When someone has “faith,” that person believes in, trusts, or has confidence in someone or something. To “have faith” in someone is to believe that what that person says and does is true and should be trusted. Sometimes the words “believe in” are used to say the same thing as “have faith in” (see: John 3:16).
When someone “has faith in Jesus” that person believes certain things about Jesus. That is, the person believes that Jesus is God and that Jesus died for their sins (see: Romans 3:21-26). When a person believes in Jesus or has faith in Jesus, that person receives the Holy Spirit (see: Ephesians 1:13-14).
Sometimes the words “the faith” are used to talk about all the true teachings about Jesus. Paul said that some people would leave the faith (see: 1 Timothy 4:1; see also Jude 1:3). This is a way of talking about some people no longer believing the true teachings about Jesus.
The apostle Paul taught a lot about faith. He taught that having faith in Jesus is the only way for a person to be at peace with God (see: Romans 3:28; 5:1; Ephesians 2:8-9). The Jewish leaders taught that obeying the law of Moses was the way for a person to be at peace with God. There were some other people who taught that Christians must do both things. That is, they must have faith in Jesus and they must obey the law of Moses. The people who believed this are called “Judaizers.”
Paul taught that even in the Old Testament, God was at peace with someone because that person had faith in God. Paul explained this when he wrote about Abraham (see: Romans 4; Galatians 3:6-14; Hebrews 11).
See: [Apostle](../articles/apostle.md); [Save (Salvation, Saved from Sins)](../articles/save.md); [Law of Moses](../articles/lawofmoses.md); [Judaizer](../articles/judaizer.md); [Israel](../articles/israel.md); [Old Testament (Law and Prophets)](../articles/oldtestament.md); [Works (Works of the Law)](../articles/works.md)
See in Reader
