Obedience

What a word. That word just sits there and demands that we do something. We learn from a young age to obey our parents. That means that we learn that we have to do what we deep down don’t want to do and if we don’t obey we suffer consequences, a slap on the bottom, or no TV for a week. We think of obedience and we think of pain and suffering and growing up. We think of a hard boss and a demanding spouse. When asked to obey we find no willingness inside us to do so. Much of our obedience is given begrudgingly, or only on condition of a substantial reward.

Of course we grow up. We see some benefit in obeying. We join the military and obedience becomes automatic, someone says jump and you jump. You hear a command and you do the command. It is a simple life, but not a very free one. We do grow up and we make rules for ourselves, rules that govern our behavior, rules that affect our ethics and our moral choices and we obey them as best we can. We become meticulous in our fervor to be good. We find God in our lives and we read his commandments and we hear the Sermon on the Mount and we have a higher sense of what is demanded of our obedience. This is religion.

The New Testament put an end to religion. It ought to also put an end to our perverted view of obedience. James Fowler on his web site Christ In You Ministries outlines the biblical concept of obedience hupakoe. Part of his outline is extracted as follows:

Legal context
a. Nowhere in the New Testament are the words for "obedience" or "disobedience" used in direct connection with the Law or any corpus of behavioral rules and regulations. (cf. Isa. 42:24)
b. Yet, "obedience" developed a Law-based interpretation
(1) rule-keeping
(2) commandment compliance
(3) performance according to precepts
(4) "works"

We need a definition at this point, what does HUPAKOE mean.
Obedience, HUPAKOE means to listen under.
Disobedience means to listen around.

The word is relational. It pictures two persons talking to one another. One hears, while the other talks. The hearer responds to the talker in a positive, obedient, way or in a negative way (as though he had not heard) therefore in a disobedient way.

Let us be clear. This is not a coming under authority. There is another Greek word for that where we place ourselves under the authority of a slave master or a Governmental agency. In those circumstances there is no exchange in the same sense as HUPAKOE. You are told to do something and you do it period.

The New Testament view of obedience is ontological, the word to be heard and obeyed is a Person, it is God Himself in the person of Christ (Jn 1:1-4).

Christ dwells in us and expresses His life in and through us. God speaks to us in that process. “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” His presence in us is a law written on our hearts, and it is a dynamic for expressing what God wants to do in us. We listen and when we know what we have heard is from God and is for us then what we heard is met with a willingness within us to respond. That willingness to respond is not of our own making. It comes out of our trust, our faith, in Christ who is in us ready to express Himself through us.

Obedience in these terms is not a religious act. Obedience comes in a Christian’s life because he worships a God who is willing to speak to him and he worships a God who is willing to dwell in the hearts of men in a way that accomplishes all that He asks of them.

Do you experience this freedom in your life? Have you discovered the wonder of obedience of faith?

Christ in you the hope of glory.

Dr. James Fowler's site is Christ in You Ministries.