Perfect Obedience Through Christ
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the work of the Holy Spirit upon the heart; for we must have Christ’s
righteousness as our credentials if we would find access to the Father.
In order that we may have the righteousness of Christ, we need daily
to be transformed by the influence of the Spirit, to be a partaker of the
divine nature. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to elevate the taste, to
sanctify the heart, to ennoble the whole man.
Look to Jesus
Let the soul look to Jesus. “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh
away the sin of the world” (
John 1:29
). No one will be forced to
look to Christ; but the voice of invitation is sounding in yearning
entreaty, “Look and live.” In looking to Christ, we shall see that His
love is without a parallel, that He has taken the place of the guilty
sinner, and has imputed unto him His spotless righteousness. When
the sinner sees his Saviour dying upon the cross under the curse of
sin in his stead, beholding His pardoning love, love awakes in his
heart. The sinner loves Christ, because Christ has first loved him,
and love is the fulfilling of the law. The repenting soul realizes that
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God “is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.” The Spirit of God works in the believer’s
soul, enabling him to advance from one line of obedience to another,
reaching on from strength to greater strength, from grace to grace in
Jesus Christ.
God justly condemns all who do not make Christ their personal
Saviour; but He pardons every soul who comes to Him in faith, and
enables him to work the works of God, and through faith to be one with
Christ. Jesus says of these, “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be
made perfect in one [this unity brings perfection of character]; and that
the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as
thou hast loved me” (
John 17:23
). The Lord has made every provision
whereby man may have full and free salvation, and be complete in
Him. God designs that His children shall have the bright beams of
the Sun of Righteousness, that all may have the light of truth. God
has provided salvation for the world at infinite cost, even through the
gift of His only-begotten Son. The apostle asks, “He that spared not
his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with
him also freely give us all things?” (
Romans 8:32
). Then if we are not