Marcus Atilius Regulus

Speaking of keeping promises. (Thanks ,Dan Carlin. Thanks, Macon.)

The Faithfulness of Jesus

The upcoming lesson in our Sunday School's study of Romans is Chapter 3, verses 21-24. In this scripture passage, at verse 22, we bump into a very interesting translation battle. Here is the entire passage according to the NIV, and I bold the troubling verse:

21But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Here is that same passage in the NET Bible, with the verse at issue also bolded:

21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God (which is attested by the law and the prophets) has been disclosed – 22namely, the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 24But they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. [footnotes, and there are many, omitted]

In N.T. Wright's study of Romans, Paul for Everyone - Romans: Part One, he is on the same side as the NET Bible translators. In the footnote, the NET editors discuss fully the controversy, and Wright refers to it in his little [but so helpful] commentary. Wright diplomatically writes that what he translates as "the faithfulness of Jesus" could be written "faith in Jesus." But it is clear that the former is his choice, as it is the NET editors.

I never really gave much thought to the "faithfulness of Jesus," until I encountered this controversy. What I mean to say is, "Of course, Jesus was faithful. He's the Son of God, after all. He would of course be faithful. He's perfect. So why stop and argue over this particular translation?"

But it made me stop and think about this. Was it possible that Jesus could have been unfaithful? Did Satan simply not get it, when he took the time to tempt Jesus, both in the Wilderness and at Gethsemane? I mean, really, Satan could not be as smart as we might think, if he subjected himself to such humiliation twice. Maybe Jesus could have been unfaithful. Maybe he had the choice.

Think of the reasons why Jesus might have been unfaithful: the world was a mess, everyone was falling short of God's intention for his creation, and even the Jews, especially the Jews, had completely blown it multiple times. Why not simply take over, as Satan suggested and [insert Obamaism referring to what a really great leader does when people are being bad].

But if there was a chance he could have been unfaithful [call it the Man side of him, if it makes you feel better], then the idea that his faithfulness (not ours) is at the heart of the gospel makes a lot of sense. This central truth of Christ's faithfulness very much needs to be transalated correctly.

There is an other side of that point, that Jesus, as a person not burdened with sin, had a choice and could have been unfaithful but decided not to be. The other side is that Christians, as people who have been set free, now, finally, have a choice too. We can choose to be faithful.

UPDATE:

The following is from the Preface to the First Edition of the NET Bible and, in particular, that part which describes "some of the distinctive characteristics of the NET Bible translation philosophy." In discussing their "commitment to following the text where it leads and translating it honestly," the NET editors address this very controversy. Here is what they say:

Passages Involving πιίστις Χριστοῦ and Similar Expressions in Paul. The phrase πιίστις Χριστοῦ ( pisti Cristou) is a difficult one to translate. The issue centers on the relationship of the genitive noun Χριστοῦ to the head noun πιίστις: is the genitive subjective or objective? That is, is the emphasis of this phrase on Christ as the one who exercises faith (subjective) or on Christ as the one in whom others have faith (objective)? Traditionally these phrases have been interpreted emphasizing Christ as the object of faith; “faith in Jesus Christ” is the traditional translation. However, in recent years an increasing number of New Testament scholars are arguing from both the grammatical and theological contexts that πιίστις Χριστοῦ and similar phrases in Paul (Rom 3:22, 26; Gal 2:16, 20; 3:22; Eph 3:12; Phil 3:9) involve a subjective genitive and emphasize Christ as the one who exercises faith: “the faithfulness of Christ.” A wider glance at the use of the noun πιίστις in the rest of the New Testament shows that when it takes a personal genitive that genitive is almost never objective. Certainly faith in Christ is a Pauline concept, but Bible scholars have begun to see that in Paul’s theological thought there is also an emphasis on Christ as one who is faithful and therefore worthy of our faith. The grammatical and theological contexts are not decisive, and either translation is acceptable. The editors decided to follow the subjective genitive view because a decision had to be made – “faith of Christ,” a literal translation, communicates very little to the average reader in the context – and because scholarship in this area is now leaning toward this view. The question is certainly not closed, however, and if further research indicates that the grammatical or theological context proves decisive for the other view, the translation will be modified to reflect that.

[Maybe] a Final Word on Promissory Notes

So, where are we? Christians are called to keep their promises. Keeping them can become very difficult, especially where the circumstances (other than the promise we have made) are not of one's own making (e.g., the economy, a spouse who turns out not to love us just as we absolutely know we ought to be loved and, in fact, are entitled to be loved; a child whom we promised to raise in the nurture and admonition of the Lord but who exhausts us, so we will sleep in on Sunday morning). One conclusion is to be very careful of the promises one makes. But once we make that promise, well . . . maybe the housing market will come back, maybe we will become happy with the way we are loved and learn to demonstrate to the other how we think a spouse should be treated, and maybe the spirited child will grow up with a strong Christian character of his own. Or maybe none of this will happen in this world, but the Lord will bless us in other ways. Or maybe he won't, at least right away. That's not the point, is it?

It seems to me that we are much too free with what we promise, and are very careless about our promises. Or, when others seek a commitment from us, we haven't the courage to say no. Or we are too dependent on the regard of others to turn them down. Or we so very much want what the other is offering, want it right then and there, that we will say about anything to get it. All of these reasons seem to go to the matter of our character and integrity. They really don't justify making a promise and, then, later breaking it.

Non-recourse Promissory Notes

There is a kind of collateralized promissory note (or mortgage) called a "non-recourse promissory note." In this case, the creditor (the person lending the money) understands that if the borrower stops paying, then all the creditor can do is foreclose; there will be no deficiency judgment against the borrower; the creditor looks solely to the collateral.

With a non-recourse note, then, it is clear that the promise is contingent on whether "things work out." There would be no moral opprobrium attached to a "strategic default."

Given the fact that non-recourse notes are in the market place, the argument is stronger that there is moral opprobrium attached to a strategic default where the promissory note is the more typical recourse note.

Of course, a non-recourse mortgage is very uncommon in the home mortgage context. In such a case, the down payment requirement would be larger and the interest rate higher.

As strategic defaults become more common, then one will see the cost spread between the non-recourse note and the recourse note narrow. That is, the down payment required of a recourse borrower will increase and look more and more like that which would be required of the non-recourse borrower and the interest rate the recourse borrower pays will similarly increase. It will, then, be harder for people to finance a new home. The advantage that the strategic defaulter claims for himself will work to the dis-advantage of all home-buyers. Furthermore, the value of all homes will decrease because fewer people will be able to buy them; and then construction generally will decline and people in that industry lose their jobs. This starts to look like strategic defaulting on a recourse promissory note really is immoral, because the individual advantage is to the detriment of others.

The Promissory Note

When one buys a house that he finances with a bank, he signs a promissory note. He also signs a mortgage, which "secures" the obligation he undertakes to pay back what he borrows. (I would shorten the phrase "promissory note" to simply "note," but it would not be useful in this discussion to drop the word "promissory.")

The promissory note contains the promise of the borrower to pay back what he borrows, together with the interest, according to a time schedule described in the note. There is a mortgage, as I mentioned, but the core of the transaction is the borrower's promise which resides in the promissory note.

If the borrower were to break his promise (i.e. "default" on the promissory note) , the creditor could simply sue the borrower. There is no obligation that the creditor foreclose on the mortgage first. The creditor could simply sue and get a judgment.

However, in practice the creditor will foreclose, because the house will not run away and disappear, as the borrower might. Furthermore, in the course of the foreclosure proceedings, the creditor will get a judgment against the borrower anyway, if the proceeds of the foreclosure proceedings do not cover the borrower's indebtedness and the expenses of the foreclosure. The judgement is the "deficiency judgment" that I discussed in an earlier post.

Again, at the center of the mortgage foreclosure proceedings is the borrower's promise. There is nothing in the promissory note that states that "I promise, provided everything works out." It is simply "I promise."

It is important to point out that, if the foreclosure proceedings happen to yield more than the sum of what borrower owes and the expenses, (that is, the house sells for more than the mortgage balance) the creditor doesn't get to keep the profit. It goes to the borrower. Of course, in such a case the borrower porbably won't let his house go into foreclosure, because it has equity in it. After all, the creditor only agreed (promised) to take back what he lent, plus the interest. The creditor can't take the profit. We will hold the creditor to that promise.

The idea that the borrower can walk away, because the creditor has his remedies at law, and that there is, therfore, nothing immoral is nothing new, of course. It reflects the school of "legal realism," whose most famous advocate was Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. It pretty much reflected the philosophy at the University of Chicago when I attended the law school there, and I would say it reflected the philosophy of the other major law schools in the country. That philosophy is fraying at the edges, because its basis in Social Darwinism worries the Statists. Government, after all, needs to step into the economic jungle and impose "fairness."

But Christians don't take their cues from the pagan culture, regardless of how refined and sensible it seems to be (at least in a given case). We have to take a second look at these difficult questions. To coin a phrase, What would Jesus do?

What about Jesus? (By the way, he did not own a house here on earth but owned many of them elsewhere. Actually, here he did not have a place to lay his head. That's a little troubling when we worry about our houses here on earth.)

Maybe this question about keeping your promises in the financial context is a Caesar vs. God thing. Maybe Jesus refers to two worlds when he had answered the Pharisee's question and that Christians can walk back and forth between them when it makes economic sense to do so.

Maybe not.

The "Strategic Default" Outcry (UPDATE)

The matter of a borrower walking away from his mortgaged home, where the value of the home has dropped below the outstanding indebtedness, has been getting a lot of attention recently. The Miami Herald has an article on the subject today, and Glenn Reynolds links to this post on the Atlantic Magazine blog. The Herald article cites some surveys that indicate that nearly 19% of home foreclosures are the result of a solvent homeowner (a homeowner who is apparently able to service the mortgage) simply walking away from the house that he bought (and financed) at what now appears to have been a very inflated price.

The idea suggested by some of these reports is that the "strategic defaulter" is doing something immoral, and that someone (maybe the government) ought to do something about it. The strategic defaulter is contrasted with the upright debtor who plugs away at his debt, figuring that someday the market will correct itself and some equity will appear or that the walk-away price he would pay (the moving expenses, the taint on his credit history, and the prospect of a deficiency judgement - see discussion below) is too high a price to pay.

But before getting to the issue about the character of the borrower, the matter of a "deficiency judgement" needs to be kept in mind. A "deficiency judgment" is what the mortgage lender gets when it receives less in the foreclosure proceedings than what it is owed. It is the difference between the balance due on the mortgage and the market value of the house. It is the very thing that prompts the "strategic defaulter" to walk away in the first place.

The catch for the defaulter is that he is personally liable for the deficiency. Not only that, but the deficiency judgement will also include the bank's attorneys fees and all other costs associated with the foreclosure. What the creditor will do with its deficiency judgment is to turn it over to the sheriff for collection or a collection lawyer who will scour the countryside for the debtor's assets. By definition, the "strategic defaulter" has other assets, because this is a person who could have kept up the mortgage payments if he weren't such a smart . . . smart . . . smart . . . (Mr. Vice-President, can you help me here?).

Now why won't the banks simply go after the strategic defaulter's other assets with a deficiency judgment? Part of the reason may be that the paperwork was so sloppy when the financing was done that the bank is going to have a rough time proving its deficiency case in court But whose fault is that? Or maybe the strategic defaulter is just barely in that category, so that it turns out there aren't that many assets upon which to levy the deficiency judgement. But whose fault is that? Or maybe tracking down the assets is not going to be that easy. But whose fault is that? Or maybe it turns out the debtors assets are all "exempt" under his state's debtor protection laws or the Bankruptcy Code, a situation that would have been disclosed on the loan application documents, if the loan officer had only reviewed it carefully and not been distracted by the fee his bank was going to get. (In the case of fraud on the loan application, we would not be dealing with a "strategic defaulter" but with a criminal, for which there are other penalties.) If you want to talk about moral turpitude, may we please talk about the banks here? They are the ones who are supposed to be the defenders of prudence in the market place.

But, of course, the banks were enabled by the likes of FNMA, which was enabled by . . . our government. So if we are going to cast moral aspersions, let's make sure we have our targets properly sighted. I believe number one on the list has to be the federal government.

And it would be just like the government (and the government's defenders in the press) to blame the "strategic defaulter" for the problem rather than itself.

If there are a bunch of "strategic defaulters" out there (and, frankly, I doubt that there are as many as these surveys indicate), then we must assume that each of them has run the numbers, understood the costs and the risks, and finally made a hard-headed walk-away decision. Such a person is merely exercising his rights, based on the bargain into which both he and the lender entered into freely. And I say, if there really are such people as "strategic defaulters" and they see a net gain in the walk-away, then go for it.

UPDATE: Carol dissents. And, of course, she has a point. In a perfect world, everything would work out: banks would loan prudently, the government would not be a player but a referee, deficiency judgments would be generally collectible, and borrowers would not take imprudent risks. But we are not in a perfect world. Should, then, the debtor be concerned only with his own economic self-interest?

Should a Christian act differently? Isn't the discipline of the market place, when things get out of kilter because of negligence or greed in the particular transaction or elsewhere in the economy, how God more or less keeps the lid on this fallen world? Is the Christian aggravating a bad situation by failing to act as a self-interested economic, pagan actor or is he helping the situation? Whether he is helping or not, should he do what he promised to do? (He did, after all, make a promise.)

If we put it simply on the basis of keeping a promise made to another, a promise on which the other relied, then the matter becomes pretty clear. And Carol's right.