The forgotten word

I read 2 Corinthians today and noticed no less than three mentions of "obedience" (Greek hupakoe) within the space of nine verses (9:13; 10:5-6).

You don't hear much about obedience in some Christian quarters. I can't think of the last time I heard a sustained and hard-hitting sermon on obedience, one that did more than tag its hem while flying quickly back to the subject of grace. Maybe every 20th sermon should be about obedience. It would still be about grace, you know: It would remind us that the grace we have received is grace for obeying. That way, with the proper balance being restored, we would not go home confusing grace with slouching. Dietrich Bonhoeffer started his book The Cost of Discipleship with this sentence: "Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church."

When I think of obedience in the simplest terms, I think of a dog being told what to do and doing it: "Heel," "Stay," "Lie down." It is best not to get too much fancier than that, lest we obfuscate the sheer submissiveness of obedience. God gives commands and we are to obey them. "Lord, your wish is my command"-that's the idea.

Certainly we are much more to God than a dog, and "of more value than many sparrows" (Matthew 10:31). But let us not veer too far from the simplicity of the concept of "obedience," lest we forget that God's Word is, after all, to be obeyed, not just admired in a fine, three-point sermon. I have heard sermons with teaching on grace and Christ that all but washed out any element of having to do anything. You would think that Christ had never given a command to be followed.

I am not being nit-picky. The reason I am so exercised about the downplaying of commands is because I have personally found the commands to be my very gateways to the deeper life in Christ. Ephesians 6, for example, is full of imperatives-to proactively remind yourself at all times of what is true (v.14); to make sure your deeds are righteous (v.14-to be sure, we also have Christ's passive righteousness, but it seems most reasonable to see the emphasis of this verse as an instruction, in line with the rest of the list); to publicly verbalize and share with another person what you believe (v.15); to walk in a muscular faith (v.16); to drink great gulps of the Word of God (v.17); to pray throughout the day (v.18). To downplay these is to rob a man of what is most profitable for his felicity.

I believe that the reason we don't hear more about obedience is because of a curious confusion abroad in some wings of the Church. There is a fear of promoting works righteousness, and therefore grace is fenced in behind and before, and one senses a terror of departing by one millimeter from very carefully crafted formulas. But as a wise man told me recently: "Grace is not opposed to works; it is opposed to earning."

So go ahead: Feel free to obey Christ, every command you can remember! Feel free to aggressively put on every article of armor in Ephesians. Scour Christ's gospels for every command, suggestion, and counsel, with the intent of performing them. Without hesitation. Without reservation. Without fear of sin. (Imagine that we have to say this.) With total abandon.

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