The character of obedience

We have to approach obedience carefully. The Christian does not obey God in order to purchase salvation. We cannot earn the gift Christ offers. But neither should we imagine that genuine faith produces deliberate disobedience as a lifestyle. As we saw in chapter 11, Jesus asked, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” That is a penetrating question. If Jesus is truly Lord, His words matter.

Obedience is the language of love

Jesus said:

If you love Me, keep My commandments.

Notice the order. Love first. Obedience follows. Jesus does not say, “Obey Me so that I might love you.” He says, “If you love Me…” Obedience is therefore not meant to be cold legalism. It is the response of a heart that trusts the One who is speaking. John says the same: “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3). Jesus adds a remarkable promise: “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you” (John 15:14).

A child obeying a loving father

Imagine a child who knows that his father loves him. When the father gives him an instruction, obedience is not necessarily viewed as oppression. The child trusts: “My father knows what is best.” The same principle applies to God. Faith says: “God knows better than I do.” That sentence is one of the foundations of character. Pride says, “I know what is best for me.” Faith says, “Lord, Your wisdom is greater than mine.”

Abraham: obedience that trusts

Abraham’s obedience was tested more deeply than most. God told him to take his son Isaac, the son of the promise, and offer him as a burnt offering (Genesis 22:1-2). Scripture says simply that Abraham “rose early in the morning” and went (Genesis 22:3). He was not given an explanation. Hebrews tells us what was happening in his heart: he believed that “God was able to raise him up, even from the dead” (Hebrews 11:19). His obedience was an expression of trust that God would keep His word, even when he could not see how. And God provided:

By Myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son—blessing I will bless you.

Noah is described in the same way. Of the ark, Scripture says: “Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did” (Genesis 6:22). Obedience for Noah meant building something for decades that made no sense to the world around him. Their obedience was not cold. It came from people who had learned that God can be trusted.

The obedience of Christ

The supreme example is Jesus. Hebrews says something that is easy to read past:

Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.

Jesus’ obedience was not a performance. It took Him to Gethsemane and to the cross. And the same letter says that He is the author of salvation to “all who obey Him,” which means that the Christian life is a life of following.

Obedience as a response to love

Obedience is not an attempt to purchase God’s love. It is a response to His love. Paul describes those who had been set free from sin: “you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered” (Romans 6:17). From the heart. Christlike obedience asks not merely, “What can I get away with?” but, “What would please the One I love?”