Who Obeys?
Paul’s letter to the Romans begins with a theologically dense introduction in the first seven verses. If you’re looking for a passage to ponder for deep theological insight or simply for a Scriptural meditation, these verses stand as a good candidate. Some verses contain several deep theological points that could have entire essays written over them. As an example of the kind of work that could be done here, we’re going to take a look at one particular word and the phrase it belongs to in verse five.
The word translated obedience is hupakoé (ὑπακοὴν) in Greek. This word is used only fifteen other times in the New Testament, so one could get a better understanding of the word by looking at it in each of those other contexts. I understand that not everyone wants to do seminary homework in their free time, so instead of doing all the homework, we will do a quick fly over of a few of the other verses. What does this verse tell us in other contexts and what does that tell us about this word at the beginning of Romans?
In Romans 5:19, we see this word used to describe Christ. By Christ’s obedience “the many will be made righteous.” It gets used twice in Romans 6:16 referring to slaves being obedient to their masters. Paul is using it figuratively here, indicating that we can either be slaves to sin or slaves to obedience. Either way, obedience here is the humble position of a slave. The word is used in Romans 15:18 the same way it is used in the first chapter. In Romans 16:19, Paul commends the Romans for their obedience. In this context he is warning them against people who seek to deceive the “simple-minded.” The idea appears to be that the Romans have a reputation for being obedient to the point of being gullible. Paul wants to encourage them to be obedient to sound doctrine, but wise and discerning when it comes to false doctrine. Again in Romans 16:26, Paul talks about obedience of faith. We could go on, but this paints a clear enough picture. Obedience is humble service, walking the path that Christ walked. Obedience is the way slaves were expected to behave. Obedience is humble service to the point of risking being “simple-minded.”
As much as it may sound bad when you associate it with slavery and simple-mindedness, obedience has been part of Christian dialogue for a long time. We are called to be humble, live simply, and obey God and human authority in the Bible. Throughout the centuries, people have gone back and forth on what it means to be obedient to church leadership and civil authority and how important that is. This has caused trouble at points in human history when church leaders abused their authority, greedily enjoying the fruits of the little labor they did while telling the peasants to live humbly and profiting from their poverty. ANd this isn’t all medieval. This comes up in modern times as well. The church sided with the fascist dictator Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Of course, this led to dire consequences for the church, as angry workers killed priests and nuns because of their association with the fascists. When humans demand other humans be obedient to them, violence is inevitable. There may be systems in place that delay it, but when significant scarcity strikes or revolutionary fervor moves the hearts of the people, obedience is replaced with violence. So, what are we to do with this obedience if it is so dangerous?
In verse five, Paul speaks of “the obedience of faith among all the gentiles.” The grammar here is significant. The word for “faith” here is in what is called the genitive case. That may sound complicated, but at the risk of over simplifying it, that means the same thing as a possessive noun in English. To make that even more clear, you can change the word order and insert an apostrophe and an “s.” This is Allan’s house, the house of Allan. This is the horse’s saddle, the saddle belonging to the horse. This is faith’s obedience, the obedience of faith. The important distinction here is that it isn’t the gentile’s obedience. It is faith’s obedience among the gentiles.
What could it possibly mean for obedience to belong to faith? How can faith own something? Luther considered faith to be a very active thing. It isn’t dead and lifeless. It isn’t a mere feeling. Faith is the interaction of the Holy Spirit, the Gospel, and our souls. Faith is the spiritual reaction fizzing and bubbling up from our hearts when God enters in and interacts with the longing that dwells there. Faith is alive and powerful, shaping our world and changing our lives. And because we are so often fickle, changing personas to fit our circumstances, morphing our personalities as the world exerts its pressure on us, faith can be seen as more real than we are. This powerful force in the world is what obeys, and Paul hopes to bring us along for the ride.
I don’t want to demonize church authority. It is important for people who study the Bible and theology, intentionally entering into the long dialogue and wrestling with the material, to continue leading interpretation. People declaring themselves their own authority over Scripture without joining into the discourse, often give us some of the wackiest and most harmful theological ideas. And obedience of faith is certainly something that the church does together. However, when Paul speaks about obedience of faith, we need not see that as a requirement to blindly follow whoever is giving us orders.
The obedience of faith doesn’t tell peasants to quietly sit by while fascists take over the country, even if the church tells them to. The obedience of faith doesn’t tell people to silently bear abuses and oppression by church and society. The obedience of faith isn’t a matter of humans obeying humans. The obedience of faith is about faith itself obeying God. It isn’t our obedience that matters. But with the help of community discernment, deep prayer, and meditation upon the Word of God, we can trust that the faith in us will obey and drive us where we need to go.
