Paul continues in his discussion of Abraham’s justification in describing what has come to be termed Sola Fide. This term is not a biblical term per se but comes from the Latin for “Faith Alone.” Not faith solely or only for the Scriptures speak that salvation involves belief, repentance, confession and so on. What the term Sola Fide means is that at the point of God’s justifying the believer, the thing that brings about this justification is the individual’s faith alone as the basis of the transaction. Justification is not prompted by religious works, morality, good behavior or any other thing that an individual may do; nor is justification removed when an individual falls into sin after he has been justified. Rather, justification is granted by God on the precondition of expressed faith. How one expresses faith has already been discussed previously herein but let it suffice to say that faith itself is a gift from God and without this gifting true saving faith is not attainable. Beyond this, once this faith has been granted by God to the believer, the individual in the same way as Abraham trusted, accepts the promises of God as not only being true (a function of the intellect) but trust worthy as the basis of material decision making (a function of the volitional will). This process of intellectual assent coupled with volitional trust is faith. It is not simply what one believes but rather the motivation of what one believes manifest as the seminal modus operandi of what one does and who one is. Along with the abandonment of an orthodox view of justification, the fundamental understanding of saving faith has also fallen into disrepute. Many in modern evangelicalism have reduced the biblical depiction of faith into “cookbook” methodologies that center more on what a person does. Faith is no longer seen as something that is received as a gift and it is no longer seen as affecting materially one’s behavior. In light of the fact that in much of faith life today the primary teaching is that faith is something the individual expresses at his own choosing, faith has ceased to be seen rightly as the fundamental change within one’s heart that motivates them to accept as absolutely trustworthy the revealed word of God. The matter of individual choice allows the individual to choose when and where faith is necessary, choose to what degree faith is exercised and choose what they must have faith in. Under such a belief system, it is no wonder that so many say they have faith while at the very same time living a very faithless existence; this is not saving faith, it is self deception. The Apostle speaks to this when he says, “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,” Four words are pivotal in this passage; “works” (ἐργαζομένῳ), “work” (ἐργαζομένῳ), “believes” (πιστεύοντι ) and “justifies” (δικαιοῦντα). The first two dealing with work and works are both present middle / passive participles while the last two are both present active participles. In verse four, Paul says that the person who by their nature “works” (ἐργαζομένῳ), what they do is the basis for what they receive. Just as one receives a wage for a job completed, so the one who works for his standing before God receives what he has earned; condemnation, “yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” The middle / passive voice of this verb gives further insight; taking the middle voice as dominant yields an action in the person that is a reciprocation of what is done to that person. Simply put, a person in this instance attempts to work for his salvation because he is being worked upon by his system of belief. This is quite easily seen in the religious of the world regardless of their particular theological tradition. Their system of belief itself is very works oriented; it teaches a works based salvation and so in accord with such its proponents work for their right standing. Why do they work? Because the system they trust works on them by teaching them such things which they simply reciprocate out of devotion to the system. Taking the passive voice as dominant yields the same result just with one less step. Under this way of thinking, the system itself is working in and through the adherent. Whereas with the middle voice the believer works reciprocally out of obedience, the passive voice construct is an adherent who is not active but passively move by the system of belief externally; the system tells him what to do and he has no part in the decision making process. Though both of these points of view may work well for the worldly kingdom they do not describe the heavenly kingdom. One note of interest here; why do so many insist that salvation must be the choice of the individual? Individual choice is the default position of the world system. Men in their prideful, lost condition believe that they have every opportunity to make choices for themselves when the reality is that they actually do not but the demonic forces of the world keep men under this self deception. As an extension of this deception, the ruler of this world has concocted a system of belief that teaches salvation as a choice of the individual and not the sovereignty of God. God is then made party to this deception by being a “loving God” who does not wish for anyone to perish and so damnation must have been what the individual chose. At the end of the day this whole system of thought is “works” (ἐργαζομένῳ) as Paul mentions in verse four and is the automatic setting for all people prior to God’s gifting of regenerative faith to the elect. As a counter point to this anthropocentric mindset, Paul in verse five says, “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,” Here the same word for works is used but it is presented in the negative form as the one who is not found in this ontological state; he is not a “working one.” Rather, Paul’s further use of the present active participle “believes” (πιστεύοντι), or a believing one, indicates that this regenerated soul, the believer, is one who sees the need to work for salvation as being erroneous and rather places his trust in God’s promises. It is this specific expression of trust in God that is evidence of the believers transformed nature; a nature that willfully accepts the promise and ability of the One who by His nature is the justifier [“justifies” (δικαιοῦντα)] of the one is in immediate need of being justified; the “ungodly.” At the end of this verse, Paul states unequivocally that this demonstration of saving faith is “counted” (λογίζεται; same term as in verse three) as right standing before God.
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