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.
In this message, I want to focus on one phrase and how it functions in this doxology, and then make it the occasion of reviewing something enormously important in the book of Romans. The phrase is the obedience of faith from the end of verse 26: “. . . to bring about the obedience of faith.” If the glory of the only wise God through Jesus Christ is the ultimate goal of all things in these verses (according to verse 27), then “the obedience of faith” is next to the ultimate goal of all things in these verses. And that’s because when faith in Jesus Christ produces obedience to Jesus Christ, those obedient lives make God look glorious. That’s what Jesus said in Matthew 5:16, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
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So in the beginning and the ending of this letter Paul says that the gospel and his apostleship (and, by implication, our ministry and your life!) has this great aim: that Jesus Christ would be seen as glorious—magnificent—among all the peoples of the world by means of the obedience of Christians which flows from their faith in him.And if you wonder what kind of obedience he has in mind, he left us in no doubt. Just recall some of Romans 12:
Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. . . . Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
That is what the obedience of faith looks like. That is the beauty that the nations of the world need to see—for the sake of the name.
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How then does our own obedience—“the obedience of faith”—relate to justification? The answer is: Our obedience is not the ground or the basis of our justification. Nor is it any part of the instrument or means by which we are united to Christ who alone is the ground and the basis of our justification. Faith alone unites us to Christ and Christ alone is the ground of our justification. Our obedience is the fruit of that faith. The faith that justifies is the kind of faith that, by the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:13), changes us. If your faith in Christ leaves you unchanged, you don’t have saving faith. Obedience—not perfection, but a new direction of thought and affections and behavior—is the fruit that shows that the faith is alive. James put it this way, “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). Faith alone justifies, but the faith that justifies is never alone. It is always accompanied by “newness of life” (Romans 6:4).
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