What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. (Romans 9:30, KJV)
Back in late February, in prayer I asked God this question, What, exactly, is the gospel of the kingdom? And then, quickly, before I could contrive an answer, I “heard” the following: That the Holiness of God has come down to mankind and that He Fills us. I understood this to mean that He fills us in whatever way we need filling, an example being the story of the Samaritan woman at the well whom Jesus filled with living water.
I struggled to balance this new information with the soul-shaking information I had already uncovered in my last study when I had cross-referenced Romans 9:29 where Paul mentioned Sodom and Gomorrha to the gospel passages in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, where Jesus’ sent his disciples out two by two to announce the gospel of the kingdom to the lost sheep of Israel. It was as if I had an epiphany, but was unable to connect the dots. At that point I reread the whole of chapter 9 in my hard copy of George Ricker Berry’s “Interlinear Greek-English New Testament.” It was then that the little word ek zinged off the page in verse 30 and arrested my attention. I could see that Berry had translated the word as “by,” but my memory jogged me of something else, so I checked out Strong’s definition.
1537. ek or ex
ek or ex: from, from out of
Original Word: ἐκ, ἐξ
Part of Speech: Preposition
Transliteration: ek or ex
Phonetic Spelling: (ek)
Definition: from, from out of
Usage: from out, out from among, from, suggesting from the interior outwards.
1537 ek (a preposition, written eks before a vowel) – properly, “out from and to” (the outcome); out from within. 1537 /ek (“out of”) is one of the most under-translated (and therefore mis-translated) Greek propositions – often being confined to the meaning “by.” 1537 (ek) has a two-layered meaning (“out from and to“) which makes it out-come oriented (out of the depths of the source and extending to its impact on the object).
Quickly I reread all of chapter 9 in Berry’s Interlinear to see if ek or ex showed up again. Unless I miscounted, I found 10 occurences, where he had translated the preposition in a variety of ways: of, by, out of (one time,) and from among (twice.) To further appease my curiosity, I quickly inventoried my selection of Blue Letter Bible English translations to see how they translated the one occurrence of ek in Romans 9:30 and this is what I found. NKJV—OF faith; CSB (Christian Standard)—FROM faith; KJV—OF faith; NIV—BY faith; ASV—OF faith; HNV—OF faith; YLT—OF faith.
You can see that Strong was pretty accurate in his assessment that ek or ex, if the truest translation is properly, “out from and to”, that /ek (“out of”) is one of the most under-translated (and therefore mis-translated) Greek propositions – often being confined to the meaning “by.” To me there is a vast difference between “by” and “from out of.” When you insert “from out of” in front of the words Christ or works or faith, you get a whole other level of meaning than you do from the more pallid word “by.” It flashed into my mind that “from out of” insinuates that something comes out of the very “guts” of, as in verse 30, faith.
This strong reminder to me of the true meaning of this common preposition ek/ex, helped to pull together much that puzzled me about the previous content of chapter 9. Now, however, I was faced with the added challenge of connecting up everything I had gathered so far with the new information about gentile’s faith versus Israel’s being added into the mix. Even though I wasn’t sure how all the parts would fit together, I was eager to start writing. One thing I’ve learned, though, is that when Father wants to teach me or to impress a thing deeply, He gives me “experiences.”
When I awoke Monday morning, a crippling pain in my lower back warned me that my hips were “out.” Paul may have had his thorn in the flesh, but this hip thing was mine. As I hobbled toward the kitchen to get my day started, I glanced in the mirror. My face was covered with red, puffy welts! “Lord,” I prayed despairingly, “How can I pray healing for others when I can’t seem to heal myself?” With that, my eyebrows started itching.
Later that morning I acted cheery and nonchallant when I limped into the chiropractor’s office, but the snaps and pops were anything but funny when he adjusted my hips and back. When I exited the chiropractor’s, it felt as if everything slipped back out of position, but my body was so tender in the aftermath of the treatment, that I couldn’t face another go around of adjusting right then. I decided to just go home and rest.
It was a long, discouraging week of confinement that kept me close to my recliner. I was mostly pain free until I needed to stand, at which point I was faced with the dilemma of whether to do it slowly or all in one swift motion. I chose swift to get the sharp pain over with, after which I was able to ambulate stiffly around my apartment. The brightest part of the week was spending one afternoon watching TV movies. Right next to that luxury was that the hives, except for itchy eyebrows, began to dissipate.
Any optimism that my lower back might be getting better dissolved when I awoke in severe pain near 3 a.m.Thursday. After using the bathroom and getting a glass of water, I wrapped myself in my quilt and settled into my recliner. Tears nearly suffocated me as I gave way to discouragement. “Lord,” I sniffled, “How can I keep living up a flight of stairs in this condition? I don’t want the kids to worry about me, but I’m only getting older! I’ve declared and prayed healing for my hips, for every bone and joint to align under You for years, yet this keeps coming back. And, Lord, there’s noone to help me to even carry groceries up the stairs. And how can I ever finish writing these Romans studies?” All the while I carried on, my nose ran like a sieve and I wiped away the tears until a mound of wadded up soggy tissues piled up at my feet. Eventually the worst of the storm passed and Father was able to minister to me.
“Do you trust Me? Am I able to meet all your needs,” He probed. Well, yes, of course. He had always met every single need, usually in such a quiet and unobtrusive manner that I didn’t even notice that the problem had disappeared until sometime later. I knew this and know that He will always meet every single need I will ever have, but this time His questioning somehow struck a nerve or a place I had never visited before.
“Do you really believe Me when I say I will meet—nay, more than meet your every need, Carol?”
I sat absolutely still before Him. There were things I had prayed about for decades that had not been resolved to date. Private things that I had run out of imaginings as to how He would answer. Seemingly impossible things.
He began talking, or maybe it was more like impressions that came. I saw myself coming up against barriers—the hard places of dreams, desires, or needs that I couldn’t make happen, the places I had agonized over, the hopes and longings that never seemed to resolve or come true for me. Once again tears started flowing.
“This is how ‘by faith’ works,” He said. “Or, ‘on faith.’ By faith is literally by faith; on faith is literally on faith. They are places. By or on, but never in, inside of, faith. Do you see the difference?”
Oh, yes, I could see the difference. Clearly, “by” or “on” are positions. Can you see how, when all that we read in our English Bibles is that “by faith” or “on faith” or even “of faith”, has blunted our understanding of what our position in relation with faith should be? Can you see how what we refer to as faith is often of little or no effect on the deep issues of life?
Now and then I have hit the mark and have connected with Christ’s faith that is the core of true faith. What we need to do if we would be true Israelites, is to intentionally check on our faith to determine whether we are trying to “gin up” strong feelings that we can often mistake for faith. Or, do we aim our needs and requests, whatever form they may take, in the faith that comes literally from out of Christ?
It is His from out of faith that we must rely on if we will ever achieve His purposes in this world.
Deep Delvings 