Does faith equal obedience? There are Christians who attempt to redefine the Gospel by making faith the equivalent of obedience. In so doing, the whole point of the Gospel is lost. Gospel is swallowed up by Law. Paul makes a critical distinction between those who observe the law and those who “believe what you heard” (Gal. 3:2) So should we. There is a difference between obedience to God’s Word and faith in God’s Word. Obedience should follow faith (Heb. 5:9; 1 John 2:5; 5:3). Faith and obedience are never separated in the Christian life (Rom. 16:26; 1 Pet. 1:22). Yet, they are never treated as synonymous (Rom. 4:1-5).
Why? The Bible teaches that no one can obey enough to merit salvation. This is the heart of the problem Jesus came to solve. We are not able to fully obey God’s Word (Romans 3:23). Only Jesus was able to perfectly obey God’s Word. [Was Jesus a Christian?[1]] While we fail to fully keep God’s Word, Jesus did not fail. He alone is the Son of God, in whom the Father is well pleased. He was spotless, sinless, and without guile. Christ is the righteousness of God. Here is the miracle of the Gospel and the grace of God: God, out of His grace allows us to receive Christ’s righteousness through believing the Word of the Gospel.
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Paul does even more than distinguish between the observing of law and faith. He identifies a new kind of righteousness (Romans 1:17; 3:21-22). It is the righteousness that is the product of Christ’s perfect obedience. And this new kind of righteousness is available to those who believe in Christ. This is the reason why Paul speaks in Romans 1:5 about the eivj u`pakoh.n pi,stewj (obedience of faith). The King James translates this as “for obedience to the faith.” However most translators and many respected scholars translate this phrase as the obedience that IS faith. Cranfield, an eminent Romans scholar, presents in his timeless commentary all the grammatical possibilities for this phrase. Then, as is his method, he lays out the reasons for each one. Finally, he gives the reasons for his choice: “Of these the one which seems to us to suit best the structure of Paul’s thought in Romans is ‘the obedience which consists of faith.’”[2]
Read the rest of this article at Does Faith Equal Obedience?
[2] The International Critical Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, eds., J. A. Emerton, C. E. B. Cranfield, and G. N. Stanton, (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994). Vol. I, p. 66.
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