The word 'faith' is a key word in Paul's letters. For Paul, faith is always commitment to a person, not merely intellectual acceptance of a pro-position. There are four main ways in which Paul used the word, to refer to commitment to God, trust in his promises, commitment to Jesus Christ, and trust in Christ's promises. Paul illustrates 'what faith means to him by referring to .Abraham who trusted God to keep his promises even when worldly logic said, that what God promised was impossible.

In Romans 5: 1, Paul says, 'Now that we have been put right with God through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.' (R.S.V. translation-'Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ") Here Paul is referring to the impossibility of any human being putting himself right with God by his own efforts. Paul had tried to do this, by his strict observance the Jewish Law, but had found that it gave him no power to overcome the sin in his own nature; he had remained alienated from God. Paul became a new man in Christ; it was through no effort of his: entirely God's doing. God had forgiven Paul for being what he w had put Paul right with him because of his boundless mercy and As Paul understood it, what God required of anyone was that he should believe, trustingly like Abraham, that through Jesus Christ a new relationship of peace and love with God was possible.

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