this night, this moment, and forever more. Amen? Amen.
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