Conducted by WILLIAM G. WIRTH, 5447 EL VERANO AVENUE, EAGLE ROCK, CALIFORNIA
If you have a question regarding Bible doctrine and Christian living, or on other subjects apropos to the field of the “Signs of the Times,” write out your question and send it in, preferably direct to Dr. Wirth. Anonymous questions will not be answered. Do not become impatient if your question is not answered immediately, for Dr. Wirth has scores of questions in waiting, and yours will be answered in order.
“UNDER THE LAW;” AND WHAT OF THE SOUL?
D. M. Woods of California asks about being “under the law,” and what the word “soul,” as used in the Bible, refers to.
A study of Paul’s use of the phrase “under the law” (see Romans 6:14, 15; 1 Corinthians 9:20; Galatians 3:23; 4:4, 5, 21; 5:18) reveals that he conveys by it two vital and fundamental connected truths. First, that we are “under the law” in the sense of being subject to its demands, under obligation to obey it; and, second, and coming out of the first, that since men have not been obedient to the law’s commands, they are “under the law” in the sense of its resultant condemnation, and so worthy of “the wages of sin”—“death.” Romans 6:23. It must be borne in mind that sin is the transgression of the law. (1 John 3:4.)
This twofold, cause-effect meaning of “under the law” is even true of our Lord in the statement of Paul concerning Him in Galatians 4:4, that He was “born under the law.” That Christ, “when the fullness of the time came,” met the responsibility of obeying the law, is shown clearly in His emphatic declaration in Matthew 5:17: “Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfill.” See also the Old Testament prophecy of this responsibility on the part of Christ in Psalm 40:6-8.
Coming to earth to take our place, Jesus assumed the same obligation as is ours to keep the law, and so He was “born under the law.” However, while He Himself was “without sin” (Hebrews 4:15; 1 Peter 2:22), vicariously He was “made to be sin on our behalf” (2 Corinthians 5:21); He “redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). And so in this second connected sense Christ was “born under the law” in condemnation for us, that He might save us from our condemnation. “Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 1 Corinthians 5:21. “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:5, 6.
As one beautifully puts it: “Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His.”—“The Desire of Ages,” page 25.
This explains why, after telling us that Jesus was “born under the law,” Paul gives the purpose of this in the words, “that He might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” Galatians 4:4, 5.
If by his statement that “Christians never were under the law, and never will be,” the questioner means Christians are not subject to the law’s demands, he is wrong; for all Christians, as was true of Christ Himself, are under obligation to obey the law. See Romans 3:31; James 2:8-12. If he means that Christians are not “under the law” in the sense of its condemnation, he is right, for our Lord redeems us from this, as I have shown above.
ABOUT THE SOUL
The simplest way to comprehend the Biblical difference between soul and spirit is to delineate the soul as a man’s animal personality, his human temperament, mentality, and distinctive ways; in a word, his biological inheritance that makes him what he is, humanly. A man’s spirit refers to his religious life and desires, his higher spiritual nature, as we say, that reaches out after God and that makes him distinct from the lower creation. A man who has no desire for spiritual things is purely animal and cannot be correctly considered as spiritual, no matter how great he may be as a human being. Paul gives an excellent portrayal of the difference between the “natural,” the psychical, or soul, man, and the “spiritual,” or religious, man, in 1 Corinthians 2:11-16, A. R. V. There are times when the Old Testament does use “soul” to apply to the whole man, the person. See Deuteronomy 24:7, where the words, “stealing any of his brethren” are literally, in the Hebrew, stealing the soul of his brethren. In Ezekiel 18:4 soul again appears in this sense of the whole man, the person.
