The Place of Obedience

By Loran Biggs

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     There is a passage of scripture which has, in sincerity, been greatly abused by some and woefully misunderstood by others. It needs our careful study and re-examination. I refer to Romans 6:14. "Sin will not have dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace."

     No one can understand this scripture until he realizes that law is used in the Bible in two different ways. It is used as (1) a condition of salvation, and (2) a rule of behavior for the child of God. As a condition of salvation, law is a complete failure. The failure is not its own but lies in the inability of the sinner to keep it. As a result of this failure it brought condemnation and death. That is why Paul calls it "the dispensation of death and condemnation" (2 Cor. 3:8, 9). Unless we were delivered from law as "a condition of salvation," there would be no hope for anyone. That is exactly what our Substitute, Jesus, did. By His life and death He satisfied the law's demands and so fulfilled it that we, through our identification with Him, are said to be "dead to the law" (Rom. 7:4; Gal. 2:19).

     Law can neither justify, give life, maintain life, or give victory. Jesus fulfilled the law in all of these respects. "For Christ is the end of the law, that everyone who has faith may be counted right with God" (Rom. 10:4). In Galatians 3:21 Paul asks, "Is the law then against the promises of God?" He answers, "Certainly not, for if a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would indeed be by the law." Jesus saves us and keeps us saved apart from law-keeping.

     The opposite of law as a condition of salvation is grace. In this sense, and in this sense alone, it is true that "we are not under law but under grace." It is quite another matter when we come to the use of law as a rule of behavior for the child of God. The idea that we are not under law in this sense is nowhere taught in the Bible. Just the opposite is taught. The opposite of law as a rule of behavior is not grace at all but lawlessness, which is sin. John makes this abundantly clear in 1 John 3:4, "Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness, for that is what sin is, lawlessness, the breaking, violating of God's law by transgression or neglect--being unrestrained and unregulated by His commandments and His will" (Amplified N. T.). In Romans 6:1, 2 Paul asks, "Shall we disobey and fail to keep God's laws because we are under grace?" He answers, "By no means...God forbid."

     God gives to everyone of His children the same Holy Spirit that was in Jesus to enable them to love and keep His commandments. Paul is revealing to us this very truth when he writes, "The law never succeeded in producing righteousness, the failure was always the weakness of human nature. But God has met this by sending His own Son, Jesus Christ, to live in that human nature which causes the trouble...so that we are

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able to meet the law's requirements, so long as we are living no longer by the dictates of our sinful nature, but in obedience to the promptings of the Spirit?' (Romans 8:3, 4). So we see that grace has not made the keeping of God's commandments obsolete for the Christian, but as Paul says, by the empowering of the Spirit they are now established. "Do we then throw out the law of God when we depend on faith? Certainly not. We uphold the law" (Romans 3:31).

     The law of God "as a condition of salvation" was a yoke of bondage that no one could bear. Anyone who attempts to keep it so as to earn or merit salvation will find it is still a "law of condemnation and death." Just as Paul says in Galatians 5:4, "If you depend on the law to save you, you cut yourself off from Christ and from the mercy of God which can alone save you." The law of God, as required in the New Testament is to the Christian the perfect law of liberty. Laubach's translation of James 1:22-25 makes this perfectly clear. "Do whatever God tells you to do. Do not be the kind of men who hear God's message and then do nothing. Such men deceive themselves, but not God. If anyone hears God's message, but does not do it, he is like a man who looks at himself in a mirror and goes away and forgets at once what he looks like. The truly wise man looks into God's law, for that is the only perfect mirror. God's law alone brings true liberty. The wise man obeys this law. He never forgets what he hears, and he always does what he knows is right. That man will be happy in all his work."

     Sin broke us away from the will of God. Christ, in doing the will of God, broke the power of sin. Salvation means we have been saved from doing our own will and restored to doing the will of God. Repentance means a return to obedience. The apostle Peter in 1 Peter 1:2 tells us that we were "chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ." Paul teaches us that obedience is a test of Lordship. He says in Romans 6:16, "He is our Lord whom we obey." That is why Christ asks each of us the question, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not the thing that I tell you?" (Luke 6:46).

     In 1 Corinthians 7:19 Paul shows us that obedience to the commands of God is the principal thing in the life of the Christian. He says, "For being circumcised or not being circumcised makes no difference at all. Keeping God's commands is what matters."

     We need to remind ourselves frequently that our Lord's first and last instructions were concerning obedience to His commands. Wuest translates Matthew 7:21 this way, "Not everyone who keeps on saying to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who keeps on doing that which my

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Father in heaven has determined shall be done." He translates Matthew 28:20 as follows: "...baptizing them into the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to be attending to carefully, holding firmly to and observing all, whatever things I enjoined upon you." It would not be possible for one to listen to what we have been reading from God's Word and fail to understand that obedience is demanded of every child of God.

     Christians are now in the kingdom known as the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of His dear Son. Combine these three terms and we learn that to be in the kingdom means to have God ruling in our hearts from heaven and through His Son. A kingdom is a realm ruled by a king whose word is the law of that realm. Therefore, the kingdom of God is a realm in which the laws of God are obeyed. All Christians have been brought into this kingdom and are expected as loyal subjects, to obey the laws of the kingdom. God is a good and faithful Father and disobedience cannot go unpunished. If Christians would study to know the will of God and obey their Father's commands, instead of finding fault with their punishments, their hard times, unanswered prayers, and the like, their lives would be far different.

     To "keep" God's commandments is to obey them. The primary thing in obedience is the desire of the heart and it is always the condition of the heart that interests God. Two things are true of every Christian: (1) Deep down in his heart there is an intense, steady longing and yearning to please God, to do His will, to walk in full accord with His word. This yearning may be stronger in some than in others and in each of us it is stronger at some times than others, but it is there. (2) No real Christian fully realizes this desire. Every genuine Christian has to say, with Paul the apostle, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I keep pressing forward to make that life my own, just as Christ Jesus made me his own" (Phil. 3:12).

     If we look at our deeds, and if we are honest, we have to confess that we have "kept His word" very imperfectly. It seems to us that we are not entitled to say we have "kept" it at all. But the Lord looks behind the deeds and knows the longings within us. The case of Peter (John 21) is a good illustration of this. When Christ asked him a third time, "Lovest thou me?" Peter replied, "Lord, thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love thee" (John 21:17). His disgraceful denial had contradicted his love, and his fellow-disciples had good reason to doubt it, but Peter knew that Jesus read his heart and was able to see how much he really loved Him. It is comforting to realize that He can see in my heart what I often cannot discover in my behavior, and what my fellow-Christians cannot--a real love for Him, a genuine longing to please and glorify Him.

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     From reading this you might be led to the conclusion that it makes little difference what our outward lives are like so long as our heart is right. But where there is love for Christ there will always be bitter sorrow (as with Peter) when we know that through our failure we have grieved Him. Furthermore, there will be a sincere confession of our sins which will be followed by an earnest seeking for grace to enable us to do what He desires for us to do.