Terror accomplishes no real obedience
Horatius Bonar was a Scottish preacher and author who wrote several great books on Christian life as well as over 600 Hymns. Here’s a quote from him on how true Christian obedience is based on faith in the love of God revealed in the gospel.
“Terror accomplishes no real obedience. Suspense brings forth no fruit unto holiness. No gloomy uncertainty as to God’s favor can subdue one lust, or correct our crookedness of will. But the free pardon of the cross uproots sin, and withers all its branches. Only the certainty of love, forgiving love, can do this.”
- Horatius Bonar, God’s Way of Holiness
At the Desiring God website John Piper has a review of Lewis Smedes’ book Love Within Limits (Eerdmans, 1978). Notice how he also links our love, which is a summary of the Christian life with the love of God revealed in the gospel.
He writes:
First, and most important to grasp, is the truth that “love is effective as a law only when it first works as a power.” To be sure, love is a “Christian obligation,” but “the good news is that love is a power. Love enables us to do what love obligates us to do” (p. 130). Therefore, 1 Corinthians 13 must be read as a promise of divine power before it is read as a command.
Second, “the promise of love’s power is received only in an astounding act of faith.” And “faith in love comes only after a soul’s journey to Christ’s cross, where God’s love breaks through for what it is” (p. 131). The only way to keep love alive “is to come back to the cross of Christ, where divine power healed the world by becoming weak within the world” (p. 16). “This power is the love of God for us in the form of crucified love, the love we discover when we see Christ’s cross as God’s entrance into our lives with a love that forgives all” (p. 135).
Isn’t that the music and the dance? God’s love is the music, faith is listening, and the dance is our empowered resonse of love for God and others. This means foundation for the Christian life has to be our confidence, by faith, in the love of God in Christ. His grace is the soil in which we must be rooted. This does not mean we do not take commands or discipline seriously. But it does mean that our obedience isn’t based on fear, uncertainty or threats but on faith, trusting assurance and God’s promises given in the gospel.
Larry is the senior pastor at 
