4. Trust, Obedience and Submission
James Buchanan
5. The spirit of adoption implies a disposition to trust in God for the time to come, just as a child confides in the wisdom, faithfulness and care of a wise, affectionate father. If we have been delivered from the spirit of bondage to fear, and have been enabled to draw near to God, through Christ, as our reconciled and forgiving Father, then we have ample reason for an unshaken confidence in His unchangeable love, and to commit our future way unto the Lord with the assurance that “He shall bring it to pass”.
The prospects of even a child of God in this world may indeed be often dark and threatening; the future may seem to give much cause for anxiety and apprehension. And in musing over it, the believer may sometimes be conscious of many painful misgivings and dark forebodings of heart. Even when he has experienced communion with God, and has been ready to exclaim, “It is good for us to be here”, the thought may have occurred to him that he must soon descend again into the world. Then he may expect to be harassed once more by its business, beset by its temptations and exposed to all the dangers, difficulties and trials which must be his portion in the vale of tears. And he may occasionally feel a tendency to fear that possibly, after all the privileges he has enjoyed and all the professions he has made, he may fall short of the rest which remaineth for the people of God and may make shipwreck of faith and of a good conscience, by yielding to those adverse influences which he cannot avoid and which it is so difficult for him to resist and overcome.
At all events, he must expect many trials; he is perhaps afraid to face them and disposed to shrink from them. The spirit of bondage which is unto fear can give no relief and afford no comfort in such a case; on the contrary, it is ever ready to brood over all the varieties of possible evil, convert future danger into present distress, and even magnify, by its distorted vision, the difficulties which lie before us. Yet the spirit of adoption may give relief, not by exempting us from trials – still less by making us indifferent to or unaware of them – but by making us able and willing to commit our case into God’s hands, in compliance with His own declaration, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee”.
A little child looks to the wisdom of an affectionate father and confides in His care and, when he ventures out into the world, he feels all the more secure when he knows that a father’s foresight has arranged his plans, and a father’s eye is still watching over his progress. Just so the believer, looking up to God as his Father in heaven, knows that nothing can happen to him without His permission or appointment. He knows too that God is ever present to observe, almighty to sustain and unerring to direct him, and that He has pledged His faithful word of promise, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee”; “As thy days, so shall thy strength be”; “My grace is sufficient for thee; for My strength is made perfect in weakness”; and, “All things work together for good to them that love God”. The believer is able to say with the Apostle, in the spirit of childlike confidence, “We may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, I will not fear”; and with the Psalmist, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”.
6. The spirit of adoption implies a spirit of cheerful obedience and submission to God’s will – of obedience to His will as it is revealed in the Word, and of submission to His will as it is displayed by the dispensations of His providence.
An obligation to obedience is necessarily involved in the relation of sonship and, wherever that relation really exists and is associated with the corresponding spirit of adoption, it will lead to the unreserved, unconditional and cheerful observance of every part of God’s revealed will. For “a son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is Mine honour? And if I be a master, where is My fear?” If you have anything of the spirit of adoption, it will be your meat and your drink to do the will of your Father in heaven; your language will be, Father, not my will, but Thine be done; “Our Father which art in heaven . . . Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven”.
This being your sincere desire, you will be solicitous, in the first instance, to ascertain in every case what is the will of God, by carefully consulting the law which He has written on your hearts, and the clearer law which He has revealed in the pages of His Word. And when you have ascertained His will, you will obey it at all hazards, suffering neither the temptations of the world, nor the lusts of your own hearts, nor the sophistry by which your passions would beguile and mislead your conscience, nor any considerations of interest or expediency, to deter or seduce you from following that straight path of duty in which God commands you to walk. Being God’s children, the opinions of men and the gain of the whole world will be as nothing to you in comparison with the slightest intimation of His will.
The spirit of adoption will give a new character to your obedience; it will no longer be the reluctant and half-extorted service of a slave, but the willing, cheerful, devoted homage of a son submitting to his father’s guidance – not by constraint, but willingly, and devoted to his service because he delights to honour him. This is the characteristic difference between the legal obedience of fear, and the gospel obedience of love. Just as love is a more generous principle of action, so the obedience that flows from it will be at once more unreserved in its extent and more cheerful in its nature, pleasant to him who obeys and acceptable to Him who is obeyed. Such is the obedience which God, as a Father, expects from all His children.
But if an unreserved and cheerful compliance with God’s will is the test of sonship, if the spirit of adoption must reconcile us to all His commands and engage us in a life of holy obedience, what shall we say of those who, bearing the Christian name and appearing among the children at His table, yet live habitually in neglect or violation of His law? These communicants come to His table, saying, “Abba, Father,” and as often as they pray, they call Him “our Father which art in heaven”, yet, when they go back to the world, they return like a dog “to his own vomit again”, or like a “sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire”. Are there none bearing the Christian name among us who are conscious that their practice does not correspond to their profession as children of God? I do not speak of the infirmities and shortcomings with which every Christian can be charged, but of that wilful and habitual opposition, in some respect or other, to God’s will, which is utterly inconsistent with the spirit of filial reverence and love.
Can he be a child of God who, when God commands him to sanctify the Sabbath, profanes it by worldly business or vain amusements; or when God commands him to be sober and temperate, gives himself to rioting and drunkenness; or when God enjoins purity of heart and life, lives in uncleanness and licentious pleasure? Can he be a child of God who, when God prescribes the path of honour and integrity, prefers the crooked paths of dishonesty and deceit? He cannot be. They who presume on their gospel liberty, and dare to live in the habitual neglect or violation of any part of God’s will, must bear being reminded that, if the spirit of adoption gives a new character to our obedience, it is not in the way of relaxing it or bringing it down to the standard of the world’s opinions and habits. It is by infusing new life and strength into their obedience and making it at once more cheerful, more unreserved and more devoted than before.
If “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” it is not the liberty of those who turn the grace of God into licentiousness, or who “continue in sin, that grace may abound”, but the liberty of men who run in the way of God’s commandments, when He has enlarged their hearts. They feel the force of Paul’s exhortation, “Brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh;” as “free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God”.
While the spirit of adoption implies a disposition to obey God’s will as it is revealed in His Word, it will also manifest itself in the way of quiet, resigned submission to His will as it is displayed in His providence. This may often bring affliction and may try His people’s faith and patience, so that they may sometimes be in heaviness through manifold temptations. But the spirit of adoption will lead them to regard all these trials, however numerous and severe and protracted, as the discipline of a Father’s hand; and they will bow before the rod and kiss it, even when it smites them. They know that nothing happens by chance, and that everything in their lot is ordained by unerring wisdom and infinite love and will be overruled for God’s glory and their own good; and they remember the gracious words, “Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth”. They will not only expect trials, but feel it to be both their duty and their privilege to resign themselves into the Lord’s hands, saying, “It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good”.
Who does not see that the spirit of adoption gives a new character to the believer’s submission, and imparts a sweetness to his trials? The spirit of bondage may produce a sullen and reluctant submission, such as a man would yield to inevitable necessity, or to overwhelming power; but the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, “Abba, Father,” views every trial as a Father’s chastisement, and connects it with a Father’s love; and responds to the apostle’s touching appeal: “We have had fathers of our flesh who corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?”
Repentance is a most precious bosomful of manifold blessings. It is the gift of God, whose gifts are according to the riches of His grace.
Unbelief searches diligently for somewhat to trust to in myself, and would look upon it with complacency, and rest upon it with peace and delight, could it but succeed in the search. The search is vain. “In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” Give me “the prayers of all saints”, and I will tell you the condition of the Church.
Hugh Martin
1Another extract from a chapter entitled, “The Work of the Spirit as the Spirit of Adoption”, in Buchanan’s book, The Office and Work of the Holy Spirit. Last month’s section had the sub-heading, “Love and Communion”.