DO WE KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS?
By J. G. Wilson
“Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14 : 12. “Thy commandment is exceeding broad.” Ps. 119 : 96. To anyone who will for a moment consider the nature and character of the divine requirements, it must be evident that there is more involved in the keeping of the commandments than a life of merely outward conformity. And the Scriptures abundantly confirm this fact. What does it mean to keep the commandments of God?—It means the living of just such a life as Jesus Christ lived here on earth. His was the only absolutely sinless life ever lived upon this earth. If we “consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession,” we shall know what commandment-keeping really is; and the more we consider, the deeper will be the conviction that our lives are far from being a translation of the ten commandments into actual, living experience, so that they may be known and read by the whole world. We are in great danger of being deceived, in the same manner as was Israel of old, who followed after the law of righteousness, but did not attain to it. Rom. 9 : 31. The same course in these days can not possibly be less ruinous to us than it was to them. And when we consider that we have the fullness of the gospel light, how can we fail to see that such a course will prove much more ruinous now? That the commandments of God and the law of God are identical is proved by the Saviour’s own words in Matt. 5 : 17, 19; and no one is justified in placing the law in a different setting than is there given it. “The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” Rom. 7 : 12. It is not made void by faith, but is established thereby. Rom. 3 : 31. It is perfect, and nothing but absolute perfection can ever meet its requirements. This perfection is the love of God in the heart. The law witnesses to God’s righteousness, and can not accept anything less. It condemns sin in all men, and therefore can not justify or give life. We shall never find the required perfection in our most earnest efforts to keep the law, nor in our most determined resolutions to conform thereto. Yet how many are struggling to bring an earthly life to the likeness of the Christ-life! Many toil and struggle, but enter not into rest. There is a consciousness of failure; yet they are not willing to acknowledge their inability to work righteousness, so they try again and again, but only to fail. This is not keeping the commandments. In Col. 3 : 14 we are told that charity (love) is the bond of perfectness. In 1 Tim. 1 : 5 we read that “the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart,” etc. In Rom. 13 : 8, 10, love is declared to be the “fulfilling of the law;” so also in Gal. 5 : 14. James speaks of the “royal law,” and says that it is fulfilled by love. James 2 : 8. And Christ himself said that love to God and love to man is the foundation of the divine law. Matt. 22 : 36–39. Now, all this being true, it must follow that, if we neglect to prove ourselves by these statements of truth, we shall find out, when it is forever too late, that our commandment-keeping is only a profession, and that some others who “followed not after righteousness have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith” (Rom. 9 : 30), which is God’s own righteousness, with which the law is satisfied. Rom. 3 : 21.