The Faith that Saves
The Bible says that Noah “found grace/favor in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:8). If you read the text thoughtfully, you observe that God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12 does not mention grace at all. Fast forward to Exodus & Deuteronomy and you would notice in the Hebrew that the Ten Commandments are not so called. They are the “Ten Words” (Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 4:13; 10:4). What’s the connection?
In the first volume John Goldingay’s Old Testament Theology trilogy – Israel’s Gospel – he points out that the Old Testament undermines a distinction between God’s “promises” and His “commands” by referring to both as God’s “Words.” His implication, then, is that the Old Testament also undermines a distinction between “faith” and “obedience” (pg. 198).
God wants to give Abraham a new home in a new land (Genesis 12). But Abraham cannot receive it unless he first gets up and leaves. You have probably heard this statement before: The hand that is closed to give is also closed to receive. Abraham could not receive (by grace) a new home if he does not first offer an open hand (by faithful obedience).
Similarly, Adam had been told – “Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” If Adam and obeyed faithfully God’s command (“word”), Adam would have shown that he had faith in God’s provisions (grace). But Adam and Eve did not have such faith. Subsequently, they disobeyed. Disobedience, Goldingay points out, is “an act of unfaith.”
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When Abraham obeys, it is “an act of faith.” Goldingay continues, “In due course Christian thinking [more accurately, Judaistic and subsequent denominational thinking, p.h.], will make a sharp distinction between grace and works, but in origin they are one” (pg. 199; emph. mine).
We see that same contrast in John 3:36: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” So the biblical/theological opposite of “belief” is disobedience. On the other hand, biblical faith, faith which God asks of us, always and unhesitatingly obeys. Grace in this verse is epitomized in the phrase “eternal life.”
That is why the apostle Paul could say that his ministry was to “bring about the obedience of faith” among all nations (Romans 1:5). Let us never disconnect faith from obedience. The faith that saves is the faith that obeys (Mark 16:16).
–Paul Holland
