Hearing is a natural faculty that all mankind still possesses, but the Fall bent our hearing toward idolatry. Idols are lies, and fallen mankind naturally trusts the lies. Yet when we hear the Word, God is able to open our ears so that we may receive new life. God ordinarily works through means. If we refuse to use our natural ability to hear, we cut ourselves off from the ordinary means by which God saves. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of God.” Even after we are redeemed, our hearing is still impaired by remaining idolatry. Therefore, we must hear again and again the exhortation to hear rightly so that we may produce much fruit.
Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One
Shema Yisra’el, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad
Introduction
This is an article adapted from a sermon I preached last Sunday at La Primera Iglesia Bautista de Balboa in the Republic of Panama.1 There is much more explanation here than was in the sermon. You can hear the actual sermon in Spanish at SermonAudio.2
The Shema
This is the beginning of the central confession of faith of ancient Israel—the Shema. The word shema in Hebrew is translated as hear and sometimes it is simply translated as obey.3 To the Hebrew mind, hearing correctly included the obedience. If you hear AND obey then between the hearing and the obeying it must include faith in the one who is speaking. Lexicons may not list ‘faith’ as a formal definition of shema, but the lived reality of covenant relationship clearly requires it.4 For it is impossible to hear and obey without having faith in the one speaking. Think of it this way: if your father says to you “come here”—and you come—is it not because you trust your father? Thus, the shema has the whole arc of living in relationship with God. It is hear, trust, and obey in one word—shema.
The Evidentiary Mode of Explaining the Gospel
In the Old Testament, good works were the EVIDENCE of having a living relationship with God. It was not the MEANS of having a relationship with God. You hear, trust and obey with the obedience showing or proving that you had faith in God. So, when the Old Testament speaks of works it is not performative but purely receptive.5 I do good works because I have life—not to earn life. I do not work to get life which would be performative, but I do good works because I have life from God—which is receptive.6 The works are what sons do naturally, not the obedience of a slave.
The works are the evidence of having life, not the means of getting life.
This mode of explaining the gospel is also used in the New Testament, though more often faith is stressed instead of works. James is the primary example of the Old Testament mode of explaining the gospel within the New Testament. There is no conflict between these two modes of explanation because the relationship always exists within one arc: hear, trust, and obey.7
If you have a living faith, it will always produce good works—not in order to be saved, but because you are saved.
In this sense, either faith or obedience may stand in for the whole arc of covenantal life with God. At times, Scripture speaks primarily of faith; at other times, it speaks primarily of obedience. Yet both function as synecdoches8 for the whole living relationship between God and His people.
Jesus in the Gospels
When we read our Lord’s teaching in the Gospels, He often uses the Old Testament evidentiary mode of explaining the Gospel. In His teaching on the parables of the soils, we see that hearing is central to the message of the gospel. When Jesus finishes his teaching on the soils He ends it with an admonition:
He who has ears, let him hear!
In English the force of the word “hear,” is not as easy to see. It is not in the optative or subjunctive mood—but in the imperative. It should be set off with exclamation marks to better show its urgency. It is not simply a gentle “let him hear…if you so choose,” but rather “HEAR THIS!”
The Lord’s parable of the soils is a call to hear well, so that we may bear much fruit—some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundredfold. In the ancient world, even a tenfold yield in farming would have been considered a good harvest. Each of these multiplications, therefore, signifies abundance far beyond what could ordinarily be expected through natural means alone.
When the Word is truly heard, the Spirit produces an abundant harvest of righteousness.
1.This church was originally an English-speaking congregation during the days of the Canal Zone. It is located near the Panama Canal Administration Building and the former Canal Zone Governor’s house on Ancon Hill. It is the church where I was baptized many years ago by Pastor Beeby and was formerly affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Today it is a confessional Reformed Baptist church with cordial relations among Reformed Baptists, Reformed Presbyterians, and those holding to the Three Forms of Unity. Over the years the church has hosted conferences and lectures by Peter Jones, Noé Acosta, Guillermo Green (URCNA), Eric Pennings (MINTS), and others connected to broader Reformed and evangelical circles. The church is also scheduled to host a conference this year featuring Samuel Waldron. https://www.pibbalboa.org
2. El Que Tenga Oídos, Que Oiga! (https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermons/52426184156824″)
3. See screenshots above from Logos Bible Software demonstrating how often shema is translated not merely as “hear,” but as “obey.” The New Testament likewise frequently uses the Greek word ὑπακούω (hupakouō)—literally “to hear under”—as its primary word for “obey,” preserving the same Shema-shaped covenantal pattern of hearing, trusting, and obedience.
4. There is the “hear and obey” of a slave, but that is NOT what Scripture is calling us to do. Our obedience must be as sons and not slaves. If our works are ever produced by fear of punishment, it is not the work of the Spirit but of the flesh.
5. In Martin Luther’s theology, vita passiva (the “passive” or “receptive life”) is the belief that salvation and righteousness are entirely the work of God, not human effort. Rather than actively earning favor, believers are passive recipients of divine grace, allowing God to work freely within them. [1, 2, 3] Luther formulated this concept as a direct response to medieval theology, which emphasized the vita activa (active, good works to earn merit) or vita contemplativa (monastic, spiritual disciplines to reach God). [1, 2]
6. Saint Augustine says it this way “Faith is the tongue that begs pardon, the hand which receives it, and the eye which sees it; but it is not the price which buys it.”1 This formulation captures the metaphor of faith as a receiving instrument—specifically the hand—which Augustine uses to illustrate how faith appropriates salvation without earning or creating it. (Logos Bible Software *Max summary)
7. The Old Testament does at times speak explicitly in the same faith-centered language emphasized in the New Testament. See especially Genesis 15:6 (“And he believed the LORD, and He counted it to him as righteousness”) and Habakkuk 2:4 (“The righteous shall live by his faith”). Yet the Old Testament more often narrates faith evidentially through obedient action.
8. A synecdoche is a literary figure in which one aspect of something represents the whole. Thus, Scripture may at times speak primarily of “faith” or primarily of “obedience,” while intending the whole living relationship of hearing, trusting, and obeying God.
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