(Present Communion in the Son and the Final Deliverance from Sin and Death)

October 10th brings Chambers and Spurgeon together around two dimensions of the life given through Jesus Christ. Chambers directs our attention toward present obedience and the communion expressed through it, while Spurgeon looks toward the final perfection of that life, when sin and temptation will no longer hinder the redeemed.

Together they reveal an essential distinction within sonship: obedience does not establish our relationship with God; it expresses the life already received through His Son. And the perfection toward which we are being brought is not the achievement of natural human righteousness, but the fulfillment of God’s purpose in Christ.

The Obedience That Expresses Communion

Chambers writes:

“It is a matter of obedience, and once we obey, the relationship is instantly perfected. But if we turn away from obedience for even one second, darkness and death are immediately at work again.” (My Utmost for His Highest, October 10)

Chambers places obedience at the center of the believer’s present relationship with God.

Yet his language requires an important distinction.

If obedience were the means by which we established our relationship with God, then every act of faithfulness would become an attempt to secure divine acceptance, and every failure would threaten the foundation upon which that acceptance rests.

Such a relationship would leave the natural self at the center.

But the gospel begins elsewhere.

God has acted in His Son.

The relationship is established through Christ before obedience becomes the believer’s living response.

Jesus declared:

“If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.” (John 15:10, KJV)

The Son did not obey in order to become the Son. His obedience expressed His abiding communion with the Father.

And this is the pattern into which believers are brought.

Obedience is not the purchase price of sonship. It is the expression of a life received through Christ.

When Chambers speaks of the relationship being instantly perfected through obedience, we may understand this as the restoration of agreement between the believer’s will and the revealed will of God.

The believer ceases resisting.

He responds.

He walks in the light that has been given.

But when he turns away, the natural life again asserts its independence, and the darkness accompanying that independence becomes evident.

This does not mean that every failure destroys the life God has given in Christ. It means that disobedience interrupts the faithful expression of communion.

The branch bears fruit because it abides in the vine.

It does not establish its place in the vine by producing fruit.

So it is with the believer.

We do not obey to originate sonship. We obey because we have received life in the Son.

The Glory in Which Sin Has No More Place

Spurgeon writes:

“Sin gone, Satan shut out, temptation past for ever, and ourselves ‘faultless’ before God, this will be heaven indeed!” (Morning and Evening, October 10)

Where Chambers examines the believer’s present walk, Spurgeon directs our attention toward the completion of God’s purpose.

His vision is not merely of improved moral conduct.

It is of final deliverance.

The struggle with sin will not continue forever. The redeemed will not eternally contend with temptation or the inward contradiction of a will drawn toward independence.

The life established in Christ will reach its appointed fullness.

John writes:

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2, KJV)

The order is significant.

Now are we the sons of God.

The relationship is already established.

Yet what we shall be has not fully appeared.

There remains a promised manifestation in which the life presently received through faith will be revealed in its fullness.

This is the purpose Paul identifies in Romans 8:29: that believers should be conformed to the image of God’s Son, the Firstborn among many brethren.

The goal is not simply that individuals become faultless in isolation.

It is that many sons be brought into conformity to the Firstborn.

And the faultlessness Spurgeon anticipates does not rest upon the believer’s accumulated righteousness.

Jude speaks of God as the One able to keep His people and present them faultless before His glory.

The ability rests in God.

The provision is found in Christ.

And the perfection of the redeemed is the fulfillment of the life established through Him.

Where the Two Meet: Present Abiding and Final Perfection

Chambers and Spurgeon stand at different points along the same divine purpose.

Chambers speaks of the obedience through which present communion is expressed.

Spurgeon speaks of the glory in which that communion will no longer be hindered by sin.

One concerns the walk.

The other concerns the consummation.

Yet both proceed from the same source.

The life received through Jesus Christ.

Peter describes believers as becoming “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

Participation precedes expression.

The believer does not manufacture divine righteousness through natural determination. He receives life through the Son, and obedience becomes the living response of the human spirit to what God is accomplishing.

This is why grace and obedience cannot be separated.

Grace does not make obedience unnecessary.

Neither does obedience replace grace.

The Son lived by the Father, and the believer lives by the Son.

What is presently expressed through obedience is therefore not an independent righteousness. It is participation in the filial life revealed in Christ.

And what will one day be manifested in glory is the perfection of that same life.

Present obedience is not yet final perfection. But both belong to the one purpose of God in His Son.

Pastoral Orientation

October 10th invites us to consider the seriousness of present obedience without allowing obedience to become another measure of natural self-sufficiency.

There are moments when the will of God becomes clear, yet we hesitate.

We calculate.

We resist.

We seek another way.

Sometimes that resistance appears as open disobedience. At other times it remains concealed within the natural desire to retain control.

Chambers reminds us that communion cannot be separated from responsiveness to God.

But when we recognize our failure, the answer is not to construct a stronger independent self.

It is to return to Christ.

John reminds believers that if any man sins, “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1).

Our confidence remains in Him.

Spurgeon then lifts our eyes beyond the present struggle.

There is coming a day when sin will no longer trouble the redeemed, when temptation will no longer draw the will toward independence, and when the life received through Christ will be manifested without the hindrance of corruption.

Until then, the believer walks by faith.

He abides.

He receives.

He obeys.

And even his obedience bears witness that the life is not from himself.

The relationship established in Christ is expressed through present obedience.

The life received in the Son is sustained through continuing communion.

And the glory awaiting the redeemed is the final perfection of what God has purposed in His Firstborn.

Chambers calls us to walk in the light today.

Spurgeon reminds us that a day is coming when darkness will be no more.

Between these two stands the faithful Son, through whom the Father is bringing many sons into glory.

Our hope is not that we shall finally become sufficient in ourselves.

Our hope is that we shall be like Him.