Evangelical Obedience # 4

Evangelical Obedience # 4

What is yet more to the point in connection with our immediate subject, under the New Covenant - provision has been made for the failures of its subjects. God does not reject their obedience because it is faulty - but graciously accepts the same when it is prompted by submission to His authority, is performed by faith, is urged by love, and is done with sincerity of purpose and endeavor.

Sin has disabled us from an exact keeping of God's commandments - but He approves of what issues from an upright heart and which sincerely seeks to please Him. We are bidden to "have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably (not flawlessly!) with reverence and godly fear" (Heb. 12:28). While God still justly requires from us a perfect and perpetual obedience, nevertheless, He is graciously pleased to receive and own genuine efforts to conform to His will. He does so because of the merits of Christ and His continued mediation on our behalf. Having accepted our persons, He also accepts our love-offerings - note the order in Genesis 4:4. We present spiritual sacrifices unto Him, and they are "acceptable to God by Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:5).

That we are here propounding no new and dangerous error will be seen from the following quotations: "Notwithstanding, the persons of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works are also accepted in Him: not as though they were in this life wholly unblamably and unreproveable in God's sight - but that He, looking upon them in His Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, though accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections" - (The Westminister Confession of Faith).

"I call it Gospel obedience, not that it differs in substance from that required by the Law, which enjoins us to love the Lord our God with all our hearts - but that it moves upon principles, and is carried on unto ends, revealed only in the Gospel" (John Owen).

According to the modification of the new covenant, "God, out of His love and mercy in Christ Jesus, accepts of such a measure of love and obedience as answers to the measure of sanctification received" (Thomas Manton).

Though the above quotations are far from being divinely inspired - and therefore, are without any binding authority upon the children of God - nevertheless they are from men who were deeply taught and much used by the Holy Spirit, and thus, are deserving of our serious and prayerful attention. While the Christian is forbidden to call any man "father" - that is far from signifying that he should despise such teachers. There is no Antinomian laxity in the above citations - but a holy balance such as is scarcely ever found in the ministry of our day.

Above, we pointed out that God justly requires a perfect obedience from all rational creatures, and that under no circumstances will He lower His demand. Every regenerate (born again) soul concurs with God's holy claim, and deeply lament his inability to meet that claim. We also affirmed that under the moderation of the New Covenant constitution, that God is graciously pleased to accept and approve of an obedience from His people, which - though sincerely desiring and endeavoring to measure up to His perfect standard - is, through their remaining corruptions and infirmities, a very defective one; and that He does so without any reflection upon His honor.

We followed that brief averment by giving excerpts from some of the Puritans - the number of which might easily be multiplied - not for the purpose of buttressing our own teaching - but in order that it might be seen that we are not advancing here any dangerous or strange doctrine. Nevertheless, the majority of our readers will require something from an infinitely higher authority than that on which to rest their faith; and to it, we now turn.

In Genesis 26:5, we find the Lord declaring: "Because Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept my charge, My commandments, my statutes, and My laws." Yet he did not do so perfectly, for he was a man "subject to like passions as we are"; nevertheless, God owned his obedience, and, as the context there shows, rewarded him for the same. Sincere obedience, though it be not sinless, is acceptable unto God; if it were not, then it would be impossible for any of His children to perform a single act in this life which was pleasing in His sight. Not only so - but many statements made in the Scriptures concerning saints would be quite unintelligible to us - statements which oblige us to believe that God receives the hearty - yet imperfect, endeavors of His people; yes, that He attributes unto the same a far higher quality than they do. Thus, He said of Job, "That man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil" (Job 1:1): yet, as we read all that is recorded of him, it soon becomes apparent that he - like ourselves - was "compassed with infirmity" (Heb. 5:2).

~A. W. Pink~

(continued with # 5)