Urban Reformation

I have been reading through the old testament I currently finished up Judges this morning. One theme that God is bringing to my attention throughout the whole old testament, a theme that is just so blatant is the subject of obedience.

For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. – Romans 5:19

So it began in the garden when Adam sinned against God. Our relationship with God was broken, we were lost, and separated from God based on one man’s disobedience. So our relationship was closed with God in disobedience but then our relationship with God was restored through the obedience of Christ to go to the cross.

We can look throughout the old testament and see where being obedient toward God brings blessing, but it’s really more than just using God to get our outcome. Being obedient to Christ makes our relationship with God right again. How do you ask?

Our first act of obedience as believers is to humble ourselves in repentance for our disobedience, and then in obedience believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work on the Cross. So in the same way we are born into sin, and have a nature that is by its nature disobedient and rebellious toward God, God reconciles the world to Himself as the perfect sacrifice.

It is thus the first action of our Faith in God, our obedience, just as in the garden it was the first action of unbelief in God when Adam was disobedient.

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. – 2 Corinthians 5:18-19

It is amazing throughout the old testament how many times God talks about the Israelites turning away from God and the anger of the Lord being kindled against them. It’s still yet amazing how time after time the children of Israel forget what their father’s have gone through and go on to be punished yet again because of disobedience to God. It seems that we will never learn.

We know that obedience apart from Faith is Pharisaical in nature and not of the heart, it is not obedience alone but it is faith in Christ, Holy Spirit empowered obedience.

In modern Christianity “Grace” or “Christian liberty,” are often advocating a license to sin or known as “antinomianism” which is plainly condemned in scripture. It isn’t often publicly this way, but the “term” grace in today’s churches is often meant to downplay sin or disobedience to God’s word.

For example if you desire to confront a brother someone out of Mathew 18:15 true Christ like love because your brother is living with another person out of wedlock in sinful disobedience to God’s word, many churches today will say that’s your personal conviction, but I choose to have grace with him. What they mean is that because of Christ, they feel that God’s moral law no longer carries the weight or necessity that it did before Christ. Now all of their sin is covered in the blood of Jesus so they are able to continue sinning.

These issues were dealt with extensively in Romans and Galatians. We have the two heresies of legalism one side of the narrow road and antinomianism or ‘greasy Grace’ on the other side of the road, which prey on modern American Christian ignorance of scripture as counterfeits to true Law and true Grace. (So they are often wrongfully misunderstood….)

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. –Romans 6

In other words we don’t continue in our sinful lifestyle because we’re covered in the blood of Christ, but we begin the process of sanctification after regeneration (new birth) which leads us to a continual growing obedience, conforming us to the perfect image of Christ.

On the other hand, when many speak of “legalism,” what they are referring to is not the moral Law of God, but a system of man made rules or traditions made up by men, which is used as a means of obtaining salvation.

When men often speak about obedience in today’s day and age; it can be said that even from those who are living and following Christ, that you are a legalist, attempting to earn salvation.

Yes sometimes even from our own brothers; if you have some practical custom that is more strict that someone else, either in your home or the practice of your faith, it is automatically assumed that this practical means of sanctification is somehow earning you your salvation, and thereby grounds for some to call you a legalist. The converse can be true also; those who do not have these practical means of sanctification in place, can use the same type of platform for being thought of as presuming on God’s Grace.

In either case these can be true to motive meaning that one can be walking in God’s grace with little practical processes put in place in their daily sanctification in the cause of Christian liberty, or there can be precautions set up for the purpose of sanctification….

OR these can be man’s continued attempts at disobedience, our self-deceived construct of how we can be perceived righteous by others when our hearts are wicked. And in this second scenario it produces a demonstration of no fruit and the other showing false fruit.

For example we in our home rarely watch television, and it’s be said by some that this us being legalistic. We do not view it as something that will gain us salvation but as a precaution to guard our eyes and hearts from the filth of this world and they eyes and hearts of our children.

Jesus Christ came and He said that He did not come to abolish the law but that HE was the fulfillment of the law. Paul also says that the Law is good when used lawfully. It seems that the exceedingly sinful sin of man can distort or perverted anything if given half a chance. At the same time He said do not say that anything I have made is unclean.

In the balance of Law and Grace there is in both regards obedience to Christ. Not in our earned salvation, or worked up sanctification but in our freedom to live holy, changed, set apart lives. There is freedom to enjoy Christ as we are satisfied by Christ alone.

In the regard to what we know of God’s law we are called to an obedient reconciled life yes loving God’s law. And in where we have Christian liberty in the Grace of God we are called to an obedient reconciled life in Christ in the freedom of a redeemed life. Did I repeat myself?

Our obedient life demonstrates this:

John 14:16 15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-8

God therefore exchanges our continual attempts to get around the law on either side of these terms of legalism & antinomianism, and He exchanges both of these by setting forth true Law & true Grace. Law to live by as we walk forward in Holiness, and Grace to live in by recognizing that Christ reconciled what we could not.

When we think about someone’s obedience to God, let it first be our own, and let it always be thought about in the light of Christ and His obedience unto death so that we may walk now justified reconciled in Life with Christ.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. – Phil 2:8-9

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