The Grounds On Which God Claims Obedience.

From The Voice in the Wilderness,
Vol. 5, No. 115; October 1, 1850. 

God, proceeding to promulgate the summary of his law contained in the ten commandments, sets forth the grounds on which he claims obedience. The obedience which he requires is a rational service, and cannot therefore be rendered if we do not see that it is due. If it consisted in mere outward acts, such acts might be performed mechanically, while there was no recognition that they ought to be performed; but, as certain inward affections form an essential part of it, it was necessary that considerations fitted to awaken those affections should be presented. This is accordingly done in our text, which stands as a preface to the ten commandments, and sets forth the grounds on which God claims obedience, or the motives from which we should render it.

The first of these is that he who gives the law to us is the Lord.

The LORD Or Jehovah is the most distinctive name of God. It declares his self-existence and independence, and is therefore incommunicable. How glorious is the being to whom this name is applicable - a being who has life - an infinite fulness of life and blessedness eternally, necessarily, and independently in himself, and necessary existence implies that every perfection is an attribute of his nature and adorns his character!

The only ground on which we can conceive it could be maintained that we do not owe obedience to such a being is, that he stands in no relation to us, and that therefore he has no claim upon us. Though the state of the case permitted us to take this ground, would it not indicate a wofully depraved moral taste and wofully depraved dispositions, if we did not regard such a being with the highest admiration and love, and if our will were not so in accordance with his, that our conduct should be such as he would prescribe? A person who was altogether insensible to the various forms of beauty to be met with among the creatures, we should consider to be most unhappily constituted; but how unspeakably more deplorable the state of that soul that is insensible to the glorious beauty and infinite excellency of God!

But it is not the fact that God stands in no relation to us. He stands in several relations to us and those the most close and important of all our relations. He, who alone is uncreated and who is the source of all derived existence, is our creator. He formed us with the powers of body and of mind which we possess; and it is he that continually sustains us, not only by supplying our wants and protecting us from destructive evils, but also by a mighty though secret influence and support. And he created and sustains us that we might be to the praise of his glory. What is thus the end of our being should be the aim of our activity. We should glorify God in our bodies and in our spirits, guided in doing so by his own will.

The second of the grounds on which he claims obedience is that he is our God. By sin we have forfeited the friendship of God and all access to the enjoyment of him. In the covenant of grace, however, he has, so to speak, restored himself to us, and thus becomes our God. To all men under the gospel God offers himself to be their God. He calls upon them to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that he may be their God and that they may be his people. And, as he thus offers himself to them, they owe him the homage which they would yield by accepting this offer. He has a right to be acknowledged by them as their God.

But on believers he has actually bestowed himself as their God in Christ; and, that he might fully sustain this relation to them, he has enabled them to receive him as their God in Christ. Thus he does not merely offer himself to them and claim to be received by them as their God, but he has actually become their God, and they have received him as such.

By the relation in which he thus stands to them two things are secured - that he will work in them and for them all that may be necessary to their safety and to the ultimate perfection of their holiness and - and that he will satisfy them with good - or, in other words, that he will do all that may be necessary on account of their weakness and their circumstances as active beings - and that he will give all that may be necessary on account of their dependence and poverty as sentient beings.

As regards the former, there are certain duties which they must perform and certain means which they must employ, that they may glorify God, and that they may, if he so favour them, have communion with him now, and that they may attain to that holiness which will fit them for the full enjoyment of him hereafter. But they have no strength to perform those duties or employ those means.

The statement that God is their God implies, that he will impart strength to them, and enable them by his grace to do all that he requires at their hands. Their sufficiency is of him, and even when they perform duties and use means in his own strength, there is no efficacy in what they do and it establishes no claim for them. He will, however, command his blessing upon them according to the riches of his grace.

And, while they should be weak, though they had only to contend with the difficulty of the work before them, they are opposed by numerous and mighty enemies. In the midst of those enemies the Lord is their defence - their buckler and their shield. He strengthens them for the warfare in which they are engaged, and makes them more than conquerors. In short he is their God, in every respect, as regards the exercise of power.

And he is their God further, in as much as he will satisfy them with good. Their souls are so constituted and of such capacity that they cannot find satisfaction in any thing created. They derive some limited enjoyment from creatures, for this is necessary that they may be relieved from the irksomeness which would otherwise attach to their intercourse with the creatures. But, as this enjoyment is limited and wholly insufficient in degree, it is also limited in duration. It will terminate wholly with this life. Now the Lord as their God, imparts himself to them and fills them, sometimes even in this life, with much exalted joy, and will satisfy them hereafter with the fulness of joy.

That the Lord might thus be in covenant with sinful men, and might be their God, it was necessary that an atonement should be made for their sins. This has been done; and the fact furnishes the third and last of the grounds on which God claims obedience. The law, as given from Sinai, having been addressed in the first place to these Jews, the Lord, in describing himself as the redeemer of his people, mentions expressly only the deliverance of the Jewish nation from Egypt. This deliverance typified the redemption of God's people from spiritual bondage. It thus served to represent God as the author both of temporal deliverance and of spiritual redemption.

It is the latter that claims our chief attention. God in his great love to sinners gave his Son to make atonement for their sins. Christ finished the work which the Father had thus given him to do; by his obedience unto death, he made an end of sin and brought in an everlasting righteousness. When God by his grace brings sinners to believe in Christ, they become interested in what he has thus done, and are delivered from the guilt and the bondage of sin. They are thus reconciled to God and brought into friendly relations to him.

Such are the grounds on which God claims obedience - he claims it as due to him because he is Jehovah - the self-existent - independent - and infinitely glorious God - who at the same time is our creator and preserver - because he is our God who will do all things for us and give all things to us, or at least offered to us and justly claiming to be received by us as our God - and because he is our redeemer.

From what has been now presented to your attention - you may see the perpetual and necessary obligation to obedience under which we lie. God's perfections, his relations to us, and his dealings with us being such as our text describes - it cannot be but that we must always owe him supreme love and the practical expression of this love according to his will. God's claim to such love and obedience cannot possibly cease, and, therefore, our obligation to cherish such love and render such obedience cannot cease. It is impossible that God should dispense with this love and obedience, for that were to sanction the practical denial of his right to them, and, at the same time, to authorise his creatures to cherish a spirit that would render them incapable of happiness.

Nothing can render any incapable of this love and obedience but the wickedness of their hearts; and this can be no excuse to them. You may see further the great sinfulness of disobedience to the law of God; for disobedience is a practical denial that he is entitled to service on any of the grounds set forth in our text. Is not the self-existent and glorious Jehovah entitled to supreme love at your hands? Disobedience is a denial that he is. And do you owe him no service as your God? Disobedience is a denial that you do. Has he no claim upon you as your redeemer? Disobedience is a denial that he has. Nay it is a denial that he is Jehovah - your God - and your redeemer.

It is evident that the obedience required is a spiritual obedience. It does not consist in unmeaning outward acts; an acknowledgment in the heart that he to whom it is rendered is Jehovah, our God, and our redeemer, is essential to it; and outward acts derive their value and propriety from being the expression and carrying out in the life of this inward acknowledgment.

The statement of our text received by the heart affords the only entrance through which we can gain access to the acts of obedience prescribed in the following commands.

True obedience is evangelical in its spirit. It views God as our covenant God and as our redeemer. It is not to gain his favour that it is rendered, but to express our gratitude for the favour with which he already regards us - it is rendered in the strength which we receive from him, and in the exercise of the liberty into which he has introduced us. It is the response of the soul to his claim, not its endeavour to merit his blessing.

If you would stir yourselves up to obey God, contemplate him in the light of our text, and awaken your hearts to acknowledge him as Jehovah, as your God, and as your redeemer. This is what prevents obedience, that men's hearts do not thus acknowledge God; and what renders obedience so difficult and the measure of it so small is, that when men's hearts thus acknowledge God the acknowledgment is so feeble. Acquaint yourselves therefore with God that you may obey him.

There should be in each of us a prevailing tendency towards the contemplation of God. There are objects that draw us to think of him; how melancholy if the character of God and our relations to him have not this power!