3:22
We are now told how this righteousness works, it is through faith. Now the Greek actually reads “faith of Jesus Christ” and this could be taken in two ways. It could be talking about Christ’s faithfulness, or about our faith in Jesus Christ. Now in the overall picture both of these are essential and true. Jesus was completely obedient to the Father, if He had not been, if He had not gone to the cross, we would still be completely lost. And without faith in Christ, there is no hope for us. Which of the two is to be preferred depends upon the wider context, upon whether Paul is focusing on the work of Christ, or whether the focus is our right response. Generally it is preferred that it is our faith in Christ that is the primary issue here. However, it could be that all this is missing the point, that trying to work out which of these two readings is correct really isn’t that helpful. Our salvation, our righteousness, is absolutely dependent upon two things. One is the work of Christ, and the other is our putting our trust in that work, in Jesus, in who He is and what He has done. So the two are inextricably bound together.
“For there is no distinction.” We are back to the issue of Jews and Gentiles. Both are in the same boat, and the next verses will say why in a very succinct manner.
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