338. The faith of the Apostles was solely in the Lord Jesus Christ, as is evident from many passages in their Epistles, of which I shall quote only the following:
It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; but the reason that I now live in the flesh is that I live in faith, which is in the Son of God. Gal. 2:20.
Paul to Jews and Greeks proclaimed repentance before God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 20:21.
The man who brought Paul outside said, What must I do to be saved? He replied, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, so shall you be saved and your household. Acts 16:30, 31.
He who possesses the Son has life; he who does not possess the Son of God has no life. I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have everlasting life and you may believe in the name of the Son of God. 1 John 5:12, 13.
We are by birth Jews, not sinners of gentile origin, but we know that man is not justified by the deeds prescribed by the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ; so we too have believed in Jesus Christ. Gal. 2:15, 16.
Since their faith was in Jesus Christ, and such faith also comes from Him, they called it 'the faith of Jesus Christ', as in Gal. 2:16 just quoted, and in the following passages:
The righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ [is manifested] to all and upon all who have believed, with a view to the justification of him who is of the faith of Jesus. Rom. 3:22, 26.
To have the righteousness which comes from the faith of Christ, the righteousness of faith which comes from God. Phil. 3:9.
Those that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus*. Rev. 14:12.
By faith which is in Christ Jesus. 2 Tim. 3:15.
In Jesus Christ is faith working through charity. Gal. 5:6. [2] These passages may serve to establish what faith was understood by Paul in the saying so often repeated nowadays in the church:
We conclude therefore that man is justified by faith without the deeds prescribed by the law. Rom. 3:28.
This was not faith in God the Father, but in His Son; much less was it in a sequence of three Gods, one from whom, another for whose sake and a third through whom. The church's belief that his faith in three persons was meant by Paul in that saying is due to the fact that for the last fourteen centuries, that is, from the time of the Council of Nicaea, the church acknowledged no other faith, and so was unaware of the existence of any other, believing it to be the sole and only possible faith. Consequently, wherever the Word of the New Testament mentions faith, this is thought to be the faith intended, and everything said there about it is attributed to this faith. As a result the only saving, faith, that in God the Saviour, has been lost, and so many fallacies too have crept into its teachings, as well as so many paradoxes which are repugnant to sound reason. For any teaching of the church which is intended to teach and point out the way to heaven, that is, to salvation, is dependent upon faith; and because, as I have said, so many fallacies and paradoxes have crept into its teaching, they were obliged to propound the dogma, that the understanding must be kept in obedience to faith. Now since in Paul's saying (Rom. 3:28) faith does not mean faith in God the Father, but in His Son, and 'the deeds prescribed by the law' do not there mean those prescribed by the Ten Commandments, but by the law of Moses given to the Jews (as is evident from the sequel to this passage, and also similar statements in the Epistle to the Galatians 2:14, 15), the foundation stone of modern faith collapses, together with the shrine erected upon it, like a house subsiding into the ground until nothing is left showing but the top of the roof.
* The Latin has 'of Jesus Christ', but this is corrected in the author's copy.