FOREWORD

By Jack P. Lewis, PhD, Professor of Bible
Harding University Graduate School of Religion

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I had Oliver Rogers in my Master’s level class at Harding College in Searcy, Arkansas, more than fifty years ago when I first started teaching. He had come from a rural background. Oliver had come from military service with the Army Security Agency. The reward of teaching comes from what students do after they have left school. It is said that the teacher of Martin Luther’s youth regularly bowed his head in reverence when entering his classroom at being in the presence of so many future mayors, military commanders, inventors and educators.

Oliver continued his education, completing the coursework toward the PhD degree in New Testament and Early Christian Literature at the University of Chicago while serving full time with the West Chicago Church of Christ from 1955 to 1969. From 1969 until his retirement in 1995, he served as pulpit minister for the North Central Church of Christ in Bloomington, Indiana. There are not many preachers who work with only two congregations, and not many who stay that long with one congregation. Oliver now serves as an elder at North Central. He was honored as the Alumnus of the year of the Harding University Graduate School of Religion in 2001. The new wing of the Harding Graduate School library is named in honor of Oliver and his wife, Norma.

At the groundbreaking of this wing of the library, Oliver spoke in chapel of the opportunity congregations adjacent to universities have with foreign and domestic students. His illustrations were of students that had come through Bloomington, who had been won to the Gospel, and had returned to their countries and built the church there. No missionary had to spend time learning a new language. No travel money had been required.

Rogers, in his extensive study of The Faith of Christ, is concerned with how God justifies people and saves them from their sins. He is concerned about those who base their hope of salvation on their own weak and imperfect faith rather than on the Faith of Jesus Christ.

While reflecting a thorough knowledge of the scholarly discussion of the doctrine of justification, Rogers chooses to present a homilectical treatment of the key issues for the person in the pew who does not read Greek and does not know details of Greek grammar. The reader of the study will not need to shift back and forth from the text to the Bible. The needed Scriptures are quoted in full, usually from the NIV, but other translations are also quoted when their rendering is relevant to the argument.

To make his case, Rogers has surveyed the nature of God, whose essence has led him to save sinful humanity, acquitting people of their sins. In a wide sweep, God’s plan from the creation through the incarnation on to the final reward is homilectically surveyed with emphasis on faith and obedience.

The heart of the study comes in the consideration of Romans 3:22 and Galatians 2:16, where a Greek genitive phrase may describe Christ as being the object of faith or as being the subject of the faith spoken of. The one is of faith people have in Christ and the other the faith Christ had. English translations until the RV (1881) and ASV (1901) read “faith of Christ.” Those of the twentieth century (including the Catholic translations: the NAV, the NABR, and the Jerusalem Bible) read “faith, in Christ.” Rogers identifies the shift in the significant preposition (small as it may seem to be) to the influence of Martin Luther’s rendering, giving “faith alone,” that is, the believer’s faith only, as the basis of justification. Rogers states that his own view has changed in the process of study. He hopes to give others a better understanding.

Recognizing that the question cannot be solved on Greek grammatical usage, and despite the widespread allegiance of Protestantism to “faith alone,” meaning human faith, Rogers affirms that the doctrine is not taught in Scripture. At the same time, there is no reduction in Rogers’ understanding of the divine expectation of faith and obedience on the part of the one who is justified by the faith of Christ. Human faith justifies no one. One does not earn his salvation. The obedience expected of the prospect is summarized. Rogers suggests that his argument solves problems people have had with teaching of faith and works in the past.

Those who have not struggled with the question before will find themselves challenged, especially those who have been unaware of the change in translation.

Those who have struggled with the issues before will find an extensive and wholesome homiletical review of God’s plan for justification from before creation to the final glorification. The review will be wholesome.

The faith of Christ is magnified, but also the faith of Oliver Rogers is revealed.