p. 150 | The Law is Right by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 30, 1882

The Law is Right.

By Editor

An article recently fell under our notice in which a professed minister of the gospel finds fault with the law of God because "it never justifies for sins."

The statement is correct; the law never justifies. It is "a rule of right," or of right-doing. It is holy, and just, and good. Of course it condemns sin. But should any complaint be entered against the law on this account? Are we to understand that those professedly Christian ministers who find so much fault with the law, would like the law better if it did not condemn sin? They seem not to be aware that their course gives rise to a just suspicion that they love sin better than they love the law. If the law approved of sin their objections would not exist.

We do not think it is a defect in a law to oppose and condemn wrong. It condemns, but cannot justify. About the means of justification or forgiveness there can be no possible controversy. But what about the need of forgiveness? Paul says: "By the law is the knowledge of sin." It would certainly appear that they who oppose the law because it is a reprover of wrong, dislike to have their conscience troubled!

But if they succeed in putting away from their thoughts their frequent violations of the law of God, and refuse to have the knowledge of their sins brought to their minds, it will be only that their disappointment shall be more complete in the coming great day. "Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man; for God shall bring every work into judgment." Eccl. 12:13, 14.

Now there is option—there is the opportunity for a choice; then there will be none. Now men may shut their eyes against the claims of the commandments of God; then those claims will be pressed upon them with terrible force. Now they may set their hearts to do evil, and choose the pleasures of this world; then the glory of this world will have passed away, then earthly hopes will have died, and evil will appear in all its enormity. Sin looks pleasing now; then it will appear hateful, as it is—always is—in fact. May the Lord help us all to be wise in time, to bring ourselves into harmony with the holy law of God, that the law may not stand against us in that day when God shall bring every work into judgment. May the precious blood of Christ cleanse us from every trace and stain of sin, that we may be "accepted in the beloved" in the coming day.