Many prefer faith to obedience. Extreme Protestants say “I believe, therefore I am saved.” When questioned about the need for obedience to be saved, they often fall back on “The most important thing is to believe in Jesus and The Bible.”
Many Protestants, mostly farther in the fringes of the 40,000 denominations, have almost an allergic reaction to the necessity of obedience in being saved. “Obedience is nice but not necessary. The important thing is to believe in Jesus and The Bible.”
This passage makes it clear how very, very wrong it is to tell people that faith is more important than obedience. We see in this short reading that, without obedience, faith is of little use. Heb 4:1-5, 11
Let us be on our guard while the promise of entering into His rest remains, that none of you seem to have failed. (We must remain obedient to the end.) For in fact we have received the Good News just as our ancestors did. But the word that they heard did not profit them, for they were not united in faith with those who listened. (They were early Protestants.) For we who believed enter into that rest, just as He has said:
As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter into my rest,’ and yet His works were accomplished at the foundation of the world. For He has spoken somewhere about the seventh day in this manner, And God rested on the seventh day from all His works; and again, in the previously mentioned place, They shall not enter into my rest.
Therefore, let us strive to enter into that rest, so that no one may fall after the same example of disobedience.”
St. Paul, a Catholic priest/bishop began the passage with the importance of belief. He ends with the importance of obedience. He provided Catholic Sacraments to the early Catholics of Asia Minor and Greece. He did more than encourage them to “obedience”.
He made it clear that the cause of fall was: “. . so that no one may fall after the same example of disobedience.”
When we combine that with Jesus’ clear instructions, “If you do not eat My Body and drink My Blood you do not have life in you.” we see that we may only have life through obedience. Without obedience, we “fall”.
