Holiness and Obedience.
'Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you _unto myself_. Now therefore, if ye will _obey my voice indeed_, and keep my covenant, ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: ye shall be unto me an _holy_ nation.'--Ex. xix. 4-6.
Israel has reached Horeb. The law is to be given and the covenant made. Here are God's first words to the people; He speaks of redemption and its blessing, fellowship with Himself: 'Ye have seen how I brought you _unto myself_.' He speaks of holiness as His purpose in redemption: 'Ye shall be unto me an _holy_ nation.' And as the link between the two He places obedience: 'If ye will indeed _obey_ my voice, ye shall be unto me an _holy_ nation.' God's will is the expression of His holiness; as we do His will, we come into contact with His holiness. The link between Redemption and Holiness is Obedience.
This takes us back to what we saw in Paradise. God sanctified the seventh day as the time for sanctifying man. And what was the first thing He did with this purpose? He gave him a commandment. Obedience to that commandment would have opened the door, would have been the entrance, into the Holiness of God. Holiness is a moral attribute; and moral is that which a free will chooses and determines for itself. What God creates and gives is only naturally good; what man wills to have of God and His will, and really appropriates, has moral worth, and leads to holiness. In creation God manifested His wise and good will. His holy will He speaks in His commands. As that holy will enters man's will, as man's will accepts and unites itself with God's will, he becomes holy. After creation, in the seventh day, God took man up into His work of sanctification to make him holy. Obedience is the path to holiness, because it is the path to union with God's holy will; with man unfallen, as with fallen man, in redemption here and in glory above, in all the holy angels, in Christ the Holy One of God Himself, obedience is the path of holiness. It is not itself holiness: but as the will opens itself to accept and to do the will of God, God communicates Himself and His Holiness. To obey His voice is to follow Him as He leads in the way to the full revelation and communication of Himself and His blessed nature as the Holy One.
Obedience. Not knowledge of the will of God, not even approval, not even the will to do it, but the doing of it. Knowledge, and approval, and will must lead to action; the will of God must be _done_. 'If ye indeed obey my voice, ye shall be unto me an holy nation.' It is not faith, and not worship, and not profession, that God here asks in the first place from His people when He speaks of holiness; it is obedience. God's will must be _done_ on earth, as in heaven. 'Remember _and do_ all my commandments, that ye may be holy to your God' (Num. xv. 40). 'Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy; and ye shall keep my statutes _and do_ them. I am the Lord which sanctify you' (Lev. xx. 7, 8). 'Therefore shall ye keep my commandments _and do_ them: I am the Lord: I will be hallowed among the children of Israel: I am the Lord which hallow you, that brought you up out of the land of Egypt' (xxii 21, 33).
A moment's reflection will make the reason of this clear to us. It is in a man's work that he manifests what he is. I may know what is good, and yet not approve it. I may approve, and yet not will it. I may in a certain sense will it, and yet be wanting in the energy, or the self-sacrifice, or the power that will rouse and do the thing. Thinking is easier than willing, and willing is easier than doing. Action alone proves whether the object of my interest has complete mastery over me. God wants His will _done_. This alone is obedience. In this alone it is seen whether the whole heart, with all its strength and will, has given itself over to the will of God; whether we live it, and are ready at any sacrifice to make it our own by doing it. God has no other way for making us holy. 'Ye shall keep my statutes _and do_ them: I am the Lord which make you holy.'