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The importance of recognizing this is that "obedience" can then be given its due, along with "trust" (or "confidence" ≡ "fiducia") and "loyalty" (or "faithfulness"  Ξ = "fidelitas") in analyzing the meaning of "faith." "Faith" is rightly analyzed as the acceptance of the gift of God's acceptance that as such complies with God's demand, i.e., the demand that the gift of God's acceptance be accepted. But, then, faith can only be precisely "obedience," for to comply with God's demand is to obey God, and Paul's phrase, "the obedience of faith," or "the obedience that faith is" (υπακοην πιστεως [Rom. 1:5]) proves to be an exact description of what faith is.

Of course, the faith that is obedience to God has two essential moments: a first, relatively more passive moment of accepting God's acceptance by trust in it; and a second, relatively more active moment of accepting God's acceptance by loyalty to it. Thus one can speak as appropriately of the trust and loyalty of faith, or the trust and loyalty that faith is, as of the obedience of faith, or the obedience that faith is. Even so, it is important to understand that trust in God's acceptance and loyalty to it are but two distinguishable moments in the obedience that God demands in demanding that the gift of God's acceptance be accepted through faith.

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