Obedience
Obedience
Obedience is the fourth way by which we become “doers” of the word and not only “hearers.” Yet obedience involves submission to authority, and this is out of fashion today. However, if Jesus Christ himself lived in humble obedience to God’s Word, obeying its commands as well as believing its promises, there can be no doubt that we must also. For the servant is not greater than his master.
Jesus went further than that. He indicated that, just as ancient Israel was to prove her love for God by obeying him, so Christian disciples must prove their love for Christ by their obedience:
If you love me, you will obey what I command…. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me…. If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching;… He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. (John 14:15, 21, 23–24)
It seems to me that we should be more grateful to God than we customarily are that he has revealed his will so clearly on so many subjects in his Word. For the very first step towards holiness of life is a knowledge of what is pleasing and displeasing to God (cf. 1 Thess. 4:1). So the Christian’s dearest ambition is “to live according to Scripture” (see 1 Cor. 4:6), for there is no other way to be sure of living according to his will.
This goes for social as well as personal righteousness. For the will of God in the Word of God for the people of God relates to the whole of our lives. It tells us to love God, to control ourselves and to love and serve our neighbor. And the requirement of neighborlove has many and wide ramifications. For my neighbor has a body as well as a soul, and lives by God’s ordering in a community. So I cannot claim to love him if I ignore either his physical or his social well-being.
We have already seen with what detailed applications the Hebrew prophets proclaimed the righteousness of God. The home, the marketplace, the lawcourt, the farm—these were the places where righteousness was to be practiced. And where it was lacking, there the judgment of God would fall. The prophets were fearless in thundering their woes upon the unrighteous, upon the trader who cheated his customers by using false weights and measures, upon the greedy landowner who joined house to house and field to field until there was no more room, upon the magistrate who perverted justice by taking bribes from the guilty rich and condemning the innocent poor, upon the husband who profaned the divine institutions of marriage and home by his sexual unfaithfulness, upon the moneylender who charged extortionate rates of interest, even upon the king who oppressed the people instead of serving them. And by contrast the Book of Proverbs, full of practical wisdom, extols the virtues of honesty, industry, generosity, humility, chastity and justice.
The apostles too, in the ethical sections of their letters, lay great stress on social righteousness. They portray what should be the mutual relations between husband and wife, parents and children, employers and employees. Paul exposes the gravity of tolerating in the Christian community such sins as factions due to a personality cult, litigation and immorality. The liar is to learn to speak the truth, and the thief to earn his own living so that he can give to those in need. All bitterness, anger, slander and malice are to be put away. Christians are to be kind, tenderhearted, forbearing, tolerant, and even (as Jesus taught) to love and serve their enemies. James inveighs against class distinctions in the Christian fellowship, against our unruly tongues, and against jealousy and selfish ambition. In the last chapter of his letter he sounds just like an Old Testament prophet as he condemns the rich for their luxurious living and their fraudulent treatment of their own farm laborers.
It is true that there are many complex ethical questions of the modern world on which Scripture does not directly pronounce. But the principles are there on which we must form a responsible Christian judgment. Whether the issue is war or violent revolution, pollution, pornography or poverty, or political and economic theory, we cannot escape the labor—and sometimes the pain—of seeking to formulate a biblically conditioned Christian opinion.