Faith or Faithfulness?
QUESTION
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith” (Galatians 5:22)
Some believe the word "faith" in this text should be translated faithfulness or means faithfulness and not the initial act of belief, what are the arguments for or against this interpretation?
ANSWER: CONSIDER THIS
Q: Can a man be faithful without faith?
A: Clearly not. If faith is a requirement for faithfulness, it follows that man must have faith prior to its exercise in faithfulness.
Q: Do unregenerate men have faith?
A: No. We know that the unregenerate do not possess faith (II Thessalonians 3:2, Romans 3:10-18) and that faith is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Q: What do we glean from all these things we know?
A: If faithfulness is a fruit of the spirit and that fruit is imparted in regeneration, then faith must be imparted in regeneration as well. It wasn't imparted prior to regeneration because the unregenerate have no faith, and a man must possess it to be faithful. It follows that even if one insists that pistis should be translated "faithfulness" in Galatians 5:22, we must affirm that "faith" is imparted in regeneration nevertheless, else faithfulness has no faith from which to proceed.
“FAITH VS FAITHFULNESS” IS IRRELEVANT
This relentless argument renders the "faith vs faithfulness" argument irrelevant. When we add to this the observation that regenerate men are not always faithful (Mark 4:40, 16:14), we must also affirm that this "faith" given in regeneration is an imparted spiritual capacity, not an ironclad guarantee of its exercise. This is why the New Testament regularly exhorts men to faith, love, patience, meekness, obedience, etc.
At the end of the day "faith" is the proper translation of the fruit of the Spirit text in Galatians. Those who recommend "faithfulness" as an alternative, end up right back where they started, once the aforementioned systematic considerations are brought to bear. To put it more kindly than MacBeth, the argument for "faithfulness" as opposed to “faith” in Galatians 5:22 is "a tale full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”
- Elder Daniel Samons