The Obedience of Jesus Christ

Every aspect of the life of the Lord Jesus brings before us His deep perfections, whether it be the moral perfections that are brought into relief against the dark background of the ruin of the human race, or the perfect revelation in Him of all that God is in His nature of love and in His disposition of goodness and compassion for fallen sinners. The perfect obedience of the Lord Jesus is wonderful to contemplate, especially when we consider who He is in the greatness and glory of His Person. Though never ceasing to be God, He was a real Man; and as Man He partook of human nature, being made in all things "like unto His brethren," yet without sin; and in the perfection of His obedience in Manhood, He was unlike every other man, for even man at his best is a sinner before God. This is seen strikingly in Moses, who though "faithful in all His house, as a servant," was yet refused entry into the land of promise for disobeying the word of God.

The Obedience of the Son to the Father

The observant reader cannot but be impressed, in reading the Gospel of John, with the place the Son takes in obedience to His Father's will. In this Gospel the divine glory of the Son shines out in a peculiar way, both in the way the Son is presented by the writer of the Gospel, and in the words that fall from the lips of the Son of God. The opening verses of the Gospel present the Son in the height of His glory as existing in eternity, as the creator of all things, and as the One who has life in Himself. Although His mission was to present the Father and reveal God in His nature of love, His own glory could not be hid; for in presenting the Father's words and works, His eternal relationship to the Father could not be hid; and the Jews were not slow to recognise that His claim of relationship of Son to the Father involved the claim of His Godhead glory.

We learn of the Son's obedience where He says, "I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me" (John 5:30). Where every other man sought to do his own will, the Son of the Father sought only the Father's will. Yet this very obedience brought out the perfection of the Son, and revealed who He was, for He said, "I can of mine own self do nothing." None other could say this: only One who was conscious of His relationship with the Father in the unity of the Godhead could speak thus. It was impossible for Him as one with the Father to act independently of Him in anything, whether in His actions or in His judgments. He viewed and judged everything, not as they affected Himself, but in relation to the will and glory of His Father. This of necessity made His judgment just, and in marked contrast to the Jews who viewed all in relation to their own interests.

If the Father's will was to be accomplished the Son must enter into death, and through death, in resurrection, bring to full fruition all the eternal counsels of the Father. And the obedience of the Son in doing this great work called forth from the Father the deep love of His heart, even as He said, "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again" (John 10:17). Here was a fresh cause for the Father's love for the Son. Men might oppose Him, and be the instruments of His death, but they never could have slain Him had He not given up His life as a voluntary offering, even as He continues to say, "No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father" (John 10:18).

Many a martyr has laid down his life, but their lives were taken from them; none but the Son of God had authority to lay down His life. His entry into death was of His own volition; He entered the dark domain of death as no other ever entered into it, in all the confidence of the authority that was His to break death's power, and come forth in the triumph of having accomplished the work that His Father had given Him to do. And yet, while it was of His own will He went into death, His death was also an act of obedience in sub-mission to His Father's will. The Son delighted in the Father's will, even if it meant death for Him, and all that death meant; for we hear Him again speak of it as an expression of His love to the Father in obedience, where He says, "'But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence" (John 14:31). His death expressed His love to the Father, and called forth the Father's love for the Son.

If the obedience of the Son brought out His moral perfections, and called forth the Father's love, it also brought untold blessing to those who have received the testimony of the Son. Every man who seeks his own glory delights to present himself as the originator of his thoughts and words; but it was never thus with the Son of God; He rejoiced to speak of the Father as the source of all His words and thoughts, even as we read in John 12:49-50, "For 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." Not only His thoughts but the very words He received from the Father; and His testimony but set forth the perfection of His obedience.

The words spoken in obedience brought eternal life from the Father to those who received the Son, for as Peter had learned, and was able to say, "Thou hast the words of eternal life." How great is the blessing that is ours through the obedience of the Son! We never could have had eternal life, and all that this means, had not the Son come from the Father. We must have forever remained in ignorance of God, instead of having the knowledge of the Father in the relationship of children and sons to Him.

He became obedient, even unto death

As in John's Gospel, so it is in Philippians 2: before the obedience of the Lord Jesus is brought out, He is presented in His divine glory. This evinces the holy jealousy of the Spirit of God for the honour of the Son. The One with the lowly mind, who became obedient, had hitherto existed "in the form of God." We cannot conceive what this form is, but we know it is that which belongs to God essentially in the "unapproachable light, which no man hath seen, nor can see," and could only be the portion of a Divine Person.

His coming into the world was in marked contrast with Adam's. The first man, when tempted by Satan, sought to be like God, but in aspiring to what had been forbidden, in disobedience he fell from his innocent estate. The Second Man had no such aspiration, for He was God. He could rise no higher, but He stooped down to man's estate, though never ceasing to be God. In Him was found essential deity and perfect Manhood; the Spirit of God safeguarding His unique Person in every sentence that speaks of His Manhood. First, He emptied Himself of the form of God, which implies the rights of His Godhead, for only a Divine Person could leave His first estate. It was sin, both for the angels and for man, to leave their first estate, Secondly, He took a bondman's form. We have known nothing else but man's form, but the One who was in the form of God took, in His own voluntary act, the form of man, to be a bondman for the Godhead. Thirdly, He took His place in the likeness of men. He was a real Man, and outwardly like every other man; but because He was more than man the Spirit of God says, He took His place in the likeness of men. Fourthly, He was found in figure as a man. Here again His divine glory is safeguarded; being more than Man, but like other men to all outward appearance, the Spirit of God makes it plain He was as a man.

He had emptied Himself of His Godhead form, not of His Godhead; and had taken a servant's form, though never ceasing to be in His Person what He always was; but having become Man, all that was becoming to man was His, so that He "became obedient." His becoming obedient at once discloses that obedience was a new thing to Him; it was not with Him, as with us, what is incumbent upon us as creatures of God, for He was not a creature, but the creator, though in Manhood. For Him to become obedient expresses the glory of His Person. Naturally, as derived from Adam, we are "children of disobedience," and only the grace of God makes us "children of obedience." And how imperfect is our obedience! There is ever with us the nature received from Adam, that too readily expresses itself, and mingles its features with the purest of our motives and desires; but with Christ Jesus all was perfection at all times.

The obedience of Christ Jesus marked Him in every step of His pathway through this world, and it was "even unto death, and that the death of the cross." As has been said, the first man was disobedient unto death, but the Second Man was obedient unto death. And who can tell what the death of the cross was for Him? Death was so real to Him, with all its weakness, all its dishonour and shame, and with all its judgment. Men dwell upon the ignominy that He suffered, the reproaches, injustices, revilings and rejection from the hands of men; but deep as were the wounds of His heart from all these, how infinitely more deep the suffering and sorrow of His holy soul when the wrath of God was sustained until it was exhausted in the righteous judgment He bore for our sins, and to glorify God in regard to every question that sin had raised before the throne of God. The death of the cross involves all that man meted out to the holy Son of God, and all that He received from the hand of a righteous and holy God, when He cried, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"

The obedience of Christ Jesus has already been answered in the place of exaltation that God has given Him; but He awaits the full answer, when "At the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of heavenly and earthly and infernal (beings), and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to God the Father's glory." If men have dishonoured the Name of Jesus, God will bring glory to Himself by bringing the whole universe to the feet of Jesus, and making every tongue own that He is Lord. The saint of God rejoices to own Jesus now, and to bow before Him in submission to His will, and in adoration and worship.

He learned obedience

As in John's Gospel, and in Philippians, so in Hebrews 5 the Holy Spirit safeguards the divine glory of the Son while speaking of His obedience. Indeed, the Epistle to the Hebrews opens as does the Gospel of John with the presentation of the divine and creatorial glories of the Son. Here, in chapter 5, the Spirit of God says, "Though He were Son, He learned obedience." The divine Sonship of Jesus tells every anointed ear of His eternal relationship with the Father, and of His glory before the world was.

How surpassing wonderful it is that the Son should be in a form where He should learn. Like the disciples on earth, we know Jesus as our Lord and as The Teacher, the One from whom all true knowledge comes; yet, as Man, there were things He learned. Obedience was a new experience for Him who commanded the mighty angels, and at whose bidding all the great worlds keep in their appointed orbits. Isaiah had written in chapter 50 of his prophecy concerning Jesus, "The Lord God … wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned … I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair" (Isa. 50:4-6). He was to come into the place of learning, and into the path of suffering.

The sufferings of Messiah, foretold in the different passages of Isaiah, and so often in the Psalms and other Scriptures, have been fulfilled in Jesus; and it was in these sufferings He learned obedience. With us self-will has to be subdued when we obey, with Christ it was altogether different; He could say, "I came not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me"; and at the close of His pathway, amidst the awful anguish of Gethsemane, "Not my will, but Thine be done." It was in a path of suffering peculiar to Himself as regards its intensity, and in some respects too as regards its character, that the Son of God learned what obedience was. No matter what the cost to His holy soul in suffering, whether in life or in death, the blessed Lord refused to deviate in the very slightest from perfect obedience to His Father's will.

But the "tears and strong crying" of Jesus have not been in vain or unheard; His obedience has brought to those who obey Him "eternal salvation"; and God has glorified Him, and addressed Him as High Priest, after the order of Melchisedec. His present place, in which He is crowned with glory and honour, is God's answer to the tears and strong crying in His path of learning obedience, and soon He will be displayed in glory publicly in the world to come.

In the latter part of Romans 5 the Apostle Paul contrasts the portion of those under Adam's headship with that of those under the headship of Christ; and writes, "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." Rom. 5:19. We owe our standing in divine righteousness, and our being constituted righteous, to the obedience of the Lord Jesus, to His act of obedience in entering into death to take away our sins from before God's eye, and to glorify God in regard to the whole question of sin.

The act of obedience in the death of the Lord Jesus was the culmination of a life of obedience that constantly yielded infinite pleasure to His God and Father. In the law, God had demanded righteousness from man, but there was none that kept the law; all men were children of disobedience; but the Lord Jesus not only kept the law, loving the Lord His God with all His heart, and His neighbour as Himself; but His obedience to His God and Father infinitely transcended what was required of man by the law. His life of obedience revealed what God was in His nature of love; He loved His enemies, and in the end gave His life for those who hated Him without a cause.

Sanctified to the Obedience of Jesus Christ

God, in sovereign grace, has called us to be for Himself in this world, and according to His abundant mercy "hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven" for us (1 Peter 1:3-4). We are also "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:2).

The elect of God, in this dispensation, have received the Holy Spirit, and by the Spirit have been set apart for the will of God; and God's will for us is that we might live before Him in this world in the holy life of obedience that was seen in its perfection in Jesus here on earth. Nothing less than this will do for God! Nor should we have any lower standard of walk before us. That holy life of obedience, in all its precious details, rose as a sweet odour to God amidst all that dishonoured God in man in this world. And it is indeed wonderful that something of that same fragrance should be found in God's elect in this world to give Him pleasure during the time of His Son's absence from this world.

If we are to manifest Christ's obedience, Christ must be the object of our hearts. He is our perfect example, but if we only think of Him as an example we might well be discouraged when we discover the distance that separates us from His perfection. But He is also the blessed object that God has given to us to rejoice our hearts. When we gaze upon Him in all the beautiful features that marked Him in Manhood, and that shine out in Him now in the glory of God, our hearts may well rejoice. We rejoice in all that is in Him, having the capacity by the Spirit by which we are sanctified to discern them, and to delight in them; and to know that what belongs to His life belongs to us in the life that He has given to us. We never could have lived in the life of Christ's obedience had not God given to us that wonderful life.

Now that we have Christ, both as object and example, and also the Holy Spirit as power within us, we have the divinely-given ability to live practically the life of obedience that belongs to Jesus. The life of obedience involved infinite suffering for Jesus, and it will involve us in sufferings also. While we rejoice in the "salvation ready to be revealed in the last time," we may be "in heaviness through manifold temptations." The trial of our faith in the path of obedience is to set aside the working of the flesh in us, so that only the obedience of Jesus Christ will be manifest in the life, the dross being separated from the gold, and "be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."

Christ in the glory must be our object, but we must learn also like the Apostle Paul the truth of the cross in its application to the nature we received from Adam, if we would live for God's pleasure while waiting for His kingdom. Writing to the Galatians, the Apostle said, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2:20). With the cross for the flesh, and the glorified Son of God as the object of faith, the Apostle lived in the life of Christ, His obedience manifested in one who was conscious that Christ lived in him.

Connected with the life of obedience is "the sprinkling of the blood" of Jesus Christ, and this would seem to refer to the priesthood of believers. When Aaron and his sons were consecrated "Moses took of the anointing oil, and of the blood that was on the altar, and sprinkled it on Aaron, on his garments, and on his sons, and on his sons' garments with him; and hallowed Aaron, his garments, and his sons, and his sons' garments with him." Through the work of Christ, and as having the Spirit of God to set us apart for God, in all that we are, and in all that marks us as belonging to God, we have been left in this world to bring pleasure to God in serving Him in the service of praise and worship, and in testimony before men. There is no separate class for priesthood, as there was in Israel; all true Christians have the distinction and privilege of the holy and royal priesthood.

A Warfare of Obedience

What began with the first man, disobedience to God, has continued ever since in man's world, and the servants of the Lord are engaged in a conflict which endeavours to overthrow all that is in opposition to the will of God. This is one aspect of the great conflict of good and evil that has for so long raged in this world. The Lord Jesus was the great leader in this conflict; all the forces of evil sought to turn Him from the path of simple obedience to God, but He withstood every effort of the enemy, whether in the wilderness, or in Gethsemene. Satan even used Peter in an endeavour to deflect the Lord from obedience to God's will. Peter said, "Be it far from thee Lord," when the Lord spoke of His death at the hands of the leaders of Israel; but the Lord answered, "Get thee behind me Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men" (Matthew 17:22-23).

John Baptist had his part in the warfare of obedience, for the angel of the Lord, speaking of him to his father, Zacharias, said, "He shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just" (Luke 1:17), and in this conflict John Baptist gave his life. John prepared the way of the Lord who manifested an obedience that would henceforth mark the great conflict of good against evil, a conflict described by Paul in these words, "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5).

All the imaginations and thoughts of men are in deadly opposition to the knowledge of God, for man naturally hates God and opposes His will and all who have the knowledge of God. This was seen early in man's history, when Cain, who thought to approach God in his own way, rejected the knowledge of God, and slew his brother Abel who walked in the light of the knowledge of God. What came out in Cain has been seen right down the ages, and had its culmination in those of whom the Lord said, "They have both seen and hated both me and my Father." The Son had to say, "Righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee, but I have known Thee": and the world in its deadly hatred of God and His Son slew Jesus, and cast Him out of the world. But it was in the expression of man's wilful disobedience to God, in the rejection of His Son, that the obedience of Christ shone brightly; for He was obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross. In His obedience the Lord Jesus meekly endured all the reproaches, indignities and sufferings that evil men in their malignity brought against Him; enduring the contradiction of sinners against Himself. Moreover, His obedience shone most brightly when, taking the occasion of man's evil, God used the cross as the means to secure the great work of atonement, by giving His Son as a sacrifice for sin. No human heart will ever be able to tell what it meant for the Son of God to endure the cross; but knowing well what it would mean for Him, he said, "Not my will, but Thine be done."

Paul at one time had been zealous of the law, and sought in his zeal for it to overthrow all connected with the Name of Jesus, but when he came under the influence of the Son of God his zeal took another character. From the time he was called by the glorified Christ he went about seeking to bring all to the obedience of the Christ, even although it meant reproach, privations, afflictions and sufferings, but the weapons he used for Christ were not those he had used in his zeal for Judaism. Then his weapons were carnal; now they were spiritual; and he accomplished in Christianity something that was of lasting value.

Before there could be the building of the new creation work, there had to be the overthrow of all that exalted "itself against the knowledge of God"; and Paul had to meet much of this character in those who opposed his work for Christ. The different forms of evil that had been allowed in the assembly at Corinth must be over-thrown, and the saints only following what was of Christ. But before all disobedience could be dealt with, the saints at Corinth must first be found obedient, manifesting their obedience in owning the justice of what Paul had communicated to them in his first letter. Through Titus, the saints at Corinth had shown their readiness to deal with the evil that had formerly been allowed: and the apostle was awaiting the result of their exercises before coming to deal with those who, in self-will, opposed obedience to Christ.

The obedience of the Christ in the saints will be evinced in obedience to the Christ. Even as He was here in obedience to His God and Father, so we have been brought to know Him that we might live in obedience to Him, whether in our individual lives, or in the affairs of the assembly. God's will must be obeyed in His assembly, and all of man's will set aside. It is the assertion of man's will in the things of God that has at all times wrought havoc among the people of God, and this has nowhere been more in evidence than in Christianity, and especially among those who have learned more intimately the blessedness of God's will. If disobedience is so grievous to God, how delightful it must be to Him when the obedience of Christ is manifested in the lives of His own, and in the assembly which bears His Name.