Obedience (Multimedia)

The Biblical pattern of obedience is: Guilt (law), Grace (Gospel), and Gratitude, whereby we live out of the grace of God, in Christ, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. The new heart granted to us in regeneration compels us to obey. Obedience is necessary, but it is necessary as fruit, not root. Obedience is not a condition of justification. Only the regenerate can or want to obey. We believe and obey not in order to be regenerate but because we are.

The mystery of sanctity is that it doesn’t begin with us and our doing. It begins with Christ’s work for us. As a consequence of Christ’s work, we’ve been set free. We’ve been adopted. We’ve been united to Christ. Because Christ was righteous for us, God is favorable toward us. Now, we who believe want to obey, to be conformed to Christ. The starting point and power of the Christian life is the scandal of the cross.

Sinclair Ferguson said, "Union with Christ in his death and resurrection ... is the foundation of sanctification in Reformed theology. It is rooted, not in humanity and their achievement of holiness or sanctification, but in what God has done in Christ, and for us in union with him. Rather than view Christians first and foremost in the microcosmic context of their own progress, the Reformed doctrine first of all sets them in the macrocosm of God's activity in redemptive history. It is seeing oneself in this context that enables the individual Christian to grow in true holiness."