The English word “faith” does not represent the Koine word from which it is translated. And the mis-matches are significant.
The first issue in English is we have the word “faith,” a noun–so it is the name of a person, place, or ‘thing’–and a distinctly appearing word “believe,” a verb. In the Koine both the noun and verb forms appear and stem from a root that makes clear that all forms–noun, verb, adjective, adverb–are directly connected.
A separate issue of much greater significance is the English usage for “faith” and “believe,” in all their forms, are freighted with a broad spectrum of meaning that includes “hope,” “wish,” “dream,” even “think” in the sense of an optimistic outlook (“you gotta have faith”).
Yet a third issue is the ambiguity surrounding “faith” when it is anarthrous (used with no definite article) versus articulated (used with “the,” “this,” of “that”).
Finally, the English usage of “faith” (and “believe”) is highly grounded in an emotional state of being. When the context of a text is in reference to a matter previously deemed to be the case, true, actual, English does not frequent such reference with “faith” or “believe.”
As discussed elsewhere here in kaistudies, the Koine text treats anarthrous and articulated nouns differently than English. (And in Koine the anarthrous condition has no preceding word or character as there is no equivalent to “a” or “an”).
Koine mss Examples of “The Faith”
It is helpful for us to first examine NT texts that have “the faith*” in a given English translation, such as the ESV, where “faith*” represents all the forms of “faith,” including, for example, “faithful.” The pdf given below has all 30 NT occurrences of “the faith*” in the ESV, including ones that are not articulated in the Koine. The articulated examples below include “faith*” in three cases: genitive, dative, and accusative, as indicated in the right most column, showing the Koine mss from NA27. The other columns show how three respected translations have treated the same mss text.
the-WITHIN-1-WORD-faith-in-ESVGresham Machen’s Famous Defense of What Was Labelled “Fundamentalism” by Critics
In the 19th Century a particular form of Biblical unbelief emerged in Europe, largely Germany, known as “higher criticism.” There is a vast literature on this subject that is beyond our scope here. Such ‘scholarship’ diffused to the United States and led to a classic confrontation between two ‘parties’ and two individuals. Again the details are not our concern.
What is helpful to us for understanding the significance of “faith” as given in the Scriptures is a very important small book written by a then seminary professor (at Princeton Seminary) named Gresham Machen. He had been attacked as a “fundamentalist” (a claimed bad thing), and deeply out of step with the ‘best’ European scholarship (then emerging at certain U.S. seminaries), whose lack of enlightenment was actually harming the ‘Christian’ message (as understood by the offspring of “critical theorists”).
Machen struck back at the charge that being “fundamental,” meaning in effect taking the Bible as literally true (where the language calls for literality) is essential to have any Christian message. It is a brilliant book that influenced many but not his critics. The book was: Christianity and Liberalism (1923).
The primary anvil used by Machen onto which any claimed narrative, meta-view of Scripture must be wrest, was the factual historicity of events, claims, texts. Christianity rested on something with the being of existence, was real. This central idea is closely related to the above discussion of an articulated “faith”–“The Faith”–which is about something real and true, such as the very promises of God Himself, and the claims made upon the Person and Work of Jesus Christ. Such “faith” is real because it is grounded on that which is real, and revealed.
A searchable pdf of Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism is available at Monergism.com
Performing a search for “faith” reveals occurrences on 48 pages of Machen’s quite short book. What is further notable is that his reference to “faith” (in accordance with the Scripture itself) is with respect to events and claims that actually occurred.
Here are examples from Machen’s book:
The truth is that when men speak of trust in Jesus’ Person, as being possible without acceptance of the message of His death and resurrection, they do not really mean trust at all. What they designate as trust is really admiration or reverence. They reverence Jesus as the supreme Person of all history and the supreme revealer of God. But trust can come only when the supreme Person extends His saving power to us. “He went about doing good,” “He spake words such as never man spake,” “He is the express image of God”–that is reverence; “He loved me and gave Himself for me”–that is faith.
Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, 1923. [highlights mine]
But the words “He loved me and gave Himself for me” are in historical form; they constitute an account of something that happened. And they add to the fact the meaning of the fact; they contain in essence the whole profound theology of redemption through the blood of Christ. Christian doctrine lies at the very roots of faith.
Ibid.
God, therefore, it is said in effect, is not a person distinct from ourselves; on the contrary our life is a part of His. Thus the Gospel story of the Incarnation, according to modern liberalism, is sometimes thought of as a symbol of the general truth that man at his best is one with God. It is strange how such a representation can be regarded as anything new, for as a matter of fact, pantheism is a very ancient phenomenon. It has always been with us, to blight the religious life of man. And modern liberalism, even when it is not consistently pantheistic, is at any rate pantheizing. It tends everywhere to break down the separateness between God and the world, and the sharp personal distinction between God and man. Even the sin of man on this view ought logically to be regarded as part of the life of God. Very different is the living and holy God of the Bible and of Christian faith.
Ibid.
…in making Jesus the object of religious faith–the thing that was the heart and soul of Paul’s religion–Paul was in no disagreement with those who had been apostles before him. Had there been such disagreement, the “right hand of fellowship,” which the pillars of the Jerusalem Church gave to Paul (Gal. ii. 9), would have been impossible. The facts are really too plain. The whole of early Christian history is a hopeless riddle unless the Jerusalem Church, as well as Paul, made Jesus the object of religious faith. Primitive Christianity certainly did not consist in the mere imitation of Jesus.
Ibid.
The truth is, the witness of the New Testament, with regard to Jesus as the object of faith, is an absolutely unitary witness. The thing is rooted far too deep in the records of primitive Christianity ever to be removed by any critical process. The Jesus spoken of in the New Testament was no mere teacher of righteousness, no mere pioneer in a new type of religious life, but One who was regarded, and regarded Himself, as the Savior whom men could trust.
Ibid.
But the example of Jesus is a perfect example only if He was justified in what He offered to men. And He offered, not primarily guidance, but salvation; He presented Himself as the object of men’s faith. That offer is rejected by modern liberalism, but it is accepted by Christian men. There is a profound difference, then, in the attitude assumed by modern liberalism and by Christianity toward Jesus the Lord. Liberalism regards Him as an Example and Guide; Christianity, as a Savior: liberalism makes Him an example for faith; Christianity, the object of faith.
Ibid.
So fundamental is the conviction of sin in the Christian faith that it will not do to arrive at it merely by a process of reasoning; it will not do to say merely: All men (as I have been told) are sinners; I am a man; therefore I suppose I must be a sinner too. That is all the supposed conviction of sin amounts to sometimes. But the true conviction is far more immediate than that. It depends indeed upon information that comes from without; it depends upon the revelation of the law of God; it depends upon the awful verities set forth in the Bible as to the universal sinfulness of mankind. But it adds to the revelation that has come from without a conviction of the whole mind and heart, a profound understanding of one’s own lost condition, an illumination of the deadened conscience which causes a Copernican revolution in one’s attitude toward the world and toward God.
Ibid,
At the center of Christianity is the doctrine of “justification by faith.” In exalting faith, we are not immediately putting ourselves in contradiction to modern thought. Indeed faith is being exalted very high by men of the most modern type. But what kind of faith? There emerges the difference of opinion. Faith is being exalted so high today that men are being satisfied with any kind of faith, just so it is faith. It makes no difference what is believed, we are told, just so the blessed attitude of faith is there. The undogmatic faith, it is said, is better than the dogmatic, because it is purer faith–faith less weakened by the alloy of knowledge.
Ibid.
Now it is perfectly clear that such employment of faith merely as a beneficent state of the soul is bringing some results. Faith in the most absurd things sometimes produces the most beneficent and far-reaching results. But the disturbing thing is that all faith has an object. The scientific observer may not think that it is the object that does the work; from his vantage point he may see clearly that it is really the faith, considered simply as a psychological phenomenon, that is the important thing, and that any other object would have answered as well. But the one who does the believing is always convinced just exactly that it is not the faith, but the object of the faith, which is helping him. The moment he becomes convinced that it is merely the faith that is helping him, the faith disappears; for faith always involves a conviction of the objective truth or trustworthiness of the object. If the object is not really trustworthy then the faith is a false faith. It is perfectly true that such a false faith will often help a man. Things that are false will accomplish a great many useful things in the world. If I take a counterfeit coin and buy a dinner with it, the dinner is every bit as good as if the coin were a product of the mint. And what a very useful thing a dinner is! But just as I am on my way downtown to buy a dinner for a poor man, an expert tells me that my coin is a counterfeit. The miserable, heartless theorizer! While he is going into uninteresting, learned details about the primitive history of that coin, a poor man is dying for want of bread. So it is with faith. Faith is so very useful, they tell us, that we must not scrutinize its basis in truth. But, the great trouble is, such an avoidance of scrutiny itself involves the destruction of faith. For faith is essentially dogmatic. Despite all you can do, you cannot remove the element of intellectual assent from it. Faith is the opinion that some person will do something for you. If that person really will do that thing for you, then the faith is true. If he will not do it, then the faith is false. In the latter case, not all the benefits in the world will make the faith true. Though it has transformed the world from darkness to light, though it has produced thousands of glorious healthy lives, it remains a pathological phenomenon. It is false, and sooner or later it is sure to be found out.
Ibid.
But if Christian faith is based upon truth, then it is not the faith which saves the Christian but the object of the faith. And the object of the faith is Christ. Faith, then, according to the Christian view means simply receiving a gift. To have faith in Christ means to cease trying to win God’s favor by one’s own character; the man who believes in Christ simply accepts the sacrifice which Christ offered on Calvary.
Ibid.