By Yung Suk Kim
10 Essential Things to Know about Paul's View of Faith (PDF):
- God is the Bible’s supreme faithful character; God’s faithfulness grounds God’s righteousness, the good news, and God’s love.
- God called Abraham from nothing by grace. Abraham’s response was trust in the Lord—an ongoing, lived faith marked by struggles and perseverance, not merely intellectual assent.
- The intended order is grace → faith → law: grace precedes faith, and faith precedes the law.
- The righteous person lives by faithfulness (Hab 2:4).
- Jesus manifests God’s righteousness through faith (Rom 3:22).
- God justifies those who share in the faith of Jesus (Rom 3:26).
- Faith and the law are not opposed: the law is holy. Faith “completes” the law when the law is observed through the vision of faith; conversely, the law helps shape faithful living (e.g., love of God and neighbor).
- Faith and works are not separate (James 2:26); what matters is “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6).
- Paul’s threefold emphasis—God’s righteousness, Christ’s faithfulness, and human faith—is summed in Rom 3:22: God’s righteousness is revealed through Christ’s faithfulness and received by all who have faith.
- Above all, the primary function of faith is righteous living before God and others.
