The Faithfulness of Christ

     If you have ever thought the Protestant understanding of salvation has some inconsistencies, you are not alone. I have often wondered how preachers and evangelists can say so determinedly that salvation is by grace alone, and that we can do nothing to earn or increase God’s grace toward us, but then turn around and demand that we believe certain things about God, Jesus, and the Bible. If we can add nothing, if God insists on lavishing us with grace regardless of our desert, but then is willing to withhold salvation and sentence us to eternal perdition for not accepting certain propositions, I have some serious questions about the legitimacy of this supposed grace. If a faith response is a requirement, grace is no longer grace, and we must perform a work to be saved.

     One of the reasons we have inherited this sense of obligation can be found in the typical translation of Philippians 3:8–9 and similar verses in Paul’s other letters. The NRSV translates these verses this way: “For [Christ’s] sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith” (emphasis added). Read this way, Paul seems to be saying that our faith in Christ somehow activates the righteousness of God that saves us. If that is the case, then we have moved a step away from pure grace. Faith is the work we must do to be declared righteous.

     But listen to how the meaning changes when we translate the Greek phrase pisteos Christou differently: “having a righteousness . . . that comes through the faith of Christ [or the faithfulness of Christ]” (v. 9, emphasis added). Here our salvation is no longer dependent on our own act of believing, but rather comes to us wholly as gift, as a result of Jesus’s faithfulness to God’s will and way.

     This is an admittedly radical way of looking at the question of salvation, but it accords with other comments from both Jesus and Paul. In John 15:16 Jesus says, “You did not choose me but I chose you.” Paul talks about our being helpless to do God’s will in Romans 7 and 8, unable in any way to save ourselves, and he declares in Romans 5:8, “God proves [God’s] love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” It is only through God’s initiative and Christ’s willing sacrifice, offered in utter faithfulness to God, that we have any hope of being saved.

     So what does this mean, that God will save us whether we wish to be saved or not? I honestly don’t know. I am tempted by the notion of universal salvation, but I also think that God respects our freedom enough to allow us to reject God’s gift of grace. Whatever the case may be, I am convinced that the source of our salvation is not our paltry faith and faithfulness, but Jesus’s faithfulness unto death. I also believe we are called to emulate that faithfulness, not for the purpose of earning God’s favor, but out of gratitude for the favor we have so surprisingly already received.