The presence of God, in blessing, supposes obedience to exist in those to whom He is present. For the presence of God gives a light that makes all that is in it manifest, and the impotency of evil rebellion in His presence must render those that are disobedient miserable. In the light which at once claims all for God, themselves manifestly in rebellion and independence of the God (whose claim is known, is felt to be just and right), there must be a sense of collision, unsuccessful but strong-willed collision, and thereby misery. Obedience is supposed when God is supposed to be present in blessing. It must be so, for otherwise He would not be God; nor the creature, however high it be, a creature still. But more than this. For the blessing which a God of mercy and compassion found for sinners supposed a perfect obedience: a perfect obedience on the part of the Lord Jesus Christ-such an obedience as there was no room for ere sin entered; and perfect obedience on the part of the receiver of the blessing, even the poor sinner. The obedience in neither of these cases is, or could consist in the same details as man in Eden ought to have observed, but while differing, necessarily differing, in the thing enjoined, it is in both cases perfect obedience.
Man in Eden ought not to have touched a certain tree. He cast off obedience and did eat of it. The Son of God became obedient unto death, the death of the cross, when He bore our sins in His own body on the tree-the just one for the many unjust. We poor sinners have to submit to the righteousness of faith; and if any is found before God not haying Christ for righteousness-eternal condemnation will be the fruit of this disobedience on the part of the sinner. There is no question, whatsoever, of whether the lost sinner can get blessing in any way save that of perfect obedience; He cannot. He must either have Christ, and Christ alone, for foundation, or be lost; be lost, not merely because of Adam's transgression or his own walking in sins, but also because being a sinner he is not obedient to the faith. God is glorying Himself in proclaiming the praises and excellencies of what Christ has done for sinners, and the sinner will none of it.
But further, obedience to God and to Christ is necessarily the introduction of the soul into a new condition-the spirit of obedience. The conflict in man against the gospel has more causes than one.
The claims of God; a man's moral state and habit; the way that grace, as being light, discovers these things: the humbling, pride-staining character of grace; the fact that it, while it supposes obedience on the part of the receiver, supposes obedience in a way so different from that which nature in. Eden suggested, "I partake of God's goodness while I do not disobey," was then the thought, whereas now it is, "I partake of free grace if I receive God's promise of mercy through the work of atonement offered by the Lord Jesus." All these things, and many others, enter into the causes of hostility to grace. Dire necessity is the sense which breaks down many a heart. " What can I do to be saved?" and there is a ready answer of grace even to this bitter selfishness; " Believe in the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved." But whether the heart is broken down consciously, or whether (found of those that seek Him not), the light enters, as it did with Paul,-the soul that has the light of life and grace as it is, is at once in a new state.
God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of the Lord Jesus. But the revelation of this to the soul puts it not only into a new position; it was darkness, it is in light-it was in nature, it is in grace-it was in death under Satan, it is in life under Christ; but also puts it into a new condition or state. For life, life in and from a risen Christ, is not merely a position, it is a new condition-a new state of being. And there are habits, and ways, and sympathies (joys and sorrows, and communion too), a character and hopes-a life natural to this new condition-this new state of being.