On This Day: The Obedience of Faith is Faith that Obeys

   ...and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, (Romans 1:4-5)

   I can still remember the delight I felt when “the obedience of faith” first stood out to me. It was both a sense of surprise (like why people would teach a lesser view of faith when God’s word is that clear!) and of joyful clarity. It was like my mind understood more than my brain could explain, and I love when that happens!

   Because the partnership between faith and obedience is a favorite target of the evil one, let me just emphasize that there is only one view even though churches teach three.

   The churches that teach a legalistic view of religion emphasize obedience without faith. The churches that teach a cheap grace view of churchianity emphasize faith without obedience. Both are equally poisonous!

   How can we tell if we are in a church, a family, or a friend group, that promotes one of the pendulum extremes rather than the plumbline of obedient faith? We simply watch what happens when we come across a Scripture that requires something of us our churches or groups don’t teach and ask them to include it.

   Legalistic churches have no interest in speaking truth in love or expressing faith through love. Their interest is the rules. And, just like the religious elite of Jesus’ day, they turn God’s word into an expanded list of rules that must be obeyed to fit in.

   Cheap grace churches, on the other hand, are all about faith without obedience and love without truth. Everything is a poisonous view of grace that tolerates sin as a no-big-deal issue because God is so amazingly (and unbiblically) gracious.

   Once we see that the apostles were teaching what Jesus himself commanded, a faith that obeys our Savior, we learn to “trust and obey”, as the old hymn has stated for decades. We do not accommodate legalism because it is a denial of the gospel. We do not accommodate cheap grace because it is a denial of the gospel.

   To be clear, the gospel has NEVER been about a faith that doesn’t obey. There is no such thing. It is impossible to trust the head of the church without doing what he says. It is impossible to have faith in “our Father in heaven” and not do what he says.

   Jesus said, that “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21), and, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46). The three parts of the Great Commission are to make disciples, baptize disciples, and teach disciples to “observe (obey) all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20).

   I have heard too many well-meaning young bucks out there trying so hard to clarify that we are saved by grace through faith “not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9) that they teach their own version of faith instead of “the obedience of faith” the apostles taught. Too many people who know what it feels like to be burdened by legalistic churches think the only alternative is the cheap grace Kool-Aid that saves from legalism but kills with kindness.

   My encouragement to anyone who reads this is “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith” (II Corinthians 13:5). And the “faith” Paul is talking about there is the same one he spoke of to introduce and conclude Romans, “the obedience of faith”.

   It would be far better to recognize today that we have been taught one of the pendulum extremes instead of the plumbline view of the apostles so we can repent (change our minds to line up with the truth) and begin talking with God about how to walk in this “obedience of faith” rather than a deficient teaching that requires ignoring certain scriptures.

   The apostle Paul reached the end of his race declaring “Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:26-27), and then warned them about the false teachers who were just waiting for his departure.

   I have met legalistic power-brokers who were very nice church folk until you broke one of their rules. I have met very nice cheap grace folk until you asked them to talk with you about an obedient-faith Scripture and suddenly saw their angry narcissistic side.

   Everything that covers living by “the whole counsel of God” and living “by every word that comes from the mouth of God” can be summarized as “the obedience of faith”. If we will pursue that kind of faith, God will keep us in step with his Spirit in both knowing and doing the will of God in love.

  

© 2026 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)