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Loving Christ (Part 3) |
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By Ralph I. Tilley
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C. S. Lewis once rather crudely remarked on the subject of obedience to Christ: "The command Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command.[55] I have addressed thus far in this series two basic truths: First, the only way Simon Peter, or any other disciple for that matter, could love Christ with agape and philos love was because God in Christ first loved him, and that this love (agape) of God had been poured out into Peter's heart by the Holy Spirit. One is an objective fact—God manifested his love for sinners through the Incarnation and the atoning death of his Son on the Cross. The other is an experiential fact (subjective, if you will)—God's love has been appropriated by a believing repentant sinner. The second basic truth: to love Christ is to listen to Christ: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me,”[56] said the great Shepherd of sheep. As we noted, to listen to Christ is to listen primarily to his words, as recorded in the written Word of God. We also noted that this listening involves listening to the Holy Spirit in areas of personal guidance, which will always be in harmony with the written Word of God. One can only cultivate and express a passionate love for Christ because of God's manifested love for us through the Incarnation and the Cross, and we can only cultivate and express our love for Christ by attentively listening to his voice in the sacred Scriptures and to his Spirit in matters of personal guidance. In this part of the series I want to address the relationship between love and obedience. As I have previously noted, agape love is more than emotion; it involves a commitment of the will—a will that has been purified by the love of God and is being daily renewed and increasingly conformed to the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ. To say we love Christ while living in known disobedience to the words of Christ is a contradiction foreign to the Word of God. The Old Testament Witness on Obedience There is a popular myth that has been floating around for centuries in the church. This myth has been expressed in different ways but generally goes something like this: Although Israel's covenant God, Yahweh, expected his people to keep his prescribed laws, they could not. Metaphorically speaking, so the myth goes, Yahweh used a carrot-stick approach with Israel. He dangled the law before his people, but kept it just out of reach, making it impossible for his people to obey his words. The entire witness of the Old Testament opposes such a myth, with Deuteronomy as one example. In Deuteronomy, Moses rehearsed in the hearing of the people of Israel the laws God had given them on Sinai. Camped on the east side of Jordan, God was about to lead his people into Canaan under the leadership of Joshua. Before Moses' death and prior to the crossing, Moses read the law of God again to a generation who had not heard it since it was originally given. Before he reiterated the specifics of the law, Moses warned Israel, "You shall be careful therefore to do as the LORD your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess.”[57] Clearly, if language means anything, God's expectation was that Israel could obey the commandments, statutes, ordinances, and laws he had lovingly and mercifully given them for their own good. Following these words of warning, the Great Shema is given to Israel by God.[58] Immediately following the Shema, Moses informs the people of God that the words of God are to be kept preciously near and diligently taught to every succeeding generation: "And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”[59] Moses then proceeded to repeat God's laws. At the conclusion to his rehearsal of God's laws, Moses announced to Israel that all the commands of God they had just heard were not an impossible ideal the people were incapable of obeying. On the contrary, he says, "For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.”[60] God says of these commands to his people through his servant Moses: they are not "too hard" for them; "you can do it." If God said that those living under the Old Covenant could actually obey the commands he had given, how much more can Christians keep God's moral law and ethical teachings as enunciated under the New Covenant, inasmuch as Christ has died, risen, ascended and is presently interceding for his church. Moreover, Christ is presently indwelling his people in the person of the Holy Spirit, empowering them to express their love and devotion to him by obeying his words. The Witness of Jesus on Obedience In underscoring the interconnectedness between love and obedience, Jesus concluded his Sermon on the Mount with a question and two parables. First, the question: He asked his disobedient hearers, "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you?”[61] This question was asked within the context of Jesus' warning his disciples against those who taught truth correctly, but denied the very truth they taught by the moral carelessness of their lives. They were careless because their hearts were not right with God. Jesus called such imposters "hypocrites," who bore "bad fruit" and were fundamentally "evil" in their hearts.[62] In Matthew's account, Jesus said these morally corrupt teachers and leaders will ask at the Judgment, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?”[63] Jesus said his reply to such imposters will be: "I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”[64] Frederick Bruner says of Jesus' verdict regarding these imposters who will make such a flimsy defense of themselves at the Judgment: "We learn at least that it is possible to work for Jesus and yet not live under him. We can be intoxicated by the power of Jesus and yet be hostile to his hard Commands. . . . They believe that they know Jesus, but apparently they never gave him a chance to know them ('I never really knew you'), that is, they never gave him a chance to come into personal contact with their innermost life (the force of the biblical word 'know')." Then Bruner makes a poignant observation. "It is strangely possible to serve and even to glorify Christ and yet in one's own personal life not to obey him.”[65] To those, who after listening to the teachings of Jesus but not practicing them, Jesus says, "But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”[66] To the obedient hearers, Jesus promises in contrast: "Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.”[67] With such a conclusion to his sermon, Jesus boldly stated in this Constitution and Bylaws of the kingdom of God, that he expected such truth to be faithfully and lovingly obeyed—not in one's own strength, of course, but through the indwelling power he supplies through the Spirit. "The missing note in evangelical life today," observes Dallas Willard, "is not in the first instance spirituality but rather obedience." Then Willard laments, "We have generated a variety of religion to which obedience is not regarded as essential." He then says, "I do not understand how anyone can look ingenuously at the contents of the Scripture and say that Jesus intends anything else for us but obedience.”[68] The entire teaching ministry of Christ becomes meaningless unless we understand that Jesus expected his words to be obeyed by his disciples. The fact is Jesus equated obedience with love. Lest he be misunderstood, Jesus emphasized repeatedly in his Final Discourse with the Twelve that obedience to him and his words was one of the spiritual laws of his kingdom. Jesus assumed obedience would be the expected result from those who truly loved him with an agape love. He said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”[69] A few verses later, he said, "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.”[70] In the same context, he later said, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”[71] Conversely, Jesus said, "Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.”[72] Following his teaching of the Vine and Branches, Jesus once again joined love and obedience—this time with obedience toward him as a sign of friendship: "You are my friends if you do what I command you.”[73] Many Christians in our generation are offended by Jesus' use of the language of "commands" and instinctively respond, After all, we are living under the New Covenant and are not expected to keep rules. Rules are for those living under the Old Covenant. Rules are too hard. The Pharisees were encumbered with rules and imposed the same upon their disciples. This is not the quality of life Jesus calls us to! Addressing those who believe that the commands and principles enunciated by Jesus and Paul are too hard, Dallas Willard asks, "Is it then hard to do the things with which Jesus illustrates the kingdom heart of love? Or the things that Paul says love does?" Willard answers: "It is very hard indeed if you have not been substantially transformed in the depths of your being, in the intricacies of your thoughts, feelings, assurances, and dispositions, in such a way that you are permeated with love. Once that happens, then it is not hard. What would be hard is to act the way you acted before.”[74] Jesus' universal commands to his disciples—and through the Holy Spirit to every succeeding generation—covered a broad spectrum of kingdom living. These commands addressed such issues as loving one's enemies, anxiety, faith, false doctrine, fear, greed, forgiveness, and judgmentalism.[75] Someone may ask? Did not Jesus reduce all the Old Covenant commands to just two? No, he did not. He summarized all the commands with two: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”[76] Jesus also established a new standard of love for his disciples: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”[77] But while Jesus summarized all the Old Covenant commandments with two, and while he established a new standard of love for his followers, he likewise stated many truths in the imperative mood, expecting that his true disciples would take such teaching at face value, trusting the Holy Spirit to empower them to it. Just because no disciple of Jesus has ever absolutely complied with his every command under all circumstances at all times, should not suggest that Jesus does not mean what he says. Also, to say that being is more important than doing in the teachings of Jesus, doesn't absolve the disciples of Jesus from the doing. Certainly, doing must flow out of being. But, if language means anything, Christ did expect his followers to behave in specific ways under a given set of circumstances, otherwise his commands make no sense at all. Jesus desires that the conduct of his disciples be the result of having an intimate relationship with him. Such a life is not a matter of rule keeping. The disciples of Jesus comply with his commands because they love him—because they have entered into a love relationship with their Master and Teacher ("my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”[78]). This is not the religion of the Pharisees. "The Pharisee takes as his aim keeping the law," says Willard, "rather than becoming the kind of person whose deeds naturally conform to the law.”[79] The quality of Christians, and therefore the church, would be elevated to a degree Christ intended if we only took his words seriously. William Law—whose writings had a significant impact in shaping the formative Christian years of John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield—looked at the dismal level of Christlike living in his own day and wrote: "For if the doctrines of Christianity were practiced, they would make a man as different from other people as a civilized man is different from a savage. If the doctrines of Christianity were practiced, it would be as easy a thing to know a Christian by the outward course of his life as it is now difficult to find a person who lives the Christian life.”[80] Jesus said if his followers would only be wise and build their relationship on him and his words, practicing the truth he taught, they would be able to withstand every conceivable storm providence brought their way. However, for those who never took Christ's teachings to heart, foolishly failing to cultivate a relationship with him by not practicing his teachings—to such religious people, Jesus said they would be unable to withstand life's storms: "And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”[81] In the language of Friedrich Nietzsche, "The essential thing in 'heaven and earth' is . . . that there should be a long obedience in the same direction.”[82] This is what constitutes authentic discipleship, and this is one sure way to cultivate and express a passionate love for the Lord Jesus Christ. As far as Jesus was concerned, love for him and obedience to him were synonymous. Two Witnesses on Obedience from Church History In concluding this section on loving obedience to the Lord Jesus, I want to appeal to two witnesses in the church's long two thousand year history who made a strong case on the subject: George MacDonald and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Neither of these men was popularly received by many in the church in their own day, primarily because of their persistent and outspoken insistence that God's expectations of Christ's followers was that their lives be characterized by a loving obedience to the Lord Jesus. The spiritual temperature had fallen to such a low degree among God's people in their respective generations until both MacDonald and Bonhoeffer were regarded by many as legalists. Nevertheless, these two prophets of God would not be silenced as long as they had breath—though in MacDonald's case he was driven from his pastorate, and in Bonhoeffer's case, he died as a martyr at the hands of a despotic government with an approving state church as a witness. George MacDonald (1824-1905) C. S. Lewis once said of George MacDonald, "I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself. Hence his Christlike union of tenderness and severity. Nowhere else outside the New Testament have I found terror and comfort so intertwined.”[83] Lewis credited MacDonald as being one of the writers who made a great impact on his thinking leading up to his conversion to Christ, as well as a constant influence impacting his own Christian writing career. Lewis said when he was a struggling pagan in search of reality and truth he purchased a copy of MacDonald's Phantastes: "I had not the faintest notion what I had let myself in for.”[84] The "faintest notion" he came to be "in for" was his personal conversion to Christ. Scotsman George MacDonald was one of the 19th century's greatest minds and most prolific authors. His written works numbered fifty-three, and were quite diverse: novels, short stories, fantasies, poems, sermons, and essays.”[85] Raised in a home and religious environment of strict Calvinistic teaching, he reacted against doctrinaire Calvinism, believing that the Father-God he read about in the Scriptures was considerably more loving than what he often heard. This is one of several reasons that led him eventually to leave the Congregationalists and join the Church of England in 1866.[86] In a biographical sketch, Michael Phillips— who has done the Christian reading public a great service by compiling, arranging, and editing many of MacDonald's works—said of MacDonald's quest for God and truth: "His search to discover what God was really like took him down many unexpected theological and doctrinal roads and often landed him squarely in the middle of controversy." But it was a search born out of an honest and humble desire to know God in intimate and personal friendship and to obey Him in every aspect of life. It was an inner pilgrimage of the heart, which lasted throughout every day of MacDonald's life.” [87] MacDonald not only reacted to a form of teaching that he came to believe was a caricature of God—a God that was construed by his proponents to be more austere and just than he was merciful and kind, but he also took exception with Christians who taught that God through Christ covered a person's sins with a cloak of righteousness without imparting to the same an actual righteousness. Such teaching produced in MacDonald's view a blatant brand of antinomianism that did not expect from Christians a loving obedience to their Lord and Savior. Therefore, one will discover throughout MacDonald's sermons and novels that when Christ spoke of obedience and righteousness, he used those terms not as empty metaphors but to convey God's own expectations of his disciples: the followers of Jesus are to live righteously and to walk in obedience to the known will of God. While none of us will ever do this perfectly and without failure, our aim should never be less than that of loving obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus MacDonald says, "The righteousness of him who does the will of his Father in heaven is the righteousness of Jesus Christ, is God's own righteousness. The man who has this righteousness, thinks about the things as God thinks about them, loves things that God loves, cares for nothing that God does not think about." Then in reacting to some extreme views of imputed righteousness (there is a correct, biblical doctrine of imputed righteousness), MacDonald says, "This doctrine of so-called imputed righteousness would have us remain unrighteous and yet be treated as if we were righteous. For myself, it warms my heart not a bit to be told that God will pretend that I am righteous, when I know I am not.”[88] Because of his views about righteousness and obedience, MacDonald believed Jesus in the Gospels was not presenting to his followers an impossible ideal to be achieved when he called them to obedience. An brief example of this emphasis on obedience in MacDonald's writings, as he saw it in the life and ministry of Christ, is found in one of his unspoken sermons edited by Michael Phillips: Do you want to live by faith? Do you want to know Christ aright? Do you want to awake and arise and live, but do not know how? I will tell you: Get up, and do something the master tells you. The moment you do, you instantly make yourself a disciple. Instead of asking yourself whether you believe or not, ask yourself whether you have this day done one single thing because he said, "Do it," or once abstained because he said, "Do not do it." I do not say that you will not have, as a matter of course, done this or that good thing that fell into harmony with the words of Jesus. But have you done or not done any act, as a conscious decision made because he said to do it or not?[89] MacDonald did not rationalize around the commands of Jesus. He believed the Lord meant his words to be taken seriously, and he himself strove to live his life by living in harmony with Christ's teachings. While he knew he did not always perfectly reach the standard of absolute obedience, to anyone who has read after him, he or she will discover that it was always his aim to please Christ, to obey Christ, however faulty his obedience might have appeared to others. With Abraham of old, MacDonald's aim was to walk in blamelessness before his God, whom he believed to be a loving and merciful Father. Is not MacDonald's view of obedient love merely a reflection of Christ's teaching on the same subject? - Soli Deo Gloria - (To be continued.) Unless otherwise noted, the Bible version used in this article is the English Standard Version. 55C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 174 |
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