Christ and the Law of God by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 17, 1913

Christ and the Law of God

By C. M. S.

God’s will must be in harmony with his character. His law expresses his will. His law is, therefore, an expression of his character. To abolish that law would be to abolish the will of God, and to abolish the will of God would be to abolish the character of God, and that would be to abolish God himself.

That, however, was what Satan started out to do when he declared his purpose, “I will be like the Most High;” “I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.” As there could not be two Most Highs, he who would be like the Most High must thrust the Most High out of his place and take that place himself; must put his law, his will, his character, in the place of that of the Most High.

Let us see what is involved in such a usurpation and transformation. We have seen the law of God demonstrating the character of God by teaching men the essentials of holiness, so that they, with that criterion before them and the Holy Spirit to impress and to guide, have had their lives and characters fashioned after the life and character of the divine Pattern; and in that attitude of willingness and submission and loyalty to the law of the divine government, the robe of Christ’s righteousness has been thrown over them. Then the sins that are past, the fallings, the failures, and the weaknesses of the flesh are lost sight of, and there is seen in such individuals only that righteous life of the Redeemer, with the unchangeable law bearing witness to that righteousness.

On the other hand, we have seen the character of the adversary—who would abolish God and his law—wrought out in the lives of men. They have abolished the law out of their lives, and have given themselves license to follow every dictate of unlawful and unholy desire. The result has been a stern harshness of character, a selfish disregard of the wishes and even the rights of others, an exaltation of self above every thought of service for others, and in the end a life as hard as the surf-beaten cliffs, and a future prospect as barren of hope as the glaciers of the Alps are of vegetation. In that heart the law of God was abolished, and the law of self-service, which is the law of Satan’s kingdom, took its place. Iniquity, usurping the throne of righteousness in the heart of man, has strewn the world with strife, contention, war, sorrow, misery, covetousness, greed, folly, licentiousness, desolation, death.

But those things are not against men only: they are against God, primarily against him; for they are devastating his possessions and disputing his rule within his own dominion. The character developed by that rule of life is the very antithesis of the character of God. Of his character we read: “Jehovah is righteous in all his ways.” Ps. 145:17. “Righteous art thou, O Jehovah, and upright are thy judgments. . . . Thy law is truth. . . . Thy commandments are my delight.” Ps. 119:137-143. His righteous character developed judgments that are upright, a law that is truth, and commandments that are the delight of the true child of God. Our Saviour emphasized this when he said: “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.” John 15:10. Jesus Christ was a keeper of the law. In that keeping he demonstrated his loyalty to the Father and his right to represent the Father in the earth. To abide in the love of God, one must be in harmony with the will of God, and that will is expressed in his holy law.

Note the blessed promise. “Ye shall abide in my love.” But the promise is

contingent upon a certain attitude toward the commandments—“If ye keep my commandments.” What is the converse of the proposition? Certainly it must be this: If we do not keep his commandments, we shall not abide in his love. It is not difficult to comprehend what that would mean. If we do not abide in the love of Christ, we shall certainly fail of having an abode in his everlasting kingdom. How much depends, therefore, upon maintaining a right attitude toward the law of God!

But, the objector says, that means Christ’s commandments, not the decalogue given on Sinai. Our Saviour’s own answer to that objection is: “Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished.” Matt. 5:17, 18. Could two supreme laws govern the same universe at the same time? Has our Saviour made a law to rule the universe? To do so would be to displace, or abolish, the law of the Most High; and that is what he explicitly declares he did not come into the world to do, and it could never be done. The law of ten commandments is the law of Christ. He kept it to the Father, and we keep it to him and to the Father. Christ was the mouthpiece of the Father. “I have given them thy word,” said our Lord in that wonderful prayer to the Father recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John. Again: “The words that I say unto you I speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me doeth his works.” John 14:10. There is no shadow of idea set forth in any of our Saviour’s teachings that he had thrust aside the law of God and established a law of his own in its place. He came to teach obedience by the example of his own life; and he could not teach obedience by abolishing that which he set out to obey. The whole trouble, and the root of all the trouble in the world, was that man was disobedient, that he broke the law. We read: “As through the one man’s [Adam’s] disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one [Christ] shall the many be made righteous.” Rom. 5:19.

How unjust to Christ and how untrue, therefore, is the declaration that he came to abolish the law of God! He did not; but he did come to abolish death, which is the result of the transgression of that law. Abolish the law and there is no need of the gospel. The gospel is the remedy for sin; but the Word declares that “sin is not imputed when there is no law.” Rom. 5:13. Therefore, with the law abolished, sin is gone; and as we do not need a remedy for something that does not exist, the need of the gospel—the remedy for sin—is swept away also. Upon that hypothesis the church for nearly two thousand years has been battling against something which did not exist, and seeking to mollify that non-existent wound with the lotion of the gospel. Into what an inextricable maelstrom of inconsistency and contradiction and confusion do they fall who argue the abolition of God’s holy and unchangeable law!

C. M. S.