Obedience is not external conformity but internal conformity. It is not of the letter but the spirit. [i] It is living from the inside out! This is why, under the New Covenant, the “Law of God is written on the heart” (Jer 31:33). If we are led by the Spirit, we are not under the law, but having life from the Spirit we are to walk, or act, according to the leading of the Spirit (Gal 5:18, 25). Obedience, then, is not a matter of one or two actions. It is a matter of being led by the Spirit in a life of faith. This obedience is intimately connected to love, humility, and faith, so much so that without it the others are incomplete.
For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter (Rom 2:27-28); “But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter” (Rom 7:6); who also made us adequate {as} servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2Cor 3:6).