Neither God nor St. Paul agrees with “Sola Fides”, the theory that “We are saved by faith, alone.” God and St. Paul are very clear about the emptiness of “Faith Alone”. An enormously important passage debunks “Faith Alone” while giving us the reason for all there is, including the purpose for each of our own lives, in only one, impressively long, sentence!
Romans 16: 22-27: “Glory to Him who can strengthen you, according to my Gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret for long ages but now manifested through the prophetic writings and, according to the command of the eternal God, made known to all nations to bring about the obedience of faith, to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ be glory forever and ever. Amen.”
Those who struggle with the emptiness of “Faith Alone” may find relief in finding a greater truth. St. Paul did not say that God’s purpose in downloading The Creation Program was to have “made known to all nations to bring about faith, alone. . .”! St. Paul says that His purpose was to bring about the “obedience of faith”. Everything was brought into being so that each free will creature could, and must, show whether or not we have enough “obedience” to God to be saved.
The Scripture is easily understood. Faith, unaccompanied by obedience, does not reflect God’s purpose in all that He did. He wrote and downloaded the complexity of The Creation Program with His ability to program in some sort of 3-D pixels so that each human soul would be free to turn away from the distracting programmed entities provided in The Program, turn toward The Loving Programmer, and be obedient to the Operating Instructions He provided to His beloved free-will programs, each of us.
We see that the “mystery kept secret for long ages but now manifested through the prophetic writings and, according to the command of the eternal God, made known to all nations to bring about the obedience of faith. . .” sums up the reason for Creation and the goal God has provided for those He chose to get as far as every reader of these words. Obedience.
The great Christian evangelist, personally chosen by Jesus, teaches: The emptiness of “Faith Alone”. Can anyone not understand?
