Editorial by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · May 26, 1904

Editorial

By Editor

Law and Lawlessness

REBELLION against the sovereignty of God and disobedience to his law are responsible for the present condition of things in this world. This is sin. “Every one that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness; for sin is lawlessness.” To save from sin is to save from lawlessness. To continue in sin is to continue in lawlessness. An increase of sin means an increase of lawlessness. When therefore we are told that just before the coming of the Lord “iniquity shall abound,” and that as a consequence “the love of many shall wax cold,” we may expect that a spirit of increasing lawlessness will mark the closing years of the great controversy. To meet this situation there must be such a preaching of the gospel that in those who receive it “the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled.” This is righteousness by faith, a righteousness which is revealed in obedience to the law of God. Law-keepers, then, are those who have really accepted a genuine righteousness by faith. Lawlessness is a manifestation of the lack of righteousness by faith. This is true both in the church and in the world. When therefore professed Christians, church-members, cultivate and reveal the spirit of lawlessness, it is demonstrated that they have not accepted the gospel of righteousness by faith. Those who preach righteousness by faith are seeking to establish the law, but those who assert that the law of God is abolished, and that we are under no obligation to obey its precepts, are really removing the very foundation of the gospel of righteousness by faith, and are opening the flood-gates of lawlessness.

This is the course which has been pursued by a large majority of the professed ministers of the gospel since the obligation to observe the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, the seventh day of the week, has been urged upon the people, and thus instead of holding in check the spirit of lawlessness, these men have sought to make lawlessness one of the Christian graces. Is it any wonder that we are now confronted with what is termed “the reign of lawlessness”? Those who preach against God’s law are preaching in favor of lawlessness.

The Only Way

THE offer of salvation from sin through faith in the atonement made by the sacrifice of Christ is not one of several ways of salvation. It is the only way. Christianity is an exclusive religion. The invitation has always been, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else.” And there is only one way of approach unto God. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, . . . no one cometh unto the Father, but through me.” Those who are unwilling to confess their sins and to accept “the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” may seek to climb up some other way, but they will be disappointed at last. Sin is of such a nature that even divine wisdom could not devise any other way of deliverance from it and its consequences than the union of divinity with humanity in the person of the only begotten Son. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” “And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved.” It is quite the thing now to stigmatize as narrow in their views those who are unwilling to admit that all the so-called religions are simply so many steps in the evolution of humanity to the perfection of character, but such arguments will not move those who appreciate the infinite price paid for the redemption of the human family. The Author of Christianity has himself said: “Enter ye in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many are they that enter in thereby. For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few are they that find it.” The narrowness is not in the provision made. That is broad enough to meet the need of the whole family. But “the assertion of self and of self-sufficiency,” which led to the first sin, leads to the refusal of the only remedy for sin. But the pride of man can neither change God’s plan of salvation nor provide one of its own. There is only one atonement for sin. There is only one sufficient Saviour. There is only one way of life. There is only one genuine gospel.