Foggy Lawyers by D. H. Lamson

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 12, 1872

Foggy Lawyers.

By D. H. Lamson

A LAWYER once said that if a point is not clear, then go to work and make it so foggy that you cannot see head or tail to it. This our opposers seem determined to do on the law question. For a long time in the past, they have been unwilling to admit any distinction between the so-called ceremonial law and the decalogue, or ten commandments.

But in the Advent Christian Times, of June 13, 1871, this distinction is acknowledged. And in addition to these, another code is brought forward, called the law of faith, between which and the ten-commandment law, a distinction is claimed to exist; but in the explanation it is clearly to be seen that there is no difference between them. So, instead of two laws, we have three; the third, however, unnecessary, as it is just like the second; and thus our whole claim is at last admitted; for, says the writer, stealing, adultery, murder, &c., are forbidden by the law of the Spirit. This “&c.,” of course, includes the remaining seven commandments not quoted.

But error cannot go straight; for this admission is directly contradictory to a preceding statement and semblance of an argument on 2 Cor. 3: 7–11, making no distinction between the ministration of the law and the law itself. The law as a whole, and in each of its parts, demanded the death of the wilful transgressor. Under that ministration, the penalty was immediately carried out, and the death penalty was attached to all the commandments, as all can see who will take the trouble to examine.

And further, the death penalty is still attached to the law of God, and it will be ministered to the finally incorrigible. I refer the earnest seeker after truth to the following scriptures which clearly prove it: 2 Pet. 2: 9; Job 21: 30. The transgressors of these three commandments, which this writer expressly says belong to the law of the Spirit, will be punished with death. See Rev. 22: 15. Notice carefully the characters mentioned here; and these are to be destroyed by devouring fire. See Rev. 20: 9.

What, then, is the meaning of the expressions in 2 Cor. 3: 7–11? Evidently this: Paul is contrasting the two ministrations—the ministration of righteousness, and the ministration of death; the ministration of life and of condemnation. A practical illustration of this may be found in John 8: 4–11. Now Jesus does not mean to teach that the violation of the seventh commandment is not a crime, or that it is not deserving of punishment. See his comment on the same in Matt. 5: 28; but he means to give this woman space for repentance. This is the glory of the gospel ministration. In the old ministration, there was no exemption; no means of pardon to the wilfully guilty, though it should be sought carefully and with tears. But in the new, repentance and remission of sins is preached in the name of Jesus, Luke 24: 47; and the testimony of our Saviour in John 8: 11, “Go, and sin no more,” covers all the ground.

Remission of sins that are past does not include indulgences for the future, but presupposes a life of willingly-rendered obedience. Then it is the ministration of condemnation and the ministration of pardon which are here contrasted; but pardon only ultimately to the penitents, as the impenitent are reserved to the day of Judgment to be punished; and the manner of this punishment, and the means by which it is in part accomplished, are clearly and graphically delineated in such scriptures as the following: Job 38: 22, 23; Isa. 28: 17; Rev. 16: 21; Isa. 30: 30. May the Lord preserve us from this fearful storm.

There is one peculiarity common to nearly all the opposers of the law of God; they take no position, neither do they define the rule of life, except in a general sense; for instance, by quoting the great commandments in the law, or Micah 6: 8. They are similar to characters whom Spurgeon sometimes catechizes in social meetings. They testify of themselves that they are great sinners, and he questions them in the following manner: “What have you been doing? Stealing? No. Covetous? No. Been killing anybody? No.” And thus he passes through the whole decalogue, and generally succeeds in convincing himself that they either are sinners or they are not; a point under the circumstances very difficult to determine.

So it is with the arguments produced against the ten commandments. We are left undecided whether there is a law, or whether there is none; or, if there is, how to determine its length and breadth, or to find the exact scale by which all our actions shall be weighed. This one and principal thing is left entirely in the dark.

The law of God is compared to the Constitution of the United States; and, as that is susceptible of, and even liable to, change, yet preserving its validity, so might the constitution of God’s government, the ten commandments, be repealed or changed in part, leaving out some portions and adding others, and yet remain intact.

To this, there can be but one answer given. The Constitution of the United States may change, if it should be found to curtail the rights of citizens; or, if in any degree it should deprive them of God-given privileges, it ought to be amended. Being framed by fallen men, men of imperfect judgment, it has doubtless been necessary to reconsider some of its provisions. But the law of God can never change. If God could change, or abrogate, his law, the ten commandments, he would cease to be God, and would be a being entirely unworthy of worship or reverence. In short, he could not make a law relating to, or defining, moral duties, that would either need, or under any circumstances be susceptible of, change. How men can thus compare the perfect law of God with their own imperfections, is indeed a mystery.

“We have, then,” says Dobney, “in the essential character of God, a guarantee that the law which issues from him shall be neither deficient nor superfluous; his work is perfect.” To which just and wise conclusion we ought to say, Amen.

It is well, in the examination of any passage of Scripture, to consider, if an address is made, the class of persons to whom it has an application, and their peculiar circumstances. Failing to do this, very often leads us into difficulties.

Rom. 7: 6, reads as follows: “But now we are delivered from the law, being dead [margin] to that wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.” Great emphasis is placed on the word “were” to convey the impression that the Romans were not then under obligation to keep the law of God. This no doubt was the very furthest from the apostle’s intention. The Romans were once sinners, now Christians; once under condemnation, now under grace. The law once held them subject to death, but now had Christ made them free from its curse; not given them liberty to transgress, but a free pardon for all the past, and ability to render, through grace, acceptable obedience in the future. Now they should serve (the law of God) in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

We can keep the letter of a law and not its spirit; but we cannot keep the spirit of the law and not the letter. Then what answer shall we make to the following questions? Having been delivered from the law, shall we try to obey it? Suppose you had committed the crime of murder, been tried by your peers, convicted and sentenced to death or imprisonment for life.

The law imposes these terrible penalties. It holds you in its dread embrace. It will not be satisfied but with your life. There is but one hope—a pardon from one in whom the power to grant it is vested. It is presented to you, and you are free—free from what? Free from the law. And now what will you do? try to obey it in the future? or would you commit again the crime of murder? If you were wise you would try to be obedient.

“Shall we go on in sin Because thy grace abounds, And crucify the Lord again, And open all his wounds?”

God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?

But to the question propounded above, viz., “Shall we try to obey the law?” another answer is returned by those who oppose the law of God by utterly wresting from their proper bearing the following words of the apostle Paul in Gal. 5: 1: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” The ten commandments are claimed to be a yoke of bondage, and Christians are not even to try to obey them. What a horrid doctrine and perversion of scripture is this? The only logical conclusion is, that Christians may lie, steal, commit adultery, murder, and break the Sabbath, and not be guilty. Surely this may be classed with the doctrines of devils; and it deserves no better name. If Christians only have such liberty, let us pray that they be few. But we have not so learned Christ. Let us rather say, in the language of C. H. Spurgeon in a sermon on the first and great commandment, “When God says, Thou shalt have no other Gods before me, nor make a graven image; when he says, Thou shalt not take his name in vain, and that we must remember to keep holy the Sabbath, he does but instance particulars which are all contained in this great commandment.” And again, in the closing part of this same sermon, speaking of the freeing of the sinner from the thralldom of sin, from the condemnation of the divine law, he says, “Shall I now break this law from which I have been made free by the blood of Christ? God forbid! but may I evermore, by his grace, from the heart keep its every requirement.” I quote from memory. These words have the loyal ring. Let every true Christian say, Amen.

Says the Union Bible Dictionary: “To the soul that is in Christ, the law is no longer the arbiter of his doom; yet it is still the appointed teacher of that will of God in which he now delights.” It condemns him no longer, but is a witness of his righteousness.

The scriptures most commonly used against this view are the following, and those of like import: Rom. 6: 14, 15; 7: 4, 6; Gal. 3: 13, 25; 5: 18. The first and last are most commonly used and strangely perverted. These passages certainly mean one of two things: Either that to be under the law means to be condemned by it, or to be under obligation to keep it. Which is correct? These words are spoken of a certain class of Christians; and the law referred to, it is claimed by all classes of opposers, includes, if it does not mean exclusively, the ten commandments. Ye, Christians, are not under the law, but under grace. Which shall we say? that the law does not now condemn the Christian? or that he is not now, as a Christian, under obligation to keep it? Can the Christian violate moral precepts which the sinner is bound to observe? If so, then every villain that cannot brook restraint should become a Christian. Indeed, men are found almost as plenty as the leaves of autumn, who justify all manner of iniquity; and it is attributable in a great measure to just such lax teaching as this, that the law of God is abolished, or that we, as Christians, are not amenable to it. Tell me, ye opposers of God’s law, How wide is the difference between you who seek to abolish it, and they who say that “the natural and proper use of the ten commandments is in their violation.” However far it may be in practice, in faith it is but a hair’s breadth.

But, says one, if to be under the law means to be under its condemnation, then under grace means to be under the condemnation of grace. None but the spiritually blind could so wrest this passage from its true signification. It is the province of the law to condemn the guilty; of grace, to pardon; as far apart in their design as can well be imagined; and yet men lose sight of the beautiful truth taught in Rom. 6: 14. The Christian is under grace, under favor. It is the grace of God that brings salvation—salvation from sin, as also from the punishment which might justly be inflicted upon us on account of it. Let us say with the poet,

“We will be slaves no more, Since Christ hath made us free, Hath nailed our tyrant to his cross, And bought our liberty.”

It does not require much acuteness of intellect to foresee the drift of all the arguments against the law. They generally terminate in a grand assault upon the fourth commandment. And if that were not a part and parcel of it, they would let it alone; but with that in it, it is the old covenant, a covenant of works, the law of sin and death, the letter, a yoke of bondage, carnal, shadowy, burdensome.

Just take out the Sabbath, put Sunday in its place, and although it does change the truth of God into a lie, mirabile dictu! it becomes the new covenant, the law of faith, the spirit, &c. So they make the letter of the law to be the ten commandments with the Sabbath in them; but the spirit of the law, the ten commandments with Sunday in them.

D. H. LAMSON.