The principle couldn’t be simpler. “If you love me,” says Jesus, “you will keep my commandments.” On Sunday we spent a good bit of time looking at the connection between obedience and love.
Something we didn’t have time to look at, however, was the fascinating relationship between the obedience of Jesus Himself and our obedience. It is a story of generational obedience and inherited blessings.
The author of Hebrews lays this out for us in Hebrews 5:8-9.
8 Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. 9 And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation,
Christ’s obedience was not a result of being somehow inferior to the Father. Indeed, He is the only begotten of the Father. He has all the rights and privileges of the Godhead. However, this did not prevent Him from learning obedience. The obedience of Jesus was not learned as a concept but as an experience. The suffering of Jesus, and the submission of Jesus to that suffering, were the learning process. For Jesus, obedience was not memorizing a list of rules, it was righteously pressing on in the face of all hardships. This pressing on is said to have perfected Jesus (v. 9). How did the perfect Son of God become in any way more perfect? Certainly not by making up for any moral shortcoming or character flaw. No indeed! The word “perfect” is a word that implies completeness, goal, and purpose. The obedience of Jesus was not correcting His flaws, it was bringing the purposes of God to completion.
What is so fascinating about this is that the passage immediately turns to our obedience. The completing of God’s purposes in the life of Christ brought about the death and resurrection of Jesus for sinners. Now Jesus stands ready to be to the source of eternal salvation for all who obey the Son as the Son obeyed the Father. Our obedience to Jesus is not primarily about the “rules,” it is about our endurance in following Him, submitting to Him, and allowing His purposes to be perfected in our lives.
This is the pattern between the Father and the Son. It is the pattern Jesus handed down from Savior to the original Apostles and disciples. It is also the pattern every generation of believers must teach to the next. By the gracious work of God, we have been made alive in Christ and have come to love Him. By the help of the Helper, we are being transformed into the image of Christ and learning obedience through His perfecting work. In all of this, we increasingly are able to enjoy the eternal life we have directly from the source – the obedient Jesus.
This is not the obedience of the law with its constant, soul-crushing reminder that we are never good enough on our own. This is, as Paul described it, the “obedience of faith” (Rom 1:5), enjoyed among all the “called of Jesus Christ;” who are not under a cloud of judgment and condemnation, but enjoy the “grace” and “peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
This obedience is inseparable from the good news of Jesus. When it is modeled and taught to others, it should sound like good news to them as well.