The Pillars of Christian Character (eBook)

2

OBEDIENCE:
THE BELIEVER’S COVENANT

The perfect companion to faith is obedience. The final stanza of the familiar hymn “Trust and Obey” summarizes quite well the partnership these two foundational attitudes have: “Then in fellowship sweet we will sit at His feet, or we’ll walk by His side in the way; what He says we will do, where He sends we will go—never fear, only trust and obey.” The line “what He says we will do, where He sends we will go” gives us a simple definition of spiritual obedience. It basically means submitting to the Lord’s commands, doing His will, based on what is so clearly revealed in Scripture.

FAITH AND OBEDIENCE INSEPARABLE

Jesus’ Great Commission to the disciples indicates just how foundational the matter of obedience is for believers: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:19-20). While verse 19 involves proclaiming the Gospel, seeing people saved, and having them publicly profess their faith in Christ, verse 20 builds on the new converts’ salvation experience. Disciplers, or any mature believers, will teach new Christians to obey God’s commands in His Word and to submit to Him. The Great Commission delineates the two great essentials of the sanctification process, or the believer’s life in Christ—faith and obedience.

Obedience is so foundational that if it is not present in the life of one who claims to be a Christian, that person’s faith ought to be questioned. This truth is emphasized more than once by the apostle John: “Jesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed in Him, ‘If you abide in [obey] My Word, then you are truly disciples of Mine’” (John 8:31); “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love” (15:10). He reiterates the principle even more plainly in his first epistle: “And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:3-4).

All who profess faith in Jesus Christ must also demonstrate that faith by obeying God’s Word. Otherwise, their profession of saving faith is suspect. The obedience of a true believer will be unequivocal, uncompromising, not grudging, and from the heart. Obedience is therefore an integral part of one’s salvation.

In fact, the apostle Peter describes salvation as an act of obedience: “. . . you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren . . . for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God” (1 Pet. 1:22-23). “The truth” is the Gospel, which in essence is a command to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ (Mark 1:15). In the New Testament, the gospel message was always preached as a command (e.g., Matt. 3:2; 4:17; Mark 6:12; Luke 5:32; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 17:30; 26:20). Because it is a command, it calls for obedience, and all who are genuinely born again have new spiritual life because they heard the truth contained in Scripture, believed it, and obeyed it.

However, the moment of salvation involves more than an isolated act of obedience. When anyone places his trust in Christ’s atoning work and receives His forgiveness of sins, he also acknowledges that the Savior is Lord and Master over his life. That means each believer has committed himself to a life of ongoing obedience, although initially he did not fully grasp all the implications of that commitment.

The reason we don’t immediately understand all the ramifications of our commitment to Christ is that God, through the Holy Spirit, must first give us that sense of dedication. It does not originate with us, but the Spirit produces in our hearts the willingness to travel the pathway of obedience to God as servants of Jesus Christ. That’s the process of sanctification, but it is only one phase of our salvation.

A well-rounded perspective on salvation and its fuller implications begins with a basic understanding of divine election. First Peter 1:1-2 describes believers as those “who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.” Foreknowledge is often misinterpreted. It does not mean all people have operated by their own will, with God as a neutral observer looking ahead from eternity past to see who would believe in Him and who would not and then choosing to save some and reject others. Instead, foreknowledge means that before anyone was born, God lovingly predetermined to intimately know some individuals and save them.

The Greek word for foreknow denotes a predetermined relationship, which is the same concept that defined God’s plan to choose Israel from among all the other nations. He could have chosen a more prestigious and powerful country to proclaim His truth to the world, but He sovereignly predetermined to have a special, personal relationship with Israel (see Amos 3:2). Jesus spoke of this regarding believers when He said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27).

Election according to God’s foreknowledge is the first phase of salvation. The Lord predetermined before the foundation of the world to have a close spiritual relationship with certain people, those who have believed or will yet believe the Gospel before the end of the age.

Peter’s next phrase in verse 2, “by the sanctifying work of the Spirit,” brings us again to sanctification, the present phase of salvation. That which was in the decree of God in eternity past (election) moved into time through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. That means believers are saved by the agency of the Spirit: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). So the Spirit’s sanctifying work begins when we are saved. Sanctification includes being set apart from the control of sin, death, hell, and Satan and being enabled by the Holy Spirit to live an obedient life, conformed more and more to the image of Jesus Christ.

Living a life of obedience is the third and future phase of salvation, as indicated by Peter’s statement, “that you may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood” (v. 2). The overarching purpose of redemption is that all believers would live the remainder of their lives walking in obedience to the Lord. The apostle Paul illuminates and sums up this future phase of salvation in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

A COVENANT OF OBEDIENCE

Peter’s brief expression in 1 Peter 1:2, “and be sprinkled with His blood,” presents us with an interesting interpretive challenge. The apostle’s words are relevant to our discussion of salvation issues, but at first glance their meaning may seem a bit strange or obscure. The meaning, however, was clear to Peter’s original audience, which included many converted Jews. He was referring to the following key passage from the Pentateuch and the graphic ceremony it depicts:

Then Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the LORD and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, “All the words which the LORD has spoken we will do!” And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. Then he arose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the sons of Israel, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as peace offerings to the LORD. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and the other half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient!” So Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

—Exod. 24:3-8

As Exodus 24 begins, Moses has just recently received God’s law (the Ten Commandments and many other ordinances) on Mount Sinai. Prior to the new Mosaic law, God had revealed His will and ways to His people in many different fashions. But from now on His will would be written down in absolute specifics—everything in the moral and ceremonial laws and all the laws of social and economic life.

After he came down from the mountain, Moses, with the Spirit’s help, orally recounted God’s massive law to the people. And they responded orally with one voice of public promise, basically saying, “We will obey all that we’ve heard.” Thus began a covenant-making process between God and His people. God agreed, in the form of the Mosaic law, to provide the people with a set of standards for behavior that when violated would have certain moral and spiritual implications. The people agreed, in the form of their willing public vow, to obey God’s words and follow the path of righteousness that His law now established.

Following his oral recitation of the law, Moses (presumably throughout the night) wrote down, under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, all those words of the law. Early the next morning he built an altar at the foot of Mount Sinai to publicly symbolize the sealing of the covenant made the previous day between God and the people. To represent everyone’s participation, the...