- Overcomer Literature Trust
- Swindon
- Wiltshire
OBEDIENCE: ITS PLACE IN HOLY SCRIPTURE.
By Andrew Murray.
In Gen. 2 v16, we read, “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying . . .”, and later in 3 v11, “Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?” Note how obedience to the command is the one condition of man’s abiding in Paradise, the one thing his Creator asks of him. Nothing is said of faith, or humility, or love, obedience includes all. Obedience as the one thing that is to decide our destiny. To obey is the one essential thing.
Turn now to the end of the Bible. In its last chapter we read “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life” (Rev. 22 v14 A.V.). In Revelation 12 v17 we read of those “who obey God’s commands and hold to the testimony of Jesus”, and of the patience of the saints who “obey God’s commandments and remain faithful to Jesus” (Rev. 14 v12). From beginning to end, from Paradise lost to Paradise regained, the law is unchanged - it is only obedience that give access to the tree of life and the favour of God.
The change, from the disobedience at the beginning that closed the way to the tree of life to the obedience at the end that again gained entrance to it, was was effected midway between the beginning and the end at the cross of Christ. Read Romans 5 v 19, “so also through the obedience of the One Man the many will be made righteous”, or Philippians 2 v8, “He became obedient to death - even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place”, or Hebrews 5 v 8-9, “He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him”. The whole redemption of Christ consists in restoring obedience to its place. The beauty of His salvation consists in this, that He brings us back to the life of obedience through which alone the creature can give the Creator the glory due to Him and receive the glory which his Creator desires to make him share. Paradise, Calvary, Heaven, all proclaim with one voice, ‘Child of God, the thing God asks of you is simple, universal, unchanging obedience’.
With any new beginning in the history of God’s kingdom, obedience always came into special prominence. Take Noah, the new father of the human race, and you will find four times that “Noah did everything just as God commanded him” (Gen. 6 v22, 7 v5, 9, 16). It is the man who does what God commands to whom God can entrust His work.
Think of Abraham, the father of the chosen race. “By faith Abraham . . . obeyed” (Heb. 11 v8). When he had been forty years in this school of faith-obedience, God came to perfect his faith and to crown it with His fullest blessing. Nothing could fit him for this but a crowning act of obedience. When he had bound his son on the altar, God came and said “I swear by Myself . . . I will surely bless you . . . through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed Me” (Gen. 22 v12-18). And to Isaac He said “I . . . will confirm the oath which I swore to your father Abraham . . . because Abraham obeyed Me” (Gen. 26 v3-5). How unspeakably pleasing obedience is in God’s sight, and how wonderful is the reward He bestows upon it. The way to be a blessing to the world is to be those of obedience, known by God and the world by this one mark, a will utterly given up to God’s will. Let all who profess to walk in Abraham’s footsteps walk in obedience.
At Sinai God gave Moses the message to the people “If you obey Me fully . . . you will be My treasured possession” (Ex. 19 v5). God’s holy will is His glory and perfection, it is only by an entrance into His will, by obedience, that it is possible to be His people.
Take the building of the sanctuary in which God was to dwell. In the last three chapters of Exodus we have the expression nineteen times that things were done “As the Lord commanded Moses”. And then the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. In the same way in Leviticus 8 and 9 we have, in reference to the consecration of the priests and the tabernacle, the same expression twelve times. And then, “The glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. Fire came out from the presence of the Lord, and consumed the burnt-offering” (Lev. 9 v23-24). It is in the obedience of His people that God delights to dwell, that it is the obedient He crowns with His favour and presence.
After the forty years wandering in the wilderness because of disobedience, there was a new beginning when the people were about to enter Canaan. There is no book in the Bible which uses the word obey so frequently as Deuteronomy, or speaks so much of the blessing obedience will bring. They are all summed up in the words “I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse - the blessing if you obey . . . the curse if you disobey” (Deut. 11 v26-28). Yes, “A BLESSING IF YOU OBEY”, that is the key-note of the blessed life. Canaan, just like Paradise and Heaven, can only be the place of blessing as it is the place of obedience. Let our one thought as a Christian be, how I can obey and please God perfectly,
The next new beginning is in the appointment of kings in Israel. In the story of Saul we have the most solemn warning as to the need of exact and entire obedience in a man whom God is to trust as ruler of His people. Samuel had commanded Saul to wait seven days for him to come and sacrifice, and to show him what to do (1 Sam. 10 v8). When Samuel delayed Saul took it upon himself to make the sacrifice. When Samuel came he said, “You have not kept the command of the Lord your God . . . your kingdom will not endure . . . because you have not kept the Lord’s command” (1 Sam. 13 v8-14). God will not honour the man who is not obedient. Saul had a second opportunity given him of showing what was in his heart. He is sent to execute God’s judgment against Amalek. He obeys. He gather an army of two hundred thousand men, undertakes the journey into the wilderness, and destroys Amalek. But, while God had commanded him “utterly to destroy all, and not to spare”, he spared the best of the cattle and Agag. God then speaks to Samuel, “I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from Me and has not carried out My instructions” (1 Sam. 15 v10-11). When Samuel comes, Saul says, “I have carried out the Lord’s instructions” (1 Sam. 15 v13). And so he had as many would think. But his obedience had not been complete. God claims exact, full obedience. God had said, “Totally destroy everything”. This he had not done. He had spared the best sheep for a sacrifice. But Samuel said, “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? . . . Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you as king” (1 Sam. 15 v22-23). God demands complete obedience. It is only whole-hearted obedience that will satisfy God.
One more word from the Old Testament. Jeremiah is also full of the word obey, though mostly with reference to those who do not obey. God sums up all His dealings with people, “Obey Me, and I will be your God” (Jer. 7 v23).
When Jesus came into the world He said, “I come to do Your will, O God” (Heb. 10 v5). Of all He did and of all He suffered, even to death, He said, “This command I received from My Father”.
If we turn to the teaching of Jesus we find everywhere that the obedience He rendered is what He claims from everyone who would be His disciple. During His whole ministry, from beginning to end, obedience is the very essence of salvation. In John 7 v21 He said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven”. In the farewell discourse He reveals the spiritual character of true obedience as it is born of love and inspired by it (John 14 v15,16,21 & 23), “If you love Me, you will obey what I command . . . Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me. He who loves Me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him . . . If anyone loves Me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him”. No words could express more simply or more powerfully the glorious place Christ gives to obedience, which is only possible to a loving heart, and makes possible all that God has to give through His Holy Spirit. I know of no passage in Scripture that gives a higher revelation of the spiritual life, or the power of loving obedience.
This is confirmed in the next chapter. How well we know the parable of the vine. How often and how earnestly we have asked how to be able to abide in Christ and may well overlook the simple truth that Jesus teaches so clearly, “If you obey My commands, you will remain in My love, just as I have obeyed My Father’s commands and remain in His love”. Obedience on earth is the key to a place in God’s love in heaven.
Unless there is some relationship between God’s whole-hearted love in heaven, and our whole-hearted loving obedience on earth, Christ cannot reveal Himself to us, God cannot abide in us and we cannot abide in His love.
In Acts there are two statements which show how the early Church had understood this. When before the Sanhedrin, Peter asked, “Is it right in the sight of God to obey you rather than God?” (Acts 4 v19) and later “We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him” (Acts 5 v32).
In Paul’s letter to the Romans we have, in the opening and closing verses, the expressions “to the obedience that comes from faith” and “that all nations might believe and obey Him” (Rom. 1 v5 and 16 v26). Disobedience in Adam and in us was the one thing that brought death, so obedience in Christ and in us, is the one thing that makes the way possible for restoration to God and His favour.
James warns us not to be hearers of the word only but doers, and explains how Abraham was justified, and his faith perfected, by his obedience. In Peter’s First Epistle we have only to look at the first chapter to see the place obedience has in his teaching. In verse 2 he speaks of those who have been chosen “through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood” and so points us to obedience as the eternal purpose of the Father, as the great object of the work of the Spirit and a chief part of the salvation of Christ. In verse 14 he writes, “As obedient children do not conform to the evil desires”. Obedience is the very starting-point of true holiness. In verse 22 we read, “you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth”. The Christian life is in the first place obedience.
John is very strong in his statement, “He who says, ‘I know Him’ but does not do what He commands is a liar” (1 John 2 v4). Obedience is the one certificate of Christian character. “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence . . . because we obey His commands and do what pleases Him” (1 John 3 v18-19 &22). Obedience is the secret of a good conscience, and of the confidence that God hears us. The obedience that keeps His commandments is how love reveals itself.
Such is the place obedience has in Holy Scripture, in the mind of God, and in the hearts of His servants. Have we given obedience that supreme place of authority over us that God means it to have?
From: ‘The School of Obedience’.