Subjective and objective genitives and the ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ debate

The (now earlier) title of this whole blog comes from the so called ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ (faith/faithfulness of Christ) debate which according to James Dunn started in the English-speaking world due to Richard Hays’s influential doctoral dissertation, The Faith of Jesus Christ, in the early 1980s. Hays argued for a subjective genitive reading of ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ (faithfulness of Christ) instead of the traditional objective genitive (faith in Christ) in some of the key Pauline passages of the doctrine of justification by faith (Rom 3:21-22, Gal 2:15-16; 3:22, Eph 3:12, Phil 3:9).

What difference does it make? Consider these:

Gal 2:16: and yet we know that a person is not justified by the works of the Torah – except through faith in Jesus the Messiah / the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah (διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) – and we have believed in the Messiah Jesus (εἰς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐπιστεύσαμεν) , so that we could be justified by faith in the Messiah / the faithfulness of the Messiah (ἐκ πίστεως Χριστοῦ) and not by the works of the Torah, for no flesh is justified by the works of the Torah. 

Gal 3:22: but the Scripture has locked up everything under sin so that the promise might be given by faith in Jesus the Messiah / by the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah (ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) to all who believe (τοῖς πιστεύουσιν).

Personally, I think that the subjective genitive reading is better in at least these two examples since the objective genitive reading becomes tautologous in the Greek. It is the faithfulness of the Messiah that acquits us, not our faith. Faith, however, is the "glue that binds us with Christ" as my professor Klyne Snodgrass would say. Gal 2:16 says literally that we have believed into Christ. Justification works only through participation in Christ.

For further reading:

1. Hays, Richard B. The Faith of Jesus Christ. The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1-4:11. Second Edition. The Biblical Resource Series. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 2002.
2. The Faith of Jesus Christ: Exegetical, Biblical, and Theological Studies. Edited by Michael F. Bird, and Preston M. Sprinkle. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 2009.