The Triumph of God’s Law by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 7, 1910

The Triumph of God’s Law

By C. M. S.

OURS has come to be a lawless generation. The lawless element is on the increase. It has been increasing more rapidly since a great portion of the church has been proclaiming the abolition of the law of God.

With the law of God dethroned in the hearts of men, it is not to be supposed that human law would be given a place of great reverence. In fact, we have heard, within recent months, of lawmakers themselves framing laws designed to relieve influential lawbreakers from the penalties of just laws. It is a notorious fact, also, that the execution of human laws is repeatedly interfered with by those who appoint the lawmaking body. There was a time when it was sufficient for a majority of the people to know that such and such things were “against the law.” Now the man with influence or power or wealth who desires to do that which is against law, either sets himself deliberately at work to change the law, or defies the law, and depends upon his power or influence or wealth to enable him to avoid its penalties. And from the example thus set, the common people, consciously or unconsciously, are taking their cue, and learning the lesson of disregarding the law—all law, human and divine.

All this is out of harmony with the teaching and the purpose of the Messiah, who thus declares his design:—

“Then said I, Lo, I am come; In the roll of the Book it is written of me: I delight to do thy will, O my God; Yea, thy law is within my heart.”

His very sacrifice on Calvary showed the immutability of the law of God. Man’s transgression of God’s law made necessary the sacrifice of the Son of God, in order that man might not be required to bear in his own life the penalty of his transgression of that law, which would have been eternal death. Had not Christ stepped in between that broken law and the lawbreaking man, the penalty of eternal death would have fallen upon the transgressor. He did step in with his own life, laid it down as man’s substitute, vindicated the law, and gave man hope.

Then what a perversion of God’s truth and purpose to assert that in this work (performed for the purpose of vindicating the law and also saving man from its penalty) Christ abolished the law of God, and took it away from its place in the government and throne of God! It is a veritable libel on the mission of Christ to this world. Christ declares of himself that he came to do the will of God (expressed in the law), and that that law is within his heart. Men would make him oppose himself and deny himself by declaring that he came for the purpose of abolishing that same law. Truly, the enemy has found quarters within the household.

But this work in opposition to the purpose of God and the law of God was long ago predicted. The prophet Daniel tells us (Dan. 7:25) of a power that would rise up against the work and people of God, and would “think to change the times and the law.” This could not refer to the times and law of men; for they are always changing. It refers to the law of God, against which that power had arrayed its forces.

Paul is referring to the work of that same power when he speaks of the “lawless one” (2 Thess. 2:8, A. R. V.), whose work was made manifest in the early church, and is denominated “the mystery of iniquity.” That spirit of lawlessness was but another name for the “falling away” from the first principles of the gospel. With that falling away there began to be more fully and directly revealed “the man of sin,” “the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God.” 2 Thess. 2:3, 4.

This is the same work that the prophet Daniel reveals in the text quoted. It is a God-dishonoring power doing a law-nullifying work. That power was and is the Papacy, and the law which it has sought to nullify is the law of God. That power was established during the “falling away.” It was the “falling away” that made its establishment possible, that opened the door for it to come in and do its work. The church—the very early church—was faithfully warned of the work which that power would do. See 2 Thess. 2:5.

That power arose and did the work predicted. It made alterations in the written law of God, and put the first day in the place of the seventh day, in which work it exalted itself above God. It opposed his work by causing to be put to death the most faithful and conscientious Christians that were then in the world, so that the inspired writer could say of it that it should “wear out the saints of the Most High.”

It is a disappointing fact that a large

part of the professed Protestant world is to-day assisting in that very “lawless” work by proclaiming the abolition of the law of God, and by yielding obedience to that which it has set up in opposition to that commanded in the law of God. It will be disappointing also to those who have taken part in it; for one of the things to be accomplished by the second coming of Christ is the destruction of that law-opposing power. “And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth, and bring to naught by the manifestation of his coming.” 2 Thess. 2:8. Of those who are redeemed at that time it is said, “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14:12.

There are the two classes, the lawless and the law-keeping. The one has been working against God and his law, even while professing his name; the other has professed his name, honored his law, and kept his word. The one is destroyed; the other immortalized. It is of the utmost importance that we know what our true position is in this matter so weighty with eternal possibilities.

The law of God, vindicated in the sacrifice of Christ, will triumph in the persons of his victorious, redeemed people. The law and the people who have honored it have been trampled and will be trampled under the feet of that “lawless” power and its supporters; but in the destruction of the “lawless one” and all he stands for, there will be seen the triumph of the law of God and all it stands for.

C. M. S.