Mark Horne points out that according to Hebrews 11:8-10, Abraham was justified by faith back in Genesis 12:
Is Genesis 15 an attack on forensic justification? « Biblical Horizons
But Genesis 12 says nothing of faith. It just says that God told Abraham to go, and Abraham went obediently. But as James 2:22-23 notes, “doing” is “believing”.
As I am sure some will be concerned about the title of this blog (as some have been over the same title at my old xanga), please allow me the opportunity to ease those concerns.
So, Why “Sola Fidelity”?
First, I thought the name was cool, provocative, and unique. When I put “Sola Fidelity” on the heading of my xanga over a year ago, I Googled the phrase and found only one hit. The hit was from a Roman Catholic message board where some users were arguing over “Sola Fide“, but referring to it as “Sola Fidelity”. Thus, if that site is at all representative of Roman Catholic dogma, any accusation that this is Romanism can be dismissed because they seem to even reject “Sola Fidelity”.
Second, the church in America is horribly lawless. “Easy believism“, “Once Saved, Always Saved” (which is not the same as the Perseverance of the Saints), making a distinction between the calling of Believers and the calling of Disciples, etc. has reduced “Sola Fide” to “Sola Assensus“, where the minimum requirement for church life is a nodding of the head at certain ideas about Jesus, if anything is required at all. The result of this is that the Church in America is not at all visibly distinguishable from the unchurced. We need to be reminded, and warned, that the only sort of faith that can lay hold of the redemption purchased by Christ is no dead faith, but works by love (WCF XI.II).
So, if by “Sola Fidelity”, it is taken that I am adding “faithfulness” to the “faith” which is the lone instrument of the believer’s union with Christ and justification, rest assured that I am only doing it in the sense that James does. 🙂 Note that James 2 is cited by the framers of the Westminster Confession in the chapter on Justification, in the section alluded to above (WCF XI.II). This should lay to rest the modern notion that James’ usage of the word differs from Paul’s. They both taught Sola Fide. But they also both taught that only a living, active, obedient faith qualifies as the “fide” in “Sola Fide“. Thus, they also taught “Sola Fidelity”.
Sola Fidelity 