In 1 Samuel 15, we read God’s instruction to King Saul to punish the city of Amalek by utterly destroying it. Not one man, woman, child, ox, sheep, camel or donkey was to be spared. Saul carries out the command – almost. But, he does not execute Agag, king of the Amalekites, and he spares the best of the sheep, oxen, fatlings, lambs and ‘all that was good’.
The prophet Samuel confronts Saul with his sin, and pronounces God’s judgment with these words:
Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
As in obeying the voice of the LORD?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
And to heed than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft,
And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,
He also has rejected you from being king.
1 Samuel 15:22-23 (NKJV)
The timeless truth presented in this passage is that God requires total obedience to His commands. This is the demand of the law. Failure rightly brings God’s wrath.
It is immediately apparent that such total adherence to all aspects of God’s law revealed in the Bible is impossible for fallen men and women to achieve. We can’t earn God’s favour, because even our best attempts fail to reach His standards and are as filthy rags in His sight. Our nature is inherently sinful, deserving God’s wrath.
We therefore need a Saviour, someone who is able to fulfil the law by keeping it perfectly. Jesus Christ, God’s unique son, is that Saviour. For those who believe and trust in Him, for those chosen by God for salvation by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8), He received on the cross the punishment that was due to them. Jesus’ righteousness is put to their account.
For those of us who trust in Christ, does this mean that we don’t have to keep God’s commands? Not at all — they show us the way that God desires us to live; they were given for our own good (Deuteronomy 10:13). Although we know that obedience to God is not a way to earn God’s favour, the new nature that is now within us yearns to do God’s will — it is our joy and privilege. Jesus says:
If you love Me, keep My commandments.
John 14:15
and
He who has My commandments and keeps them,
It is he who loves Me.
And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father,
And I will love him and manifest Myself to him.
John 14:21
But even as we read these words, we realize that we don’t keep His commandments. Not even close. There’s not one second of a single day that goes by in which I love God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength (Luke 10:27). I fail miserably to love my neighbour as myself. But our confidence is not in our own law-keeping, but in Christ alone. Even our continuing sinful failure has already been paid for by Jesus on the cross — this truly is Good News.
Much of the modern Western church seems at times to have lost sight of these things. Paying mere lip-service to the authority of Scripture is inadequate. We fail to call people to repentance. We fail to proclaim the forgiveness of sins through Christ crucified on the cross. Let us be doers of the Word, not merely hearers (James 1:22)!
I hope that this blog will be a contribution (if only a very meagre one) to helping us rediscover the riches of ‘the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 1:3) and the joy that is to be found in Christ.
