Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Is the faith to receive the gift of eternal salvation sort of a pre-gift so that we will be able to receive the gift of salvation, sound a little confusing, but there are theological positions that say that this is true. So let’s talk about it today here on Grace in Focus. Thank you for joining us. This is the radio broadcast and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Now we have a website, faithalone.org. There you can find out a lot about us, including our free magazine. It is published six times a year. It is also called Grace in Focus. You will receive great articles in a good presentation, and we believe you’ll enjoy reading it. We want you to have it for free. That means it is free, all accept if you live outside of the 48 contiguous United States you must pay the postage. Otherwise, we want you to have it. Come and subscribe. Sign up for it today at our website, faithalone.org. 

Now with our discussion for today, here’s Bob Wilkin, along with Ken Yates. 

KEN: Welcome to Grace and Focus. You’re here with Ken Yates, and with me is Bob Wilkin, and Bob, we have a question sent in from Brian. 

BOB: I can’t answer until I figure out your shirt. Now today, his shirt says “Context Matters”, and the “T” is a cross. And underneath it, it says “Book, Chapter and Verse Please”. 

KEN: There you go, just let’s keep it in the context. 

BOB: Context, man. And keep it in the context, baby. What is that? 

KEN: Isn’t that a good shirt? It’s a good shirt. You’ve got to study the Scriptures in context. And by the way, we’re going to do it on this question here. 

BOB: Are we? Okay, context, baby.

KEN: That’s right, we’re going to look at the context. Because Brian has a question about Romans 12:3. And let me read— 

BOB: I know Romans 12:2. “Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. But 12:3 doesn’t immediately come to mind. However, this is the whole issue of is faith a gift. 

KEN: That is his question. Can someone use Romans 12:3 and say that faith is a gift? And obviously, this is the Calvinistic view that God has to give you faith. You can’t—the unbeliever is dead. 

BOB: Like a cadaver at the bottom of a well. And you can throw him a rope all day long. He’s never going to grab the rope because he’s dead. 

KEN: He’s dead. So God has to give him life before—

BOB: He has to be born again, before he believes. And then he gets the gift of faith too, because if he actually believed himself, the Calvinists say that would be a work. How that’s a work. I don’t know because it’s not a work in Scripture, but okay. 

KEN: So let’s just read Romans 12:3 first. And it says, this is the New King James. And this is going to be one of the issues. 

BOB: Not the same translation Hodges gives. 

KEN: Exactly. How do we translate this phrase at the end of the verse? That’s going to be the issue. “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one, a measure of faith.” Okay. What is that last phrase? “God has”, in the New King James version, “God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.” 

BOB: And by the way, it just hit me. If you take that verse as teaching that faith is a gift, then each one has that gift. Well, let’s assume we’re just talking about believers, because the Holy Spirit isn’t giving gifts to unbelievers. So you’d say, every believer is given the gift of faith. So you could see how Calvinists might use it that way. But now most people who want to say that this is talking about some special spiritual gift, faith is a gift. If they wanted to use this verse as a spiritual gift, there’s a bit of a problem there. And Hodges has a good discussion. 

KEN: Yeah, that’s a great discussion. One of the problem is, part of the problem is this word “measure”. What does Paul mean by that? The Greek word is metron, a measure of faith. And Hodges and his commentary discusses that. He says, clearly, this is not talking about a degree or extent of one’s faith, because that’s completely out of the context. Which goes along with my shirt by the way. Yeah, the context matters because in the next couple of verses, Paul’s going to talk about what? Spiritual gifts. 

BOB: Various gifts. 

KEN: Various gifts. 

BOB: So it makes sense that 12:3 is introducing that subject. And it’s talking about the measure of various gifts that are given. 

KEN: Right. And Hodges and his commentary makes this statement. It’s to be understood as the functional equivalent of the phrase in verse 6. And in verse 6, just a few verses later, again, he’s talking about spiritual gifts. Verse 6, he says, “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us.” 

BOB: So our gifts are gifts for God’s grace. Right. But how do we get faith in there then? Then faith itself is a gift. 

KEN: And by the way, for those who don’t have Hodges’ commentary on Romans, it’s not an easy read. It’s deep. It’s one of these things that if you’re going to study the book of Romans, it is essential, I think. 

BOB: I do too. In fact, his discussion of this verse is so clear because basically he’s saying, if we’re in the faith, we have some gift that’s been measured out to us. And then he lists what the gifts are. So he’s calling faith there essentially, what we are in. We’re in the faith. 

KEN: He’s talking about the different translations. And he mentions the New King James version, a measure of faith. And then he mentions some others. The King James version says the measure of faith. And the NIV says the measure of faith God has given you. And so we can see, as you mentioned, it seems like in our English translations, and this is the point of the question, it seems like he’s saying, God has given you faith. And then a measure of faith. 

ANNOUNCER: We will rejoin in just a moment. But years ago, Zane Hodges wrote the Gospel Under Siege. Sadly, this is still true. And GES president Bob Wilkin has recently written its sequel. Bob’s new book, The Gospel is Still Under Siege, is a book about theological clarity on the Biblical teaching about eternal salvation. It is available now. Secure yours today at the Grace Evangelical Society’s bookstore. Find it at faithalone.org/store. That’s faithalone.org/store. Now back to today’s content.

KEN: Again, Hodges in his commentary on Romans has a great discussion on this, concerning the word metron or measure. And here, I’m just going to read it, it’s just a sentence or two. He said, “Metron measure, metron should be taken to indicate what has been measured out to them as a result of their Christian faith. Not that faith has been measured out to them.” 

BOB: In fact, how does he translate it? Does any call it faith’s gift? 

KEN: Faith’s portion. 

BOB: Faith’s portion. 

KEN: A faith’s measure or he uses the word portion. And even in his—

BOB: In other words, it’s like the Christian faith itself is giving a gift to various people. And each one has their own portion. 

KEN: There you go. That’s a great way to say it. And in this context, again, going back to my t-shirt, he’s talking about spiritual gifts. 

BOB: So it wouldn’t make my sense to start with talking about some gift every single person has. 

KEN: Like faith, right? 

BOB: Because the list is—each one has different gifts, not everybody’s an eye, not everybody’s an ear, not everybody’s a hand or a foot. And so Paul’s point is we have different gifts. And so it wouldn’t make sense to the openings saying we all have this same gift. Instead, he’s saying this is faith’s portion. 

KEN: Right. And in verse six, it’s grace has been given to you. And then he starts listing some of the spiritual gifts. 

BOB: All right, let’s talk quickly about Ephesians 2:8-9. 

KEN: Well, before we do, the first part of verse 3, Paul says, don’t think too highly of yourself. And that fits the context. What is he saying? We’ve all been given gifts. So don’t think more of, in other words, I want to aspire to what Bob’s got, his gifts, you know, or his, even if we say abilities, your gift, what you’re able to do in the church, I should be content with faith’s portions that I have. Where he has placed me within the body, that’s what he’s talking about. That’s my portion. 

BOB: Right. Now, in Ephesians 2:8, some people say, “For by grace, you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it’s the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast”, they say that the “that is not of yourselves. It’s the gift of God, not of works.” And “that” refers to faith. But the problem with that is the word “that” is neuter in Greek and the word “faith” is feminine in Greek. When you have a neuter, a demonstrative pronoun like “that”, it’s looking back not to faith, but to the salvation, which is by grace through faith. 

So salvation is the gift of God, not a result of works, as anyone should boast, which by the way fits with what Jesus said in John 4:10,”If you knew the gift of God”, which he said in verse 14 is everlasting life. And you also have that in Revelation 22:17, “If anyone wishes, let him take the water of life freely” or the Greek word is, the word means without cost or free. And so the idea that faith is the gift is not taught by Ephesians 2:8-9. That’s teaching salvation is the gift. 

And there’s also another problem with saying that faith is a gift. Well, then what would John 5:40 mean? Jesus says, “But you’re not willing to come to me that you may have life.” Why would willingness have anything to do with it? If God regenerates people and gives them the gift of faith, then willingness has nothing to do with anything. In fact, in my book Is Calvinism Biblical, that’s one of the passages I talk about. 

KEN: Well, anything, all the rebukes of the Lord when he rebukes his or for not believing, 

BOB: “Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks?” 

KEN: “But you are not willing.” There it is again. And by the way, this idea of, you know, as Bob mentioned, that the word “faith” in Greek is feminine and “that” is neuter, that sounds weird. Like man, you don’t want to get into grammatical stuff. But anyone who studied a foreign language, like for those who’ve studied Spanish, faith in Spanish is feminine. 

BOB: What is it, “fe”? 

KEN: Yeah, “fe”. La Fe. And so, “la” is a feminine article there. And so, when you use feminine adjectives, or if you’re referring to a relative pronoun, referring back to it, you use the same gender, if you will. And so, it’s not just—

BOB: Even in Spanish. 

KEN: Right, even in Spanish. 

BOB: We don’t do it in English, but that’s because we don’t use gender very much.

KEN: Right. Well, we don’t have, we don’t say, well, that word is masculine in English. But a lot of languages do. 

BOB: Like “who” isn’t going to be masculine, feminine, or neuter, or, you know, whatever. Now, “he”, we know is masculine, and “she” is feminine, and “it” is neuter. But we don’t, that’s about it. We don’t have many other, a gender designation. 

KEN: Right. And so, we don’t, the point is, we use these Greek things you go, and now you’re getting into the Greek stuff. But it’s across, it’s across all languages like this. 

The bottom line for Romans 12:3, it is not faith that is given, but it is the spiritual gifts that are given. That is our portion. That’s the bottom line in Romans 12:3. 

BOB: Thank you so much, Brian, for asking this question, because I really didn’t have an answer to that. And now that you’ve gone through it, Ken, and read what Hodges said, it makes a lot of sense. And if you don’t have this commentary, I suggest you check it out. 

KEN: If you’re interested in the book of Romans, it’s a must have, yeah. 

BOB: I think it is. And even though, like you say, it’s not the easiest of reads, it’s easy to understand what he’s saying. If you’re just trying to read in one given passage, but don’t try to read it like a novel. 

KEN: Well, thanks again, Brian, for your question. And remember, keep grace in focus. 

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And on our next episode: does the Bible teach salvation as a two-step process, believing plus trusting? We hope you join us again. And in the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus.