"Not to do Mine own Will." Perhaps the most striking feature in our blessed Lord's character here on earth was His obedience to His Father's will. Where all was perfect, it is difficult to single out any one characteristic that was preeminent. We can only speak of His obedience in this way, because it was the salient element in every department in His life and activity. Whatever He did or said was marked by that.

We may speak of this obedience in a twofold way, the obedience of action, and that of submission. There was nothing negative or weak about Him. He was here to carry out the will of the omnipotent God. His life therefore was one of ceaseless activity. "Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?" Much of this was for the eye of God alone. With what delight the Father would dwell upon every detail of that obedient life. His works, no matter how marvelous and beneficent, were for the eye of God. His words, such as never man spake, were given Him by the Father. Wherever He was this tireless obedience marked His every step:"I must work the works of Him that sent Me."

Yet there was nothing restless in all this, no uncertainty, no haste marked it. The other characteristic of submission was everywhere present. It is seen in His habitual spirit of prayer, which is the expression of dependence and submission. He was ever "meek and lowly in heart," ever accepted the will of the Father, though perfectly conscious where that holy will was leading. And when the supreme hour arrived, it found Him ready. The scene in the garden was not the strength of His will against the Father's, but the shrinking of absolute holiness from the thought of being "made sin." "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy Name."

It was this submission that led Him to yield to all the obloquy of the arrest, the trials before the High Priest and Pilate; that took Him from the judgment hall to Calvary; that led Him to give His "back to the smiters and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair," that hid not His face from shame and spitting. It was obedience that allowed the cruel nails and the crown of thorns, all the unspeakable suffering at the hands of man, and the more awful horror of forsaking by God. He became "obedient unto death, the death of the cross." Blessed Lord!

"We will not have this Man." The history of the human race may be condensed into one word-self-will. It was this which led to the first act of disobedience, that severed the link between man and God. The entire nature of man, marred by nameless deeds of shame and sin, is essentially characterized by self-will. That is the root, whatever the fruit may be. It is one of the great mistakes of men to be occupied with certain of the fruits, which they quite admit require correction or excision, while ignoring the root, which is the source of all-self-will.

It is this which makes new birth an absolute necessity- for the moral or immoral. There is nothing for the "old man" but crucifixion-"Our old man is crucified with Him." And this God has most blessedly effected in the cross of our Lord. He has given His judgments, and in the person of our Substitute effected it for every believer. Most blessed it is to see this, not as a matter of attainment or experience, but as a fact, which faith rejoices to recognize. —

"To do His will." The new man is a new creation, "renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him." And Christ is the pattern and the power of this new man, "Where.. . .Christ is all and in all" (Col. 3:10,11). We are chosen "unto obedience" (1 Pet. 1:23). Faith can say, "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 faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2:20).

There is but one standard of the Christian life-"to walk even as He walked" (1 John 2:6). That we offend in many things every honest heart will sorrowfully admit. There is but one remedy for a carnal walk, expressed in the twofold thought-"No confidence in the flesh," and "walk in the Spirit." In other words, it is only in the measure in which it is a reality in the soul that Christ dwells in the heart by faith. Thus the new life, the new nature, is expressed in our lives, and "the deeds of the body," of the natural heart, are mortified. This new life is displayed, as was our blessed Lord's, in submission and obedience. ____

Self-will is a terrible thing. It crucified the Lord. "He delivered Jesus to their will" (Luke 23:25). Nor must we think of a "new will" in us which can be trusted. We sometimes think of a strong natural will as being useful in the things of God. As a matter of fact, the only will that can be used of God is one which by grace has been made subject to God. If the blessed Son of God, whose will was essentially holy, could say, "Not My will," can we say aught else? Paul was an apostle "by the will of God" (Col. 1:1), "Not of men nor by man" (Gal. 1:1). His proud will was laid at the feet of the Lord Jesus, the only place to lay the will, weak or strong.

"Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them Thine."

This gives abundant food for sober thought, both in the home and the assembly. What a pitiful sight it is when the will of a little child is arrayed against his father. And how unutterably pathetic it is when the father's will is arrayed against the child. "The child's will must be broken "-by whom and to whom? To my will? Is my will any better than the will of any one else?

Nor does this mean a nerveless amiability which leads on to lawlessness and the man of sin. It is an awful thing to strengthen in the child the tyranny of its self-will. But let us see that we do not take the place of self-will. "Children, obey your parents, in the Lord, for this is right" (Eph. 6:1). We are to teach our children obedience, not because we say so, but because God has said so. The instrument which the Spirit of God uses is the conscience, a sense of responsibility to God alone. This begets an obedience to parents, which does not turn the mind from the only authority. It does not weaken the firmness of the parental hand, nor remove the rod which, if occasion need, must smite. But all is done by the parent hi obedience to the Lord, and the child is brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Happy the house where His blessed will is supreme.

The same is true in the assembly. All government is of God. No assembly action can be binding except it is in obedience to God, according to His Word. There is no other authority. God sweeps away all the poor pomp and circumstance of ecclesiastical authority, whether vested in pope or bishop, clergyman or elder, and directs our eye to His will alone. That will is alone binding, and it will lead us to all true subjection one to another. The younger will be subject to the elder, because it is God who has ordained this. The elder will never say, "This is our will, and therefore must be obeyed," but, "This is the will of God."
It makes a vast difference. Some young energetic brother may be restive under the mere will of an older brother, but if he sees God's will in and behind the other, he cannot be restive under that. We are not called to obey the will of even a good man because it is his will. If a good man has no other authority for something than that it is his will, he cannot impose that upon others.

And so we are shut up to God; blessed necessity. "We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts S:29), is sufficient authority in every department of life, the State, the home, the marts of trade, and the Assembly. Before us we have the perfect Exemplar, whose words may well find the echo of deep desire in our hearts-"I do always those things that please Him." S. R.