Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? Romans 6:16, NKJV.
Adam did not stop to calculate the result of his disobedience.... With the aftersight we are privileged to have, we can see what it means to disobey God's commandments. Adam yielded to temptation, and as we have the matter of sin and its consequences laid so distinctly before us, we can read from cause to effect and see the greatness of the act is not that which constitutes sin; but the disobedience of God's expressed will, which is a virtual denial of God, refusing the laws of His government.
The happiness of men and women is in their obedience to the laws of God. In their obedience to God's law they are surrounded as with a hedge and kept from the evil. They cannot be happy and depart from God's specified requirements, and set up a standard of their own, which they decide they can safely follow. Then there would be a variety of standards to suit the different minds, and the government [would be] taken out of the Lord's hands and human beings [would] grasp the reins of government. The law of self is erected, the will of humankind is made supreme, and when the high and holy will of God is presented to be obeyed, respected, and honored the human will wants its own way to do its own promptings, and there is a controversy between the human agent and the divine.
The fall of our first parents broke the golden chain of implicit obedience of the human will to the divine. Obedience has no longer been deemed an absolute necessity. The human agents follow their own imaginations, which the Lord said of the inhabitants of the old world were evil and that continually. The Lord Jesus declares, “I have kept my Father's commandments.” How? As a man. Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. To the accusations of the Jews He stood forth in His pure, virtuous, holy character and challenged them, “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” ...
The only-begotten Son of the infinite God has, by His words, His practical example, left us a plain pattern which we are to copy. By His words He has educated us to obey God, and by His own practice He has showed us how we can obey God.—Manuscript Releases 6:337-339.
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