Covenant and Commandment

Works, Obedience and Faithfulness in the Christian Life

Bradley G. Green, D.A. Carson

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780830897773
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

From a close study of key Old and New Testament texts and interaction with historical and contemporary theologians, Bradley Green shows how different aspects of the Christian life are each God-elicited, real and necessary. Reaffirming the best Reformed voices, this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume provides a biblical theology of the nature, role and place of works, obedience and faithfulness in the new covenant. Addressing key issues in biblical theology, the works comprising New Studies in Biblical Theology are creative attempts to help Christians better understand their Bibles. The NSBT series is edited by D. A. Carson, aiming to simultaneously instruct and to edify, to interact with current scholarship and to point the way ahead.

1

The New Testament and the reality and necessity of works, obedience and faithfulness

Turning to the New Testament, it is an inescapable fact that works, obedience and faithfulness are central in the life of the believer. Indeed, in page after page of the New Testament we see that God expects his children to obey him. While it is impossible to treat in detail all the New Testament texts that deal with obedience, works or the transformation of the Christian, I outline fourteen key groups (explicated under the subheads that follow):

(1)	Loving or knowing God is linked with obedience	John 14:15, 21, 23; 15:10; 1 John 2:3–6; 3:22, 24; 5:3; 2 John 6; Rev. 12:17; 14:12
(2)	The ‘conditional’ nature of our future salvation	Rom. 11:22; 1 Cor. 15:2; Heb. 3:6, 14; 4:14
(3)	Christians must ‘overcome’ if they are ultimately to be saved	Heb. 10:38–39; Rev. 2:7, 11; 3:5, 12, 21; 21:7
(4)	The necessity of a great righteousness	Matt. 5:20
(5)	The requirement of the law being met ‘in us’	Rom. 8:3–4
(6)	God will efficaciously work ‘in’ us, moving us to obey him	Phil. 2:12–13
(7)	The necessity of putting to death the old man, by the power of the Spirit	Rom. 8:13–14
(8)	‘Faith’ and ‘obedience/works’ used as virtual synonyms	2 Thesss. 1:8; 1 Peter 4:17; Rev. 12:17; 14:12; cf. 6:9
(9)	We are truly judged, or justified, by our works	Matt. 7:21, 25; Rom. 2:13; cf. Jas 1:22–25
(10)	The ‘obedience of faith’	Rom. 1:5; 16:26; Acts 6:7
(11)	We were created and redeemed for good works	2 Cor. 9:8; Eph. 2:10; Titus 2:14 (cf. 11–12)
(12)	Faith working through love	Gal. 5:6
(13)	The law affirmed; the law of Christ	Rom. 13:9; 1 Cor. 7:19; Gal. 5:14; 6:2
(14)	Persons do the works of their Father	John 8:39

Luther argues that the obedience of a Christian is ‘necessarily following’ justification.9 Calvin can argue that faith alone unites us with Christ. Our good works or obedience as a Christian flows from this union. Calvin can also say, ‘Christ justifies no one whom he does not at the same time sanctify.’10 Let us begin by looking at texts that appear to link loving or knowing God or Jesus with obedience. My goal in this first chapter is not to look in depth at all of these texts, but rather to illustrate that the importance of works, obedience and faithfulness runs throughout the New Testament. Certain key themes or passages will be treated in more detail in subsequent chapters.11

Loving or knowing God is linked with obedience

Loving or knowing God is linked (or synonymous with) obedience in a number of texts. Jesus says in John 14:15, ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments.’ Likewise in John 14:21, 23:

‘Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him’ . . . Jesus answered him, ‘If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.’

John 15:10 speaks in similar terms of commandment-keeping as a condition for abiding in Christ’s love: ‘If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.’ Similar teaching is found in 1 John 2:3–6:

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

1 John 3:24 is similar: ‘Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.’ As is 1 John 5:3: ‘For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome’ (cf. 2 John 6).

A slightly different kind of text is found in Revelation 12:10–17. The ‘accuser’ has been ‘conquered’ by ‘the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony’. In 12:17, this same dragon is enraged, and makes war against the woman’s children, ‘who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus’. Note that the keeping of commandments and holding to the testimony are spoken of, not necessarily as equals, but as in a symbiotic relationship. A similar usage is found in Revelation 14:12, which reads, ‘Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.’12

In short, one common pattern in the New Testament is the link between loving or knowing Jesus and keeping his commands.

The ‘conditional’ nature of our future salvation

The New Testament texts that speak of conditions for retaining our salvation are of particular interest. A lot hinges on how one understands ‘conditions’. We should not waltz into speaking of ‘conditions’, particularly in the light of the overarching story line of Scripture, and how much depends on how one thinks about ‘conditions’ when speaking of salvation.

However, the apparent necessity of ‘conditions’ in the Christian life must be faced squarely. Jesus says in Matthew 10:22, ‘and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.’ In Romans 11:22, towards the end of Paul’s discussion of Israel and Gentiles in Romans 9 – 11, Paul writes, ‘Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.’ Because certain Jews were cut off through their disobedience, Paul warns his Gentile readers that they too must ‘continue in his kindness’. In short, continuing in the kindness of God is a condition for not being cut off.

Similarly, in 1 Corinthians 15:1–2, where Paul summarizes the nature of the gospel, he writes of ‘the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you – unless you believed in vain’. Here again, it is necessary for Christians to ‘hold fast to the word’ if they are truly to be saved.

Two key passages in Hebrews illustrate a similar reality. Hebrews 3:5–6 reads, ‘Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.’ And Hebrews 3:14 reads, ‘For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.’

Both Hebrews passages seem to be getting at the same point: we must ‘hold fast’ (kataschōmen) our ‘confidence’ (3:6), or the ‘beginning of our assurance’ (3:14 NASB). This ‘holding fast’ is clearly a condition of remaining in the faith. It is something necessary and essential to the Christian life. Whatever it means to be saved by grace, to be justified by faith apart from works, we must include such passages in any sort of biblical understanding of salvation.

We should not miss a fascinating reality found in these passages in Hebrews. In both passages our present condition is (in some sense) contingent on a future reality. Thus, in Hebrews 3:6, we are indeed now God’s house if we hold fast our confidence and boasting in hope. In Hebrews 3:14 we now share in Christ if ‘indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end’. That is, we can be said to be God’s house (3:6) or to share in Christ (3:14) in the present, if a future condition or reality comes to pass – that is, if we hold fast our confidence and boasting (3:6) or if we hold our confidence firm to the end (3:14). I will offer a more thorough explanation of how to think of such ‘conditions’ later in this book (particularly in chapter 4), but these two passages are intriguing, because our current status or relationship with God is in some sense bound up with future perseverance or faithfulness.13

In Hebrews 5:8–9 the author writes, ‘Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.’ We set aside for the present what it might mean for Jesus to have ‘learned obedience’ (5:8). However one makes sense of that, the author teaches that through his death (and resurrection?) Jesus was made ‘perfect’ (5:9). And this perfect priest is ‘the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him’. I draw attention to the obvious: Jesus is indeed the source of eternal salvation, but only to those who obey him. It is the burden of my argument to try to make sense of how best to construe the nature of such obedience.

Christians must ‘overcome’ if they are ultimately to be saved

Other New Testament passages speak of those who do, or must, ‘overcome’ (or ‘conquer’; the Greek is nikaō). This is a refrain seen repeatedly in Revelation. For example, in Revelation 2:7 we read, ‘To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’ In Revelation 2:11 it reads, ‘The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.’ Revelation 2:17 reads, ‘To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna . . . ’. Revelation 2:26 reads, ‘The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations . . . ’. In Revelation 3:5 we read, ‘The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.’ Revelation 3:12 and 3:21 similarly speak of those who ‘conquer’. And Revelation 21:7 reads, ‘The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.’ All these texts witness to a key central truth: Christians must ‘overcome’. This is not optional, but is an essential component of new covenant life, the life of a Christian.14

It is worth noting in Revelation 2:7 that to the one who conquers, Jesus will ‘grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God’. The first couple were expelled from the garden, and hence fr...