On the whole, the scripture is plain, as the principle is uniform, that obedience is the way of blessing; and that we are not to wait for power to obey a command, but to obey it that we may find power. The Lord did not restore the hand that He might stretch it out and show it, but ordered the man to stretch it out, that it might be restored: and this is true in all possible cases. The Lord is obedient; therefore He is exalted to the place of power, to be Giver of gifts; He took upon Him the form of a servant, and became obedient, and that even to death: wherefore also God hath highly exalted Him. Now while the redemption of the church is herein complete (for by one Man’s obedience, many shall be made righteous), in the work in the church, obedience always goes before the manifestation of blessing. Thus Saul, struck to the ground, says, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” and the Lord answered, “Go into Damascus, and there it shall be told thee what thou oughtest to do:” he went, and received comfort, and strength, and blessing, through the means of Ananias, there sent to him; he acted in obedience in the first instance.
So the poor blind man, in the days of the Lord, being, in the flesh, a pattern and type of the whole case—"Go wash in the pool of Siloam and he went and washed, and came seeing;” and having been faithful to this, he was able to teach his teachers, because he had obeyed the word; and being cast out for it, the Lord hearing this to be the case, finds Him, and reveals Himself to him. Is it then that we act without the obedience of faith? We are so led: “He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much.” “Go wash seven times in Jordan,” is a humbling thing, instead of having the prophet's hand struck over the leper. But going and washing, proved that he believed the testimony of God—the Spirit of God to be in the prophet; it owned the Spirit, when it was in the obedience of faith, and the blessing came. So in the word we own the Spirit of God, the sure Spirit of God in the word, and act upon it; which shows that we own the Spirit of God, and that He is able to bless, and the blessing comes from that Spirit vindicating His truth. Whatever blessing is inconsistent with obedience, is not really a blessing in result, though it should have the form of an answer to claim on the faithfulness of God; as we see in the quails in the wilderness. Our whole inquiry must just be, What is the will of God? The blessing of the Spirit goes with it, for that is the testimony of the Spirit; and, taking it as the way of the blessing, is honoring the Spirit. Therefore the very acknowledging the Lord is made a matter of obedience. It is the command of God to acknowledge His Son (1 John 3:2323And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. (1 John 3:23)), to honor Him as we honor the Father. “This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him Whom. He hath sent.” Yea, the Lord, while He showed that He loved the Father, yet, in His yielding Himself to death, declares, “This commandment have I received of My Father “; and the gospel is sent “for the obedience of faith of all nations for His name.” The operation of the Spirit is to make us obey: there is no owning of the Spirit, but in obedience; and obedience is the evidence that we do acknowledge the Spirit, that we are led of Him—that which God will own, whether the world own us or not. And I suppose that the highest progress of spiritual life is not energy, but the enlarged discovery that all is within the sphere of obedience; and that all our efforts are so far profitable as they are within obedience—God's prescribed order; and that all without is the energy of our own will, and evil. Does the spirit of evil or our will lead us in obedience? Clearly not!
We have only then to plead the word, and we necessarily plead the operation of the Spirit of God in us; its energy is but to enable us, and to reduce others to the same thing. Our having the commandments is the sign of an obedient heart taught of God—the communicated apprehension of the divine mind as in the word, spiritual communion with God giving that discernment; our keeping them, of a patient will under Him to follow on as led and established by Him, and in spite of, and overcoming the enemy: God working in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. To lean upon tradition is to prove that we have not His commandments; to wait, as men speak, for His Spirit is to prove that we are not inclined to keep them: both concurring to show that we do not really love Him; and the latter, the merest though most subtle sophistry, and making us deny obedience to the word of the Spirit, in order that we may obtain His presence! a, way as strange in its proposal, as it is contrary to the word of God, as we have seen in John 15 denying that we have it, whereby alone we can have it or obey it, whereby we have it more abundantly; a hiding of the talent in a napkin, as though God were an austere God.
Our whole dependence then is on the Holy Spirit of God, for we have no strength in ourselves; the object of our desires and prayers, the great and continual object. All hangs on His presence: for by it alone we recognize ever what the Father and the Son are to us in the blessed counsels of His will—we recognize it as a present thing. The Spirit is the immediate agent in all divinely-led human conduct, as indeed in all operation on creation. But the measure of the Spirit is known by the obedience of faith—the understanding obedience of faith, to that which the Spirit has laid before us in the word of truth—the true revealed mind of the Spirit of God. Whatever its power, we shall ever seek its increase as to its exercise under divine will. It will ever lead us on farther and farther into the path of obedience, and will unfailingly sanction all our previous footsteps in this way; for indeed, howsoever little known, itself has led us in them.
J. N. D. (Concluded from p. 218.)