Salvation and Obedience

And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." (Acts 2:40, ESV)
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, ESV)
There seems to be a lot of confusion in the Christian world about the relationship of faith to obedience to salvation. Much of this stems from an erroneous idea about whether or not men and women have free wills, the freedom to choose. You would think that from day one, that is, from the very beginning in the Garden of Eden, it would be self-evident that humans can choose good or evil. We can choose God or Satan. We can choose the spiritual or the material. And on and on it goes. Is there anything a person can do on his own to obtain salvation? If there is nothing for a person to do since God has already chosen those who are going to be saved and those who are going to be damned, then most of my Bible is superfluous.
How is it that so many good men and women became confused about faith and salvation and the role of obedience in all of this? Rather than point fingers, let’s look at the heart of the matter. If a person says that everything bringing about salvation was accomplished by the mission of Jesus to the earth, His living, His miracles and healings, His suffering and dying on the Cross and His wonderful resurrection, I would whole-heartedly agree. He did it all. What the Law of Moses could not achieve, He did. Ah, but there’s the problem. So many have totally confused works of the Law of Moses with the question of faith and salvation that they have completely missed the point. When Paul is contrasting the faith and works in Romans, he is talking about the Law of Moses. That’s why James is quick to point out that he would show his faith through his works and that faith without works was dead, being alone. That flies in the face of tons of Bible notes and commentaries written over the ages. Even Luther, though not daring to take James out of the Bible, relegated James to the very end of his.
Am I daring to say that humans can do something to accomplish their own salvation? In terms of what Jesus did, that is incongruous. But there is something that humans must do or else we cannot understand the Bible at all. What is the obedience of faith? Let’s take a good example from everyday life. If I need to lose weight and I hear of a terrific program for losing weight, that’s wonderful. But if I do nothing at all, I guarantee my weight will not change. I did not create the program. Someone did it all for me. But faith is action on my part to apply that to my life so that I can in fact lose some weight. Jesus did it all. Faith, obedient faith, is believing that Jesus has done it all and acting accordingly to bring that salvation to apply to my soul. He is the object of my faith. No object, no faith. No object, no love. I love Him because of what He did for me. I want to obey Him because I now love Him.
One of the most abused scriptures in the New Testament is Acts 2:38. Responding to the question of the Jews, "Brothers, what shall we do?", Peter replies "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." (Acts 2:38-39,ESV) Peter has just finished delivering one of the most powerful sermons in history. He has convicted the Jews of killing the Christ, the Promised One. The people listening to the sermon are cut deeply by his words and believe they are totally lost, ready to be sent to the fires of hell. Without hesitation they respond, “What shall we do?” They might as well say, “What can we do?” They believe their situation is hopeless. Peter tells them that there are two things they must do. (For those Bible scholars who want to start quoting Greek to me, please cool your jets. The translation into English is correct and we will look at it from an English standpoint.) When you have the word “and” in English, usually you need to give equal weight to the two things that are mentioned. They asked, “what shall we do?” Do. Not believe. They already believe. They are convicted. Do, do, do. Action. Peter says there are two actions: repent (active on the part of the person) and be baptized (passive; the person is baptized by someone else.) Those two actions will result in two things, the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Peter then goes on to say that this double action, or these two actions will bring about the giving of these two gifts for everyone in the audience, for all of their children and for those who are far off (Gentiles), everyone whom the Lord God calls to Himself generation after generation, throughout the world.
Ah, you say, but there is the catch. Only those God calls are going to be saved. Oh, you missed a point somewhere along the way. Excuse me, I probably left out a very important part of the message. Jesus Himself tells us in John 6:44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. . .” A good reading of the sixth chapter of John will clear up a lot of confusion about how one comes to God. Paul continues in Romans 10:13-15, For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" Calling on the name of the Lord is another way of saying to respond in faith to the message of the gospel. Pure and simple.
Can a person be obedient to faith and thus be saved? I truly believe that is what the scriptures teach. Anything less is a very dangerous twisting of God’s word. Faith in Jesus demands my total obedience. If He is the great example of obedience, even to death on a cross, than who am I that I don’t need to be obedient? Dying to self is not passive, it’s active. When Christians learn to die to their worldly nature, they begin to understand the obedience that led Jesus to Calvary.