Big Healing Book - How Can Faith Be Both a Fruit of the Spirit and a Gift of the Spirit?

How Can Faith Be Both a Fruit of the Spirit and a Gift of the Spirit?

This question is not as easy to answer as it first appears.

Galatians 5:22:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

1 Corinthians 12:9:
For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;
To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;

At first this does seem like a contradiction, as faith would have to be either a fruit or a gift. Either it is developed in you by the Holy Spirit or it is dropped on you for a specific thing by the Holy Spirit.

The main problem is that the Greek word for faith (pistis) also happens to be the Greek word for faithfulness. It is the same word used in the verse below:

Titus 2:10:
Not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.

The King James Version, Young’s Literal Translation, the Reina-Valera Version (RVR 1960) and one other lesser-used one are the only ones that I know of (at this writing) that translate the word as faith in Galatians 5:22 – all others translate it as faithfulness or in one case, a synonym for it.

However, the majority is not always right. Looking at the uses of pistis in the King James Version, it is translated fidelity in Titus 2:10, belief (which is basically the same thing as faith) in 2 Thessalonians 2:13 and assurance in Acts 17:31. But pistis is translated as faith over 200 times! So there would be quite a burden of proof that we should NOT translate pistis as faith in Galatians 5:22 above!

The key is to realize what the “gift” of faith is. Paul is clear that some people are given the “gift” of faith and others are not. So this kind of faith CANNOT be the “general operating faith” that we would use, because EVERYONE has faith (Romans 12:3, Ephesians 2:8-9). The gift of faith must be faith for something specific that would not normally be covered by the Word. The classic case of the gift of faith in action is raising a dead person. You would have to “know that you know” that you can do it before you command a dead person to come back! But there is no Scripture that guarantees that you can raise a dead person. You can heal a sick person in the name of Jesus (see YOU Can Do Miracles), but you have no blanket authority to raise a dead person. Faith can “come on you” to raise a dead person, but your “general operating faith” cannot do it. (If it could, Christians would be around forever because if one died, we would just raise him!)

Thus, this “special faith” cannot be a fruit of the spirit, because EVERYONE can bear every fruit of the spirit.

Now that we have established that, it doesn’t really matter if the FRUIT is “faith” or “faithfulness” – the kind of faith that is a gift of the Spirit is something different.

Does the Spirit work faith or faithfulness in you? You can make an argument either way, but you don’t have to resolve that issue to answer the question at hand.

I would actually tend toward faithfulness for the reason that faith is something of the heart, not the spirit, and contrary to some traditional faith teaching, there is a difference between your heart and your spirit. But that’s another discussion. Actually, it’s the second discussion listed below!