From start to finish
Nothing mattered more to Paul than fulfilling God’s will for his life
By Tim Trainor
Without the good news of the Gospel, and without the power that is in the Gospel, there can be no salvation, no freedom from sin, no redemption, and no life. The power of the Gospel is the theme of Paul’s letter to the Romans and the ambition of his life.
Tuesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Romans 1:16-25
Luke 11:37-41
What is the strange expression found in our reading from Romans “from faith to faith?”
In today’s Gospel reading from Luke, Jesus, in the ordinary course of events, I believe would never have had a problem with performing this washing ritual. But, it is likely that here He is deliberately sets the stage, so to speak, to making a point. It allows Him to draw attention to the fact that a person’s virtue is not to be judged by his performance or non-performance of an external cup cleansing rite. We are not to judge a book by its cover!
Jesus set up the Pharisee, who invited Him to dinner, and his other Pharisee friends in attendance, to teach them about something that they all needed to personally re-learn/correct in their understanding of being pure and clean. That is: Their Holiness! Alms giving cleanses any inner defilement and thus accomplishes what ritual washings cannot.
They have forgotten the spiritual fact that, as Jesus reminds them, “Give Alms and Everything Will Be Clean,” which is rooted in the Old Testament. The Book of Tobit teaches: “alms giving saves one from death and expiates every sin” (Tobit 12:9). This is echoed in the Book of Sirach, which says: “alms atone for sins” (Sirach 3:29).
The Old Testament alms giving was like the Sacrament of Confession is to us in the New.
Jesus tells this man, via this graphic ‘cup’ image, that Pharisees concentrate on making sure that the outside of the cup is clean while inside it is full of all kinds of depravity and corruption (like the judgmental thoughts in this man’s mind and the sinister plotting that the Pharisees in general were directing against Jesus). God is as much, if not much more, concerned about the inside as the outside.
Thus, Jesus says: So give as alms those things that are within, and then everything will be clean for you. When the inside is clean, there is no need to worry about the outside. Giving alms can be a positive act of kindness to another person, an act of love or compassion. Plus, it neutralizes greed!
It is so easy to judge people, including our fellow-Catholics, by their observance or non-observance of certain Christian customs, which of themselves are of a non-moral nature. In the past, for instance, we might have criticized a woman for not wearing a hat in church, or a priest for appearing without his Roman collar. Today, some might be scandalized because a person goes to communion after having a cup of coffee with cream & sugar in it, versus plain black, which is ok, within the designated one hour of fasting, or for some still, eating meat on Friday, even though the ‘law’ does not require it. We need to recognize that most of the passages in the Gospel attacking the Pharisees are really directed against ‘pharisees’ in our Christian communities, not to mention the pharisee in our own hearts!
Elsewhere, Jesus has told us not to judge because it is very difficult for us to know what is going on within another person’s mind/spirit. What Jesus is really emphasizing here is the inner spirit and motivation. Once that is right, everything else will be taken care of inside of our own cups (our relationship with Him and our neighbors)!
This phrase, “from faith to faith” in our New American Standard (NAS) Bible version of Romans 1:17, is the same as in the King James Version and the Christian Standard Bible. But, the English Standard Version uses the wording “from faith for faith” instead, while the New International Version uses the phrase: “by faith from first to last.” They add more clarity to what’s going on here. And perhaps the most meaningful rendering of this phrase in today’s reader, in my opinion, is found in the New Living Translation (NLT): “from start to finish, by faith.”
To fully understand the meaning that Saint Paul had in mind, consider the phrase in its context. In the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans, the apostle introduces himself to the church in Rome. While many of the believers there would have heard of Paul, they had not yet met him personally. In preparation for a future visit, Paul wants the members of the church to know him sufficiently to discern fact from fiction concerning his identity.
The high point of Paul’s introductory greeting to the church in Rome is his words: “I am not ashamed of the Gospel. It is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: for Jew first and then [note the time ordered sequence] Greek” [or Gentile]. This Gospel or Good News tells us how God makes us right in His sight.
Nothing mattered more to Paul than fulfilling God’s will for his life, which was to preach this Good News of salvation. Without the good news of the Gospel, and without the power that is in the Gospel, there can be no salvation, no freedom from sin, no redemption, and no life. The power of the Gospel is the theme of Paul’s letter to the Romans and the ambition of his life.
Paul writes with full knowledge that the church in Rome is facing persecution and suffering under Roman oppression. Many of the believers there are experiencing humiliation and shame because of their faith in Christ. Paul wants them to be assured that the worldly power of Rome cannot hold a candle to the mighty power of God—the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That Gospel is God’s limitless power directed toward the salvation of men and women. For every person who believes, whether Jew or Gentile, man or woman, black or white, the Gospel effectively becomes the saving power of God.
Paul tells the Roman Christians that “in the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed.” Righteousness is thus a complete and total work of God. Humans tend to view righteousness as something we can achieve by our own merit or actions. But the righteousness of God is different. It is a gift from God of ‘right standing’ before Him. It is our choice to accept and open this ‘gift’, or not.
In this background, the exact meaning of Paul’s phrase from faith to faith has been debated, with several plausible explanations proposed.
Let’s now look at some of these plausible explanations and follow that up with comments from the Catholic Catechism to understand our phrase: ‘from faith to faith’.
One author from GotQuestions.org said it meant: “From the faith of God, who makes the offer of salvation, to the faith of men, who receive it” and then act on in out of their belief system. In simpler terms, “Salvation comes from God’s faith (or faithfulness) to our faith.” He went on to say that “Salvation is accomplished through God’s faithfulness,” which comes first, and then to our faith, which is in response to that.
Other authors believe that Paul had in mind the spreading of faith through evangelism: “From the faith of one believer to another.” A third and widely accepted understanding is that from faith to faith speaks of a progressive, growing development of faith “from one degree of faith to another” akin to the “ever-increasing glory” per 2 Corinthians 3:18 which reads: “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
Still, another view is that Paul meant that from day one of our journey of faith until the very last day, we (the righteous) must live by faith. Whether we are brand-new followers of Christ or seasoned, mature believers who have walked with the Lord for many years, we must trust God “from start to finish” and rely on His mighty power—the power of the Gospel—to change our lives and the lives of those we encounter.
I prefer ‘From Start to Finish’, which was the last translation we looked at.
The Catholic Catechism in paragraph 1814 states: Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because He is truth itself. By faith “man freely commits his entire self to God.” For this reason the believer seeks to know and do God’s will. “The righteous shall live by faith.” Living faith “work[s] through charity.”
1815: The gift of faith remains in one who has not sinned against it. But “faith apart from works is dead” (per James 2:26) when it is deprived of hope and love, faith does not fully unite the believer to Christ and does not make him a living member of his Body.
1816: The disciple of Christ must not only keep the faith and live on it, but also profess it, confidently bear witness to it, and spread it: “All however must be prepared to confess Christ before men and to follow him along the way of the Cross, amidst the persecutions which the Church never lacks.” Service of and witness to the faith are necessary for salvation: “So every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.”
26. We begin our profession of faith by saying: “I believe” or “We believe”. Before expounding the Church’s faith, as confessed in the Creed, celebrated in the liturgy and lived in observance of God’s commandments and in prayer, we must first ask what “to believe” means. Faith is man’s response to God, who reveals himself and gives himself to man, at the same time bringing man a superabundant light as he searches for the ultimate meaning of his life. Thus we shall consider first that search (Chapter One), then the divine Revelation by which God comes to meet man (Chapter Two), and finally the response of faith [by man]. (Chapter Three).
30. “Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.” (Psalm 105) Although man can forget God or reject him, He never ceases to call every man to seek him, so as to find life and happiness. But this search for God demands of man every effort of intellect, a sound will, “an upright heart”, as well as the witness of others who teach him to seek God. “You are great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised: great is your power and your wisdom is without measure. And man, so small a part of your creation, wants to praise you: this man, though clothed with mortality and bearing the evidence of sin and the proof that you withstand the proud. Despite everything, man, though but a small a part of your creation, wants to praise you. You yourself encourage him to delight in your praise, for you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” (Saint Agustine)
And lastly, as per Matthew 10 32-33: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you’ …
I interpret ‘I never knew you’ to mean: ‘I never had a faith-driven relationship with you’ either directly, via prayer and service, or indirectly, through charity/alms to a neighbor. Which is alluded to in our Gospel reading; thus, tying these two readings together, in my opinion, when Jesus says: “You fools! Did not the maker of the outside [of both the cup and more importantly you] also make the inside[of you – your spirit/soul]? But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything [both outside (your adherence to the Law) and inside (your knowledge/relationship with God)] will be clean for you.”