Dependence and Obedience: March 2010
Table of Contents
Dependence
Thou only knowest, Lord, how frail
and weak
Is every step I take, each word I
speak;
How all is failure — that I cannot
stand
Except Thou hold me by Thy
gracious hand.
Yet since the longing of my heart for
Thee
Is but the echo of Thy love to me,
And since it is the hungry Thou dost
feed,
The weary-hearted Thou dost gently
lead,
Since ’tis the thirsty Thou dost satisfy
With living water, and the weak
supply
With strength, on Thee my utter need
I rest,
Through deepest poverty most
richly blest.
Which makes my soul Thy strength
in weakness prove,
And lean more wholly on Thy
precious love;
My Lord, I thank Thee that I cannot
stand
One moment safe without Thy loving
hand.
From Christian Truth
Beyond Death
Dependence and Obedience
Dependence and obedience are the proper attitudes of a creature. “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). Man is dependent upon God for food to eat and live, and his life is dependent upon obedience to every word from God. In the Garden of Eden he was given one rule to obey, which joined together his place of dependence and obedience. If he acted in independence of God to eat, he would die. If he obeyed and did not eat what was forbidden, he would live.
“Obedience is the only rightful state of the creature, or God would cease to be supreme — would cease to be God. There is nothing so humble, nothing which so marks the Spirit’s presence, nothing so opposed to insubordination, nothing by which every ungodly voice is so utterly silenced, as by obedience.”
“Christ’s obedience was perfect. Every trial He was put through only manifested that in Him is no sin. In the Garden of Gethsemane He chose rather to have God’s face hidden than to fail to obey. He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. There is nothing so humble or so unselfish as obedience. It supposes that we have no will of our own.”
In this issue we focus on the perfect man of dependence and obedience, our Lord Jesus Christ, and how we are called “by sanctification of the Spirit, unto the obedience . . . of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:2 JND).
Theme of the Issue
The Loveliness of Christ
Every Scripture is profitable, but the Scriptures that present “the things concerning Himself” must have a special charm for the Christian. It is this that makes Psalm 16 so attractive, for it sets forth the moral perfections of Christ, the perfect Man, as He trod the path of life through this world of sin and death. How good, then, to look away from self, to contemplate this perfect Man in all His excellence! In this psalm we may surely say that David, led by the Spirit, unrolls before us the loveliness of Christ.
We know that Christ is a divine person and was the perfect manifestation of God to man. But we also know that He was a true man and, as such, was the perfect expression of man before God. It is in this latter aspect that Christ is presented in Psalm 16. Here, then, we have portrayed in all its blessedness the inner life of a perfect Man who trod this path of life in perfection, and who has reached the end of the path — the right hand of God.
Dependence and Confidence
“Preserve me, O God: for in Thee do I put my trust” (vs. 1). This perfect life is a life of dependence and confidence—dependence upon the power of God and confidence in the love of God. The Lord Jesus did not depend upon Himself; He was entirely dependent upon God’s hand of power, because He had entire confidence in God’s heart of love. With unbounded confidence in boundless love, He looked to God to preserve Him.
He was neither ignorant of nor indifferent to His enemies. He knew their number, strength and treachery, but He knew that God was above all His enemies. No one was above God, and in perfect confidence He looks alone to God.
He was at times brought very low in His circumstances, and thus He was tested in a way that we shall never know. At times He had nowhere to lay His head, and on occasions He lacked even a cup of cold water. But such tests only brought out the perfection of His manhood, for still He can say, “Preserve Me, O God: for in Thee do I put My trust.” God answered His prayer and used a fallen woman to quench His thirst and some unknown person to provide a pillow for His head.
Following in the footsteps of the Lord, Paul could say in his prison, “The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto His heavenly kingdom” (2 Tim. 4:18). Have we such confidence in the love of the Father and of Christ that, in the presence of enemies, dangers and desertion, we can say, “Preserve me, O God, for in Thee do I put my trust”?
Wholehearted Subjection
“O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord: my goodness extendeth not to Thee” (vs. 2). The perfect life is a life of wholehearted subjection to the will of God. Doing only the Father’s will, all that He did was perfectly good. There was also divine goodness toward man, perfectly expressed in the Son of God. But the goodness of which this psalm speaks is the goodness of Christ as man towards men, and though perfect in its place, it does not rise to the height of divine goodness. So the Lord can say of this goodness, “My goodness extendeth not to Thee.”
Only as we are subject to the Father’s will shall we do good as we pass along our way. When converted, the first question asked by Paul was, “What shall I do, Lord?” (Acts 22:10). Hitherto he had done his own will; now he submits to the will of the Lord. The proud, overbearing Pharisee becomes the lowly man in subjection to the Lord.
A Lowly Life
“To the saints that are on the earth and to the excellent thou hast said, in them is all my delight” (vs. 3 JND). This perfect life is a lowly life that finds its delight with God’s poor people. The perfection of Jesus in all His lowly grace is seen in the place He takes in association with the poor of the earth. “Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which He hath promised to them that love Him?” (James 2:5). However feeble and poor, they are the excellent of the earth, and in them God finds His delight. Are we lowly enough in our eyes, and have we so learned our own nothingness that we can associate with God’s poor people and find our delight where He finds His?
Refusal
“Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips” (vs. 4). The Lord refused every object that would come in between the soul and God. The devil tried hard to turn the Lord from the separate path and offered Him “all the kingdoms of the world” if He would but worship the devil. The Lord’s reply was, “It is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve” (Luke 4:58). A very little bit of this world is too often sufficient to ensnare our souls, and thus we turn aside to seek some passing satisfaction in the things of this world, only to find that we multiply to ourselves sorrows. The Lord refused the idols of this world. He would not take up their names into His lips.
Sweet Enjoyment
“The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage” (vss. 5-6). Not only was the Lord entirely separate from the world, but God was His portion in another world. Moreover, as He passed along His way to the eternal inheritance, the Lord filled His cup in His daily path. The cup is the actual present enjoyment of the future heavenly portion. With the Lord as His heavenly portion, as well as the source of His present joy, He can say, “The lines are fallen unto Me in pleasant places: yea, I have a goodly heritage.” As to circumstances, He was indeed the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. It is not, however, the circumstances of which the psalm speaks, but of the inner life lived in the circumstances. The life was lived in the sweet enjoyment of the love and support of the Father, and such experiences turned the roughest paths into “pleasant places.”
In the dullness of our way, we little realize what the joy of a life must be that is lived in relationship with the Father and the constant enjoyment of all that the Father is. We shall know the fullness of the joy of this life in a day to come, but the Lord Jesus knew it without a cloud as He trod the path of life through this world.
Counselor and Guide
“I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night season” (vs. 7). This perfect life is a life in which the Lord is the Counselor and Guide. It is not merely that we refer to the Lord in some great emergency, but that we habitually wait upon the Lord in the details of life. Acknowledging Him, we shall find that He guides us. Then shall we be able to say, “I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel.”
“I have set the Lord always before me: because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved” (vs. 8). The perfect life has only one object — the Lord Himself. Christ walked on earth with singleness of eye. He set Jehovah before Him as His only object. In such a life there is nothing of self and no room for self-will.
Such is the path open to the believer. If day by day we set the Lord before us as our one object, to do His will, shall we not find that He will be at our right hand to support us? And being supported, we shall not be moved by any trying circumstances we may be called to meet.
Joy and Gladness
“Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope. For Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption” (vss. 910). This perfect life has its joy and gladness, though not like the joy of this world that depends upon outward circumstances. The joy is in the heart, even as David can say, “Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased” (Psa. 4:4). The world’s joy is in prosperous circumstances, the corn and the wine. The Lord could say to His disciples, “These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you” (John 15:11).
The Lord’s joy remains even in view of death, for His confidence is still in God. “Thou wilt not leave My soul in Sheol; neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption.” Christ is indeed the “Holy One,” but believers are “holy and beloved,” and, as such, can know the blessedness of the life of Christ as man. They, too, can look on with confidence, knowing that God will not leave the soul in death nor the body in corruption.
The Light of Glory
“Thou wilt show me the path of life; in Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore” (vs. 11). This life is a life lived in the light of the glory to which it leads. “The path of life” leads into the presence of the Lord where there is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. In all the opposition the Lord Jesus had to meet — the contradiction of sinners, the insults and reproach from the religious world, the ignorance and forsaking of His own — He endured in the light of the glory before Him. The word to us is, “Consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.”
We often break down because we lose sight of the glory at the end of the road — the joy that is set before us. Instead of quietly enduring insults and shame, too often we return evil for evil and railing for railing. We may attempt to justify our strong words and our hasty acts, but the one test is, Did Jesus act as we did?
Our Great High Priest
Let us remember that the grace that enabled the Lord to tread the path of life is available for us; He still serves us as our Great High Priest to sympathize and sustain us as we seek to follow in His steps. Whatever we may have to meet, let us remember the word, “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 2:1).
Such is the loveliness of Christ as He trod the path of life, lived in all its beauty before God, and marked it out for His people to follow — a life of dependence upon the Father’s hand of power, confidence in the Father’s heart of love, and subjection to the Father’s will. It is a life of lowliness that finds its delight with God’s poor people — the excellent of the earth; a life of separation from evil, finding in the Lord its future portion and its present cup of blessing; a life which has the Lord as its one Object and has the Lord ever-present to support it; a life of secret joy and gladness that ends at last in the presence of the Lord, where there is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore.
H. Smith, adapted
Obedience: or, the Saint’s Liberty
The spirit of obedience is the great secret of all godliness. The spring of all evil from the beginning has been independence of will. Obedience is the only rightful state of the creature, or God would cease to be supreme—would cease to be God. Where there is independence, there is always sin. This rule, if remembered, would wonderfully help us in guiding our conduct.
Our Own Will
There is no case whatever in which we ought to do our own will, for then we have not the capacity either of judging rightly about our conduct or of bringing it before God. I may be called upon to act independently of the highest authority in the world, but it ought never to be on the principle that I am doing my own will, which is the principle of eternal death.
The liberty of the saint is not license to do his own will. An entire self-renunciation is the only means of walking with the full blessing that belongs to our happy position of service to God, our brethren and mankind. If anything could have taken away the liberty of the Lord Jesus, it would have been hindering Him in being always obedient to the will of God. All that moves in the sphere of man’s will is sin. We are sanctified unto obedience (1 Peter 1:2); the essence of sanctification is having no will of our own. True slavery is being enslaved by our own will, and true liberty consists in our having our wills entirely set aside. When we are doing our own wills, self is our center.
True Service
The Lord Jesus “took upon Him the form of a servant,” and, “being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:6-8). When man became a sinner, he ceased to be a servant, though he is, in sin and rebellion, the slave of a mightier rebel than himself. When we are sanctified, we are brought into the place of servants, as well as that of sons. The spirit of sonship just manifested itself in Jesus, in coming to do the Father’s will. Satan sought to make His sonship at variance with unqualified obedience to God, but the Lord Jesus would never do anything, from the beginning to the end of His life, but the Father’s will.
In Hebrews 13:17-25 the spirit of obedience is enforced towards those who rule in the church — “obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves.” It is for our profit in everything, to seek after this spirit. “They watch for your souls,” says the Apostle, “as they that must give account.” Those whom the Lord puts into service He makes responsible to Himself. This is the real secret of all true service. It should be obedience, whether in those who rule or those who obey. They are servants, and this is their responsibility. If they do not guide, direct, rebuke, etc., “the Lord” will require it of them. On the other hand, those counseled become directly responsible to “the Lord” for obedience.
Responsibility to the Lord
The great guardian principle of all conduct in the church of God is personal responsibility to “the Lord.” No guidance of another can ever come in between an individual’s conscience and God. Those who are spoken of in this chapter as having the rule in the church had to “give account” of their own conduct, and not of souls which were committed to them. There is no such thing as giving account of other people’s souls; “every one of us must give account of himself to God” (Rom. 14). Individual responsibility always secures the maintenance of God’s authority. If those who watched for their souls had been faithful in their service, they would not have to give account “with grief,” so far as they were concerned, but still it might be very “unprofitable” for the others, if they acted disobediently.
Wherever the principle of obedience is not in our hearts, all is wrong; there is nothing but sin. The principle which actuates us in our conduct should never be, “I must do what I think right,” but, “I ought to obey God” (Acts 5:29).
A Good Conscience
The Apostle then says, “Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly” (Heb. 13:18). It is always the snare of those who are occupied with the things of God continually not to have a “good conscience.” No person is so liable to a fall as one who is continually administering the truth of God, if he be not careful to maintain a “good conscience.” The continual talking about truth and being occupied about other people has a tendency to harden the conscience. The Apostle does not say, “Pray for us, for we are laboring hard,” and the like, but that which gives him confidence in asking their prayers is that he has a “good conscience.” We see the same principle spoken of in 1 Timothy 1:19: “Holding faith, and a good conscience, which some having put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck.” Where there is not diligence in seeking to maintain a “good conscience,” Satan comes in and destroys confidence between the soul and God, or we get into false confidence. Where there is the sense of the presence of God, there is the spirit of lowly obedience. The moment that a person is very active in service or has much knowledge and is put forward in any way in the church, there is the danger of not having a good conscience.
The God of Peace
He is “the God of peace,” both as regards our sins and as regards our circumstances. But it is only in His presence that there is settled peace. The moment we get into human thoughts and reasonings about circumstances, we get troubled. Not only has peace been made for us by the atonement, but it rests upon the power of Him who raised up Jesus again from the dead, and therefore we know Him as “the God of peace.”
The blessing of the saint does not depend upon the old covenant to which man was a party and which might therefore fail, but upon God who, through all the trouble and sin and the power of Satan, “brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus,” and thus secured “eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12). All that God Himself had pronounced as to judgment against sin and all the wicked power of Satan rested on Jesus on the cross, and God Himself has raised Him from the dead. Here then we have full comfort and confidence of soul. “Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” argues faith (see Rom. 8:31-39), for, when all our sins had been laid upon Jesus, God stepped in, in mighty power, and “brought again from the dead . . . that Great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant.” The blood was as much the proof and witness of the love of God to the sinner as it was of the justice and majesty of God against sin. This covenant is founded on the truth and holiness of the eternal God having been fully met and answered in the cross of the Lord Jesus. His precious blood has met every claim of God. If God be not “the God of peace,” He must be asserting the insufficiency of the blood of His dear Son. And this we know is impossible. God rests in it as a sweet savor.
Fellowship With God
in Doing His Will
Then, as to the effect of all this on the life of the saint, the knowledge of it produces fellowship with God and delight in doing His will. He “works in us,” as it is said here, “that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ.”
The only thing that ought to make any hesitation in the saint’s mind about departing to be with Christ is the doing God’s will here. We may suppose such a one thinking of the joy of being with Christ, and then being arrested by the desire of doing God’s will here. (See Philippians 1:20-25). That assumes confidence in God, as “the God of peace,” and confidence in His sustaining power while here. If the soul is laboring in the turmoil of its own mind, it cannot have the blessing of knowing God as “the God of peace.”
The flesh is so easily aroused that there is often the need of the word of exhortation — “I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exhortation” (vs. 22). The spirit of obedience is the only spirit of holiness.
May the Lord give us grace to walk in His ways.
J. N. Darby, selected
Dependence
The only true attitude for the Christian is that of dependence. The moment we get off the ground of dependence on God we are sure to come to grief. This is true both individually and collectively.
Peter got off the ground of dependence when, in self-confidence, he said, “Though all men shall be offended because of Thee, yet will I never be offended” (Matt. 26:33). Alas, he soon had to learn by bitter experience that he had no strength to stand when the hour of trial came. So it is with us; if we think we are strong and able to meet the enemy, it is just then we are in the most dangerous position of all. God has to allow some sifting to come to show us that we are nothing and that all our strength is in Him.
For a servant of God, even success in the Lord’s work has its dangers. He is apt to accredit himself with what God has done through or by him and to think that he has accomplished something. In this connection, it is interesting to note that the apostles, after returning from a most blessed missionary work, reported not what they had done, but all that God had done with them (see Acts 14:27; 15:4,12; 21:19).
It is only in the Lord’s presence and in nearness to Him that there can be that absence of self and constant dependence upon Him so needed for the Christian life and service. The same need of dependence is true collectively. The moment an assembly of Christians begins to say (or to think, if they do not say it), “We are the people, the testimony,” failure has come in; they are off the ground of dependence. Self, and not Christ, has become the object of attention. They have, in fact, taken the first step on the sloping plane of self-occupation, which is sure to end in disaster if not repented of.
The True Example
Our blessed Lord was the true example of dependence. He never deviated from the path of absolute dependence on the Father, not even for a moment. The last Adam stood where the first Adam had failed. No subtle allurements of Satan could induce Him to set up an independent will or leave the ground of simple dependence.
Thus, He could say, “I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me” (John 6:38); “I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me” (John 5:30); “I do always those things that please Him” (John 8:29). And He could answer Satan by “It is written.” He lived by the Father and by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. His was a path of perfect obedience, perfect dependence, perfect submission to the Father’s will, and therefore of perfect light and inward joy, whatever sorrows may have pressed upon Him from without.
Oh to learn more of His grace! Just to dwell upon the path of the lowly, humble man, Jesus, who could say in the depth of His self-abnegation, “Thou My soul hast said to Jehovah, Thou art the Lord: My goodness extendeth not to Thee; — to the saints that are on the earth, and to the excellent Thou hast said, In them is all My delight” (Psa. 16:23 JND). What a place of perfect submission and dependence!
And was not our Lord Jesus truly and really “over all, God blessed forever” (Rom. 9:5)? Surely He was, but He does not take that place in the psalm just quoted. Nowhere, indeed, does He show Himself to be God more truly than in the act of taking, voluntarily and in divine love, the lowly form of a bondservant. And how blessedly He has marked out the way for us and manifested the true features of the divine life in man, in His lowly path of dependence on God.
Blessed Saviour, may we learn of Thee and be occupied with Thee! And thus may that wretched self which so clings to us be displaced and forgotten in the presence of Thy lowly grace, perfect devotedness, and humble submission to the Father’s will in everything!
F. G. B., Christian Truth, 12:141
The Spirit of Obedience
The wisdom of God is far superior to man’s, and a little boy or girl, however young, can be kept from all the evil that is in the world on the simple principle of subjection and obedience to the Word of God. You don’t need to know all the evil that is in the world. You don’t need to plan against some clever enemy. You just walk in obedience to the Word of God, and I am sure you are going to be kept, no matter how dark the day, no matter how difficult the path. There is just one simple principle that will keep you faithful to the end —that is, the spirit of obedience.
H. E. Hayhoe
Obedience of Love
The Lord Jesus said, “If any man serve Me, let him follow Me” (John 12:26). If I am following my own will in a matter, taking the lead, I am practically ignoring Him! I am to “follow” Him; in other words, to obey Him, every day, every hour. This is holding the Head; it is waiting on Him — going, therefore, according to His Word, His way, His desire—this is fellowship. The Lord is now winning the love of His own to follow Him. It is not mere formal obedience to law, but the obedience of love to Him. “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” is a question of life and heart and submission. It is the cry of a subject one.
H. B. W.
Obedience and Love
Perfect obedience characterized the life of Christ here on the earth. He was always the dependent One, always the obedient One. “In the volume of the book” it was written of Him, “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.” And when on earth He could say, “I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me.” And again, “I do always those things that please Him.” This was perfect obedience.
His path of obedience to the Father was also the perfect exhibition of God’s love to man. His words, His ways, and His acts all spoke of God’s love to His guilty creatures. And the cross was the full revelation of this, together with the infinitely perfect expression of His obedience to God the Father. In the life of Christ as a man on earth, perfect obedience and perfect love were united. The life in which these were displayed in Christ is the life which, through grace, is imparted to the believer.
In Christ there was no imperfection. His was a life of perfect obedience—perfect love. In us there is much to hinder the manifestation of this life, yet the life in us is the same in its nature, its traits and its characteristics—it is the same life. Whether in Him or in us, it is characterized by obedience. Obedience is the state in which it subsists. “Hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments” (1 John 2:3). No matter what our pretension may be, it is worth nothing unless there is this obedience. “He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (vs. 4).
Love
The other characteristic of the divine life is not separated from this. Where there is obedience, there will also be love, because they belong to the same life — the same nature. “Whoso keepeth His word” — this is obedience — “in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him” (1 John 2:5). His Word is the expression of what He is, of His nature, and “God is love,” so that if we keep His Word, His love is perfected in us. “His commandments” are not only the expression of what He is, but of His authority as well. We are called to obey, and to obey as Christ obeyed. We are sanctified unto the obedience of Christ. And if we say that we abide in Him, we ought also to walk even as He walked, that is, in obedience to God, for His whole life was that. There was not a single movement in His soul, not a single act of His life, which was not obedience to His Father’s will. Blessed indeed it is to behold that perfect One in His path of perfect obedience! And happy are they who follow His footsteps, who walk even as He walked!
The Old and New Commandments
The commandment to obey as Christ obeyed, to walk as Christ walked, was not a new commandment. It was the word they had heard from the beginning in connection with the manifestation of the divine life in Christ. It was the Father’s commandment to Christ, according to Christ’s own words: “I have not spoken of Myself; but the Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto Me, so I speak” (John 12:49-50). So John says the commandment was “old.” Again, it was a “new commandment,” because true in Him and in us. The commandment was the expression of the divine life —“His commandment is life everlasting” and was first seen in Christ. But now it is true in us too, “because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.”
God had revealed Himself through the cross, and the light of life was now shining for man and dispelling the darkness. This life for man, and in man, as the fruit of redemption, life in Christ, life in the Spirit, was a new thing. It is Christ in us, Christ as our life. The commandment is “old” because the obedience which characterizes this life was seen in Him which was from the beginning, “the word of life.” It is “new” because the same thing is seen in the believer now. If they were seeking something new, according to the Gnostic philosophy, the bane of Christianity in that day, the Apostle John gives them this. But he would not disconnect it from Christ, the believer’s life, “that which was from the beginning.” “Which thing is true in Him and in you.”
Until redemption was accomplished, Christ remained alone. Now He is no more alone; we are in Him, and He in us. This is a wonderful truth, and it gives a wonderful character to the children of God. The Holy Spirit in us is the power of it all — the divine answer in us down here to all that Christ is in glory as a man. It is no longer Christ as a man walking alone in this world, but Christ in the saints and the “eternal life” displayed in them.
Obedience and Disobedience —
Love and Hatred
In John’s epistle, Christ is seen as “eternal life” down here in this world, first alone, and then in the saints, “which thing is true in Him and in you.” And this life, whether in Christ alone, or in Him and in us, is first an obedient life, and second a life of love. First John 2:38 is obedience and disobedience; verses 9-11 are love and hatred.
Obedience and love characterize those who are in the light. Disobedience and hatred characterize those who are in the darkness. A man may say he is in the light, but if he hates his brother, he is still in darkness and has never seen the light. He knows not “the light of life.” But if we see the outgoings of divine love toward a brother, we can say that he is a man who dwells in the light. He has found God who is light; having found the light, he has the love also, for “God is light” and “God is love.” We cannot have the one without the other, just as we cannot have the sun without having both light and heat.
Have our eyes been opened to see the light? Have our hearts tasted the love? Oh! then to “walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor.” We are to “walk as children of light; (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) proving what is acceptable unto the Lord” (Eph. 5:2,8-10). Let us walk in the light and sunshine of His presence who could say, “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God,” never swerving from this path, and who, “having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.”
A. H. Rule
Christian Obedience - the Obedience of Christ
“Unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:2).
The character of this obedience involves the whole principle and blessedness of the Christian position and the life which belongs to it. In this passage the words “obedience” and “sprinkling of the blood” equally depend on “of Jesus Christ,” and this brings out the distinct character of the obedience. For the nation of Israel, the condition of entrance into blessing was obedience to the law, to which they were bound by the blood which Moses sprinkled upon the people (Ex. 24:68). For the Christian, it is a wholly contrasted character of obedience — “of Jesus Christ” — that is, to obey as He obeyed. The blood of Jesus Christ, instead of establishing the authority of the law by a death penalty on disobedience, becomes the delivering power for an obedience after the pattern of His own.
The Man in the Flesh
The law was addressed to man in the flesh, but we know that it is “enmity against God,” so that “they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” The obedience of Christ is in total contrast to this. He obeyed the law perfectly, but not as having to be forbidden what He desired. “Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is within My heart” (Psa. 40:7-8). Neither was the character of His obedience that He gave up His own will in deference to the Father’s will, for He says, “I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me” (John 6:38). Thus we see One whose only will was to do God’s will.
The New Man
“God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin [that is, “as a sacrifice for sin”] condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3). But this condemnation having taken place in the death of Him who gave Himself for me that He might be my life, I see that I am entitled to count all that took place in His death as having happened to me. Thus we know that “our old man,” that is, all we were as characterized by sin and the flesh, “has been crucified with Him that the body of sin” — its whole system and power — “might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin” (Rom. 6:6 JND).
To Paul it is given to develop this new creation on the side of our place in Christ according to the eternal counsels of God, while in John’s epistle it is brought out on the side of Christ as our life, involving participation in the divine nature. In 1 John, then, it is not the believer now looked at as with a war of two opposed principles within him — the flesh with which he has been born into this world and the divine nature as born of God. Rather, all that is of the first man being gone in the death of Christ, God sets before us the characteristic privileges and nature of the life we have been brought into, as if we never had another.
Set Apart for Obedience
Thus we see that we have been set apart for the obedience of Christ, so that no lower character of obedience can belong to the Christian. The essential principle of the Christian position in its deepest privilege is disclosed. The life that was true in Him alone when He was here is now “true in Him and in you, because the darkness is past and the true light now shineth.” The commandments and Word that were the full expression of the life in Him are now given to direct that life in us. Whatever blessed traits of that life were expressed in Christ’s path here become His Word, with divine authority over me as His commandments too, to indicate the expression of the same life in me.
The obedience of Christ is thus a total contrast to anything presented to man before. Instead of a law acting from outside upon a nature wholly opposed to it, it is the revealed will of God, expressed in the commandments and Word of Christ, coming with authority to a nature which responds to and delights in that will and finds its liberty in obedience.
It is sweet to turn to the lowly life of Jesus, where that obedience is seen in all its perfection, even though the incomparable glory of it humbles us, and we feel more and more the poverty of all our thoughts of Him. Psalm 40, from which I have already quoted, brings us to His entrance into the place of it. The heart of God now finds its entire satisfaction in Him who says, “Mine ears hast Thou opened.”
Christ in Dependence
In Isaiah 50 we find Him come, and in the path. In what character then did He come? “The Lord Jehovah hath given Me the tongue of the instructed, that I should know how to succor by a word him that is weary. He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth Mine ear to hear as the instructed. The Lord, Jehovah, hath opened Mine ear” (vss. 4-5 JND). He who was Jehovah came as a man to be dependent and obedient, looking for direction from God, with His ear wakened morning by morning to receive it. What a study for our hearts! What an obedience is thus foreshadowed—of One who alone had a right to His own will, but become man only to carry out the Father’s will!
In Philippians 2 the mind that was in Christ Jesus is to be now in us — a mind that, instead of reaching up as the first Adam to be as God, reached down until He could go down no lower. As God He emptied Himself, as man He humbled Himself, and His obedience in that place went all the way to death, even that of the cross, in which it was put to the last possible test and proved perfect—all He was thus entering into and giving its character to every step of His path. As man He was dependent and obedient, but the fact that He, in whom “all the fullness was pleased to dwell,” should take man’s subject place, to glorify God by submitting to it perfectly, gives the humiliation, and dependence and obedience displayed in it their only measure and infinite glory.
He had never before been in circumstances in which obedience could be rendered. Not that there was anything in that holy nature contrary to obedience; as we have seen, He became man only to obey, and found His sole motive for everything in obedience. But thus He learned it.
The Obedience of Christ
Do we know indeed that this is the obedience to which we have been sanctified? I am not speaking of failure in walking according to it, but have we bowed without reserve to the principle of it as proved in its absolute perfection in the blessed Lord? Then we shall know how to judge in the secret of our hearts any spring of thought or action that has not its source in God’s known will. I say known, because there is no more subtle form of temptation than when it is pressed upon us that circumstances call for action, when there is no word from God, no intimation of His will. Yet if we act without knowing God’s will, nothing can be more certain than that we are doing our own, and this is the essence of sin. “Behold obedience is better than sacrifice, attention than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination and self-will is as iniquity and idolatry” (1 Sam. 15:22-23 JND). Nothing in man is right except obedience. Confidence in God will be surely needed for waiting, as with the Lord, left for forty days without food, but is it a strange thing, to those who know His heart as perfectly revealed in the Son, that we should trust Him?
Love — the Spring
One more passage connects obedience with the spring of it, that, whether in Him or in us, gives it all its blessed character and acceptance—love. I refer to John 14:30-31. “Henceforth I will not talk much with you; for the prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in Me. But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, even so I do.” What foothold could the enemy find in a life made up of nothing but love and obedience?
Satan’s Final Test
Luke brings us to the final assault of Satan; in Gethsemane, the full force of the temptation comes before us. Satan, having the power of death over man, sought to press it in that character upon Him, to deter Him from going the whole way in obedience. “Nevertheless not My will but Thine be done” records His giving Himself up to it, in the perfection of obedience here brought to its absolute and final test. Thus in infinite depths of suffering He endured the judgment of the will of the flesh that once characterized us. Oh, that in true dependence and nearness of heart to the Lord we may know how to be “always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,” that nothing but His will-less life may be manifested in our body!
Christ Our Object
And now, in closing, I would put it to myself and to my beloved brethren—are our hearts doing always those things that please Him? It is profitable for our souls to pass our life in review before God in the light of such an obedience and consider how much of it would have been left out if Christ had been filling our hearts! Deeply humbling as such a review of the past must be to each of us, it is well if it only magnifies the grace that is in Him! If sanctified to the obedience of Jesus Christ, we may seek to realize it, not by effort but by abiding in Him. But this abiding in Him must be where He is, so as to live out nothing but that life in a sphere where everything is contrary to it. May we each one know more of such a life —Christ become everything as our object, for He is our life (Col. 3:11).
J. A. Trench, adapted
Our Preservation
The best position and highest privileges will fail to keep a man right with God; dependence on the Lord and obedience alone can do this. The greater the privilege, the worse the fall, if the soul does not wait upon God. It is a great mistake to think that only the wicked can fall; the Christian may, and must, if unwatchful. The condition of the true worshipper is not such that he remains immovable as a statue. He is alive unto God, but he is responsible morally; he ought to grow but may decline. No doubt he has his “old man”; the only thing to do with it is to judge it, treating it as vile and evil, according to the cross, where it was condemned, root and branch in Christ who was made sin for us (Rom. 6:6; 8:3).
W. Kelly
Our Only Safe Guide
More and more does it become clear to me that “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with Mine eye” is the only proper and safe guide for us. It is better to err while seeking to walk with God than to go upon a level highway without individual faith in exercise. I am to walk with God and to spend and be spent for others down here. This is not pride; pride will soon wither and die down if I walk in the spirit of dependence and obedience to God. And further, we have to profit from every help God gives us, but also to try all things and prove what is of God, and to take forth the precious from among the vile that we may be as His mouth.
G. V. Wigram