Holding the Faith of Christ

Holding the Faith of Christ September 4, 2014

In a 2002 essay in the Andrews University Seminary Studies, Sigve Tonstad reviews the debate over the phrase pistis Christou – faith in Christ v. faith of Christ. The debate is typically confined to Paul’s letters, but Tonstad rightly points out that the last use of the phrase in the New Testament comes in Revelation which commends those who “hold to the commandments of God and the pistin Iesou” (14:12).

Tonstad comments, “The indebtedness of the standard interpretation to Lutheran categories of law and gospel need hardly be pointed out: at issue is their individual salvation, and the answer applies the formula of law and grace. But the context of the cosmic battle belies the notion that the main concern is individual salvation. Instead, in the eschatological drama of conflicting loyalties and perceptions of the Unseen, the question is rather to overcome the satanic misrepresentations, no matter how specious and persuasive, and hold to the truth about God. With the subjective genitive reading pistis Iesou, the call is for them to ‘hold firm to the way of God as it was revealed by the faithfulness of Jesus’” (58).

Theodicy is in fact the question that the “objective” reading of the phrase throws into relief, and the puzzle about how Christ’s faithfulness saves can be relieved if not resolved by recognizing that “theodicy is more important to soteriology than it is taken to be.” Jesus comes to demonstrate God’s righteousness in refutation of Satanic accusations. As Tonstad puts it, “In view of the struggle between good and evil, the incarnation, suffering, and death of Jesus – ‘the faithfulness of Jesus Christ’ -served as the ultimate rebuttal of the satanic misrepresentation that made God out to be an arbitrary and severe sovereign not worthy of the loyalty and obedience of human beings. Even within an outlook more attuned to the modern consciousness, viewing the existence of personal evil as implausible and unpalatable, the question of God’s ways remains a matter of as grave concern as it was to Habbakuk. Rectifying the sinner’s legal status has hardly ever been the only question to be resolved in setting right what has gone wrong in the relationship between human beings and the Creator” (59). 

The reference to Habakkuk is important, because Paul quotes Habakkuk at precisely the point where he introduces the gospel’s theodicy. Tonstad argues, that Habakkuk can “stand as a post-Holocaust voice heard in pre-Holocaust times, scanning the horizon for evidence that God has not abandoned the world and that the agents of chaos have not been left free to run riot. ‘If it seem slow, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay,’ Habakkuk was admonished (Hab 2:3)” (59). And the good news is that it has come, in the advent of the Son and Spirit.

Tonstad, “Pistis Christou: Reading Paul in a New Paradigm,” AUSS 20 (2002) 37-59.


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