XII.   ENTIRE OBEDIENCE                                                                             

 

 

A     Obedience to the law of God is the only thing that the government of God accepts as virtue.    
     Now some will ask, “Why state this proposition?  Is this truth ever questioned”?

     Because many people generally deny the truth of this proposition, even though it appears to be so obvious that, it seems astonishing to even question it.  Indeed, probably nine‑tenths of the nominal church today denies it.  Their religious doctrines are completely contrary to it, and basically, their doctrines flatly deny this proposition.  Yes, they believe that there is a lot of true virtue in the world, and yet they believe there is no one who, for one moment, truly obeys the law of God.  They believe that all Christians are virtuous, and they believe that they are truly religious, and yet they say that no one on earth truly obeys the moral law of God.  In short, they assume that God accepts something as virtue that, in every situation, falls short of obedience to His law.  Yet, they generally state in their articles of faith, that obedience to moral law is the only proper evidence of a change of heart.  With this statement in their creed, they will brand as a heretic or as a hypocrite, anyone who claims that they to obey the law; while they maintain that men who do not obey the law of God can be pious, and usually are.  This teaching, which everyone knows that orthodox Christians generally believe and support, must assume that there is some rule of right, or duty, besides the moral law; or that virtue or true religion does not imply obedience to any law.  In today’s discussion I will:

1     Attempt to show that the moral law is the only rule of right or duty; and

2     That nothing can be virtue or true religion but obedience to this law, and that the government of God acknowledges nothing else as virtue or true religion.

B     There can be no rule of duty but the moral law. 
     On this proposition I remark:

1     Moral law is nothing more than that rule of action that God bases on our nature and relationships.  Moral law prescribes the course of action that is suitable to our nature and relation­ships.  It is right to conform to our nature and relationships when we do something.  But, if this is right, nothing else can be right.  If God requires is to take this course because of our nature and relationships, He cannot require us to take any other course.  To conform to our nature and relationships when we do something must be right, and nothing, either more or less, can be right.  If these are not truths that we know by intuition, then there are no such truths.

2     God has never proclaimed any other rule of duty, and even if He did, we would not have to obey any other rule of duty.  The moral law did not originate in God’s arbitrary will.  God did not create it, nor can He alter it, or introduce any other rule of right for His moral agents.  Can God make anything else right other than for us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and body, and our neighbor as ourselves?  Certainly not.  Some have strangely dreamed that the law of faith is more important than moral law.  But, we will see that moral law is not set aside by faith, but moral law is established by faith.  True faith, from its very nature, always implies love or obedience to the moral law; and love or obedience to the moral law always implies faith.  No being can create law.  The only thing that a moral agent must do is something that is suited to his nature and relationships.  No being can set aside his obligation to do this.  Nor can any being do anything more than his obligation.  Indeed, there cannot possibly be any other rule of duty than the moral law.  We can compare our actions to no other standard; and no other light can decide our moral character, than moral law.

C    This brings us to consider our second proposition, namely: that nothing can be virtue or true religion but obedience to the moral law.  The fact that every form of true virtue is only obedience to moral law will be seen, if we consider that:

1     Virtue and true religion are identical. 

2     True religion cannot properly consist in anything else than love of God and mankind.  This is what the moral law requires.

3     The Bible clearly recognizes love as the fulfilling of the law, and clearly denies that anything else is acceptable to God.  “Therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10)  “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.  And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.”  (1 Cor. 13:1‑3)  The Bible repeat­edly recognizes love as constituting true religion, but also as being true religion.  Every form of true religion is only a form of true unselfish love. 
     Repentance consists in the soul turning from a state of selfishness to a state of unselfish love, from disobeying God’s law, to obeying it.  (Repentance is a change of mind and opinion concerning sin as it is seen in its true perspective resulting in a turning from sin and a turning to God.  It is a change in the reason for living.  Repentance involves Godly sorrow, or being truly sorry for what one’s personal sin has done to God.)
    Faith is receiving truth, confiding in truth, embracing truth, or loving truth as well as the God of truth.  Faith is only a form of love of God and Christ.  Every Christian virtue is only a form of love.  God is love.  Every form of virtue and holiness in God are forms love.  Love is the state of mind that the moral law requires from both God and us.  Unselfish love sums up all of God’s virtue, and the virtue in all holy beings.  Justice, truthfulness, and every moral attribute is only love viewed in particular relation­ships.
     Nothing can be virtue that is not what the moral law demands.  That is, nothing short of what the moral law requires can be virtue in any proper sense. 
     A common idea seems to be that there is some kind of obedience, that Christians render to God, that many consider to be true religion, and which manu believe God accepts on Christ’s account; but it falls short of complete obedience.  They believe that the gospel has somehow brought Christians into such a relationship that God accepts imperfect obedience from them.  They believe that God accepts something far below what His law requires; and that Christians are accepted and justified while they render at best only a partial obedience, and while they sin more or less every moment.  Now this appears to me to be as radical an error as you can teach.

D    This subject naturally presents two questions:

1     Is it possible for a moral agent to partly obey, and to partly disobey the moral law at the same time?  

2     Can God, in any sense, justify anyone who does not yield a present and full obedience to the moral law? 
     I believe that I have already showed you that obedience to the moral law cannot be partial, in the sense that the subject cannot partly obey, and partly disobey, at the same time.  We will now study the second question, namely: “Can God justify someone who does not yield a present and full obedience to the moral law”?  Or, in other words, “Can He accept anything as virtue or obedience that is not, for the time being, full obedience, or all that the law requires”? 
     (Justification:  Justification is the act by which a sinner is freed through faith from the penalty of his past sin and is accepted by God as righteous or worthy of being saved.)
     The word justification is used in two ways: 

a     Justification is pronouncing the subject blameless.

b     Justification is also pardoning, accepting, and treating one who has sinned, as if he had not sinned. 
     This is the way that multitudes in the church today maintain that Christians are justified, pardoned, accepted, and treated as just, even while they are sinning by falling short of rendering the obedience that the moral law demands.  They don’t pretend that they are justified by the law because the law condemns them for living in sin; but that they are justified by grace, not in the sense that they are made really and personally righteous by grace, but that grace pardons, accepts, and justifies them when they currently committing sins.  According to them, grace declares that they are righteous while, in fact, they are constantly sinning.  They believe that God fully pardons and acquits while they are still committing sins by falling short of the obedience that the law of God requires.  While they voluntarily withhold full obedience from God, they believe that God accepts their partial obedience and completely forgives the sin of withholding full obedience from Him.  God accepts what the sinner has a mind to give, and forgives what he voluntarily or willfully withholds.  This is no joke.  It is precisely what many believe today.

E     In examining this teaching, I believe the following issues are fundamentally important:

1     How much sin can we commit, or how much can we, at every moment, fall short of full obedience to the law of God and still be accepted and justified? 
     This is a question of infinite importance.  If we can willfully withhold a part of our hearts from God, and He will still accept us, how much of our heart can we withhold?  If we can love God with less than all our hearts, and our neighbor less than ourselves, and God can still accepted us, how much less than a supreme love for God and to our neighbor will He accept? 
     We want to know what is the least degree of true love of God and our neighbor that God can accept.  But, what is true love of God and our neighbor?  If God will accept the least degree of love for Him, then is it possible that we could love ourselves more than we love God, and still be accepted?  Can we love God a little, and ourselves a lot, and still have God accept us.  Can we love God a little and our neighbor a little, and ourselves more than we love God and all our neighbors, and still remain in a justified state?  Or, shall we be told that we must love God supremely?  But, what do we mean by this?  Is supreme love, loving with all our heart?  But, this is a full and not a partial obedience; yet, we want to know if God will accept a partial obedience.  Or, is supreme love to God not loving with all our heart, but simply a higher degree of love than we exercise toward any other being?  But how much greater must that love be?  A little?  How should we measure it?  What scale should we use, or what standard should we use to measure our love so that we can know whether we love God a little more than any other being?  But, how much should we to love our neighbor in order to be accepted by God?  If we can love Him a little less than ourselves, how much less can we love Him, and still be justified? 
     These are certainly very important questions.  Why?  If the teaching I am examining is true, we must not only ask these questions, but we must answered them, to our satisfaction, as well.  The advocates of this teaching that I am questioning must answer these questions.  And if they can’t, it is only because their teaching is false.  Is it possible that their teaching could be true, and yet no one is able to answer such vital questions as the ones I have just proposed?  If God will accept a partial obedience, it is a very important question, how partial, or how complete must that obedi­ence be?  I say again, that this is a question of agonizing interest.  God forbid that we should be left in the dark here.  But again, 

2     If God forgives us while we voluntarily withhold a part of something that would constitute full obedi­ence, isn’t God forgiving sin that we do not repent of and forgive us even while we are in the act of committing that sin He forgives us of? 
     This teaching or theory states that Christians never, at any time in this world, yield a full obedience to God’s law.  This theory says that Christians always withhold a part of their hearts from the Lord, and yet, while in the very act of committing this abominable sin of voluntarily defrauding God and their neighbor, God accepts them and their services, fully forgives them and justifies them.  What is this but pardoning present rebellion?  What is this but receiving into favor a God‑defrauding wretch?  What is this but forgiving a sin not repented of and detestably persevered in?  Yes, this must be, if it is true that God justifies Christians without present full obedience.  Any doctrine that represents God as receiving into favor a rebel who has one hand filled with weapons against His throne surely must be a doctrine of devils.  

3     If God pardoned and justified an unsanctified soul, how could that do God any good?  How could that do the sinner any good, or do the universe any good for that matter?  Can doing such a thing honor God?  Will the holy universe respect, fear, and honor God for pardoning an unsanctified soul?  Can such an act commend itself to the intelligence of the universe?  Will pardon and justification save the sinner, even though he continues to withhold at least a part of his heart from God, even though he still clings to a part of his sins?  Can heaven be edified, or hell confounded and its objectors silenced, by such a method of justification?

4     But again: Does God have a right to pardon unrepented sin? 
     Some of you look like I shouldn’t even ask such a question.  Let me ask you: Does God, as the moral governor of the universe, have a right to act arbitrarily?  Isn’t there some course of conduct that is suitable to Him?  Hasn’t God given us intelligence on purpose so we can see and judge that His public acts are appropriate?  Doesn’t God invite and require us to question and examine Him to determine the truth?  Why has God required atonement for sin, and why has He required repentance at all?  Who doesn’t know that no executive magistrate has a right to pardon unrepented sin?  The lowest term, on which any ruler can exercise mercy, is repentance, which is a return to obedience.  Who ever heard, in any government, any ruler pardoning a rebel while that rebel only renounced a part of his rebellion?  To pardon a rebel while he continues to be rebellious, even if he is less rebellious, would be to sanction, by a public act, something that is lacking in his repentance.  It would be to publicly justify his refusal to render full obedience.

5     But, do we have a right to ask God to forgive us while we persevere in the sin of withholding a part of our hearts from Him?   (Forgiveness:  The removal or loosening of an obligation incurred through the breaking of a law; the act of pardoning an offense; the relaxation of a claim.)
     God has no right to forgive us, and we have no right to desire Him to forgive us, as long as we hold back any part of the condition of forgiveness.  While we persist in defrauding God and our neighbor, we cannot claim that we are repentant and we cannot ask forgiveness without gross hypocrisy.  And shall God forgive us while we cannot even honestly repent?  To ask for pardon, while we do not repent and turn away from sin, is a gross insult to God.  

6     Does the Bible recognize that present unrepented sin is or can be pardoned?  No!  There is not one Scripture passage where it represents sin as being pardoned or pardonable without being repented of and fully forsaken.  The opposite of this stands revealed on every page of Divine inspiration.  

7     Does the Bible anywhere recognize any justification in sin?  Where is that passage located?  Doesn’t the law condemn every degree of sin?  Doesn’t the law completely condemn the sinner in whose heart the vile abomination is found?  If a soul can sin and yet not be condemned, then it must be because the law has been repealed, for surely as long as the law still remains in force, it must condemn all sin. 
     James teaches this: “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10)  James is stating that partial obedience is really no obedience at all.  Since the law condemns any degree of sin, partial obedience is not acceptable obedience at all.  The doctrine that God accepts a partial obedience, in the sense that the law is not at any time fully obeyed, is antinomianism (An antinomian is one who believes that under the gospel dispensation of grace we are no longer obligated to obey the moral law because faith alone is necessary for salvation). 
     Think about it!  A sinner justified while he is still rebelling against God! 
     The church today generally believes that a sinner must intend to fully obey the law as a condition for his justification; that in his purpose and his intention, he must forsake all sin.  The church also generally believes that God can accept nothing short of perfectly aiming or intending to obey.  Now, what do these words mean?  Basically, our moral character belongs only to our intention.  Then if a perfect intention is an indispensable condition of justification, what is this, but admitting that full, present obedience is a condition of justification?  But this is what we believe and they deny.  What then can they mean?  It is important to determine what they mean when they endlessly repeat that God can’t justify a sinner except on the condition that he fully intends to abandon all sin, and to live without sin.  We must know what they mean when they say that God can’t justify a sinner unless he seriously intends to render full obedience to all the commands of God.  Listen to what they say, “You must intend to obey the law”!  What constitutes obedience to the law?  Why, love, good willing, good‑intending.  Intending to obey the law is simply intending to intend, it is simply desiring, or willing to will, or choosing to choose!  This is absurd. 
     What state of mind must we be in, in order for God to justify us?  It is not simply intending to obey, for this is only intending to intend, but it is willfully committing yourself to the highest good of God and the universe.  This is what the law requires us to intend.  Unless we intend the highest good of God and of the universe, it is absurd to say that we can intend full obedience to the law; that we intend to live without sin.  Remember, the supposition is that this person, or this ‘so called’ Christian is now sinning; that he is voluntarily withholding from God and man what they deserve.  He chooses, wills, and intends to withhold from God and man what they deserve, and yet the supposition is that at the same time he chooses, wills, and intends to fully obey the law.  These statements, that he, at the same time intends to obey the law completely, and intends not to obey completely, but only to obey partially, voluntarily withholding from God and man what they deserve, are ridiculous.  But, back to the question, can God justify anyone who remains in sin?  Surely, He cannot, either upon legal or gospel principles, unless He can repeal the law.  That the law cannot justify him while there is one particle of sin in him is too obvious to need proof. 
     But, can God pardon and accept the sinner, and then justify him while any degree of sin remains in him?  Certainly not.  For the law continues to condemn him as long as there is any sin in him.  You cannot say that God can pardon and condemn a person at the same time.  But, if one is all the time falling short of full obedi­ence, there never can be one moment where the law is not uttering its curses against him.  “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.”  (Gal. 3:10)  The fact is, there never has been, and there never can be, any such thing as sin without condemnation.  “For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things” (1 John 3:20), in other words, God much more condemns us.  “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God.”  (1 John 3:21)  God cannot repeal the law.  The law is not based in God’s arbitrary will.  It is as unalterable and unrepealable as His nature.  God can never repeal or change the law.  He can, for Christ’s sake, dispense with executing the penalty, when the subject has returned to a full, present obedience to the law, but there is no other way, under any circumstances.  To claim, that God can dispense with executing the penalty of the law, is to claim that God can alter the immutable and eternal principles of moral law and moral government.  (Immutable: Not susceptible or liable to change.)

8     Our next question is, can there be such a thing as a partial repentance of sin?  That is, does true repentance imply a return to present full obedience to God’s law?
     To repent is to change one’s choice, one’s purpose, or intention.  It is to choose a new goal in life, to begin a new life, to turn from self-seeking to seeking the highest good of others, to turn from selfishness to unselfish love, from a state of disobedience to a state of obedience.  Certainly, if repentance means and implies anything, it implies a thorough reformation of our heart and life.  A reformation of our heart consists in turning from selfishness to unselfish love.  Selfishness and unselfishness cannot coexist at the same time, in the same mind.  They are the supreme choice of opposite goals.  We can’t choose both these goals at the same time.  To say that partial repentance is possible is to talk nonsense.  It is to overlook the very nature of repentance.  What!  A man can turn away from sin, and still hold on to it at the same time!  A man can serve God and mammon at the same time!  This is impossible.  Our reason and Christ both tell us that this is impossible.  But perhaps someone will object, saying that the sin of those who render only a partial obedi­ence, and those whom God pardons and accepts, is not a voluntary sin.  This leads me to the question:  

9     Can there be any sin that is not voluntary? 
     What is sin?  Sin is a transgression of the law.  The law requires love, good willing.  Sin is not a mere negation, or a not willing, but consists in willing self‑gratification.  It is a willing contrary to the commandment of God.  Sin, as well as holiness, consists in choosing, willing, and intending.  Sin must be voluntary; that is, it must be intelligent and voluntary.  Sin consists in willing, and it is ridiculous to deny that sin is voluntary.  The fact is, there is either voluntary sin, or there is no sin.  True godly love is willing the good of others in general as a goal, and of course, this implies rejecting self‑gratification as a goal.  So, sin is choosing self‑gratification as an end, and implies rejecting the good of others as an end.  Sin and holiness, naturally must exclude each other.  They are eternal opposites and antagonists.  Neither can exist if the other is present in the heart.  Both consist in an active state of our will, and no sin or holiness exists that does not consist in choices.  

10     Isn’t present sin unrepented sin?
     Yes, it is impossible for one who is presently living in sin to say that he has repented of his sin.  To say that your present sin is repented of is to contradict yourself.  You are overlooking both the nature of sin, and the nature of repentance.  Sin is willing selfishly; repentance is turning from willing selfishly to willing benevolently, or lovingly.  Now, I’ve just mentioned that these two opposite states of will cannot possibly coexist.  Whoever then, fails to offer full obedience to the law of God is voluntarily sinning against God, and is unrepentant.  It is silly to say that he is partly repentant and partly unrepentant; that he is repentant as far as he obeys and unrepentant as far as he disobeys.  However, this really seems to be the loose idea of many today, that a person can be partly repentant and partly unrepentant at the same time.  This idea, no doubt, is based on the error that repentance consists in sorrow for sin, which is only an emotional response.  But repentance really consists in a change of our ultimate intention, a change in choosing our goal our purpose in life, a turning from selfishness to supreme unselfish love.  It is, therefore, clearly impossible for one to be partly repentant and partly unrepentant at the same time, because repentance and unrepentance consist in supreme opposite choices. 
     So then, it is obvious that God’s government accepts nothing as virtue except present full obedience to His law. 
     If what I have said is true, we see that the church has fallen into a great and destructive pit because they think that a state of living without sin is a very rare, if not an impossible attainment in this life.  If the doctrine of this study is true, it follows that the very beginning of true religion in one’s soul implies renouncing all sin.  Sin stops where holiness begins.  Now, how great and destructive that error must be that teaches us to hope for heaven while we are still knowingly and willfully committing sin.  It is very dangerous to look on a sinless state as something we can’t expect to achieve in this world.  It is a dangerous error to expect that we will never stop sinning, not even for an hour or a minute in this world; and yet we still hope for heaven!  How great and damning is the belief that justification is conditioned on a faith that does not purify the heart of the believer; that one may be in a state of justification who is constantly committing sin!  This error has slain more souls, I fear, than all the universalism that ever cursed the world. 
     We see that if a righteous man forsakes his righteousness, and dies in his sin, he must sink to hell.  Whenever a Christian sins he comes under condemnation, and must repent and do his first works or be lost!