Obedience Must Always be Cruciform
March 9, 2010
The Apostle John tells us that love for God is obedience to his commands (see 1 John 5:3). As fallen human beings, we are prone to two errors. On the one hand, there is the danger of being a hearer of the Word and not a doer of the Word. We are prone to fall into this error because we want to avoid being self-righteous Pharisees. On the other hand, there is the danger of being a grace-less doer of the Word. We are prone to fall into this error because we hope that through our works we might obtain God’s favor. Both of those extremes are errors. They both fail to fully apprehend God’s grace to us in Christ, and if we want to avoid both extremes then we must take this counsel:
“All our obedience, every resolve to do good, and every work of faith is ‘by his power’ and so that the Lord Jesus would be glorified because of the grace he gives. Yes, we must pursue obedience, but that obedience must always be cruciform, formed by Christ’s cross. We must seek to obey because of the cross, find the grace to obey because of the cross, and live free from condemnation whether we succeed or fail in the light of the cross. The cross must be our only story, as Paul boldly proclaimed: ‘For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified’ (1 Cor. 2:2)” [Elyse Fitzpatrick and Dennis Johnson in Counsel from the Cross (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2009), 171-172].
HT: Thabiti
Share 
Under Reflections, Theology