01.08. PRAYER AND OBEDIENCE

8. PRAYER AND OBEDIENCE If anyone turns a deaf ear to the law, even his prayers are detestable. (Proverbs 28:9) The prevailing theological tendency of our day is against the continual relevance and application of God’s law. There is an aversion to measuring and guiding the thoughts and actions of people by the clear and unbending precepts of the Bible. This school of thought is called "antinomianism."61 This theological error, and indeed major heresy, may be founded on mistaken ideas about legalism, justification by faith, and the relationship between the Old and New Testaments.

It is easy for antinomianism to gain a following because humanity is born antinomian; people are born rebellious and hostile to the law of God. As Paul writes, "The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so" (Romans 8:6-7). The sinful mind rebels against God’s law, but the spiritual mind submits to it. Since only the regenerate are "controlled by the Spirit," only believers can submit to the law of God. This means that to the extent we can know one’s relationship with God’s law, we can also draw some conclusions about his spiritual condition. The law of God divides humanity into two groups ­ the righteous and the wicked. Since the fall of Adam, all of humanity is wicked by birth. By their inherited guilt, they are in legal violation against the law of God, and by their subsequent sins, they are in personal violation against the law of God. But having determined that all of humanity would become wicked through Adam, God by his grace chose some out of humanity to become righteous through Christ. Human history subsequently exhibits the continual conflict between the seed of God and the seed of Satan: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel" (Genesis 3:15). This conflict reached a high point in the work of Christ, who decisively crushed the kingdom of Satan. Thus it is naïve and unbiblical to think that religion is about the unity of mankind, since biblical revelation shows that it is about the dichotomy of these two groups, and unity is desirable only among believers.62 This point is crucial to a biblical philosophy of history, and runs counter to the interpretation of human events preferred by many people. Thus God makes a clear distinction between the righteous and the wicked, the light and the darkness, the Christians and the non-Christians: Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you." (2 Corinthians 6:14-17)

Accordingly, God distinguishes between the righteous and the wicked when it comes to prayer. Proverbs 15:8 says, "The LORD detests the sacrifice of the wicked, but the prayer of the upright pleases him." People pray in earnestness when a special need arises or when a tragedy happens; yet, some of these same people would deny being religious at all, let alone being Christians. Thus of course they have no interest in consciously learning and obeying the commands of God in their daily lives. In light of what we have established above, the prayers of these individuals are unacceptable to God, and more than that, they are detestable to him.

Jesus says in John 15:7, "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you." This seems to be a big "if." Who are those who remain in Christ and have his words remain in them? Only Christians ­ - not all those who call themselves Christians, but real Christians, that is, those who have been changed by the power of God, who have received the Holy Spirit, enabling them to obey the commands of God. This narrows down those who fit the description of this verse to very few people. Perhaps we should do what I suggest so often, that we should emphasize theology more than activities like prayer, since without the first, the second is meaningless. Many times, preachers who emphasize prayer first is just giving unbelievers the false assurance that their prayers are acceptable to God, when they are not even saved.

So, what does it mean to "remain" or "abide" in Christ?63

I have heard several fanciful theories about this, including ones that take a rather romantic view toward Christianity. False interpretations and inferences from our relationship to Christ as "branches" are to the "vine" (John 15:1-6) encourage the tendency to see our life and abidance in Christ in mystical terms. They tend to portray the unity implied as an ontological oneness, and fail to notice the emphasis on the intellect and obedience by the mention of "words" (John 15:3, John 15:7, John 15:10-11). Accordingly, these false interpretations result in promoting prayer, singing, and other activities as means to abide in Christ. But John 15:7 states that answered prayer is the result of abiding in Christ. The writings of John explicitly define what it means to abide in Christ. John 15:10 says, "If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love." In his first general letter, John writes, "Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him....Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them" (1 John 3:21-22; 1 John 3:24).

We abide in Christ by obeying his commands. John himself insists that we may occasionally stumble, and says, "If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense ­ Jesus Christ, the Righteous One" (1 John 1:10; 1 John 2:1). So he is not speaking of perfection, but a lifestyle that clearly exhibits obedience toward God’s commands. Many people think that they are abiding in Christ just because they continue to say that they believe in Christ. But Christ’s response is, "Why do you call me, ’Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?" (Luke 6:46); therefore, "Not everyone who says to me, ’Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 7:21).

You may have heard that, "Christianity is not about following a set of rules." This is true in a sense, but only in a sense, and those who say this often have an unbiblical antinomian outlook. Doubtless Christianity does not consist of a set of rules that says, "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!" (Colossians 2:21), as far as these are "human commands and teachings" (Colossians 2:22). But how about these: "Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil....Do not take revenge, my friends...Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:16-21)? Surely the Christian life makes the demand, "Love your neighbor as yourself," but that is only a summary for, "’Do not commit adultery,’ ’Do not murder,’ ’Do not steal,’ ’Do not covet,’ and whatever other commandment there may be" (Romans 13:9), because "love is the fulfillment of the law" (Romans 13:10). That is, to walk in love is to do whatever the law commands.

"Christianity is not about following a set of rules" is therefore a very misleading statement. We are not justified by obeying the commands of God, since we cannot obey them before we become Christians. But when God saves us, he gives us the Holy Spirit to cause us to obey his laws: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws" (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

Therefore, if by saying, "Christianity is not about following a set of rules," we mean that we are not justified by obeying the laws of God, then this is true. But if we mean that there are no divine laws to follow in the Christian life, then this is false. In fact, believers are regenerated and justified so that they may obey the laws and commands of God, so much so that if a person does not exhibit a definite lifestyle of obedience toward biblical commands, he is not a Christian no matter what he says. He can say with great conviction, "Jesus Christ died for my sins and I trust him as my Savior. Jesus is Lord!" This person is not telling the truth; he is not a Christian. Again, a person is not saved by obedience, but he has not been saved unless he exhibits obedience. Salvation comes only by grace apart from works, but if a person fails to exhibit good works, it means that God has never changed his heart by grace.

You may say, "I thought this is a book about prayer! Aren’t you really talking about something else, and just loosely associating it with prayer?" As mentioned in the introduction of this section of the book, it is a mistake to focus on the very act of prayer when discussing the subject. If you understand what I have been trying to convey so far in this chapter, then you should also understand why this is so. You see, according to Jesus, for your prayers to be acceptable, you must first be a Christian ­ a real Christian who exhibits a lifestyle of obedience ­ and then, you may "ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you" (John 15:7).

Acceptable prayer depends on who you are, and not just saying the right things when you pray. Therefore, it is best to look at prayer from a broader perspective, relating it to our lifestyle and sanctification. Perhaps now you can better appreciate the words of W. Bingham Hunter, quoted earlier: "From a biblical point of view, prayer is related to everything that we are and everything that God is. God does not respond to our prayers. God responds to us: to our whole life....Our all-knowing God responds to our entire lives, of which our prayers are merely a small part. This means that how you and I live when we are not praying and worshiping is as significant ­ perhaps more so ­ than when we do."64

We cannot earn answers to our prayers by our good conduct, since even if we fully obey God, we would not have earned anything: "So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ’We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty’" (Luke 17:10). God does not owe us anything even when we have perfectly obeyed him, since we owe him perfect obedience in the first place. So I am not saying that we must earn answers to our prayers, but I am saying that we must be Christians when we pray, and if you are really a Christian, then you will think and behave like one. Then, you will know that God hears you, having the biblical assurance that "the Father himself loves you" (John 16:27), because he has given you true love for Christ and sincere faith in him.