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“faith”

Greek New Testament Hebrews 11:1

The Greek pistis covers belief, trust, faithfulness, and loyalty simultaneously. The same word names human faith in God and God's (or Christ's) faithfulness toward humans. The pistis Christou debate — does it mean 'faith in Christ' or 'the faithfulness of Christ' — turns on this ambiguity.

The word itself

πίστις pistis

Lexicon citation

BDAG s.v. πίστις: (1) the state of being someone in whom confidence can be placed, faithfulness, reliability, fidelity; (2) trust, confidence, faith in the active sense; (3) the body of belief, faith. Three principal senses, all attested in NT.

The double sense

Pistis (πίστις) is one of the great structural words of Pauline theology. BDAG distinguishes three principal senses:

  1. Faithfulness, reliability, fidelity — the active quality of being trustworthy
  2. Trust, confidence, faith — the response of someone trusting a trustworthy agent
  3. The body of belief, “the faith” — the content of what is believed

The first and second senses are not separable in Greek as they are in modern English. Pistis names the dynamic of trust running in both directions — the trustworthiness that evokes trust and the trust that recognises trustworthiness.

The pistis Christou debate

Several Pauline phrases use the construction pistis Christou (πίστις Χριστοῦ) — most importantly:

  • Galatians 2:16, 2:20, 3:22
  • Romans 3:22, 3:26
  • Philippians 3:9
  • Ephesians 3:12

The genitive Christou (“of Christ”) is grammatically ambiguous in Greek. It can be:

  • Objective genitive — faith in Christ (Christ as the object of human faith)
  • Subjective genitive — the faithfulness of Christ (Christ as the agent exercising faithfulness)

Both readings are grammatically valid. The traditional translation tradition (KJV, NIV, ESV, BSB) uses the objective reading throughout. Beginning notably with Richard Hays’s monograph The Faith of Jesus Christ (1983) and continued through Douglas Campbell, N.T. Wright, and others, the subjective reading has gained substantial scholarly support. Some recent translations (NET, CEB) footnote both possibilities.

The theological consequences differ. Objective: salvation comes through the believer’s faith in Christ. Subjective: salvation comes through Christ’s own faithful obedience, in which believers participate. Both readings are within the Greek; neither has decisive textual support against the other.

Hebrews 11:1

Hebrews 11:1 is often cited as a definition of faith. The Greek (Nestle-Aland 28):

Ἔστιν δὲ πίστις ἐλπιζομένων ὑπόστασις, πραγμάτων ἔλεγχος οὐ βλεπομένων.

BSB: “Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see.”

Two key terms: hypostasis (substance, foundation, confidence) and elenchos (proof, conviction, evidence). The verse describes pistis in active rather than passive terms — confidence and conviction, not bare assent.

What this site does not do

We do not adjudicate the pistis Christou debate. It is genuinely contested in current NT scholarship, with serious commentators on both sides. The Greek permits both readings; the translation choice tracks larger theological commitments. We document the situation; the reader does the synthesis.

For the longer treatment, see our word entry on faith / pistis.