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Christ, the Model of True Obedience, February 10
Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are
that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to
righteousness?
Romans 6:16
, NKJV.
Adam did not stop to calculate the result of his disobedience....With the af-
tersight we are privileged to have, we can see what it means to disobey God’s
commandments. Adam yielded to temptation, and as we have the matter of sin and
its consequences laid so distinctly before us, we can read from cause to effect and
see the greatness of the act is not that which constitutes sin; but the disobedience
of God’s expressed will, which is a virtual denial of God, refusing the laws of His
government.
The happiness of men and women is in their obedience to the laws of God. In
their obedience to God’s law they are surrounded as with a hedge and kept from the
evil. They cannot be happy and depart from God’s specified requirements, and set
up a standard of their own, which they decide they can safely follow. Then there
would be a variety of standards to suit the different minds, and the government
[would be] taken out of the Lord’s hands and human beings [would] grasp the reins
of government. The law of self is erected, the will of humankind is made supreme,
and when the high and holy will of God is presented to be obeyed, respected, and
honored the human will wants its own way to do its own promptings, and there is a
controversy between the human agent and the divine.
The fall of our first parents broke the golden chain of implicit obedience of
the human will to the divine. Obedience has no longer been deemed an absolute
necessity. The human agents follow their own imaginations, which the Lord said
of the inhabitants of the old world were evil and that continually. The Lord Jesus
declares, “I have kept my Father’s commandments.” How? As a man. Lo, I come
to do Thy will, O God. To the accusations of the Jews He stood forth in His pure,
virtuous, holy character and challenged them, “Which of you convinceth me of
sin?” ...
The only-begotten Son of the infinite God has, by His words, His practical
example, left us a plain pattern which we are to copy. By His words He has
educated us to obey God, and by His own practice He has showed us how we can
obey God.—
Manuscript Releases 6:337-339
.
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