The Blessings of the Empty Tomb Fill Your Hearts, Souls and Minds with

The Faith of the Risen Lord.

The Sunday of the Unrighteous Judge - Philippians 3 1-4:9 Luke 17-18:14

Question:.  Do you have faith in Jesus Christ? 

If you said "no," then you may want to stop reading the rest of this article, and or for that matter, any other article that I ever write.  If however you answered "yes", remember, one thing, so does the devil!  The apostle James writes, in the face of self righteous zeal; "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that?and shudder.[1]" To this point, Billy Graham the famous American evangelist once said to a fundamentalist Bible believing audience,

"the devil is a fundamentalist, and he is orthodox. He believes in Christ. He believes in the Bible. He believes the whole business of religion. He is even in the religion business.

Intellectually, he believes in the dogma (doctrine). He believes in the creeds. But the devil has never been saved and he is not going to heaven. You may be able to recite theology, but I tell you that is not enough. There must be a real commitment to Christ.

Have you done that? Have you come with everything? Have you allowed Him to change your life in full surrender? Can you say, "Jesus is my Savior? I am trusting in Him and Him alone for salvation. By faith I surrender to Him? I am willing to obey Him and follow Him from this moment on!"

Now if I am making you nervous, you may be saying to yourself, ?I really should have stopped reading earlier.?  But if you want, read on.  Look at what I have underlined in the 2 Bible verses below.[2] 

1.       Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Galatians 2:16

 

2.       And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:  Philippians 3:9

 

These verses are only translated this way in the King James Version of the English Bible, where almost every other translation, instead of "faith of Jesus Christ," says "faith in Jesus Christ". This point was brought to my attention just 2 weeks ago by one of our parishioners and immediately intrigued me.

This unique variant may seem insignificant until we look first at the original Greek text second, at the classical Armenian which was translated from the Greek and then finally at the grammatical meaning of the 2 translations.  Do they really mean the same thing exactly?

Original Greek:         e;an  mhj     dia      pivstews    Xristou]      ;Ihsou]

Classical Armenian:   Y;e      o[        i              havadoxn      #isovsi           Krisdosi

English Translation:     but (except for)      by the       faith              of Jesus        Christ

The English really ought to be translated the same way with both readings of the Greek and Armenian.  Why?  Because grammatically, faith is possessive--possessed by none other than Christ Himself.  The word Xristou]vv is an objective genitive meaning "of Christ" not ?in Christ?.  This means that Christ IS the object of saving faith and is also its possessor[3]. When any man therefore says he/she has faith IN Christ, he/she must understand that true and saving faith is Christ's to give and no one can possess it unless it is given by Christ[4].  True and intimate union with Christ doesn't mean a mere intellectual ascent to a knowledge or belief in Him, but by "becoming conformed unto his death[5]," and "crucified with him"[6]  

 

Faith or merely believing IN Jesus is therefore clearly not enough!  The writer of the letter to the Hebrews defines faith like this, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen"[7].  Again, if you say you have faith in Jesus, you have to be able to answer what you hope for and what evidence you have for that ?faith?.   Like a healthy apple tree, faith always produces ?good fruit.?  Is faith a natural instinct or inborn virtue of mankind?  Are some disposed to it and not others?  No.  Faith is not from us, nor is it naturally in us.  If it were, we could boast of having faith or believing and depending on this as an inherent natural property a human decision of will, an activity initiated by us or as the means through which we find righteousness before God.   This is wrong!  In fact, you may recall that St. Paul says, "if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing."8]  This should not surprise as love is an essential characteristic of God[9].  An intellectual ascent to the reality of God?s existence, a Supreme Being or even of Christ's being and even works, is not salvific if it does not depend on, or rely on Christ Himself. 

Faith is a substantial life changing gift which sanctifies and molds us into Christ's likeness.  It always produces goodness and offers proper praise and glory to God in Christ.  It trusts in God's will implicitly and without hesitation or doubt.  It is never a last resort but the beginning and end of our knowledge of God.

Jesus our God "saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.[10]"  Salvation is a gift and it is through Christ?s saving activity applied to us that we attain or are given union with Him and thus participant in His life and love.  Of course this naturally leads us to best comprehend the necessity of baptism, the means through which Christ applies His life to us by the washing with the Word and the cleansing of His Blood applied to us.[11]

Through this immersion in Christ's life, death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us and transforming us, enlightens us with the ever presence of Christ.  We become both possessor and possessed, Christ living in us and us in Him, our minds, souls and hearts[12] being conformed to Him.  Even the faith with which we therefore believe on Jesus is in fact His own faith given to us.  Did you ever imagine that you are the possessor of Christ?s faith?  For this reason, you are empowered to become children of God[13] and capable to accomplish, with the faith of Christ, anything according to God's will. 

In the Gospel last week from the Sunday of the Unrighteous Judge, Jesus asks after telling the parable of the persistent widow; "Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?" {Luke 18:8} 

Many good folk claim to have "strong" faith yet many still find themselves desperate and without hope in all sorts of situations.  Today, more than ever, people are turning to drugs, pornography, self help books, new age spirituality and many other false gods for the answer.  Some taking a more pious approach, may  say in the face of hopelessness, "all we can do now is pray," as if that is a last resort.  They may even claim to have faith IN Christ. "Hey, if I believe In Jesus, He might do this little but much needed miracle for me, although I doubt it, since all else failed."  In either case, the beginning point is self centered and driven by hopelessness. 

God?s Word does not invite the Christian to have faith In Christ, so much as the gift of Christ's faithfulness.  There is a difference

I cannot believe in Christ apart from being immersed and completely saturated with Christ?s own faith, the faith with which he surrendered to His Father's will, eternally and temporally, being born of the Virgin to save mankind through His own horrible suffering, death and burial, only to see the light of life and the glorious morn of resurrection.

 

Praying to God in complete submission with the faith of Christ sees God's promises as being already fulfilled, believing that it is God's will to always give to us according to our need and not our greed.  Last Sunday, the Advent, in the appointed epistle St. Paul urges the believer to "Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God."[14]

for For this reason we should never lose heart but rejoice in all things.  When Doubting Thomas said, "Lord I believe, help my unbelief[15]," what he was doing was submitting to Christ, repenting from his self reliance.  Thomas clearly had faith in Christ, but what he needed was the faith of Christ.   A true reliance on Christ means praying at all times, unceasingly[16], like the persistent widow.  Her example shows that we must believe that God will hear our prayer just as if it was uttered by Christ himself a prayer that is made with the assurance of Christ's own faith which "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."[17]  The faith of Christ by which "hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ Himself."[18]  Amen.