Sermon 14. Obedience to God the Way to Faith
in Christ
"When Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, He said unto
him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." Mark xii. 34.
{201} THE answer of the scribe, which our blessed Lord here commends, was
occasioned by Christ's setting before him the two great commandments
of the Law. When He had declared the love of God and of man to
comprehend our whole duty, the scribe said, "Master, Thou hast
said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but He:
and to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding,
and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his
neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt-offerings and
sacrifices." Upon this acknowledgment of the duty of general
religious obedience, Christ replied, in the words of the text,
"Thou art not far from the kingdom of God," i.e. Thou art
not far from being a Christian.
In these words, then, we are taught, first, that the {202} Christian's
faith and obedience are not the same religion as that of natural
conscience, as being some way beyond it; secondly, that this way is
"not far," not far in the case of those who try to act up to
their conscience; in other words, that obedience to conscience leads
to obedience to the Gospel, which, instead of being something
different altogether, is but the completion and perfection of that
religion which natural conscience teaches.
Indeed, it would have been strange if the God of nature had said
one thing, and the God of grace another; if the truths which our
conscience taught us without the information of Scripture, were
contradicted by that information when obtained. But it is not so;
there are not two ways of pleasing God; what conscience suggests,
Christ has sanctioned and explained; to love God and our neighbour are
the great duties of the Gospel as well as of the Law; he who
endeavours to fulfil them by the light of nature is in the way
towards, is, as our Lord said, "not far from Christ's
kingdom;" for to him that hath more shall be given.
It is not in one or two places merely that this same doctrine is
declared to us; indeed, all revelation is grounded on those simple
truths which our own consciences teach us in a measure, though a poor
measure, even without it. It is One God, and none other but He, who
speaks first in our consciences, then in His Holy Word; and, lest we
should be in any difficulty about the matter, He has most mercifully
told us so in {203} Scripture, wherein He refers again and again (as in the
passage connected with the text) to the great Moral Law, as the
foundation of the truth, which His Apostles and Prophets, and last of
all His Son, have taught us: "Fear God, and keep His
commandments; for this is the whole duty of man." [Eccles. xii.
13.]
Yet though this is so plain, both from our own moral sense, and the
declarations of Scripture, still for many reasons it is necessary to
insist upon it; chiefly, because, it being very hard to keep God's
commandments, men would willingly persuade themselves, if they could,
that strict obedience is not necessary under the Gospel, and that
something else will be taken, for Christ's sake, in the stead of it.
Instead of labouring, under God's grace, to change their wills, to
purify their hearts, and so prepare themselves for the kingdom of God,
they imagine that in that kingdom they may be saved by something short
of this, by their baptism, or by their ceremonial observances (the
burnt offerings and sacrifices which the scribe disparages), or by
their correct knowledge of the truth, or by their knowledge of their
own sinfulness, or by some past act of faith which is to last them
during their lives, or by some strong habitual persuasion that they
are safe; or, again, by the performance of some one part of their
duty, though they neglect the rest, as if God said a thing to us in
nature, and Christ unsaid it; and, when men wish a thing, it is not
hard to find {204} texts in Scripture which may be ingeniously perverted to
suit their purpose. The error then being so common in practice, of
believing that Christ came to gain for us easier terms of admittance
into heaven than we had before (whereas, in fact, instead of making
obedience less strict, He has enabled us to obey God more strictly;
and instead of gaining easier terms of admittance, He
has gained us altogether our admittance into heaven, which
before was closed against us); this error, I say, being so common, it
may be right to insist on the opposite truth, however obvious, that
obedience to God is the way to know and believe in Christ.
1. Now, first, let us consider how plainly we are taught in
Scripture that perfect obedience is the standard of Gospel holiness.
By St. Paul: "Be not conformed to this world: but be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is
that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." [Rom. xii.
2.] "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but
the keeping of the commandments of God." [1 Cor. vii. 19.]
"Whatsoever things are true … honest … just … pure ...
lovely ... of good report: if there be any virtue, and if there be any
praise, think on these things." [Phil. iv. 8.] By St. James:
"Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point,
he is guilty of all." [James ii. 10.] By St. Peter: "Giving
all diligence, add to {205} your faith virtue ... knowledge … temperance
… patience ... godliness ... brotherly kindness ... charity."
[2 Pet. i. 5-7.] By St. John: "Hereby do we know that we know
Him, if we keep His commandments." Lastly, by our Lord Himself:
"He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that
loveth Me: and he that loveth Me, shall be loved of My Father, and I
will love him, and will manifest Myself to him." [John xiv. 21.]
And, above all, the following clear declaration in the Sermon on the
Mount: "Whosoever ... shall break one of these least
commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in
the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same
shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." [Matt. v. 19.]
These texts, and a multitude of others, show that the Gospel leaves
us just where it found us, as regards the necessity of our obedience
to God; that Christ has not obeyed instead of us, but that obedience
is quite as imperative as if Christ had never come; nay, is pressed
upon us with additional sanctions; the difference being, not that He
relaxes the strict rule of keeping His commandments, but that He gives
us spiritual aids, which we have not except through Him, to enable us
to keep them. Accordingly Christ's service is represented in
Scripture, not as different from that religious obedience which
conscience teaches us naturally, but as the perfection of it, as I
have already said. We are told again {206} and again, that obedience to God
leads on to faith in Christ; that it is the only recognized way to
Christ; and that, therefore, to believe in Him, ordinarily implies
that we are living in obedience to God. For instance: "Every man
… that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto
Me;" [John vi. 45.] "He that doeth truth, cometh to the
light," [John iii. 21.] i.e. to Christ; "No man can come to
Me, except the Father which hath sent Me, draw him;" "If any
man will do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine."
[John vii. 17.] On the other hand: "He that hateth Me, hateth My
Father also;" [John xv. 23.] "If ye had known Me, ye should
have known My Father also;" [John viii. 19.] "Whosoever
denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father;" [1 John ii. 23.]
"Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of
Christ, hath not God: he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he
hath both the Father and the Son." [2 John 9.]
In these and other passages of Scripture we learn, that though
Christ came to be the light of the world, yet He is not and cannot be
a light to all, but to those only who seek Him in the way of His
commandments; and to all others He is hid, the god of this world
"blinding the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of
the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the Image of God, should shine
unto them." [2 Cor. iv. 4.] {207}
2. And if we look to the history of the first propagation of the
Gospel, we find this view confirmed. As far as we can trace the
history, we find the early Christian Church was principally composed
of those who had long been in the habit of obeying their consciences
carefully, and so preparing themselves for Christ's religion, that
kingdom of God from which the text says they were not far. Zacharias
and Elisabeth, to whom the approach of Christ's kingdom was first
revealed, are described as "both righteous before God, walking in
all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless."
[Luke i. 6.] Joseph, St. Mary's husband, is called "a just
man;" [Matt. i. 19.] Simeon is spoken of as "a just and
devout" man [Luke ii. 25.]; Nathaniel, as "an Israelite in
whom was no guile;" [John i. 47.] Joseph of Arimathea was "a
good man and a just;" [Luke xxiii. 50.] Cornelius, the centurion,
was a "religious man, and one that feared God with all his house,
who gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway." [Acts
x. 2.] And in the book of Acts generally, we shall find (as far as we
are told any thing) that those chiefly were addressed and converted by
St. Paul, who had previously trained themselves in a religious life:—At
Perga, St. Paul addressed the Israelites and those who feared God, not
the mere thoughtless heathen; and many of these followed him [Note
1]. At Thessalonica a great multitude of {208} religious Greeks believed
[Note 2]; and at Athens the Apostle still disputed with the Jews,
and with the professedly religious persons, though he also addressed
the educated heathens who lived there. Here then is much evidence that
Christ and His Apostles chiefly sought and found their first
followers, not among open sinners, but among those who were
endeavouring, however imperfectly, to obey God.
But it may be asked, Did Christ hold out no hope for those who had
lived in sin? Doubtless He did, if they determined to forsake their
sin. He came to save all, whatever their former life, who gave
themselves up to Him as their Lord and Saviour; and in His Church He
gathered together of every kind, those who had departed from God, as
well as those who had ever served Him well. Open sinners must have a
beginning of repentance, if they are to repent; and on this first
beginning Christ invites them to Him at once, without delay, for
pardon and for aid. But this is not the question; of course all who
come to Him will be received; none will be cast out [John iv. 3, 7.].
But the question is, not this, but whether they are likely to come, to
hear His voice, and to follow Him; again, whether they will, generally
speaking, prove as consistent and deeply-taught Christians as those
who, compared with them, have never departed from God at all; and here
all the advantage, doubtless, is on the side of those who (in the
{209} words of Scripture) have walked in the ordinances of the Lord
blameless [Luke i. 6.]. When sinners truly repent, then, indeed, they
are altogether brothers in Christ's kingdom with those who have not in
the same sense "need of repentance;" but that they should
repent at all is (alas!) so far from being likely, that when the
unexpected event takes place it causes such joy in heaven (from the
marvellousness of it) as is not even excited by the ninety and nine
just persons who need no such change of mind [Luke xv. 7.]. Of such
changes some instances are given us in the Gospels for the
encouragement of all penitents, such as that of the woman, mentioned
by St. Luke, who "loved much." Christ most graciously went
among sinners, if so be He might save them; and we know that even
those open sinners, when they knew that they were sinners, were nearer
salvation, and in a better state, than the covetous and irreligious
Pharisees, who added to their other gross sins, hypocrisy, blindness,
a contempt of others, and a haughty and superstitious reliance on the
availing virtue of their religious privileges.
And, moreover, of these penitents of whom I speak—and whom, when
they become penitents, we cannot love too dearly (after our Saviour's
pattern), nay, or reverence too highly, and whom the Apostles, after
Christ's departure, brought into the Church in such vast multitudes—none,
as far as we know, had any sudden change {210} of mind from bad to good
wrought in them; nor do we hear of any of them honoured with any
important station in the Church. Great as St. Paul's sin was in
persecuting Christ's followers, before his conversion, that sin was of
a different kind; he was not transgressing, but obeying his conscience
(however blinded it was); he was doing what he thought his duty, when
he was arrested by the heavenly vision, which, when presented to him,
he at once "obeyed;" he was not sinning against light
but in darkness. We know nothing of the precise state of his
mind immediately before his conversion; but we do know thus much, that
years elapsed after his conversion before he was employed as an
Apostle in the Church of God.
I have confined myself to the time of Christ's coming; but not only
then, but at all times and under all circumstances, as all parts of
the Bible inform us, obedience to the light we possess is the way to
gain more light. In the words of Wisdom, in the book of Proverbs,
"I love them that love Me; and those that seek Me early shall
find Me ... I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the
paths of judgment." [Prov. viii. 17, 20.] Or, in the still more
authoritative words of Christ Himself, "He that is faithful in
that which is least, is faithful also in much;" [Luke xvi. 10.]
and, "He that hath, to him shall be given." [Mark iv. 25.]
{211}
Now let us see some of the consequences which follow from this
great Scripture truth.
1. First of all, we see the hopelessness of waiting for any sudden
change of heart, if we are at present living in sin. Far more persons
deceive themselves by some such vain expectation than at first sight
may appear. That there are even many irreligious men, who, from
hearing the false doctrines now so common, and receiving general
impressions from them, look forward for a possible day when God will
change their hearts by His own mere power, in spite of themselves, and
who thus get rid of the troublesome thought that now they are in a
state of fearful peril; who say they can do nothing till His time
comes, while still they acknowledge themselves to be far from Him;
even this I believe to be a fact, strange and gross as the
self-deception may appear to be. And others, too, many more,
doubtless, are there who, not thinking themselves far from Him, but,
on the contrary, high in His favour, still, by a dreadful deceit of
Satan, are led to be indolent and languid in their obedience to His
commandments, from a pretence that they can do nothing of themselves,
and must wait for the successive motions of God's grace to excite them
to action. The utmost these persons do is to talk of religion, when
they ought to be up and active, and waiting for the Blessed Spirit of
Christ by obeying God's will. "Awake thou that sleepest, and
arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee {212} light." [Eph. v.
14.] This is the exhortation. And doubtless to all those who live a
self-indulgent life, however they veil their self-indulgence from
themselves by a notion of their superior religious knowledge, and by
their faculty of speaking fluently in Scripture language, to all such
the word of life says, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked;"
He tries the heart, and disdains the mere worship of the lips. He
acknowledges no man as a believer in His Son, who does not anxiously
struggle to obey His commandments to the utmost; to none of those who
seek without striving, and who consider themselves safe, to none of
these does He give "power to become sons of God." [John i.
12.] Be not deceived; such have fallen from that state in which their
baptism placed them and are "far from the kingdom of God."
"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." [Gal.
vi. 7.] And if any one says that St. Paul was converted suddenly, and
without his exerting himself, it is sufficient to reply, that, guilty
as St. Paul was, his guilt was not that of indolence, and
self-indulgence, and indifference. His sin was that of neglecting
the study of Scripture; and thus, missing the great truth that
Jesus was the Christ, he persecuted the Christians; but though his
conscience was ill-informed, and that by his own fault, yet he obeyed
it such as it was. He did what he did ignorantly. If then the case
really be that St. Paul was suddenly converted, hence, it is true,
some kind of {213} vague hope may be said to be held out to furious,
intolerant bigots, and bloodthirsty persecutors, if they are acting in
consequence of their own notions of duty; none to the slothful and
negligent and lukewarm; none but to those who can say, with St.
Paul, that they have "lived in all good conscience before God
until this day;" [Acts xxiii. 1.] and that not under an easy
profession, but in a straitest religious sect, giving themselves up to
their duty, and following the law of God, though in ignorance, yet
with all their heart and soul.
2. But, after all, there are very many more than I have as yet
mentioned, who wait for a time of repentance to come while at present
they live in sin. For instance, the young, who consider it will be
time enough to think of God when they grow old; that religion will
then come as a matter of course, and that they will then like it
naturally, just as they now like their follies and sins. Or those who
are much engaged in worldly business, who confess they do not give
that attention to religion which they ought to give; who neglect the
ordinances of the Church; who desecrate the Lord's day; who give
little or no time to the study of God's word; who allow themselves in
various small transgressions of their conscience, and resolutely
harden themselves against the remorse which such transgressions are
calculated to cause them; and all this they do under the idea that at
length a convenient season will come {214} when they may give themselves to
religious duties. They determine on retiring at length from the world,
and of making up for lost time by greater diligence then. All such
persons, and how many they are! think that they will be able to seek
Christ when they please, though they have lived all their lives with
no true love either of God or man; i.e. they do not, in their hearts,
believe our Lord's doctrine contained in the text, that to obey God is
to be near Christ, and that to disobey is to be far from Him.
How will this truth be plain to us in that day when the secrets of
all hearts shall be revealed! Now we do not believe that strict
obedience is as necessary as it is. I say we do not believe it,
though we say we do. No one, of course, believes it in its fulness,
but most of us are deceived by words, and say we accept and believe,
when we hardly do more than profess it. We say, indeed, that obedience
is absolutely necessary, and are surprised to have our real belief in
what we say questioned; but we do not give the truth that place in the
scheme of our religion which this profession requires, and thus we
cheat our consciences. We put something before it, in our
doctrinal system, as more necessary than it; one man puts
faith, another outward devotion, a third attention to his temporal
calling, another zeal for the Church; that is, we put a part for the
whole of our duty, and so run the risk of losing our souls. These are
the burnt-offerings and sacrifices which even the scribe {215} put aside
before the weightier matters of the Law. Or again, we fancy that the
means of gaining heaven are something stranger and rarer than the mere
obvious duty of obedience to God; we are loth to seek Christ in the
waters of Jordan rather than in Pharpar and Abana, rivers of Damascus;
we prefer to seek Him in the height above, or to descend into the
deep, rather than to believe that the word is nigh us, even in our
mouth and in our heart [Rom. x. 8.]. Hence, in false religions some
men have even tortured themselves and been cruel to their flesh,
thereby to become as gods, and to mount aloft; and in our own, with a
not less melancholy, though less self-denying, error, men fancy that
certain strange effects on their minds—strong emotion, restlessness,
and an unmanly excitement and extravagance of thought and feeling—are
the tokens of that inscrutable Spirit, who is given us, not to make us
something other than men, but to make us, what without His
gracious aid we never shall be, upright, self-mastering men, humble
and obedient children of our Lord and Saviour.
In that day of trial all these deceits will be laid aside; we shall
stand in our own real form, whether it be of heaven or of earth, the
wedding garment, or the old raiment of sin [Zech. iii. 4.]; and then,
how many (do we think) will be revealed as the heirs of light, who
have followed Christ in His narrow way, and humbled themselves after
His manner (though not in His perfection, and with {216} nothing of His
merit) to the daily duties of soberness, mercy, gentleness,
self-denial, and the fear of God?
These, be they many or few, will then receive their prize from Him
who died for them, who has made them what they are, and completes in
heaven what first by conscience, then by His Spirit, He began here.
Surely they were despised on the earth by the world; both by the open
sinners, who thought their scrupulousness to be foolishness, and by
such pretenders to God's favour as thought it ignorance. But, in
reality, they had received from their Lord the treasures both of
wisdom and of knowledge, though men knew it not; and they then will be
acknowledged by Him before all creatures, as heirs of the glory
prepared for them before the beginning of the world.
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Notes
1. Acts xiii.
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2. Acts xvii.
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