I agree. Not only obedience and believing are synonyms, also faith in Christ but the good thing is, all thses simply means LOVE for others which is a work and not just a mental picture.
Choosing to believe the gospel is the act of obedience that saves, not to be confused with multiple acts of obedience/works/acts of love/charity which "follow."
Works of the law- no
But faith is a work. Works of love and not mental pictures.
You cannot dissect works of love from the law. (Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:37-40) and faith is not just another work in a series of works in a quest to receive salvation by works.
Love for one another, the one who hates is a murderer.
The one who hates is a murderer is descriptive of children of the devil and not children of God. 1 John 3:10 - In this the
children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who
does not love his brother. 1 John 4:7 - Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and
everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who
does not love does not know God, for God is love.
There's no flaw from the start, you either believe or not or believe and later fall from the belief.
There certainly is a flaw from the start, as in the example of the 3rd and 4th soils in the parable of the soils. People may actually start out believing in a politician (based on their own misconceptions and expectations) then later find out that politician does not line up with their original expectations. It's the same with Jesus.
If you read in John 8:31-59, you will see that the
Jews who were said to have "believed in Him" turned out to be:
slaves to sin, indifferent to the words of Jesus’, children of the devil, liars, accused Jesus of having a demon and were guilty of setting out to stone and kill the one they have professed to believe in. *So we can see at best, these Jews believed in Him (based on their own misconceptions and expectations) of Jesus, yet upon gaining further knowledge about Jesus through His words, we see they did not truly "believe in His name/believe in Him" and become children of God (John 1:12; 3:18).
In John chapter 6, we see that many of Jesus' so called disciples
complained and were offended (verses 60-61) about what Jesus said in verses 51-59. These are the very so called "disciples" who Jesus says
"do not believe" (John 6:64). They also
walked with Him no more. So apparently, these alleged disciples of Jesus set out to be learners and followers of Him (based on their own misconceptions and expectations) of Jesus, then as soon as Jesus said something that was hard for them to understand and did not line up with their expectations, they left Him. Not belief is firmly rooted and established from the start. Don't be so naive.