Obedience, the Opener of Eyes

If ye love me, keep my commandments. JOHN 14:15

If MacDonald had a single practical message, it was this: do what Jesus says. He said it in many ways and in almost every sermon, and he said it with an urgency that can be startling. In his sermon The Way, on the rich young man who asked what good thing he should do to have eternal life, he summed it up in six words that have become one of his best-known sayings: “Obedience is the opener of eyes.”

Doing before understanding

MacDonald noticed that the Gospels are full of people who wanted to understand Jesus before they would obey Him, and that Jesus almost never let them. When the young man came asking about eternal life, Jesus did not give him a lecture on doctrine. He gave him something to do: go, sell what you have, give to the poor, and come, follow Me. MacDonald thought that if the young man had obeyed, he would have understood far more than any explanation could have taught him. The light comes to those who walk in it.

Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. MARK 10:21

He said the same thing in his sermon on the disciples’ failure to understand the warning about the leaven of the Pharisees, which he called The Cause of Spiritual Stupidity. “It is to the man who is trying to live, to the man who is obedient to the word of the Master, that the word of the Master unfolds itself.” The meaning of Christ’s words is not hidden from the clever and revealed to the simple by some arbitrary rule. It is hidden from those who will not do them, because only doing them can open their meaning.

Get up and do something

MacDonald was impatient with Christians who spent their lives examining their own feelings, wondering whether they really believed, or arguing about how salvation works, while never doing the plain things Christ commanded. In his sermon The Truth in Jesus he imagined such a person protesting that he did not know how to wake up and rise from the dead. His answer was blunt: “Get up, and do something the master tells you; so make yourself his disciple at once.” And he added a test that searches every reader: instead of asking whether you believe, ask whether you have this day done one thing because He said, Do it, or once abstained because He said, Do not do it.

And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? LUKE 6:46

He was just as hard on the churches. He thought that much of what passes for Christianity is a substitute for obedience — a busy round of opinions, controversies and religious activities that leaves the plain commands of Christ untouched. In The Word of Jesus on Prayer he lamented that many eat and drink and talk and teach in Christ’s presence, but few do the things He says to them; and he concluded that obedience is the one key of life.

The hardness of the way

MacDonald did not pretend that obedience was easy. He followed the story of the rich young man into its sequel, where Jesus told His disciples how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom. In The Hardness of the Way he applied the warning not only to the rich but to everyone whose heart is held by things: “But it is not the rich man only who is under the dominion of things; they too are slaves who, having no money, are unhappy from the lack of it.” Whatever holds us back from following Christ must be let go, and letting go is hard. But it is the only way into life.

Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! MARK 10:24

Faith as obedience

For MacDonald, faith and obedience were not two things but one. To believe in Christ is to trust Him enough to do what He says. In The Truth in Jesus he asked what faith in Christ is, and answered: the leaving of our own way, our objects and our self, and the taking of His way and Himself, “and doing as he tells you.” A faith that does nothing, he thought, is not faith at all. It is an opinion about Christ, and Christ did not die to give us opinions.

Weighing it

MacDonald’s call to obedience is a bracing and needed word. Jesus did say that those who love Him keep His commandments, that the wise man is the one who hears His sayings and does them, and that not everyone who calls Him Lord will enter the kingdom, but he that does the will of His Father. James says that faith without works is dead. A great many believers have been helped by MacDonald to stop analysing their faith and start living it.

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock. MATTHEW 7:24

But a caution is needed, and it is an important one. MacDonald so closely identified faith with obedience that he left little room for the free justification of the sinner by grace through faith alone. In the same sermon in which he defined faith as doing what Christ says, he listed among the things we must stop trusting in the atonement itself. Elsewhere, as chapter eleven shows, he scorned the teaching that Christ’s righteousness is credited to the believer. The New Testament holds that the sinner is accepted by God not because of his obedience but because of Christ’s, received by faith; and that obedience is the fruit of that acceptance, not its ground. A believer who is taught only that he must obey may be left anxious and striving, never sure whether he has obeyed enough. The gospel says that Christ has obeyed for us, and that we obey because we are loved.

But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. ROMANS 4:5

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. EPHESIANS 2:8–10

Read on that foundation, MacDonald’s summons to obedience is exactly what many comfortable Christians need to hear. Grace is not an excuse for disobedience; it is the power for obedience. And it remains true, as MacDonald saw, that the way to understand Christ better is to do what He has already told us.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Have you this day done one thing because Christ said, Do it, or once abstained because He said, Do not do it? Answer honestly.

2. Is there a plain command of Christ that you have been putting off until you understand it better? Obey it this week, and see what you learn.

3. What things hold your heart? Read Mark 10:17–27 and ask what Christ might be asking you to let go.

4. Read Matthew 7:21–27. Consider whether your faith is built on hearing or on doing.

5. Read Romans 5:1–11 and give thanks that your acceptance with God rests on Christ’s obedience, not your own.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You have told me what to do, and I have so often asked for explanations instead.

Forgive me for calling You Lord and not doing what You say. Forgive me for the things I love more than You.

Thank You that You obeyed the Father perfectly for me, and that I am accepted in You.

Now give me grace to get up and do something You have told me, today, and open my eyes as I obey. Amen.