Faith and Obedience

yeshuaslavejeff · Jul 30, 2019

Kris Jordan said:
Second, I don't see how that could ever be the attitude of someone who is genuinely saved after they have recognized the wretched spiritual condition they were in prior and recognized their desperate need for a Savior. Otherwise, what do they think they're being saved from?

Who was referring to someone who is genuinely saved "after they have recognized the wretched spiritual condition they were in " ? (as written, and as far as shown so far, most people NEVER realize that, or they simply usually don't care,and don't repent of that)

Kris Jordan said:
I think this type of attitude is reminiscent of what Hebrew 10:29 says. Very scary. And dangerous...

As written, which attitude leads to death,
and which attitude leads to life with Jesus ?
OR which attitude are you thinking ?

Gregory Thompson · Jul 30, 2019

Tree of Life said:
I think we all agree that we need faith in order to be saved. Let's focus on obedience.

Is obedience a second condition for our salvation. In other words, do we need both faith and obedience in order to be saved?

Or is obedience the natural result and outworking of genuine faith? In other words, when "faith" is properly understood, is it simply redundant to tack on obedience as a condition for salvation?

To ask the same question in another way - are faith and obedience two different things or are they really two ways of looking at the same thing? Can true faith exist without obedience? Can obedience exist without true faith?

My contention is that we are saved by faith alone. But "faith", properly understood, is an active faith which works itself out in loving obedience.

Obedience is not a bad thing, but when used in sermons, it tends to mean obeying the doctrine of the pastor instead of God.

(no, I do not need to obey a mere human pastor in order to be saved)

Kris Jordan · Jul 30, 2019

Soyeong said:
While it is true that Abraham believed God, so he was justified, it is also true that Abraham believed God, so he obeyed God's command to offer Isaac, so he was justified by faith and obeyed by the same faith, but he was not justified by his obedience. In Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the Law, so obedience to God should always be considered to be acting in faith. Every example of someone living by faith in the Bible is also an example of someone living in obedience to God's will, such as the examples of faith listed in Hebrews 11, whereas disobedience to God's Law is referred to as breaking faith, such as in Numbers 5:6. In James 2:17-18, he said that faith without works is dead and that he would show his faith by his works, so obedience to God is what faith looks like. Obedience to any set of instructions is about putting our faith in the one who gave them to correctly guide us, so only those who has faith in God to guide us will obey His Law and be justified by that same faith, which is why Paul said in Romans 2:13 that only doers of the Law will be justified.

To use an analogy, if a professional musician were to teach me how to play an instrument as a free gift to me, then their teaching would be the content of the gift and participating in this training would not be doing anything to earn their gift, but rather it is what it would look like to receive their gift.

In the same way, in Titus 2:11-14, our salvation is described as being trained by grace to do what is godly, righteous, and good, and to renounce doing what is ungodly, which is essentially what God's Law was given to instruct how to do. Furthermore, it says that Jesus gave himself to redeem us from all Lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, being redeemed from our Lawlessness and being training to do good works in obedience to God's Law is the content of the gift of salvation. Participating in this training would not be doing anything to earn the gift, but rather it is what it looks like to receive the gift. Our salvation is from sin (Matthew 1:21) and sin is defined as the transgression of God's Law (1 John 3:4), so being trained by grace to live in obedience to God's Law through faith is what being saved from living in disobedience to God's Law looks like.

Faith can exist without obedience when someone is physically prevented from expressing their faith, such as with the thief on the cross, but if our arms and feet aren't nailed to a cross, then we don't have that excuse. Someone can give the outward appearance of obedience apart from faith in Christ, but they would be missing the point, which is why Paul considered that to be rubbish.

Soyeong,

I couldn't have said it better myself! I'm stealing this line from you because it's the greatest description I have heard in my life on the subject:

"Obedience to God is what faith looks like."

That one-liner is a keeper in my book! Thanks for sharing it!

JIMINZ · Jul 30, 2019

Tree of Life said:
Is obedience a second condition for our salvation. In other words, do we need both faith and obedience in order to be saved?

To a certain extent I would have to say yes, Jesus said.

Mar 16:16
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

Believing produces Salvation, then one follows in Obedience unto Baptism.

Tree of Life said:
My contention is that we are saved by faith alone. But "faith", properly understood, is an active faith which works itself out in loving obedience.

Eph. 2:10
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Sounds more like a reflex action of the Believer, than Obedience.

Oldmantook · Jul 30, 2019

Tree of Life said:
I think we all agree that we need faith in order to be saved. Let's focus on obedience.

Is obedience a second condition for our salvation. In other words, do we need both faith and obedience in order to be saved?

Or is obedience the natural result and outworking of genuine faith? In other words, when "faith" is properly understood, is it simply redundant to tack on obedience as a condition for salvation?

To ask the same question in another way - are faith and obedience two different things or are they really two ways of looking at the same thing? Can true faith exist without obedience? Can obedience exist without true faith?

My contention is that we are saved by faith alone. But "faith", properly understood, is an active faith which works itself out in loving obedience.

Faith without obedience is no faith at all. Even the demons believe. Belief is required (Jn 3:16) but obedience is also required (Heb 5:9).

JIMINZ · Jul 30, 2019

Wordkeeper said:
The problem is that faith which was understood to be loyalty is today mistranslated as belief.

Taken from the Greek of 2,000 yrs. ago not today's understanding.

FAITH:
G4102
πίστις
pistis
pis'-tis
From G3982; persuasion, that is, credence; moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation; abstractly constancy in such profession; by extension the system of religious (Gospel) truth itself: - assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity.

G3982
πείθω
peithō
pi'-tho
A primary verb; to convince (by argument, true or false); by analogy to pacify or conciliate (by other fair means); reflexively or passively to assent (to evidence or authority), to rely (by inward certainty): - agree, assure, believe, have confidence, be (wax) content, make friend, obey, persuade, trust, yield.

JIMINZ · Jul 30, 2019

Tree of Life said:
Hmm. But doesn't it sound like something James said?

James 2:17 - "So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."

A dead faith is not a real faith.

I don't believe Obedience is something which we are to strive for, it is the natural God given evidence of our Salvation, without which we would not demonstrate works, for the Old Man did not these things.

Gideons300 · Jul 30, 2019

Tree of Life said:
Are you saying that faith without works is not really faith?

Think of it this way. We have been grafted into the vine. What happens to a small branch grafted into a vine? Over the course of time, the branch grows to the point that there is no separating one from the other. Branch and vine become...... one. Ring any bells? Yeah, me too.

And praise God, a grape vine, properly grafted, WILL produce fruit. It is not forced to do so. It simply does what any branch does that remains in the vine. It simply naturally produces fruit, as the strength of the vine flows through it.

This is an exciting premise that is stated in the OP, that faith, properly understood and lived, does indeed produce works...... fruit.

I think it is this word 'works' that confuses and divides us into camps. James in no way declared that unless we do certain works of righteousness, we will not be saved. James was the brother of Jesus. If anyone knew grace set us free from the law, it was James.

What he meant by works..... is simply Jesus's character coming to the surface..... IN us. Inward to outward. Whoa.

blessings,

Gideon

Gideons300 · Jul 30, 2019

Now, as amazingly wonderful as that is, and I say thus with nothing but love in my heart, if this premise is true, then the elephant in the room just sat down on our collective laps.

You see, based upon that premise, something is amiss in our faith. The problem is certainly not on Jesus' end, right?
We are either believing something that is error, or we are not believing something that is true.

I hope we all realize how God breathed your OP was, Tree of Life. Wisdom is found there. But we must now face the fact something is not 'clicking' in our walk, something that is still seeing obedience as something we must do. And why? Because we do not know how to abide.

All that is about to change.

Gids

Willie T · Jul 30, 2019

If we want to get ridiculous, we would say that most of us are being "disobedient" in that we were specifically told by Jesus to "GO INTO ALL THE WORLD", and we are not doing that, no matter how many excuses we make about supporting those who do actually go.

And we know that we could go through the Bible and find dozens, perhaps, hundreds, of "commands" like that which we are not obeying.

But, THAT is not the way we should be understanding "obedience."

Not David · Jul 30, 2019

We should avoid coming to the conclusion that having faith is something that will lead us to obedience, sometimes we know that something is bad yet we decide to follow upon those desires. Sometimes we need prayer and fasting to look to strengthen our faith.

PaulCyp1 · Jul 30, 2019

Saying "I believe in You, but I'm not going to live my life as though I believe in you" is worse than saying "I don't believe in You".

mkgal1 · Jul 30, 2019

David Cabrera said:
We should avoid coming to the conclusion that having faith is something that will lead us to obedience, sometimes we know that something is bad yet we decide to follow upon those desires

I think I understand what you're saying - and it IS absolutely wrong to suggest to someone that's struggling with sin (especially if you're inferring something like an addiction) to "just have more faith", because that's an empty (and frustrating suggestion). However.....I DO believe that, at the root of that, there is some sort of faith in a lie over faith over Christ in all that (or....often it's a desire to numb the pain instead of dealing with the tremendous pain).

I still stand by the statement that faith leads to obedience (and "faith" isn't just one general thing - it's a series of things we believe that are true about God and our relationship to Him and others).

Maria Billingsley · Jul 30, 2019

Tree of Life said:
I think we all agree that we need faith in order to be saved. Let's focus on obedience.

Is obedience a second condition for our salvation. In other words, do we need both faith and obedience in order to be saved?

Or is obedience the natural result and outworking of genuine faith? In other words, when "faith" is properly understood, is it simply redundant to tack on obedience as a condition for salvation?

To ask the same question in another way - are faith and obedience two different things or are they really two ways of looking at the same thing? Can true faith exist without obedience? Can obedience exist without true faith?

My contention is that we are saved by faith alone. But "faith", properly understood, is an active faith which works itself out in loving obedience.

I think scripture tells us what that faith is, Jesus Christ of Nazareth came to restore our relationship with The Father. If we start from that premise, it begins to bring clarity to our quest for understanding and connection with our Creator.
Blessings

charsan · Jul 30, 2019

David Cabrera said:
We should avoid coming to the conclusion that having faith is something that will lead us to obedience, sometimes we know that something is bad yet we decide to follow upon those desires. Sometimes we need prayer and fasting to look to strengthen our faith.

Some believe that to have faith means we automatically believe like robots but that is not the case, we much chose obedience. We can chose not to do something

iLearn · Jul 30, 2019

Through obedience God provides Grace. Learn to choose to do the will of God instead of our own will and God will provide us with enough Grace to protect us againsts the attacks from Principalities.

hedrick · Jul 30, 2019

I think there’s too many people creating fear for people who are already Jesus' followers.

Jesus was willing to forgive quite broadly (though I’m not quite proposing universalism). He then asked us to follow him, and to become his representatives before others.

He said we would be held accountable for how we respond. I believe there will be judgement. But Paul provides a model for how Jesus’ followers will be judged in 1 Cor 3:12. I fear some people really are enemies of God, and will be lost. But the Bible promises that any who trust Christ will be saved. I don’t agree with putting qualifications on that.

Jesus talks about God as our Father. Parents do discipline. But they don’t torture their children. I think we can have accountability for Christians without the threat of hell.

Wordkeeper · Jul 30, 2019

JIMINZ said:
Taken from the Greek of 2,000 yrs. ago not today's understanding.

FAITH:
G4102
πίστις
pistis
pis'-tis
From G3982; persuasion, that is, credence; moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation; abstractly constancy in such profession; by extension the system of religious (Gospel) truth itself: - assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity.

G3982
πείθω
peithō
pi'-tho
A primary verb; to convince (by argument, true or false); by analogy to pacify or conciliate (by other fair means); reflexively or passively to assent (to evidence or authority), to rely (by inward certainty): - agree, assure, believe, have confidence, be (wax) content, make friend, obey, persuade, trust, yield.

That's a modern reference source.

Look at this:

Theo Geek: The Meaning of Faith

Quote
Outside of the Bible, what is the Greek word for faith (pistis) used to mean? We're in luck... the first century Jewish historian Josephus uses it in his writings.

In his autobiography, Jospehus describes a time when he was the leader of a small army, and another group had tried to kill him. Josephus captures the enemy leader and says to him “repent and have faith in me hereafter” (Life 110). What Josephus clearly means by this is “become part of my army, and obey my commands.”

Later he speaks of a city that had turned against him, which after he has forced them into submission again, he rebukes them for revolting “from their faith in me” (Life 167). Again, he's speaking of their loyalty to him.

What exactly is the quality that Josephus is getting at? Think about his usage of the word in an army and the concept of soldiers following their leader. What is the relationship between a soldier and their commanding officer like? The solider is loyal and trusting, he follows his superiors' commands, when the captain leads the charge into battle the soldier is right there behind him following in his footsteps. The concept is one of “followingness”, obedience to orders, loyalty, faithfulness, allegiance etc. English is really missing a word to describe this quality of a soldier... the quality of “followingness”.

Wordkeeper · Jul 30, 2019

Kris Jordan said:
Genuine saving faith (by grace through faith alone) will naturally produce good works. If it didn't, I would question whether salvation was actually present. But obedience is not a requirement for salvation. If it were, Jesus died in vain. If His blood wasn't sufficient to cleanse and forgive us, nothing is. He alone is the author of salvation, not = Him + us.

I like to think of it this way: If a husband says he loves his wife (which cannot be seen because its internal within the heart and/or mind), but does nothing to express that love toward her, then does he really love her? But if he truly does love her and love is actually present within his heart, it can't help but express itself through action. So you can't have "one" without having the "other" because the "other" is a natural byproduct of the "one."

Another way to think of it is this: If any current or past President of the United States moved into your house, would that be evidenced by anything in your house? Of course it would! It would look a bit different in places, it would function a bit different in places, it couldn't help but be different on certain levels. In other words, there would be some evidence that this President had moved in, however big or small. Likewise, when the Holy Spirit takes up residence in our hearts at the moment of salvation, there will be some type of change in the way they live, think, act, or whatever. The amount of change will vary over time, but if there's no change, then I would question whether the Holy Spirit really lives inside...

So, I definitely believe the bible is clear that we are saved by God's undeserved grace and His grace is imparted to us when we believe (faith). Good works/obedience flow out of that as a byproduct of salvation, not a requirement.

Abraham experienced God's faithful response whenever there was a crisis.

Caleb experienced God's faithful response whenever there was a crisis.

Christ experienced God's faithful response whenever there was a crisis.

They all learned obedience.

This means a vague idea became a strong conviction. They became different people. They had a mindset change. They were born again.

Even their actions showed they were different. Their vague support of God was perfected, confirmed.

James 2
20O foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is worthless?f 21Was not our father Abraham justified by what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?22You see that his faith was working with his actions, and his faith was perfected by what he did. 23And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”g and he was called a friend of God. 24As you can see, a man is justified by his deeds and not by faith alone.

25In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute justified by her actions when she welcomed the spiesh and sent them off on another route? 26As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

It wasn't God coming in and taking control.

It was a transformed PERSON taking charge.

Numbers 14
24"But My servant Caleb, because he has had a (change) different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land which he entered, and his descendants shall take possession of it.

fhansen · Jul 30, 2019

Tree of Life said:
I think we all agree that we need faith in order to be saved. Let's focus on obedience.

Is obedience a second condition for our salvation. In other words, do we need both faith and obedience in order to be saved?

Or is obedience the natural result and outworking of genuine faith? In other words, when "faith" is properly understood, is it simply redundant to tack on obedience as a condition for salvation?

To ask the same question in another way - are faith and obedience two different things or are they really two ways of looking at the same thing? Can true faith exist without obedience? Can obedience exist without true faith?

My contention is that we are saved by faith alone. But "faith", properly understood, is an active faith which works itself out in loving obedience.

Man has always been obligated to obedience of God, since Eden, and that hasn't changed with the New Covenant. Instead the New Covenant finally provides the authentic means to obedience, for the right reason, and this begins with faith. Faith is the means to obedience because faith is the means to God, to communion with Him who, alone, can make us righteous, or justify us, as we were created to be. Adam thought otherwise and divorced humanity from God. But, "Apart from Me you can do nothing."

Jesus came to reconcile us with Him when the time was ripe and heal that wound, as we come to recognize our need with the help of grace- to recognize for ourselves that Adam was wrong .
"I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people". Jer 31:33

Faith and Obedience

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