There are many ways in which Christianity may be defined. But the perspective of the Gospels in particular is that being a Christian means following Jesus. The same Gospels are unanimous that Jesus’ own experience of the Spirit during “the days of his flesh” (Heb 5:7) was attended by servanthood, self-denial, suffering and a perseverance consisting in fidelity to the course set before him by his father. In short, Jesus is portrayed as the obedient man of faith par excellence. That Jesus is represented by the New Testament generally as a man of faith need not be doubted, especially in view of the burgeoning of recent scholarship devoted to this proposition. While the idea can be found throughout the New Testament, we shall concentrate on the merger of perspectives evidenced by the Letter to the Hebrews and the wilderness testing narratives of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels. Afterward we shall consider how Jesus, the man of covenant faithfulness, was vindicated for his obedience and then view the believer in his relation to Christ’s own faithful obedience.

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