Obedience: His Not Mine

Dear Old Friend,

In your ardent desire to understand the truth in regards to Grace and what God requires of us, you have often brought up the question of obedience: Doesn't God still expect us to obey?

You and I were both raised in a church which stressed the importance of obedience to God’s commands.  We were taught that obedience was a requirement for salvation. We were told that we might not be perfect, but that God expected us to try relentlessly to reach that standard; and, on judgment day, he would determine our fitness for heaven based on our record of obedience. Jesus covered any sins we had committed before we became Christians, but from that point on, we knew God was watching us to see how we measured up. 

In Church and in the Bible classes in our church school, we learned what happened when people didn't obey. When Adam and Eve ate one little piece of fruit they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden and could no longer associate personally with God.  We saw that, because people became so disobedient, God decided to destroy everyone but Noah and his family, and start over.  Lot's wife glanced back at her burning home and was turned into a pillar of salt!  

We studied the Children of Israel and saw that, frequently, when they voiced a complaint about their circumstances, God struck them with poisonous snakes or some other dire punishment.  Even Moses, who put up with so much for so long from the Israelites, in the end wasn’t allowed to enter the Promised Land simply because, instead of speaking to the rock as God directed him, he disobeyed and struck the rock twice, in anger at the rebellious people.  One infraction and God wouldn’t let him go in.

We were raised on Bible stories of disobedient people getting leprosy or being burned up, or where the ground opened up and swallowed them along with their entire families.  Poor Uzzah, who was accompanying the Ark of the Covenant back to its rightful place after it was retrieved from those who had stolen it, reached out to steady the Ark as it teetered precariously on the cart where it was riding, and God struck him dead because he disobeyed the command not to touch the Ark.

The fact that God takes obedience seriously was deeply ingrained in us; and, the moral of the story, implied in all of those lessons, was that if we disobeyed we shouldn’t expect God to cut us any more slack than he did for the people in the stories.

Oh, we were told “the good news” about the verses where God describes himself as being loving, merciful, patient, kind, forgiving, compassionate and long-suffering, but we knew he only felt that way about the “good” people; those who obeyed more than they disobeyed.  But inside we wondered just how much more you had to obey than disobey before you qualified as “good”.

Now, after all these years, I realize that, as bleakly as the picture of God's expectations was painted for us, in reality, it wasn’t painted bleakly enough; and because of that, the good news we got wasn’t really good news, either!

The hard truth is, the reason for all of those stories, beginning with one little piece of fruit, was to demonstrate, through many different circumstances in many different ways, that God’s commands are absolute and immutable.  There is not one smidgeon of mercy incorporated into his demands.  There is no wiggle room.  There are no acceptable excuses.  There are no satisfactory extenuating circumstances which will allow for His looking the other way over even the tiniest act of disobedience.  The Law is the Law and the Law must be obeyed. Period.  For the smallest of infractions, God has the sovereign right to bring down the full wrath of the Law upon the transgressor. 

Scripture clearly says that God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow; therefore, what was true of the God of the Old Testament is still true of Him today. He always has and always will require absolute obedience at all times in every way.

In other words, when it comes to the Law, to borrow a line from Yoda in Star Wars, “There is no try.”  You and I, however, were told that we were required to try and that God would look for the sincerity and desire displayed in our efforts, and because of his mercy, etc, he would judge us by those things. That was a terrible lie! 

God could not and would not lower his standard to make up for our deficiencies.  If he could have done that, he would have done it immediately after Adam chewed and swallowed! His laws are unconditional and unchangeable, and every jot and tittle had to remain in force until they were completely fulfilled, by being perfectly obeyed.

The problem was, that not one single human from the line of Adam was ever going to be able to obey God to the required degree.  Because of that fact, only a member of the God-head himself could become a human and meet the requirements; so Christ came and perfectly fulfilled every bit of the Law on our behalf, and took the full wrath of the Law which we deserved.  When we have accepted him as our Savior, all obedience has been accomplished for us.  The life we now live we live by faith in his finished work. 

So, what about us; what about our “obedience”? Our acts of love and worship which we offer in response to the incredible gift which has been freely given to us could never qualify as the obedience which God requires.  We would be lying to ourselves and others if we thought and said that we are “obedient” in any other way than the way in which the New Testament primarily speaks of obedience: as “obeying the truth”, which means to believe in the finished work of Jesus; and then, even the ability to believe is not our own, but is a gift from God!

Of course, the Holy Spirit will draw us to love God and others and call us to demonstrate that love through our actions; and, in our humanity, we will try and fail and try again to do what he prompts us to do; but, our salvation is not dependent, in any sense whatsoever, on whether or how well we do what we are prompted to do.

Our salvation is only and always dependent on the doing and dying of Jesus Christ; his obedience alone, never ours!

WooHoo! I have to go and do a little glory dance after that! God is Good! Amen and Hallelujah, my friend!

Love Always,

Bonnie