By Jeffrey E. Carroll and Randal E. Pelton
The following verses emphasize this connection between faith in Christ and all truly Christian obedience:
Romans 1:5 "through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name's sake,"
Romans 16:26 "but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith"; John Piper explains faith in terms of obedience to the gospel from 1 Peter 1:22ff: "The truth in view here is the word of God, the gospel of v. 23—all the hope producing truth that we have been looking at in this letter. Obedience to this truth is faith. What the gospel demands is faith. Therefore faith is obedience to the gospel" (Piper, 1994).
Advertisement
2 Corinthians 9:13 "Because of the proof given by this ministry, they will glorify God for your obedience to your confession of the gospel of Christ and for the liberality of your contribution to them and to all." Notice that it is the Corinthian believers' confession of the gospel of Christ that leads to their obedience. Confessing the gospel is synonymous with believing the gospel, and this believing contains a demand that is only satisfied through obedience.
In Hebrews 11 there are 23 occurrences of the concept of "by faith" obedience or "through faith" obedience or "in faith" obedience. This is what the writer of Hebrews meant when he wrote in 11:6 "And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him." The Believer who obeys is convinced that God is a rewarder of those who seek Him and that His reward is far greater than the promise that disobedience holds (or as the Hebrews writer put it, far greater than the pleasures of sin for a season). We will not lie if we believe that the reward of God is greater than what we expect to gain from lying. Put positively, we will render faith-driven obedience—truth-telling—because we believe that the promises of God are better than what the lie can deliver.
Can you see why we want to begin the formal application stage with the question, "Do we believe the gospel?" The first response to God's Word is affirming or reaffirming our faith in what Christ accomplished for us (living a perfect life, dying a substitutionary death, being resurrected from the dead, ascending to the Father in heaven, and dispensing His Spirit from heaven to believers—the entire redemptive package). It is faith in the gospel that is the starting point for all other acts of obedience.
We would add that without faith in Christ, a person will not render Christian obedience because Christian obedience demands a person first have his or her hope in the promises of God-in-Christ. Note Hebrews 6:11-12: "And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises." The same concept is found in Hebrews 11:13: "All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth."
