The Victories of Faith

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 7, 1907

The Victories of Faith

(Continued)

LET us look upon God’s requirements from the standpoint of privilege. I wish that we could remove from our minds the idea that every requirement of God is a yoke of bondage. No requirement of God ever was a yoke of bondage to the one who will submit to it in Jesus Christ. “Take my yoke upon you,” said Christ, “and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Lay aside the yoke that you find heavy and galling; for it is not God’s yoke. Any burden that you are bearing that wears your life out with its weight, let it alone. Christ’s “yoke is easy,” and his “burden is light.”

Therefore, when God sets before you his requirements, look at them from the standpoint of privilege, as being the revelation of what God is and what he desires us to be. If we could get this view of the law of God, there would never be any drawing back from its requirements. It would always be a privilege to be like God. “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” Anything short of this is existence merely.

I would like to emphasize again the difference between our relation to God’s law, in Christ and out of Christ. When we meet the law out of Christ, it keeps us; when we meet the law in Christ, we keep the law. We may read this thought in Gal. 3:21-26. “Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterward be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”

By sin we are shut up, and the jailer who stands at the door to keep us, is the law. But when faith comes, we and the law change places. Christ came to deliver us from the power of sin, but “the strength of sin is the law.” Christ sets us free, and we walk at liberty because we keep his law. Outside of Jesus Christ the law keeps us. In Christ we keep the law. This is the victory of faith. Faith, by bringing us into right relation with God and his law, delivers us from the power of sin. Faith does not make void the law of God, but changes our relationship to it. We are the ones who are to be changed, not the law. “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” Through our faith in his atoning blood and by the power of his Holy Spirit, Christ has set us free. We are set at liberty, but not to be out of harmony with God’s law. That is what brings us into bondage. If there is any one who ought to walk at liberty, it is the man who has been set free from the bondage of sin, for he knows what liberty is. “Egypt. “Let my people go that they may serve me.” To-day he says to the devil, who would hold people in the bondage of sin, “Let my people go.” In the service of God there is perfect freedom, perfect liberty, and only the one in whom the life of God is revealed, knows what liberty is.”

Let us look for a moment at God’s law as recorded in Exodus, in order to see more explicitly what the law becomes in Jesus Christ. Let no one regard God’s law as a bugbear to be shunned. It is the description of the character of God as revealed in Jesus Christ, the unfolding of that one statement, “God is love.” But it makes a great difference whether we look at this law through Christ, or whether we look at it outside of him, as a code of hard-and-fast regulations. Let us notice first that obedience to this law is simply love to God. I know that there exists in the minds of some a false idea concerning this matter, which they might themselves find it difficult to define, but which runs like this:—

We are in the dispensation of love. Jesus Christ has been revealed as the love of God, therefore we are simply to love God with all our heart, strength, and mind; that it savors too much of legalism and the Mosaic dispensation to talk about being in harmony with God as revealed in his ten commandments. All this is simply a misapprehension of what religion is. Religion is not simply being lifted into a sort of ecstatic joy that gives us the privilege of doing what we please. That is not loving God. The man who allows his life to be molded on the idea that feeling is Christianity, is one of those men who are up to-day, down to-morrow, usually down two days and up one. Ask this man if he believes in God, and he inquires of his feeling, and if he feels well, he looks upon that as Christian experience. There is no device of the devil that is involving more people in difficulty and doubt than the idea that Christianity is feeling; that the measure of our Christian experience depends upon the measure of our feeling. The only way we can know God is from his word; the only foundation for knowing what God does, is his word; the only way we can know our relation to God, is from his word. What he tells us there is so, whether we feel up or down. God’s word does not change from day to day, depending upon our passing feelings.

The devil can counterfeit feeling and

change feeling, but he can not counterfeit or change God’s word. The solid foundation for the Christian life in sickness or health, in reverses or prosperity, is God’s word. Let God’s word be true, and every man a liar. That word is true, whether we say so or not. Faith is that which lets that word be true in us.

(To be concluded)

The Victories of Faith*

The Victories of Faith