How is “receives and rests upon Christ” distinct from “trusts God and hopes in him”? Isn’t “Christ” here shorthand for how all God’s promises are “Yes” and “Amen”? Or were you making a different point?

I get that, but I don’t think it is clear and has, in fact, led rather otherwise intelligent people to start talking about a millisecond difference in time between sanctification and justification.

All these “in” justification are using prepositions ambiguously. Since all agree that the material ground of our standing before God is the person and work of Jesus Christ, I think we should let it stay there.

I take this as the faith that justifies:

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9 Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. 10 How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. 11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, 12 and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

13 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if it is the ones of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the one of the law but also to the one who is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. 18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” 23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

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Now, here we have a clear statement that it is Jesus who gives us a righteous standing before God, his death and resurrection. i don’t see any need to start talking about a “faith” that justifies but not because it trusts God and hopes in him. It simply doesn’t clarify but causes confusion, in my opinion.

The relationship between faith and it’s fruit isn’t directly the question though. The question is the relationship between faith and justification.

Even if faith itself is an act of evangelical obedience, it doesn’t justify insofar as it is an act of evangelical obedience, but insofar as it receives and rests upon Christ.

I guess I need to know what “qua” means. I’d also like to know how exactly we are relating faith to to works. It seems to me that we would be left with either a “mechanical” or a “occasional” relationship between faith and its fruit. I don’t see how this would be compatible with the faith described of Abraham in Romans 4 or that of the OT saints described in Hebrews 11.

Take care.