John 7:17
"If any man is
willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching,
whether it is of God,
or whether I speak from Myself.”
Jesus
indicates that obedience precedes knowing the veracity of His teaching. The first step to true understanding is
obedience to God. If we will not first
bow the knee before the King, we cannot really know the truth. This obedience rests upon the faith that He
is, in fact, the King. Our sinful
inclination is to know before we obey.
The simple obedience from faith exhibited by a child is lost in our
sophistication of arguments, and so is our knowledge of truth.
Frederick
Robertson put it this way in his sermon on this passage, “”Surely then, by
removing self-will, and so only, can the hindrance to right opinions be
removed.” “It is more true to say that
our opinions depend upon our lives and habits, than to say that our lives
depend upon our opinions, which is only now and then true. The fact is, men think in a certain mode on
these matters because their life is a certain character, and their opinions are
only invented afterward as a defense for their life.”
How
true it is. I am convinced that we
consider an interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 that allows for an old earth not
because the passage allows such an interpretation, surely it doesn’t, but
because we suspect scientific assertion may be true. Some have adopted a perspective on women as
elders or deacons which leads them to place an unnatural interpretation on the
clear scriptural teaching. Others want
warrant for their various vices, so they fabricate an argument to show biblical
allowance of their sin. Each of these
errors is removed by following Jesus words, "If any man is willing to do
His will, he shall know…” Obedience must
come first. May God give us the grace to
obey and believe what the Bible teaches instead of trying to use it to justify
the lifestyle we have chosen.
