The Faith OF Christ

Last Sunday, we were exegeting Eph. 3:12 – “In whom (in Christ) we have boldness and access (to the Father) with confidence by the faith of him (by the faith of Christ).

In Christ, our new state of being is boldness, continual access and contact with God the Father, which produces confidence that is sustained by the faith of Christ.

How is the faith of Christ tied to everything else in this verse? How do we have boldness and access and confidence by the faith of Christ?

First, most modern translations (ESV, NIV, NASB, etc.) changed this phrase to “faith IN him.” This is more than a disservice to believer – this does harm to believers. By changing this verse to say, In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by faith IN him, they are tying all of your own boldness and access to God and confidence to the consistency of YOUR own faithfulness. In other words, modern translations would have you think that the only way you can have boldness and access to God and confidence is if YOU keep yourself in a high or perfect state of faith in Christ. As if YOU would lose your access to God if YOU at some point in your life stopped being faithful. As if access to God would ever be denied you after you got saved.

This is the kind of perversion of Scripture that places an impossible burden on YOU to be able to maintain ALL OF YOUR access to God and your freedom from fear and your confidence in your walk. This is a mantle too heavy for mortal shoulders.

Hear my words and hear them well – none of us ever need to feel assurance about our salvation and our access to God based upon the consistency of our faithfulness over the course of our lives. Instead, we can feel boldness in our life in Christ by the sureness of HIS faithfulness, being fully persuaded that everything the Lord promised us, He is more than able to perform it.

“Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it” (1 Thess. 5:24).

Now when it comes to the subject of the faith of Christ, it seems to me that most grace pastors define this expression from two equally viable points of view:

1. Christ’s perfect, consistent faith in His Father.
2. The fidelity of Christ – His faithfulness, trustworthiness.

Both of those definitions are so interwoven, you cannot have one without the other. We could not speak of Christ’s faithfulness if He had no faith in His Father.

Let’s start with Christ’s faith in His Father during His earthly ministry. One example, for me, of His faith was when He said that only the Father knows when the second coming will take place (Matt. 13:32, 24;36). To me, that is evidence of Christ’s faith in His Father. He doesn’t need to know when the second coming will happen. He has faith in His Father. He knows His Father. He trusts His Father. He does not need to know exactly when His second advent happens. He is perfectly content with His faith in His Father by allowing Him to only know when that will be.

Christ was faithful to His Father, but His faithfulness to His Father sprang from His faith IN His Father. He trusted and believed in the veracity of God the Father. He trusted the Father’s redemption plan. Why? Because He knew the character of His Father.

He was faithful TO God because He had faith IN God.

He trusted in God’s Word. He believed God. He accepted God’s redemption plan all the way to the cross even when His soul was desperate to not go through with it. As a result, He was faithful. He was faithful TO God because He had faith IN God.

His death on the cross was an act of perfect faith on Christ’s part. His suffering and death was the ultimate display of faith IN His Father. He was faithful TO God on the cross because He had faith IN God. Now we’re saved by a death that was a perfect act of faith by Christ. His perfect faith in God was put on display for all of us on the cross. His perfect faithfulness TO God is proof that God WILL do everything He says He’s going to do. How do we know that? Because Christ was resurrected by God just as God had promised. Christ trusted in God and was rewarded. If we trust in God, we will be rewarded. Again, I would suggest that the two views on the faith of Christ are so interwoven, they’re inseparable. You cannot be faithful to God without having faith in God.

I’d suggest the perfect definition of the faith of Christ is 1 Thess 5:24 – “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.“

This verse is talking about God the Father, but what is true about the Father is also true about the Son. If you’ve seen the Son, you’ve seen the Father.

The core assertion here is that God Himself is “faithful.” He is perfectly trustworthy. He is perfectly reliable. He keeps His promises. Because He is holy, He will be faithful to His Word. That is the underwriting of every promise. To be faithful to His Word is to be faithful to Himself, because He is holy and immutable, and a holy and immutable God would be faithful to His Word. If He goes back on His Word, He’s going back on Himself and everything He is, which He cannot do. His faithfulness to Himself and His Word is the guarantee of our eternal life. His faithfulness ensures your sanctification and preservation all the way to the end until you’re present with the Lord. His faithfulness makes your hope perfect, because there is nothing more trustworthy than God Himself.

The assurance of your salvation is not in YOUR strength or efforts, but in the unchangeable character of God. When Paul says God “will do it” (Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it) that is the assurance that God will, in fact, carry out the work mentioned in the context—namely, that He will preserve their “whole spirit and soul and body… blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Because God is the one who calls us, His integrity is committed to seeing His plans through to completion. His work does not stop when you get saved. He continues until you are presented “blameless” at the rapture. He will complete the good work He begun in you.

Just as Christ was faithfully committed to the Father in carrying out His redemption plan, the Father Himself is just as faithfully committed to His own redemption plan proven by the fact that He resurrected His Son as He said He was going to do.

As a result of our faith today in Christ’s shed blood, we receive the righteousness of God by the “faith of Christ” (Rom. 3:22, Gal. 2:16, 2:20, 3:22, Eph. 3:12). How is it that we have righteousness imputed to us by the faith of Christ? It’s the Father who imputes His righteousness onto us because of His Son. The point about the faith of Christ is that we have the gospel and the ability to get saved today because Christ operated on faith in His Father all the way to the cross. If He didn’t have faith in His Father, He would’ve never gone to the cross. The faith of Christ is how salvation is made possible today. His faith in His Father all the way to the cross is proof that the gospel can be trusted because Christ trusted it with His life and the Father resurrected Him. The faith Christ had in His Father, which made Him faithful, brought about our redemption.

This is all proof of God’s integrity, veracity, and trustworthiness. As Christ faithfully obeyed the will of the Father all the way to His death on the cross and was resurrected, so too, we know that God will faithfully carry out every promise made to all of us who have placed our faith in Him. As Paul said of Israel in Rom. 3:3, shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect, so too, we can look at 2 Tim. 2:13, and ask the same question, shall our unbelief make the faith of Christ without effect? And the answer to both of those questions is God forbid. God Himself would forbid such a thought. Nothing can undo the perfect work accomplished by the faith of Christ when He sacrificed Himself, which brought about our eternal life today. As Jesus trusted by faith in God the Father throughout His life on Earth, so too, we trust in Him by faith throughout our lives here on Earth. As David sang praises of His faithfulness to Israel (Psa. 89), so too, we may sing praises of His faithfulness to us.

We need not feel assurance in our salvation by the consistency of our own faithfulness, but we can feel boldness and confidence in our access to God and our eternal life by the sureness of His faithfulness, being fully persuaded that everything the Lord promised, He is more than able to perform it. “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.”

Let’s come back to Eph 3:12. “In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.” Let’s ask again the question we asked earlier. How is it that the faith of Christ is tied to our new state of being now having boldness and access and confidence?

It’s that all of our confidence is found in the faith of Christ.

Christ’s perfect faithfulness to His Father all the way to the cross operating on faith IN his Father is precisely why we should be confident in everything God tells us. Because Christ was. Christ was so confident in God, He died for His redemption plan. Christ’s resurrection is proof you should have perfect confidence in Him as much as Christ did and gave His life in service to the Father’s will. Just as Christ’s faith in His Father paid off, so too, our faith in the Father will pay off. Our confidence is grounded in Christ’s perfect obedience, which means your access to God is not founded on the quality of YOUR faithfulness, but on the perfect faithfulness of Christ who trusted and obeyed the Father all the way to Calvary. Because He was faithful, we are given access (cf. Phil. 2:8; Heb. 3:2, 6). Because He was faithful, we have every reason to feel confidence about everything God tells us in His Word. Now our boldness before God rests on the Lord’s completed faithfulness. Our assurance and confidence is not ultimately rooted in the fluctuating strength of our faithfulness, but in the unshakable fidelity of Christ’s perfect work of faith on the cross.

Thus, “by the faith of him,” Paul means, “by virtue of Christ’s own faithful work on our behalf, we now have confident access to God.”