While our modern world may not speak with the same theological vocabulary, modern people face just as much pressure to prove that we are right with ourselves and right with the world. We may not ascend a holy staircase on our knees, but many of us daily count our steps and count our calories. We may not cry out to saints in the middle of a storm, but every time a hurricane comes, leading intellectuals will cry out to science to save us from our carbon sins.

Reformation Day may be behind us, but a huge responsibility lies before us. The faith of the Reformation must be kept alive because the ideas Luther combatted are just as much present in our own day.

The story should be familiar to most Protestants.

Martin Luther was walking toward the village of Sotternheim when he got caught in a thunderstorm. Terrified by a bolt of lightning, Luther cried out in fear, “St. Anne, save me! And I’ll become a monk.” Two weeks later, an anxious Luther entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt.

Five years later, in the winter of 1510, Luther and another monk were on their way to Rome to represent one side of a conflict involving the Order of the Augustinian Hermits. As the junior partner in their monastic tandem, with few official responsibilities, Luther turned the trip into his own personal pilgrimage. For Luther, the Holy City of Rome was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see holy places and sacred shrines, to do works of penance, and to gain indulgences for himself and for his loved ones.

One day while in Rome, Luther visited the Scala Sancta—the Holy Stairs said to be the very steps Christ ascended during his trial before Pontius Pilate. The staircase, filled with relics and carved crosses, provided pilgrims with an unparalleled opportunity to procure a plenary indulgence for himself or for others. A young man racked with guilt, Luther dutifully climbed all 28 steps on his knees, kissing each step as he went and repeating the Lord’s Prayer all along the way.

As earnest as he was in his self-abasement, the Scala Sancta provided no relief for Luther’s anxiety. Upon reaching the top, Luther looked back down and said to himself, “Who can know if these things are so?” Luther desperately wanted to know that he was right with God, which is why he cried out to St. Anne in the thunderstorm, and why he made an 800-mile pilgrimage across the Alps to Rome, and why he climbed the Holy Stairs on his knees, and why he was almost killing himself with vigils, prayers, and a punishing pursuit of obedience.

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Whoever you are, and whatever the depths and agony of your trials, God is hovering over you: he loves you, he is near to you, and he can rescue you. We see a living picture of his rescue unfold in the subsequent six days of creation. God does not stand aloof from the world in all its chaotic agony. His caring, brooding presence is very near, and he is at work.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. —Genesis 1:1-2

If we are going to get anything out of Genesis, then we must prepare ourselves.
Basil of Caesarea (330-79) said at the beginning of his Hexaemeron, a series of sermons on Genesis 1,

How earnestly the soul should prepare itself to receive such high lessons! How pure it should be from carnal affections, how unclouded by worldly disquietudes, how active and ardent in its researches, how eager to find in its surroundings an idea of God which may be worthy of Him!

And John Calvin (1509-64) said in his commentary on Genesis, “The world is a mirror in which we ought to behold God.” “If my readers sincerely wish to profit with me in meditating on the works of God, they must bring with them a sober, docile mild, and humble spirit.”
So remember that the author of these words, Moses, saw an appearance of God at the burning bush, and God spoke with him “face to face, as a man speaks with his friend” (Exod. 33:11; cf. Num. 12:6-8). And don’t forget the power of these words, “which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).
The Hebrew word for “beginning” is ראשׁית (rēshīt), which may also mean “starting point” or “first,” and is closely related to ראשׁ (rōsh), which means “head.” The word God translates אלהים, Elōhīm, which may be the plural for אל (el), the generic word for god. The plural does not in itself teach the doctrine of the Trinity, that there is one God and three persons in the godhead, but is more likely a “plural of majesty.” God is not just god, he is GOD. Elōhīm. GOD! The very sound of this word, naming as it does the Creator of the universe, should fill us with awe, dread, and love.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Before there was an earth and atoms, life and light, time and tide, there was God. He is eternal, which does not mean that he is very old, but that he had no beginning. He always was, is, and will be. Many have mockingly asked, “What was God doing before he created the world?” In his Commentaries on Genesis, Calvin relates a humorous answer he had read to this question:

When a certain impure dog was in this manner pouring ridicule upon God, a pious man retorted that God had been at that time by no means inactive, because he had been preparing hell for the captious.

We cannot speak reasonably of what God was doing “before creation,” because before creation there was no time as we know it—there was no “before.” Certainly there was nothing that brought God himself into existence.
The Hebrew verb for create is ברא (bārā); it is only ever used with God as the subject. What did God create? The “heavens and the earth.” Heaven, שׁמים (shamayīm), also means sky. Earth, ארץ (erets), also means land and ground. These words do not have a special meaning in Genesis 1:1; but when put together like this, “heaven and earth,” that is, “sky and ground,” “everything that’s up and everything that’s down,” they emphasize that God made everything. Only God himself is not made.
There are no time indications in these first two verses. The earth (erets) was formless and empty. There is some lovely alliteration here in the original, the earth was תהו ובהו, tōhu va bōhu. These words are neither “good” nor “bad” but are exceedingly and perhaps unpleasantly bland. Tōhu can refer to a barren wasteland, “a barren and howling waste” (Deut. 32:10; also Job 6:18). It can refer to futility (1 Sam. 12:21) and meaninglessness (Isa. 29:21). Bōhu appears only three times in the Old Testament. Isaiah 34:11 describes how “God will stretch out over Edom the measuring line of chaos and the plumb line of desolation,” and Jeremiah uses just the same phrase as Genesis 1:2: “I looked at the earth, and it was formless and empty (tōhu va bōhu); and at the heavens, and their light was gone” (Jer. 4:23). We will return to Jeremiah’s hugely significant phrase in a moment.
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Do not ignore the voice of the Lord who commands His people to obey Him. Rather, rejoice at the mercy of God who tells us to obey, how to obey, then gives us a new birth and new life that we might be able to obey!

Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming. Matthew 25:13 NKJV
What do you think of the word, “obey?” We have hymns where we sing of it, “Trust and Obey!” We have blessings promised by God when we obey, “And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God… (Deut. 28:2)” The Lord delights in obedience, “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 (I Samuel 15:22). Jesus tells us if we love Him we are to keep (obey) His commandments (John 14:15). A fiery vengeance is coming on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thessalonians 1:8).
It is evident that obedience is an important, even essential element of the Christian life. For whoever will not heed God’s command to repent of their sins and believe in Jesus Christ will surely perish in hell fire for all eternity. And yet, it seems sometimes in some places that Christians shy away from the word and concept of obedience because they are afraid of being considered legalistic or preaching works based salvation. If obedience is used, it seems almost with apology. Grace grace some cry but often without or to the expense of the great commission of Jesus, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you…
The “therapeutic theology” movement has in many places so effectively replaced the righteous Law of God that the idea of obeying God can be condemned as legalistic or abusive terminology which must be dismissed out of hand. The adulterer is surmised to have a mental issue. The drunkard is said to have substance issues requiring counseling. The man who hits his wife has a temperament disorder. The woman who considers murdering her child or follows through with murdering her child is considered a victim in need first and foremost of sympathy. The fourth commandment is used for comic relief. The ten commandments are referred to as “bad news”. The list could go on.
And yet, God does not avoid this word “obey” but rather  calls all men in all places to obey Him at all times. He even wrote His commandments for us so that we might know how to obey Him and commit His commandments to memory. God who told Saul that He desires obedience more than sacrifice, still desires the same from us today. He who said, “if you love me, keep my commandments,” still means what He said. When will preacher bring these words again to the ears of the people – You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. Obey God and it will go well with you! Disobey God and it will go poorly for you. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will surely be saved. Disobey and deny Christ and you will surely perish. It is the message throughout Scripture. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ leads the born again sinner to a life no longer of lawlessness but a life of obedience. Therefore Christian, obey the Lord!
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