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ALL UNDER SIN

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 11, 1902

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 79, No. 6.

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ALL UNDER SIN.

By F. O. Oakes

F. O. OAKES, (Prunedale, Cal.)
“The Scriptures hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.” Gal. 3:22. What a volume of meaning we find in these few words after a careful study of them! By this we see that the whole world is condemned by something, and that “something” is called “the Scriptures.” Is it the Bible as a whole, or only a part of it (the Law of God) which convicts of sin? We find that “sin is the transgression of the law;” then “under sin” means under the law, and it is the Law of God only which has the power to “conclude,” or condemn, under sin. Therefore, the whole world is condemned by the law of God until justified by faith. The next statement in the twenty-second verse shows that this universal condemnation is for an object, purpose, or “end;” that is, “that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.” As the promise, as all will agree, is eternal life by faith of Jesus, we see that the object, purpose, or end, of the law is to bring us to Christ for justification and eternal life; in other words, “the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.”
Further: as the great mass of the people in Paul’s time rejected the message, they certainly remained “under sin,” or under condemnation of the law, when the apostle was writing. This proves the existence and enforcement of the Decalogue twenty years after the cross. The sinner is under condemnation because he breaks the law,—that is, “is not subject” to it (Rom. 8:7),—and the righteous are subject to the law because they “walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.” Rom. 8:4. Thus the law by its power to condemn “until faith comes” is found to perform a double office,—to condemn to eternal death the unbeliever, because “all have sinned,” and “the wages of sin is death” (the second death),—and to force the believer to Christ for justification and eternal life. So, then, as God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and He would that not one “of these little ones should perish,” God’s law is both merciful and just, and its whole design, object, purpose, and “end” is Christ. Rom. 10:4. As has already been shown, all the world is condemned until faith comes to them, and “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
Mankind is in a perilous condition to-day. Many will be lost unless the people of God go out quickly into the hedges and byways with the gospel of salvation for every creature. God help us all to carry this message now as never before! I believe God has made plain this twenty-second verse of the third chapter of Galatians at this time, to disprove the terrible iniquity that is being preached; namely, that His holy law was abolished at the cross. This is the refuge of many who see that they are convicted by the Fourth Commandment. But God says plainly in this verse that all mankind are condemned by the law of God until justified by faith.