Not Faith Only

by Terry Wane Benton

When they say Romans speaks of salvation “by faith only”, they have a different Bible than I have ever seen. Romans speaks of “obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5), but never puts “faith” and “only” together anywhere. It speaks of people who “knew God” but “they did not glorify Him as God” (Romans 1:21). That is faith only, and it never will save anyone.

Romans 6:16 speaks of obedience “leading to righteousness.” You are not counted righteous until obedience leads to it. So, that is a faith with the quality of obedience built in and understood. Romans 6:17 said you were “delivered” from the bondage of sin when you “obeyed from the heart.” Did you notice again that “obeying” is built into faith and that we are not “delivered” apart from “obedience?” But what we “obeyed from the heart" was “the form of doctrine” which looks back to the form of death to sin, burial with Jesus in baptism, and rising to walk in “newness of life” (Romans 6:3-6). We obeyed this form from the heart!

If you did not obey this form from the heart, then you were not delivered from the bondage of sin, and you did not “unite together “ with Jesus, and you did not “rise up with Jesus from the grave of baptism to walk in newness of life.” Faith only holds you still bound to sin and death. Nothing in the book of Romans is going to override this fact. If someone is inserting “only” with faith, they are contradicting Romans instead of telling you what it actually says, and you remember the devil doing that very thing to alter God’s word in the Garden of Eden. Don’t let him trick you again by inserting “only” where faith actually calls for “obedience” from the heart!