The Obedience of Faith

The Essential Unity of Faith and Obedience

in the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Who in the days of His flesh, having offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One being able to save Him from death, and having been heard because of reverent submission, though being a Son, He learned obedience from the things He suffered, and having been perfected, He became the author of eternalsalvation to all those obeying Him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Heb. 5:7-9

This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering—since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 2 Thess. 1:5-8

Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith—to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen. Romans 16:25-27 vv. 7-9

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To Those Who Love and Obey the Truth

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The Cost of Discipleship

In 1937 a young German Lutheran pastor named Dietrich Bonhoeffer published his seminal work, The Cost of Discipleship. In this rigorous exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, Bonhoeffer critiqued the modern Christian view of Grace, which he termed “cheap grace.”

“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves . . . the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship. . . .

“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. . . .

“It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.” (Cost of Discipleship, Collier Books, 1963, p.47)

This remarkable insight into the problem of Christianity in the context of modernity illuminated once and for all time the missing element of the gospel that was so prevalent in the writings of the apostles, particularly of Peter, Paul, and John, namely obedience. Cheap grace is the counterfeit gospel; it is the hallmark of the apostasy that is at the heart of Christendom today.

That we should be no strangers to disobedience is not surprising. After all, were we not made that way such that Adam had no choice but to obey another voice than that of God? If that seems at odds with the truth, consider what Scripture says:

For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! (Rom. 11:32-33)

There it is; inescapable in black and white, the stark truth. The nature of the old man, our very own precious Adam, the flesh we have come to know and love and to cherish, is by its very nature: disobedient.

And by this he is condemned to die. He is born under the Law of Sin and of Death, and he cannot inherit the Kingdom of God as Paul says.

I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. (1 Cor. 15:50)

And thus it is that Grace and Mercy hold sway and out of this impossible dilemma comes God’s Way through Christ that makes the impossible possible, and we are set free by the Law of the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:2) and the Mercy which God has on all conquers the futility of the life of the flesh.

For by grace you are saved through faith, and this not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. (Eph. 2:8)

As Bonhoeffer said, it is not grace we bestow upon ourselves. It is not by works. It is a free gift, but one we must continually pursue in our faith; a faith that can only be confirmed by our walk, our exercise, our following of Christ, and Him alone. (Cost of Discipleship, p. 192)

If we are by the flesh disobedient, due to its nature, and Christ, the Word of the Father took on the flesh, then did He not also experience that disobedience? Certainly, if we accept the message of Hebrews 5 cited in the header quote, then we see that Christ Himself learned obedience from the things He suffered.

Is it a far stretch to say that we must learn obedience as well by the things which we must suffer? Do we believe God in all the things which He has said? Are we glorified along with Him, provided we suffer alongside Him (Rom. 8:17)? This word Paul wrote to the Romans is a hard word for many but it makes real the proclamation that we are to present our bodies a living and holy sacrifice (Rom. 12:2).

This is the word of righteousness so strongly proclaimed in Hebrews 5:13, that is food for the mature, strong meat, only able to be eaten by the Elect, those who are of the new priesthood of Melchizedek, the living stones, the holy priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9).

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. (Romans 6:12-13)

What a Mystery, of the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2), which brings about our sanctification through obedience, presenting ourselves as “slaves to righteousness,” and this leading to our sanctification, “without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:24).

This is the righteousness of God, in Christ, which He becomes in us, not we establishing our own righteousness. It is what Martin Luther called “alien righteousness.” In speaking of the Jews according to the flesh, his own people, Paul wrote

For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. (Rom. 10:2-4)

To establish our own righteousness is to not have faith, to not believe in God, nor to believe God. In establishing our own righteousness, we cut off Christ, and fall from Grace – we are abandoned to the flesh, to sin and death. To this the historical Israel bore witness in their lives, which showed only the emptiness and vanity of that standpoint.

In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25)

Christ is our righteousness, and apart from Him we have no righteousness of our own. Yet we are called to believe His every word, and to follow, to keep His commandment (1 John), to walk as He walked.

By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who say he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. (1 John 2:3-6)

This is what it truly means to follow Him, to respond to the call with obedience, which is part and parcel of faith. And how does it look to follow Him?

As children of obedience, do not be conforming yourselves to the former desires in your ignorance, But as the One having called you is holy, be holy yourselves also in all your conduct. (1 Pet. 1:14-15)

In short, obedience to the faith is following Christ Jesus, walking in holiness in all our conduct, just as He walked (1 John 2:6). Discipleship is only discipleship if it entails single-minded obedience.

So to summarize the manner of the walk of discipleship, it is as John wrote systematically in his first epistle, “to walk in the same manner as He walked,” “to keep His commandments,” to “love one another as He loved us” (John 13:34, 15:12).

As the Lord Himself said, “Continue in my word.” (John 8:31)

In the same vein Paul wrote to the Galatians:

You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified^a by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? (Gal. 5:4-7)

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Gal. 5:13-14)

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. (Gal. 6:2)

For this cause, Paul could only boast in Christ and see that the objective accomplished by Christ in him was an obedience of the Gentiles in word and deed. This is the goal of our preaching, an obedient faith active in love.

For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed . . . (Romans 15:18)

The Cost of Disobedience

If we are saved by Grace and that through faith (Eph. 2:8-9), then is obedience really that critical to our eternal or aeonial life? Hasn’t Christ forgiven us, and won’t He simply forgive us our disobedience?

This is an important question, and one that would not be asked by anyone in today’s church if the gospel had been properly taught. We are, sadly, dealing NOT with “the faith once delivered,” (see our paper “The Faith Once Delivered”), but with the gospel of cheap grace. Thus, the entire preceding section is really life critical.

Let’s revisit the words of the apostles in support of the primary warning given by Paul to the Thessalonians in the heading quote.

For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And “If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good. (2 Pet. 4:17-19)

Here the doing good must be understood as the obedience of the faith, as Peter points out earlier in this epistle.

So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,

“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,”

and

“A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.”

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. (2 Pet. 2:8-9)

Is it becoming clearer just how closely linked are faith and obedience? Stumbling because of disobedience is directly equated with unbelief. So, once again, we see that Bonhoeffer’s central insight about the cost of discipleship is scripturally correct.

Moreover, since only the righteous will see God, and that even for the Lord, being perfected by learning obedience through suffering (Hebrews 5), we need to understand the value of obedience and its objective as well. Notice that Paul’s end goal, repeated in the final verses of his prime opus, the epistle to the Romans, is not simply belief in the gospel, but the purpose of making the gospel known and the mystery being revealed is to bring about the obedience of the faith.

And Paul carefully lays out in this epistle (6:12-23), that obedience to the right master will result in righteousness and eternal life. This lengthy passage displays the brilliant spiritual logic that makes the case for obedience leading to righteousness and sanctification apart from which no one can see life. (cf. Heb. 12:14)

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:12-23)

The fiery judgment can now be seen to be reserved for those who eschew obedience in favor of being slaves to impurity and lawlessness, resulting in sin and death. As judgment is NOW for the house of God, then we who present ourselves as slaves to righteousness may be spared that fiery destruction by the breath of the Lord, out of whose mouth proceeds the sword of the Spirit.

Again, the price for disobedience:

But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. God “will repay each one according to his deeds.” To those who by perseverance in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, He will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow wickedness, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil . . . (Romans 2:5-9)

Who, then, can stand in the presence of this wrathful judgment, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from Heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire? (2 Thess. 1)

Only the called and chosen and faithful (Rev. 17), namely His Elect Ones, are able to withstand His fiery presence. Isaiah foretold that day.

The sinners in Zion are afraid;

            trembling grips the ungodly:

“Who of us can dwell with a consuming fire?

            Who of us can dwell with everlasting flames?”

He who walks righteously

            and speaks with sincerity,

who refuses gain from extortion,

            whose hand never takes a bribe,

who stops his ears against murderous plots

            and shuts his eyes tightly against evil—

he will dwell on the heights;

            the mountain fortress will be his refuge;

his food will be provided

            and his water assured. Isa. 33:14-15

The living bread and the living water of the Lord, Christ Jesus, will be freely given for all who walk in righteousness and speak in truth. This is part of that “obedience to the truth,” which must include speaking the truth at all times, and purifies the soul, in the words of the apostle Peter (1 Pet. 1:22).

Moreover, it appears in this scripture and others (cf. Revelation 20) that the obedient followers of Christ, His holy and chosen ones, will actually be the consuming fire of His presence, burning through all resistance to His kingdom, and torching all rebellion against the kingdom of God. They are the ones who can dwell with consuming fire, with aeonial (everlasting) flames.

It is abundantly clear from taking the whole of God’s word (Ps. 119:160, Isa. 28:10) that the cost of disobedience is to stand in the aeonial fire that will purify and amounts to a “second death.” Far from standing in the consuming fire, the sons of disobedience (Col. 3:6, Eph. 2:2-3) will experience the wrathful side of purification as their rebellious spirit will be reduced in their own “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Luke 13:28, Matt. 22:13) The cost of disobedience is to experience the destruction of the arrogant and narcissistic, deceptive and guileful nature of the beast, the old nature, and to suffer torment away from the presence of the Lord and His holy messengers. (2 Thess. 1:9)

While many false teachers of the world blaspheme God by saying this is eternal torment, we cannot ascribe that demonic quality to God, namely that He in His Grace would allow His creation to suffer separation, alienation, and torment for eternity. This notion of “hell” was introduced long ago by the Greeks and picked up by the Roman church and insinuated into Scripture by faulty translation. God will have Mercy upon all as Paul wrote to the Romans (Rom. 11:32).

So if we are going to “rightly divide the word of God,” then we need to look at the word which God has carefully chosen and refined 7 times (spiritual completion, Ps. 12:6). The word often translated ‘eternity’ is aion or aion ton aionen. But the Greek word ‘aion’ always signifies an ‘age,’ often an indeterminate period of time, with perhaps an unknown terminus, but nonetheless it is a period with an opening and closing. Most often in the New Testament, it is rendered ‘age’ or ‘world.’

How, then, can it be translated as a period which knows no end? It cannot. The ancient Greeks used it for the ages of this world, very long periods of history, but definite periods with closure. So we must understand ‘aion ton aionen,” not as ‘eternity,’ but as the age of ages, or eon of eons. So the ‘everlasting torment’ can only last forever in the context of the eons, or the eon of the eons. That is, only until the consummation of all the eons. Beyond that, we may speculate about eternity, but the words of First Corinthians 15 (vv. 22, 25-28) could not be true if some of God’s spirits were to be tormented for eternity. “As in Adam all are dying, so in Christ all are being made alive.”

With this more accurate understanding of the actual word God employed in these texts, we can see that misuse has cemented into Christendom a “teaching of demons.” And that would be to ascribe to God this demonic quality that He would torment for eternity. In this way the Devil (Gk. ‘slanderer’) would be victorious in superimposing His evil nature over that of the Most High God. What we understand in a greatly more nuanced way is that God reserves evil to humble the impenitent, and through the experience of wrath, come to understand the unfathomable depths of God’s mercy.

I applied my heart to inquiring and exploring by wisdom concerning all that is done under the heavens: it is an experience of evil Elohim has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it. (Eccl. 1:13)

So it is. Wrath is reserved to the impenitent and disobedient, and is an experience given to humble them to truly receive God’s Grace and to be enabled to enter into fellowship with Christ and all of creation. Thus, it turns out that obedience is absolutely critical to whether we experience aeonial life within the presence of Christ Jesus, the King of kings.

He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life [lit. ‘aeonial life’]; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. (Romans 2:6-8, cf. Romans 1:18)

So we are left with the ‘impossible possibility.’ How can we be obedient when we are “consigned to disobedience?” (Romans 11:32) It is to this topic we now turn.

The Paradox of Obedience

“Obedience to the call of Jesus never lies within our own power.” (Cost of Discipleship, p. 93)

Since salvation is a free gift of God, and faith is a gift by Grace, then how can obedience be within our power or control? Certainly, the person called is yet under the law of sin and death, they are incapable of obedience, for the fleshly mind cannot obey the law of God (Romans 8:7). On this existential fact of life the apostle Paul was absolutely clear:

For God consigned all to disobedience that He might have mercy on all. (Romans 11:32)

The dilemma which confronts the Christian, then, is that the call of Jesus is a call to single-minded obedience, one which accepts the literal nature of the adherence to all His commandments. Bonhoeffer eloquently critiques the loss of this understanding of faith throughout Christendom.

The elimination of single-minded obedience on principle is but another instance of the perversion of the costly grace of the call of Jesus into the cheap grace of self-justification. By this means a false law is set up which deafens man to the concrete call of Christ. This false law is the law of the world, of which the law of grace is at once the complement and the antithesis. The “world” here is not the world overcome in Christ, and daily to be overcome anew in fellowship with him, but the world hardened into a rigid, impenetrable legal principle. When that happens grace has ceased to be the gift of the living God, in which we are rescued from the world and put under the obedience of Christ; it is rather a general law, a divine principle, which only needs to be applied in particular cases. Struggling against the legalism of simple obedience, we end by setting up the most dangerous law of all, the law of the world and the law of grace. In our effort to combat legalism we land ourselves in the worst kind of legalism. The only way of overcoming this legalism is by real obedience to Christ when He calls us to follow Him; for in Jesus the law is at once fulfilled and cancelled. . . . the Christ whom the Scriptures proclaim is in every word He utters one who grants faith to those only who obey Him. . . . the whole Word of the Scriptures summons us to follow Jesus. (Cost of Discipleship, p.92-3)

The resolution of this paradox of obedience is to understand that it really does come in the liberating call to follow Christ; that faith is by grace and comes to those who take up the call to obedience; and in the response to this call we are granted faith and set free.

It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. (Gal. 5:1)

Without that obedience of the faith, we would still be slaves of sin, and not free at all.

Obedience of Mind

The true understanding of the obedience of the gospel would never be complete without a thorough contemplation of the aspect in the mind. The Lord Himself taught the masses that they are defiled only by what comes out of the mouth which begins in the heart or mind. So this obedience to the truth, obedience to the gospel, the obedience of faith can never be other than single-minded obedience to Jesus Christ Himself, and this we already have established. But just as James established that the tongue must be controlled in order to avoid sin, so we know that that thoughts are the initiating point of actions, and the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) made conclusive this case; e.g. taking adultery beyond action to the internal desire that would precede any action.

Listen to Paul’s definitive statement on our complete program of obedience.

For, though we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not fleshly. Rather, they are divinely powerful to demolish strongholds, overthrowing reasonings, and every lofty thing lifting itself up against the knowledge of God; and taking captive every thought into the obedience of Christ. And we will be ready to punish all disobedience, when your obedience is complete. (2 Cor. 10:3-6)

This is the spiritual battle – either obedience to the king, or rebellion which will be humbled and brought to heel. And though the world is currently showing its rebellious face, nonetheless, we know by faith that it will be placed under the feet of Christ the King. The spiritual dimension is in the Heaven within, where all the thoughts of self-justification build towers of defense against the knowledge of God and wage war against the Lord and His Anointed (Christ). These are the nations within us.

Why do the nations rage,

            and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves,

            and the rulers take counsel together,

            against YHWH and against his Anointed, saying,

“Let us burst their bonds apart

            and cast away their cords from us.”     (Psalm 2:1-3)

And yet there is another mystery, one which is partially revealed in Obadiah 21 and more fully unveiled in Revelation 14. It is the full Mystery of God, namely “the Christ of Christ,” or the Lord’s anointed ones, His Elect. In other words, just as the Father has His Anointed one, so does Christ Jesus have His anointed ones (plural). They are the called and faithful and chosen (Rev. 17) and they show this by complete adherence to his word, and a single-minded obedience to all that He commands. Theirs is “the faith once delivered,” and it is manifest in the obedience of the faith. They are disciples in the fullest sense of the word, as they follow Him wherever He goes.

And I looked and behold, the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him 144,000 having His name and His Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of many waters and the loud rumbling of thunder. And the sound I heard was like harpists strumming their harps. And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. And no one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. These are the ones who have not been defiled with women, for they are virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They have been redeemed from among men as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. And no lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless. (Rev. 14:1-5)

This is true obedience, following the Lamb wherever He goes, as such it is true faith. And for those with ears to hear what it means “wherever He goes,” they know it leads to Calvary. For did not the Lord say

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 16:24-5)

And so for the chosen, it is understood: true obedience leads to the cross and rejection.

The Cross

Obedience means discipleship — there is no gospel, no good news, without it. And discipleship demands following the Master and walking in the way He walked (1 Jn 2:6). And that means suffering and rejection by the world – crucifixion.

At the beginning of this writing we encountered the profound words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer contrasting cheap and costly grace, with costly grace demanding nothing less than the price of our life, but promising true life in return.

One of the least commonly discussed topics in the entire Christian community is the importance of suffering, which Luther considered one of the marks of the true Church, and which Paul wrote to the Romans is necessary to be glorified alongside Christ (ch.8).

Obedience to the gospel is obedience to the call of Christ who bids us to come and die. Listen to Bonhoeffer on this crucial point

The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death – we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but is meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. (Cost of Discipleship, p. 99)

So we come full circle back to Hebrews 5 in the first header quote. Are we greater than the Master? We, too, must learn obedience from the things we may suffer.

Cheap grace is the enemy of this obedience because the flesh is weak and it does not want to give up its life. It argues for another way, it searches for an interpretation of God’s Word that makes it not so; some kind of allegorical approach that takes grace and Christ’s once for all sacrifice to cover up and nullify our need to follow Him and join Him in a death like His. But this is disobedience to His call to lose our life for His sake.

“Unbelief thrives on cheap grace, for it is determined to persist in disobedience. Clergy frequently come across cases like this nowadays. The outcome is usually that self-imparted absolution confirms the man in his disobedience, and makes him plead ignorance of the kindness as well as of the commandment of God. He complains that God’s commandment is uncertain, and susceptible of different interpretations. At first he was aware enough of his disobedience, but with his increasing hardness of heart that awareness grows ever fainter, and in the end he becomes so enmeshed that he loses all capacity for hearing the word, and faith is quite impossible. (Cost of Discipleship, p.75)

Grace cannot be allowed to become a hiding place in which the Church resides, and from which it can shelter itself in disobedience and hunker down with the devil who comforts it in the cloak of that cheap grace. (Cost of Discipleship, p.76)

Here in all its simplicity is the final epitome of the message of obedience to the faith, obedience to the truth, obedience to Christ. It is that we are called to obey every word, and each in its literal simplicity, rather than searching some other interpretation which might allow us to escape the truth, to confirm our old nature in its consignment to disobedience, and in so doing, to prevent the rising of the new man of Spirit. Faith is NOT faith without obedience, and we do not become the spiritual sons of God apart from the death of the old man. Christ does bid us to come and die, and we are compelled to follow His commandment, not as some new form of law, but truly as a piece with that very trusting belief in His Grace and Truth, and in His trustworthiness to deliver on the promise of new Life in Him.

In the end, the first step of obedience proves to be an act of faith in the word of Christ. But we should completely misunderstand the nature of grace if we were to suppose that there was no need to take the first step, because faith was already there. Against that we must boldly assert that the step of obedience must be taken before faith can be possible. Unless he obeys, a man cannot believe. (Cost of Discipleship, p.72)

This, fellow members of the body of Christ, is precisely why the obedience of faith is a necessity for salvation, and life in the ages to come.

Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:24)