Faith to Faith

There is an interesting series of blog posts at the Bible Gateway called "Perspectives in Translation". Here is the assignment on translating Romans 1:17 and the summary of the responses.

If any Bible passage could be credited for igniting the Protestant Reformation, it’s Romans 1:17. Yet as Luther understood so well, this one verse could inspire a thousand scholarly monographs.

Michael Bird addresses four areas that need to be addressed in rendering a translation for this verse. These include translating dikaiosynē theou (righteousness of God) and ek piesteōs eis pistin (from faith to faith) as well as how to handle textual variants of Habakkuk 2:4. See the end of this post for his translation.

Robert Yarbrough gives five different issues that must be dealt with in translating this verse. He then asks the question which existing translation does the best job. He favors the WEB as the most accurate and defines the term accurate:

as “when the form and substance of the original is rendered as faithfully as possible into another language.”

Douglas J. Moo recommends readers check out his commentary for details on the issues regarding translating this verse. He suggests that "more literal renderings" may not be as easy for the average reader of Scriptures to understand. Translations should focus on communicating to this type of reader. He also questions the idea of "literal" renderings.

We know that there are, in fact, no “literal” equivalents: Perhaps never do the semantic ranges of our Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic words exactly match the semantic range of English words. And the same pertains to syntactical features. ... But laypeople, in particular, are badly misled by our language of “literal,” as if “literal” = accurate. It just ain’t so.

Denny Burk prefers the NIV 2011 translation. He disagrees with Moo regarding "literal renderings" and offers this definition:

[a] literal equivalent is not simply substituting form for form—a noun for a noun, a verb for a verb, a participle for a participle, etc.—though sometimes literal includes such substitutions. A literal equivalent is also one that translates a donor form with a receptor form that has a semantic range with as much overlap as possible with the donor form.

I enjoyed reading through each of the replies, however - in my opinion - they were a bit too short (at least for me) to adequately understand and assess the translation issues for this verse. It did prompt me to do some more reading and I recommend checking out Moo's commentary as well as NET Bible study notes for this verse.

In terms of translation goals, I think Moo is right in noting that translations need to be understood by the average reader of the Bible, however I really like Burk's assessment of literal renderings - they should leave as much interpretation out of the translation as possible and allow for the variant interpretations that the original language allowed for. This question is dealt with more directly by various scholars here. Ray Van Neste says it this way:

The goal of a translation is not to decide the interpretive issue in each case. Rather it is to accurately communicate the original with its ambiguity as much as possible.

Here are a sampling of renderings from several major translations:

ESV

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."

NASB

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH."

NET

For the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith, just as it is written, “The righteous by faith will live.”

KJV

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

NIV

For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."

NIV 2011

For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

NRSV

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, "The one who is righteous will live by faith.

WEB

For in it is revealed God’s righteousness from faith to faith. As it is written, ‘But the righteous shall live by faith.

Michael Bird

For in the gospel the saving righteousness of God is revealed, by faith and for faithfulness, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’”

Holiness of God V (Insane Guilt)

If chapter four of the Holiness of God was about how God's holiness unsettles people, then this chapter explored that theme through the lens of Martin Luther's life. A few weeks earlier and this chapter would have lined up well with Reformation Day.

I enjoyed Sproul's retelling of key moments in the life of Martin Luther exploring the events and personality that shaped the man who sparked the Protestant Reformation. If you are looking for a good intro to Luther this chapter is excellent. I am a church history buff and have added a new book - Here I Stand - to my ever growing Wish List too. 

The thing that struck me (maybe because I can relate to some degree) was Luther's obsession with his guilt resulting in his compulsions to go to confessions daily often for hours to be cleansed. He seemed to struggle mightily with trying to figure out how to be right before a Holy God. What brought him to a point where he could barely function...

Luther examined the Great Commandment, " `Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, `Love your neighbor as yourself"' (Luke 10:27). Then he asked himself, "What is the Great Transgression?" Some answer this question by saying that the great sin is murder, adultery, blasphemy, or unbelief. Luther disagreed. He concluded that if the Great Commandment was to love God with all the heart, then the Great Transgression was to fail to love God with all the heart. He saw a balance between great obligations and great sins.

Sproul describes most people when they realize the great demands of a Holy God:

The test is too great, too demanding; it is not fair. God will have to judge us all on a curve.  ... Lesser minds went merrily along their way, enjoying the bliss of ignorance. They were satisfied to think that God  compromise his own excellence and let them into heaven.

 However:

Luther didn't see it that way. He realized that if God graded on a curve, He would have to compromise His own holiness. To count on God doing so is supreme arrogance and supreme foolishness as well. God does not lower His own standards to accommodate us. He remains altogether holy, altogether righteous, and altogether just.

This chapter brought home the fact that we really have a poor idea of what holiness is whereas Luther really understood this concept and it impacted his life mentally, physically, and spiritually. 

Sproul quotes from Bainton's Here I Stand  the following passage where Luther describes the insane guilt and how the truth set him free:

I greatly longed to understand Paul's Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, "the justice of God," because I took it to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Therefore I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him. Yet I clung to the dear Paul and had a great yearning to know what he meant. Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that "the just shall live by faith." Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before the "justice of God" had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate of heaven....

I have seen this or portions of this quotation before and wondered from which of Luther's works was it taken. I figured a quick Internet search would clear this up and I could then read the quote in context along with the rest of the work. While I found many hits that includes portions of this quotation it took awhile before I finally found the work of Luther from which this was taken. It appears in the Preface to The Complete Edition of Luther's Latin Works, which was published in 1545. However even this link is only an excerpt from the preface.



Since Romans 1:17 was such a crucial passage in Luther's understanding the gospel and coming to Jesus I wanted to let readers know of a series that was done recently where scholars explore how to translate that passage.

In my searches for the source of this quote I did find the 6 part lecture series on this book from Ligonier Ministries. Here is the link to the lecture for this chapter.

Click here for other thoughts.

Reformation Thoughts from around the Internet

Halloween is over and the Colts look to be cruising to a win on MNF, so decided to see what others in the blog-o-sphere wrote regarding the Reformation.

The iMonk has a good post on the Reformation and a lengthy quote from Martin Luther's Concerning Christian Liberty (1520).

But you will ask:—“What is this word, and by what means is it to be used, since there are so many words of God?” I answer, the Apostle Paul (Rom. i.) explains what it is, namely, the Gospel of God, concerning His Son, incarnate, suffering, risen, and glorified through the Spirit, the sanctifier. To preach Christ is to feed the soul, to justify it, to set it free, and to save it, if it believes the preaching. For faith alone, and the efficacious use of the word of God, bring salvation.

Chris Castaldo retells the story of Luther at the Diet of Worms in 1521. He concludes with this quote from McGrath's Christianity's Dangerous Idea:

At its heart, the emergence and growth of Protestantism concerned one of the most fundamental questions that can confront any religion: Who has the authority to define its faith? Institutions or individuals? Who has the right to interpret its foundational document, the Bible?

While Tetzel's selling of indulgences were the primary problem dealt with in 1517 these posts capture the major issues of the Reformation - what is the Gospel and who has the authority to interpret Scripture? For more on the latter see this post.


Update: Found another post on John Armstrong's blog. He examines Peter Kreeft’s book The God Who Loves You in light of the Reformation:

His seventh big idea brought Dr. Kreeft back to the Protestant Reformation and made him think about its core message. On this day I find his insight powerful and unifying. His seventh “eureka” moment led him to write: “The gift of God’s love is ours for the taking.” He writes:

I am a Roman Catholic. But the most liberating idea I have ever learned I heard first from Martin Luther. Pope John Paul II told the German Lutheran bishops that Luther was profoundly right about this idea. He said that Catholic teaching affirms it just as strongly and that there is no contradiction between Protestant and Catholic theology on this terribly important point, which was the central issue of the Protestant Reformation. I speak, of course, about “justification by faith” and its consequence, which Luther called “Christian liberty” or “the liberty of a Christian” in his little gem of fan essay by that name (The God Who Loves You, 23).
...
The point, Kreeft reasons, is rather simple: heaven is free because God’s love is free! Salvation is a gift to be taken by faith and not by human performance in any sense.

I have not read Kreeft's book (though I have examined some of his series on philosophy (Socrates meets...), but from these excerpts he certainly understood the important principle sola fide!

Happy Reformation Day (Three Walls)

On October 31, 1517 Martin Luther (1483–1546) posted the 95 Theses protesting among many things the sale of indulgences.

#27 There is no divine authority for preaching that the soul flies out of the purgatory immediately the money clinks in the bottom of the chest.

His goal was to reform the Roman Catholic Church. The result was the Protestant Reformation.

95 Theses

As we celebrate this important day in history we turn to another of Luther's writings, the Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Respecting the Reformation of the Christian Estate, which was written in 1520 after determining that reform of the RCC was not likely. Here he addressed the issues that prevented reform from occurring. 

The Romanists have, with great adroitness, drawn three walls round themselves, with which they have hitherto protected themselves, so that no one could reform them, whereby all Christendom has fallen terribly.

• Firstly, if pressed by the temporal power, they have affirmed and maintained that the temporal power has no jurisdiction over them, but on the contrary that the spiritual power is above the temporal.

• Secondly, if it were proposed to admonish them with the Scriptures, they objected that no one may interpret the Scriptures but the Pope.

• Thirdly, if they are threatened with a Council, they pretend that no one may call a Council but the Pope.

... Now may God help us, and give us one of those trumpets, that overthrew the walls of Jericho, so that we may blow down these walls of straw and paper, and that we may set free our Christian rods, for the chastisement of sin, and expose the craft and deceit of the devil, so that we may amend ourselves by punishment and again obtain God’s favour.

The rest of this part of the work is dedicated to dismantling these walls. On the first wall the temporal and spiritual powers mentioned are the false divisions setup between clergy (Spiritual Estate) and laity (Temporal Estate). Luther correctly argues that no such division exists because a person is not more spiritual than another because of the office they hold. Each person that is in Christ is both a priest and a member of the body of Christ. Therefore those holding offices in the church are not exempt from being rebuked and corrected by those who do not hold offices within the church.

It has been devised, that the Pope, bishops, priests and monks are called the Spiritual Estate; Princes, lords, artificers and peasants, are the Temporal Estate; which is a very fine, hypocritical device. But let no one be made afraid by it; and that for this reason: That all Christians are truly of the Spiritual Estate, and there is no difference among them, save of office alone. As St. Paul says (1 Cor. xii.), we are all one body, though each member does its own work, to serve the others. This is because we have one baptism, one gospel, one faith, and are all Christians alike; for baptism, gospel and faith, these alone make Spiritual and Christian people. ... Thus we are all consecrated as priests by baptism, as St. Peter says: “Ye are a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Peter ii. 9); and in the book of Revelations: “and hast made us unto our God, kings and priests.” (Rev. v. 10.)

From this Luther will argue that all Christians have the liberty to interpret the Scriptures.

Therefore it is a wickedly devised fable, and they cannot quote a single letter to confirm it, that it is for the Pope alone to interpret the Scriptures or to confirm the interpretation of them: they have assumed the authority of their own selves. ... Besides that, we are all priests, as I have said, and have all one faith, one gospel, one sacrament; how then should we not have the power of discerning and judging what is right or wrong in matters of faith? What becomes of St. Paul’s words: “But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man” (1 Cor. ii. 15); and also, “we having the same spirit of faith.” (2 Cor. iv. 13.) Why then should we not perceive as well as an unbelieving Pope, what agrees, or disagrees with our faith? ... Therefore it behooves every Christian to aid the faith by understanding and defending it, and by condemning all errors.

Luther than concludes that

[t]he third wall falls of itself, as soon as the first two have fallen; for if the Pope acts contrary to the Scriptures, we are bound to stand by the Scriptures, to punish and to constrain him, according to Christ’s commandment; ... But as for their boasts of their authority, that no one must oppose it, this is idle talk. No one in Christendom has any authority to do harm, or to forbid others to prevent harm being done.

Luther wisely pointed out three walls that prevented reform in the RCC. However we should not just read these in recognition of the Reformation and ignore the fact that these walls need to be seen as warnings for us today as well. We should all take the spirit of the Reformation to heart and guard against them in our ministry.

Those who hold positions of leadership in the church should be careful to avoid building these walls as the serve those they lead thus falling into the error of the Pope and bishops.

• The first wall we must guard against is thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought (Rom 12:3; Phil 2:3) or believing that we are more spiritual than others (Luke 18:9-14). We are all sinners in need of grace and we are all members of the body of Christ through faith with different gifts (1 Cor 12:11-12).  
• The second  wall we must guard against is having both the courage to contend earnestly for the faith while also being humble in our approach to the Scriptures being willing to listen and engage in honest discussion over our differences in interpretations.
• The third wall  we must guard against is the pride and stubbornness that refuses correction when we sin or go astray (Prov 13:18). We must be willing to grow from the often difficult process of being sharpened by others (Prov 27:17).

Members of the body of Christ who do not hold an office of leadership are also prone to all these temptations and must be on guard against them in their own lives as well. We must recognize that we are to obey our leaders who are in authority (Heb 13:17) but we also must be willing to be reformers making sure we have good accountability for our local church leaders, we are acting as good Bereans studying the Scriptures (Acts 17:11), and are willing to confront error and sin as needed in a Biblical manner (1 Tim 5:19; Matt 18:15-17).

Happy Reformation Day

On Oct. 31, 1517 Martin Luther (reportedly) nailed the 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany thus sparking the Protestant Reformation.

The immediate problem Luther was dealing with was the selling of indulgences to pardon sins and free souls from purgatory. This was an offense to the real good news that we are saved by grace through faith!

A few years after posting the 95 Theses Luther would write Concerning Christian Liberty describing the inner and outer man, and the relationship between faith and works. In this work he gives the following illustration:

To make what we have said more easily understood, let us set it forth under a figure. The works of a Christian man, who is justified and saved by his faith out of the pure and unbought mercy of God, ought to be regarded in the same light as would have been those of Adam and Eve in paradise and of all their posterity if they had not sinned. Of them it is said, "The Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it" (Gen. ii. 15). Now Adam had been created by God just and righteous, so that he could not have needed to be justified and made righteous by keeping the garden and working in it; but, that he might not be unemployed, God gave him the business of keeping and cultivating paradise. These would have indeed been works of perfect freedom, being done for no object but that of pleasing God, and not in order to obtain justification, which he already had to the full, and which would have been innate in us all.

So it is with the works of a believer. Being by his faith replaced afresh in paradise and created anew, he does not need works for his justification, but that he may not be idle, but may exercise his own body and preserve it. His works are to be done freely, with the sole object of pleasing God. Only we are not yet fully created anew in perfect faith and love; these require to be increased, not, however, through works, but through themselves.

Let's remember the courage of Martin Luther and other reformers who took a strong stand for Jesus making sure that the truth of the Gospel was clearly taught at a time when it was dangerous to do so.