p. 2 | FAITH IN CHRIST AND OBEDIENCE

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Jan 6, 1881

FAITH IN CHRIST AND OBEDIENCE.

By John Norton Loughborough

A LETTER BY J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.

THE following letter is in response to a reader of the Signs of the Times in Glasgow, Scotland. As it touches the subject as held by so many in this country, I send it for publication, hoping it may be of use to thousands of readers in this kingdom:—

DEAR CHRISTIAN FRIEND: I must now say a few words in response to your letters of Aug. 19 and Sept. 20. After making reference to our journal, Signs of the Times, and saying, "You say the law is to be kept by believers in Christ," you ask the following question: "I want to be shown how a man who is resting alone in Christ for his salvation and deliverance from all that is worldly, and to live with him in glory, why such a man needs the law?"

St. Paul makes a plain statement of the case, when in Rom. 8:3, 4, he tells us what is accomplished for the believer in Christ, "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 (margin, by a sacrifice for sin), condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit."

When a man believes in Christ, and obtains pardon for his transgressions of God's commandments, he is not released from obligation to obey those commandments. He now shows his love to God by implicit obedience. "This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments." 1 John 5:3.

Again, St. Paul states in Rom. 6:13, 14, 15: "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid."

Being "under the law," seems, in the above text to be used in the sense of being under its condemnation. The repenting believer in Christ is pardoned, and instead of being condemned by the law he is saved by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He is "under grace," or the favor of God, but this does not give him the least license to sin. Paul meets even such an intimation with the strong negative, "God forbid."

St. James states the case on this wise, Jas. 1:23, 24, 25. "For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass; for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh unto the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed."

Here we see the apostle has compared the law of God to a mirror. A good mirror will simply give us a reflection of ourself. The best mirror cannot remove a spot from our countenance, or a stain from our garments, but it will discover to us those spots. So the moral law of God while it has no power to remove the stains of sin from us, yet being "holy, just, and good," (Rom. 7:12) and "perfect," (Ps. 19:7) may give us a knowledge of our position before God, for "by the law is the knowledge of sin." Rom. 3:20. Spots, wrinkles, and defects in our character must be removed by thorough repentance, and faith in the atoning blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. So Isaiah expresses it, "wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool, etc." Isaiah 1:16, 17, 18.

You say, "Christ is the end of the law to every believer in him." That is part of the statement St. Paul made in Rom. 10:4. The text reads, "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." If you claim from this that when persons believe in Christ, the law comes to an end, your position would present a law obligatory upon unbelievers, but from which believers are released. The word end here is used in the sense of object, the same as St. James uses the word in James 5:11, "Ye have seen the end of the Lord." This does not mean that in the case of God's dealings with Job the Lord came to an end, but we see God's object in thus dealing. So in Rom. 10, God demanded of the people to turn from sin. The Jew would go about with his circumcision, and offerings of beast's blood, here called his own righteousness, not submitting to God's plan of salvation through the blood of Christ. "Christ is the end (object) of the law for righteousness." It is only through him that we can come aright to God, so as to obtain pardon for transgressions of the moral law in the past, or render acceptable obedience for the future.

You next refer to texts in Galatians, Colossians, etc., to prove as you say, that "we are free from the law." The law in Galatians, and Colossians 2, I believe, with you, we are free from, for it was that law of ceremonies in which was found circumcision which was merely a sign of righteousness. That law was only a "schoolmaster" until Christ. It was a "shadow of good things to come," the body of which is Christ. The circumcision of that law was only a sign of that righteousness which we get by thorough repentance and faith in Christ. In him we get that circumcision of the heart, in putting away the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Col. 2:11.

A plain distinction is kept up in the Scriptures between the ceremonial and the moral laws of right and wrong. While it is so plainly stated of this law of ceremonies that it has been "blotted out," "done away," and "abolished" by Christ, he himself says of that moral law which he found when he came, "I have come not to destroy the law." "Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments and teach men so, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 5:17, 19. That we may not be left in doubt as to what law and commandments he refers to, he quotes two of them, one against murder, and one against adultery.

You say of those who believe in Christ, "Men and women of this sort do not need the law of God; they serve God not through the law like a servant, but delight in the law and serve him like a son." Again you say, "A Christian would not be a Christian and break the law." This last statement is my position precisely. It seems to me you are answering your own question.

St. James says, "So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty." Jas. 2:12. This is equivalent to saying, God will judge you by his law, therefore take a view of yourself, from time to time, and see if you are in harmony with its precepts, and so speak and so do as that ye shall be judged by it.

In your letter you say, "Every man and woman that is born of God has a new nature in him, like unto God, and this is the only person that can keep the law, and if he would break the law that would show that he was no Christian." Just so, and the question is, because he has no new nature he is to be guided simply by his own feelings, and impressions, or is he to follow the teachings of Christ, Paul, and James, and test his love and loyalty to God by examining himself as to his willingness to keep God's law? St. John tells us (1 John 5:3), "This is the love of God that we keep his commandments."

You say further that "in the book of Galatians, Paul was writing to people of your belief." Not at all. He was writing to those who, instead of looking to Christ as a source of pardon for their sins, were going back to circumcision and to works of the dead ceremonial law. I do not wish to be classed with such at all, for I see no means of forgiveness of sins, but by true repentance—turning away from our transgressions of God's law, to be washed from sin in the atoning blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What I cannot see is how a man after he has died to sin, and has been pardoned through the blood of Christ, suddenly comes where he is at liberty to break the law of God, and if one of God's laws is quoted to him that is contrary to his course of action, he replies, "Oh! I don't believe in the law, I am saved by grace." St. Paul says to such "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" and again he answers with one of his strong denials, "God forbid." Rom. 6:1, 2.

I have not yet learned that the liberty of the gospel is liberty to transgress the moral law. How clearly Paul sets it forth in Rom. 8:4. "That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit."

You cannot wish me to understand you to mean that when a man believes in Christ he is at liberty to have other gods, worship idols, take God's name in vain, dishonor his parents, kill, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness, and covet? I seriously doubt whether we should hear so much talk about "no use for the moral law," if it were not for the fact that the mass of people are doing contrary to the plain teachings of the fourth commandment. Instead of turning to obey that, as they do the rest of the commandments, the claim is set up that faith in Christ frees us from the law.

I am strikingly reminded of a resolution passed by the Methodist Conference, under John Wesley, in the year 1770, as follows; "The reason of the fearful universal immorality now prevailing, is the wide-spread opinions that Christ has annulled the moral law, and that evangelical freedom dispensed with the ten commandments."

I fear the same teaching now is rapidly bringing upon the world a worse state of lawlessness than that to which Wesley then referred. Let men get the impression from ministers and professed Christians that such laws as the ten commandments are not binding, and you may expect to see corruption, confusion, and anarchy as the result.

You speak of my position relative to the law of God and faith in Christ as though it were "new and strange." Not so very new for I seek to express it, and can easily do so, in Bible language. And as for its being new in modern times I read the following from Watson's Life of John Wesley, London edition, page 249. "The immediate fruits of the spirit ruling in the heart, are love, joy, peace, bowels of mercy, humbleness of mind, meekness, gentleness, long-suffering. And the outward fruits are the doing good to all men, and a uniform obedience to all the commands of God."

May you and I, and all within the reach of God's mercy, be ever prompted by the one earnest desire to know and do the will of God, is my prayer. What I have written is with the hope of elucidating truth. May our earnest, prayerful searching result in bringing us to a knowledge of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, is the desire of your sincere Christian friend.

Southampton, Eng.