What is Christian obedience?
The Spirit is now our guide, and the law gets set aside in Christ. Obedience to the Spirit is going to look different for each person.
The law is the power of sin according to 1 Corinthians 15:56. We mistakenly believe that Jesus’ commands are the 10 commandments from John 14-15. Jesus has new commands for the new covenant: believe and love. 1 John 3: 23 Now this is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another as he commanded us. This love is a freedom from the law kind of love.
The Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 decided that Christians don’t have to keep the law, it’s too heavy of a burden and that we are righteous by faith. Yet the church’s conscience is still bound to the law, the power of sin.
Christian discipleship is about setting the conscience free from the law to walk in the Spirit. As long as the church is obsessed with obedience to holiness, meaning law, instead of holiness meaning obedience to faith. We will continue to put each other back under the law. The power of sin.
We encourage each other to turn away from the law for righteousness, holiness, and sanctification. Christ is our wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification, 1 Corinthians 1:30.
A mind set on the Spirit has been set free from the law. The world that we live in has not been set free from the law. The law is the wisdom of the world, and the church has surrendered to that worldly wisdom. The church is enslaved to law and sin.
Under the law of Moses we sin all day everyday. That is my reality. I cannot keep the law. See James 2:8-10 For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all.
Under the law of faith we sin no more. Jesus saves us from our body of death when He releases us from the law. See my Commentary on Romans 7. We are free from the law of Moses to use our gifts, abilities, and vocation to help our neighbor out as we are willing and able to. We have this open permission to say yes or no to how and when we will help our neighbor out. Without Moses accusing us of all that we have left undone. It’s not my job to put law on other people. I’m learning to communicate in permission language. Trusting that the Holy Spirit will guide the Christian in their life.
The question that I have is how do we hold Christians accountable? How did Paul hold Christians accountable? Do we put each other back under the law to hold each other accountable? I don’t know the answer to this yet.
Paul’s confession in Romans 7 is that the law empowered sin in his life, and he couldn’t do the good that he wanted to do, but when he was set free from the law in Galatians 5 now he can do what he wants.
Here is Paul reasoning out his behavior while living under the law. Living under the law means we have to obey the law of Moses. We can be mindful not to turn appeals to a freed conscience into a law.
Romans 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold as a slave to sin. 15 For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate.16 Now if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. 17 So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me.18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. 19 For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one that does it, but it is the sin that lives in me. 21 So I discover this law: When I want to do what is good, evil is present with me. 22 For in my inner self I delight in God’s law, 23 but I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am serving the law of God, but with my flesh, the law of sin.”
When Paul thought he had to obey, or keep the law, to please God. Romans
7:19 “For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do.” Compare that with what Paul says in Galatians 5 where he says we are called to be free from the law.
Galatians 5:13 For you were called to be free, brothers and sisters; only don’t use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement: Love your neighbor as yourself. 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out, or you will be consumed by one another.
Love is freedom from law to say yes and no to what you will do to serve your neighbor. When we observe Christians who are not free from the law, or maybe when we observe ourselves not free from the law. We do bite and devour one another.
Galatians 5:16 I say then, walk by the Spirit and you will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Paul wrote Galatians out of compassion for Christians who were being put under the law, a yoke of slavery. The Church wants to know how to please God, and how to have a zeal for God. The surprise answer is you don’t have to do anything to please God. God is already pleased with you on account of Christ, crucified and resurrected.
Of course this puts the legalist out of a job, they really enjoy telling other people what to do. For them Christian discipleship means telling others what to do, law. High control religion is one of the reasons people are fleeing the institutional church. One Christian lady was saying that the church wants us to have an anxious attachment to God, and how she found a secure attachment to God when she left their church, and is gathering with Christians outside of that setting of a caste system, hierarchy, and control, and power. She wants to be careful about going back to the Sunday service and risk losing her secure attachment to God.
What she was saying resonates with me. Even though I stayed in the church service setting, God was doing a similar work in me. Setting me free from law, and gender roles of male only authority and female only submission. Finding a secure attachment in Christ apart from anything that I am doing or not doing.
In Romans 10, Paul gives the reason why he wrote the book of Romans. He is concerned for people’s salvation.
Romans 10:1 Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God concerning them is for their salvation. 2 I can testify about them that they have zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 Since they are ignorant of the righteousness of God and attempted to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Our zeal for God is that there is nothing left for us to do to please God. The righteousness of God is that we are righteous by faith.
Compare that to Romans 10:5-7, “since Moses writes about the righteousness that is from the law: The one who does these things will live by them. This might be the mindset of the local church or the global church. I have to carefully consider what I’m hearing from everyone around me, and reject the law for righteousness. Live spontaneously in the Spirit. In freedom. In a righteousness by faith.
6 But the righteousness that comes from faith speaks like this: Do not say in your heart, “Who will go up to heaven? ” that is, to bring Christ down 7 or, “Who will go down into the abyss? ” that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.”
When we have to obey Moses/law to be righteous we might become obsessed with who will go to heaven when they die based on what the person is doing or not doing.
The law of faith frees us from judging other’s ‘final salvation’ while we carefully consider who we will listen to or not listen to. People who talk about ‘final salvation’ don’t believe that faith is enough, we should carefully consider what they are saying, in confidence that faith is enough.
Romans 10:8 “On the contrary, what does it say? The message is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. This is the message of faith that we proclaim: 9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
‘Jesus is Lord’ does that phrase put us under the law, or free us from the law? “For freedom Christ has set you free, do not return again to a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1.
Romans 10:10 “One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame, 12 since there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord of all richly blesses all who call on him. 13 For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
What does ‘call on the name of the Lord’ mean? It means trust in Christ crucified and resurrected for the our forgiveness of sin, our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, and our freedom from the law.
As the glory of the law fades in our conscience, and the glory of the Spirit increases we trust that the Spirit will keep us believing and trusting, and in righteousness by faith, even when what is going on inside of us doesn’t look like righteousness. This is the obedience of faith.
Sarah Batdorf 
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