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Originally Posted by Pressing-On
LOL! Thanks! Some come across as faith alone. I think faith cannot be separated from obedience.
"By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name:" ( Romans 1:5)
"But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith:" Romans 16:26 |
PO, and others stress out and overly-emphasize to the point of drowning out the Gospel this element of works.
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Through Christ, God has given us the privilege and authority as apostles to tell Gentiles everywhere what God has done for them, so that they will believe and obey him, bringing glory to his name.
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But now as the prophets[i] foretold and as the eternal God has commanded, this message is made known to all Gentiles everywhere, so that they too might believe and obey him.
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None of this overlooks or eclipses the reality of the Gospel. If we are in Christ, we are not subject to the wrath of God. He has pardoned us, not just in the present, but also the past and future. Our sins are not counted against us, he bears them all. He did this without
any consideration of our works. Paul's emphasis on Justification by Faith was so impressed that
Romans 6 is almost a blushing disclaimer similar to: ("now I'm not saying we should go on sinning"). That's how Grace should be preached. We should do more pausing before we start going into how much they
need to obey -- and realize, a heart regenerated by Grace, is a heart that has no problem wanting to obey. We would do ourselves a great honor by allowing people to soak in Grace before jumping to further discipleship.