entative He claims to be. But no one can doubt
that He also asserts authority and power on His own account, and
solicits faith on His own behalf. Nor does He take pains, even when
challenged, to explain that He was but the agent of another. On the
contrary, as we have seen, He acts in His own right, and pronounces the
blessings of healing and forgiveness in His own name. Even when the
word 'Faith' is not mentioned the whole attitude and spirit of Jesus
impels us to the same conclusion. There was an air of independence and
authority {177} about Him which filled His disciples and others, not
merely with confidence, but with wonder and awe. His repeated word is,
'I say unto you.' And there is a class of sayings which clearly
indicate the supreme significance which He attached to His own
personality as an object of faith. Foremost among these is the great
invitation, 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and
I will give you rest.'

(3) If we turn to the epistles, and especially to the Pauline, we are
struck by the apparently changed meaning of faith. It has become more
complex and technical. It is no longer simply the receptive relation
of the soul towards Christ; it is also a justifying principle. Faith
not only unites the believer to Christ, it also translates him into a
new sphere and creates for him a new environment. The past is
cancelled. All things have become new. The man of faith has passed
out of the dominion of law into the kingdom of Grace.

The Pauline doctrine of Justification by Faith has received in the
history of the Church a twofold interpretation. On the one hand, it
has been maintained that the sole significance of faith is that it
gives to the believer power, by God's supernatural aid, to realise a
goodness of which he is naturally incapable. On the other hand, it is
held that the peculiarity of faith is that, though he himself is a
sinner deserving condemnation, it affords to the believer an assurance
of the favour with which a loving Father regards him, not on account of
his own attainments, but in virtue of the perfect obedience of the Son
of God with whom each is united by faith. The former is the more
distinctively Roman view; the latter that of the Reformed Church.
While the Catholic form of the doctrine gives to 'works' a place not
less important than faith in justification, the Protestant exalts
'faith' to the position of priority as more in harmony with the my