The Obedience of Faith

Paul's introduction of himself to the church at Rome includes these words:

...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

In the past four years since I began to distinguish law and gospel, words like obedience have not been a big part of my vocabulary. You see, to me obedience smacked of law, and law was the enemy of grace. And yet here I have Paul, my favorite biblical writer, writing in my favorite book of the bible that he was given his apostleship, and God's grace, to bring about not just justification of all nations, but the obedience of faith. It suddenly seems to me that grace by faith is a means to keeping the law in the end; that the gospel seeks obedience to the law as it's primary aim. Forgiveness of sin is a necessary component of salvation,  but the primary end of salvation is obedience by faith.

We can be certain that we cannot keep the law of our own doing and out of the flesh. The apostle says in Romans 8:7:

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.

But just because we cannot keep the law, it does not mean that we do not keep the law. We need not throw up our hands in defeat and think, "It's a good thing the Lord forgives me for Christ's sake, because I am only a sinner and will always be only a sinner." Yes, as long as you are in the flesh you will deal with sin, but the point is that we've been given a new nature and that nature is perfectly willing and capable of desiring and performing the law as it's ultimate objective. The new creature, born of the Spirit and not the flesh, seeks to fulfill the law:

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Romans 8:3-4

There is not even a hint that works in some way earn us God's favor in any of this. Lawkeeping is not the cause of salvation, but the result. Or perhaps it could he said that salvation is the cause of lawkeeping and never the other way round. The trap I fell into was thinking that forgiveness was the ultimate goal of salvation and that any obedience that came about from that was a happy accident fueled by gratitude. It's not surprising that any of us can think that when we hear the voices of many in the new reformation. The message I have heard (and the message I have taught) boils down to, "if you understand that you are forgiven for the sake of Christ alone, that is enough."

But forgiveness is just the beginning. A glorious, liberating, exhilarating beginning. The beginning of a new way of life and thinking that is empowered by a new nature that, with Paul, will "press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:14)

Don't quit at the forgiveness. Don't just use the glorious freedom God has given you as a cover-up for sin in your life. Embrace that Spirit-empowered freedom and cooperate with it the put that sin to death and be transformed into the image of Christ.

That is the goal. Obedience by faith is the gospel truth as well as forgiveness by faith.

God bless.