Yesterday the preacher made the point that a defective Gospel produces defective Christians (well, these are my words as I cannot remember the actual words he chose but this was his intended point). And he did so by asking the congregation whether the Gospel is to be believed or obeyed.
To bring home his point he focused on Romans 10, a chapter which is often used to highlight the importance of sharing the Gospel: How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:14-15).
However, as he pointed out, v16 goes on to say “But they have not all obeyed the gospel.” Of course if you looked up the verse in NIV you will find that NIV chose to interpret the text and translated it to fit the context, which is about Israel, and so the NIV reads, “But not all the Israelites accepted the good news.”
On the other hand, NIV translated Romans 1:5 as “Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake” although I think the ESV translation of the same verse is punchier, putting the two on level terms: “through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations”.
Whether you speak of the obedience that comes from faith (meaning that faith comes first and obedience results from it) or you speak of the obedience of faith (meaning that faith is expressed by obedience, or the substance of faith is obedience), you cannot avoid the truth that nature of true faith is obedience.
And that brings into question the kind of Gospel that we often disseminate (or more harshly, peddle or sell) that has little weight and substance, wrapped around the notion of faith as intellectual assent.
When I was in my teens, a wise pastor in my church in Batu Pahat likened such a gospel to vaccines, which are basically weakened versions of the real thing used to prevent a person from actually getting the real thing, and he attributed this strategy to the devil. It is frightening.
Yesterday’s sermon resonated because I had just finished putting together the devotion guide for Week 30 (Ephesians 4) and I had hit upon the perspective of “embracing the life that Jesus offers”, as a way of understanding what it means to become a Christian because the notion of faith has become so diluted in today’s Church.
“Paul tells us that being a Christian is not merely intellectually agreeing that Jesus is God and he sacrificed himself as a ransom for our sin; it is to embrace the life that he offers—one that puts God at the centre—made possible by his death and resurrection.”