I have just searched for the keyword “obedience” at a picture agency. When looking for images for the articles on this site, I usually license them through an agency. Then my breath caught for a moment. The search results for “obedience” only showed images of churches and churchgoers. How strange and eccentric that seems to me. No pictures of families, parking fines, courtrooms and schools. Apparently, in some places today, the term “obedience” is only equated with religious institutions and their followers. This is apparently the view of some people who enter search terms for images. I suspect that this assessment has a certain relevance. It was certainly not an honorable mention.

Paul speaks of “obedience of faith” (Rom 1:5). So you could find an idea about this term in the Bible. If you bypass the context for your statement and remove the term “obedience of faith” from its biblical context, you can get up to mischief. The term then takes on a life of its own and, filled with different content, becomes a tool of torture for some believers. How can this happen?

Where is the emphasis?

The term “obedience of faith” is a construct of two words: faith and obedience. One could also speak of an “obedience of faith”. Where is the emphasis now? Is it about faith or obedience? Where the focus is felt can be found in the teaching, views and expectations.

• Obedience is central
  In this obedience of faith, “faith” is the way in which “obedience” is expressed. Obedience is the hammer with which faith is hammered in. The measure of all things here is “obedience” to beliefs. Here you are asked to do or not do something as an “act of faith”. Believing correctly is vital if you want to be obedient. If this act is successful, you are “obedient”. If, on the other hand, it is not successful, you have not reached this success level. Obedience here seems to be the expression of legal beliefs in which man and his actions are central.
• Faith is central
  In this focus, the emphasis is on faith, not obedience. This works in the opposite way to the previous variant. It is not about obedience, but about faith. What was Paul called to do? He speaks of “Jesus Christ our Lord, (through whom we have received grace and apostleship for his name for the obedience of faith among all nations)”. This was a stunning statement that it was not about works, not about performance or success, but about faith.

Obedience exists in both concepts. In the first case, it is obedience to rules, which makes it appear legal. The rules are then often the ideas of the religious community and doctrines that are followed. In the second case, it is liberating because it is not about adhering to rules and ideas. What the gospel of grace brings about is “faith”. It is an “obedience of faith” because faith identifies obedience. As the “obedience of faith”, it is the obedience that arises through faith, not an obedience that is demanded and enforced by following rules.

Grace central

When Paul writes, “To have received grace and apostleship for his name for the obedience of faith among all nations”, then grace is the beginning. Obedience of faith is under the grace that the apostle himself first received (Rom 1:5; Rom 1:11). Every letter that the apostle writes begins with grace. This is how he speaks to the congregation, his employees and friends.

This grace stands in contrast to personal contribution. Grace is unmerited favor from God. Those who “want to be obedient”, on the other hand, are looking for justification through personal achievement.

“But to him that worketh is the reward not according to grace, but according to debt.”
Rom 4:4

Grace, on the other hand, is given on the basis of God’s performance in Christ. Faith and grace belong together because people are no longer at the center, not everything is dependent on my performance.

“Therefore it is by faith, that it may be according to grace.”
Rom 4:16

“But if by grace, then no longer by works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.”
Rom 11:6

Seduction through religiosity

He who believes trusts in another. Ultimately, this speaks of trust in God. Those who are religious trust in themselves, in their own performance and in following rules and ideas.

Religious duties and pious acts may have a “semblance of wisdom, in willful worship and humility and in not sparing the body”, but they only serve “to gratify the flesh” (Col 2:23). Appearance or reality, that is the question here. If we think of the Gretchen question from Goethe’s Faust: “Now tell me, how do you feel about religion?”, then the understanding of faith can be understood in two ways.

1. When obedience is central, it seems to be more about religiosity and personal achievement.
2. However, when it comes to faith, this can only grow from trust, as a response to good news.

The first interpretation is rather legal and limited by one’s own performance. The second variant has faith at its core. It is therefore dependent on the proclamation and ultimately on God. Religion looks at one’s own performance. Faith looks to God’s performance. This is a radical difference between the two points of view.

Seduction through religiosity can take various forms. Tacit expectations to behave in this way and no other, to believe this and nothing else, to accept external characteristics and the like also point to lived religiosity. At best, it is an expression of personal faith. But it is not obedience to God, who does not approach you with rules but with grace (Eph 2:8-10).

Reverse engineering

Do you know the term “reverse engineering”? In German, this means something like “reverse development”. The starting point is a finished product, a finished solution or finished software, and an attempt is made to understand the solution from the end result. What steps are then required to get from the end result to the origin? And: how can you recreate something similar?

Reverse engineering attempts to understand the mechanisms of how something was created. The approach is interesting if you examine biblical teachings in the same way. Where do these or those biblical teachings come from? What is their purpose? Here are some examples:

1. Doctrines of sanctification
   There are various doctrines of sanctification. They state that believers must live “holy” lives in order to be pleasing to God. No doubt one can point to various biblical passages to make this exact point. But what are such teachings based on? Here, “reverse engineering” can reveal motives and mechanisms that are useful for assessing the views. What does a doctrine of sanctification need in order to emerge? Where does the ultimate responsibility lie? The ultimate responsibility is clearly placed with humans. People become more dependent on their own performance (the demands of the community or doctrine) than on God’s grace. Anyone who assumes 100% grace cannot end up with a doctrine of sanctification. It doesn’t work. Grace and personal contribution contradict each other. Note: This is of course not a license to live a dissolute life (Rom 6:15). Here is the difference: if I live by grace, this results in a way of life that is pleasing to God. grace educates (Titus 2:11-12). Christ should take shape in us (Gal 4:19).
2. Lose rescue
   Some teachings insist that salvation can be lost again. Who bears the ultimate responsibility here? Regardless of the justification, “reverse engineering” can be used to quickly understand the origins of such doctrines. What does it take to make such statements? If you trust God with everything and know that you are dependent on Him for everything, can there be a loss of salvation? Note: Such ideas thrive best in an environment of doctrines of hell. That looks really threatening. However, these teachings exist in many places. What they all have in common is that it is not God but man who is ultimately responsible. This is problematic once you have come to know grace. Of course, people can “fall away from the faith”, but it was already clear at the beginning that no one is righteous, not even one (Romans 3:10). That was the starting point. Only the grace of God was and will be greater (Rom 5:18).

Faith or obedience?

I would like to tell anyone who still insists on obedience here about God’s grace. It is grace that intervenes transformatively in life. The transformation is not an achievement of mine, but a consequence of grace. Just as the apostle Paul writes:

“But by the grace of God I am what I am; and his grace toward me has not been in vain, but I have labored much more than they all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Be it I then, be it they, so we preach, and so you have believed.”
1Cor 15:10-11