Commentary on Galatians (31)

So a man is justified not by law (or works), but by faith. But many scholars are inaccurate when it comes to the idea of faith. For example, Jervis writes, "For Paul the power of the Christian life resides not in the intellectual assent to truth, nor in personal rigor, nor even in the simple power of confidence in God, but in recognizing that one has become incorporated into Christ." We may agree with and then discard the part about "personal rigor" for our present purpose. However, what about "the intellectual assent to truth" and "the simple power of confidence in God"? If the question is where "the power of the Christian life resides," then we may agree that assent and confidence carry no inherent power to sustain the Christian life.

But then her statement is misleading, since she proceeds to assert that this power "resides…in recognizing that one has become incorporated into Christ." How is this different from an "intellectual assent to truth"? All she does here is to specify the truth to which one gives assent, the truth that "one has become incorporated into Christ." The only way she can make a distinction here is if she intends for the act of "recognizing that" to be a non-intellectual (non-mental) recognition or assent. If this is what she means, then she has failed to defend the idea that it is possible to give non-intellectual recognition to a proposition, or to explain the kind of recognition she intends to convey.

More likely, however, she is merely following the unbiblical and annoying habit of many Christian believers and scholars to avoid exalting intellectual assent in the Christian life. She thinks that this is what she is supposed to say. Yet intellectualism is unavoidable, since the truth is that faith is mental assent, no matter how repugnant this sounds to an anti-intellectual or mystical mindset. Thus she turns from advocating an "intellectual assent" or a "simple confidence" to "recognizing that" a proposition about one's relation with Christ is true. So what do we have? Intellectual assent to truth.

In addition, if we are going to be strict about it, the whole idea conveyed by her statement is false in the first place. The question is where "the power of the Christian life resides," particularly in the theology of Paul. She denies it to assent and confidence, but grants it to recognition. We have shown that she fails to distinguish these terms, but that all three of these mean the same thing. For the sake of both accuracy and simplicity, we may identify them with what Paul calls faith.

But now, does "the power of the Christian life" reside in a person's faith in one thing or another, or does it rather reside in a proper object (of faith)? What should we mean when we assert the doctrine of "justification by faith"? I answer this question in my Commentary on Philippians as follows:

Justification is by faith not in the sense that you can save yourself by your faith; rather, the doctrine teaches that you can do nothing to save yourself, but that you must totally depend on someone else to save you. Therefore, the doctrine is teaching justification not by faith as such or by itself, but it is teaching that justification is by Christ alone. It is Christ who saves you, and not faith itself. Faith has a role because it is Christ who saves you by means of giving you faith in him (Ephesians 2:8-9; Hebrews 12:2).

Further, the doctrine of justification by faith alone does not imply that we are justified before God because we managed to work up enough faith in and by ourselves to believe in Christ, which is impossible in the first place. Rather, the doctrine contrasts faith against works – which is why it is meaningful to speak of justification by faith in Christ rather than only justification by Christ – emphasizing that we are justified by God through faith apart from works. This faith is itself not a work — that is, not a work of man, but a work of God in man.

Faith is a gift of God purchased by Christ for all those whom God has chosen for salvation. It is a gift even though it has been purchased by our Mediator because it is God who sovereignly decreed to save us through this Mediator in the first place. It is God who has sovereignly chosen those whom he would save by his grace through Christ, so that all of salvation is a gift of God — it is a sovereign gift of God, unmerited by man, that at the same time fully satisfies divine justice, since it has been merited by Christ. Thus salvation is from the grace of God alone, through the work of Christ alone, and by means of faith alone (that is, in contrast to works).

Therefore, when discussing the doctrine of justification by faith, we must not portray faith as a condition for salvation that God requires from us, as if we could produce faith in and of ourselves prior to regeneration and apart from the Spirit's power. So, although it is correct to speak of faith as our necessary response to the gospel, this "response" of faith is in fact one of the very things that Christ's atonement purchased for his elect, and that God bestows upon his chosen ones by his Spirit. In other words, God is the one who produces this response of faith in his elect. This is another reason why it is incorrect to speak of faith as an inherent power.