It seems absolutely daffy to me that I should be sitting this morning and pondering the question of obedience and the role it has in the faith we call Christian. After all obedience seems like a no brainer...a slam dunk...a given doesn't it? And yet after teaching several times on the subject I admittedly confess that the questions connecting obedience to works and the dreaded idea of earning salvation, have rattled around inside my head. I have come to believe that for most of Christendom, obedience is considered an optional commodity. Salvation comes through faith in Christ and is a gift of God's grace. Anything that adds to or takes away from this important principle is simply error. And obedience is an add-on.
But is this true? Is there a place for obedience in the faith? And if there is, what place does obedience hold? Does it impact salvation? Can someone believe, shun obedience, and still get the bus ticket to heaven? What happens if we disobey? Is God angry with us? If we are caught in blatant disobedience at the point of death, do we forfeit our bus ticket? If not, why bother with obedience at all? If heaven is for those who have "crossed the line of faith" through some prayer or confession or silent affirmation or whatever it is that we offer these days in order to evangelize, why does obedience matter? If you and I both "accept Jesus" and you live a life of obedience to God in gratitude for God's grace and I just go about my business (my business is messy!)does it change anything? If God loves us as sinners, which is the darkest state of disobedience, does he love me more if I become obedient? Does he love me less if I don't? I'm sure you've thought of at least one of these questions. If you think of them all, then you're like me a messed up individual.
Ever since Martin Luther declared that "the righteous shall live by faith" the subject of obedience has become a messy one. In truth, we are more devout in upholding the concept of "sola fide" or faith alone than we are of upholding scripture in some cases. As Protestants, we are wary of Catholic practices and beliefs knowing only that they are wrong, but not really sure why. Catholics believe in works and obedience...we are not Catholic...we don't believe in works or obedience.
Those of us who teach God's Word handle obedience with infant-like gloves knowing that a works based salvation is death. I have always maintained that obedience is a fruit that is produced by the Holy Spirit in those who have experienced the new birth. I sort-of encased my theory in the idea that when we are made new by the Spirit, we are given a heart that wants to obey God and over time if we cooperate, we will do just that. In my mind, this made obedience a gift of God's grace and ensured that he not me got the glory for any good thing done.(This makes eternal rewards a bit tricky!) Others encase obedience in an overwhelming sense of joy and appreciation we have toward God and something we offer in response to his grace and mercy. In other words, obedience is something we offer out of our love for God.(This makes Romans 7 rather difficult I think!) Others just simply treat obedience as a form of dogmatic duty, a legalistic expression of do's and dont's that are observed in a fashion peculiar to each denomination.(This makes the whole meaning of grace a threatened species ready for extinction.)
I have come to realize that my approach is wrong, or at least incomplete. Too many "born-anew" creatures simply never get around to doing what seems to be natural in the Holy Spirit. I'm not sure of the other two responses. There simply seems to be too many "ungrateful/unappreciative" people around for option number two's reign to be complete. I hope that the third option is wrong as it seems to represent a form of Christianity that gets down right ugly. Let's face it...obedience is simply messy. It gets even messier when the words of Jesus are allowed to weigh in.
The most haunting words of Jesus on this matter come in the form of a question that is captured for us by Luke in his sixth chapter. Jesus is declaring that what a person does reveals what a person is or in faith lingo, what a person says he believes will be evident by the things he does with his life. Then he suddenly pops the question, "Why do you call me Lord and do not do the things that I say?" Because obedience is so messy, we get around this by separating Jesus Lord from Jesus Savior. Jesus Savior is essential for heaven. Jesus Lord is an option for the really serious. I assume you find this to be less than adequate as I do and if so, what does Jesus mean? When you add this to Matthew's offering in chapter seven of his gospel the plot thickens. "Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven." Again, the obedience mess is before us and even messier here, so we get around this by defining the "will of my Father" as believing. Only those doing the Father's will, and that will is summed up in "believing on Jesus" will go to heaven. Again do you find this adequate?
If God's will is ultimately boiled down to one thing, "belief" then there are a good deal of wasted pages of a very lengthy book called the Bible that speak to things outside of God's will. That's the kicker for me. The Bible. Over ninety percent of scripture is devoted to two things: the first, what God has done and continues to do in creating, sustaining, and redeeming the world and its people and second, what we as his people have done and are commanded to do in response to God. Very little is dedicated to the world to come or even about how to get there. Why is there such an emphasis on human obedience, disobedience, and the consequences for both?
It is not just Jesus who reminds us of a role that obedience might have in life. Consider these passages from the New Testament that refuse to go away:
"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. or So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. or He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. or Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. or Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. .
Shall I go on? I think that you get the point. Obedience is no little matter in scripture, even in the part of the Bible that is exclusively devoted to Jesus and our salvation. In other words, obedience is a big deal beyond the Old Testament and its imposed irrelevance to the Christian world of today. These scriptures and more exist in and around the marvelous passages that we have underlined in our Bibles dealing with the free gift of God's salvation. They are there...what do they mean? I don't know to be honest.
I believe that obedience is the reason that God has saved us by his grace. He didn't save us to save us but rather to bring us into relationship with him so that we might obey him. Obedience has always been the standard that God required of the creature called Human. It was required of Adam and Eve, of Israel, of Jesus, and is required of us. It is not optional. It never has been. Until we begin to take obedience seriously, we will not participate in the Kingdom of God. These are things that I believe. As for how it is linked to the bus ticket to heaven, I do not know. I'm beginning to have doubts about the whole bus deal to be honest.
In the mean time, I have more questions. I wonder how many of our prayer requests are in fact pleas for God to undo or mask over the consequences our disobedience? How important is the concept called repentance in this whole process? Can we presume upon God's grace without acknowledging our disobedience? It seems to me that the person who refuses to obey God in giving to him first has little justification to ask God for more. In stating this have I now come to the place of earning God's blessings? I hope not. Make no mistake, we are abundantly blessed by God beyond what we deserve through his grace. But we certainly cannot continue to walk in disobedience and expect grace to abound can we? Paul states an emphatic "NO!" to this. We should to.
For now the questions will have to remain mostly unanswered. I sense that something is essentially wrong with our modern proclamation of the faith called Christian that makes this as messy as it is. I sense we have confused something or emphasized something disproportionately in order to get to where we are. Martin Luther campaigned for the removal of the Epistle of James from the Canon of Scripture because its emphasis on works and obedience messed up his developed theology of grace and faith. We all do that in some ways with those things that don't fit or cause discomfort or mess with our well-framed theology. But it doesn't work that way. James is still there and it's "faith without works is dead" still reminds us that obedience is not optional. Now what will we do with that?
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