Christ and the Law by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Dec 27, 1906

Christ and the Law

By C. M. S.

THERE is only one final authority in the universe, and that is God. There is only one Saviour of men, and that is Christ. There is only one standard of Christianity, and that is the Word of God, the Word made flesh.

Christ is frequently and persistently accused of abolishing the law, and removing it as a yoke of bondage from our necks. It is certainly worth while to consider what his attitude was, and what would have been the result of his doing what he is accused of doing.

He who is “the Word made flesh” declares of himself: “Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.” Ps. 40: 7, 8. He further declares, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me.” John 4: 34. Of his teachings he said, “My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.” John 7: 16. Of the words which he spoke he declared: “The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.” John 14: 24. The works which he did he declared to be the works of the one who sent him. His whole ministry was the ministry of reconciliation—not to reconcile God to man, but that man might be reconciled to God. Had it been necessary to remove the law to make a reconciliation possible, it would have been an admission on the part of God that God himself was responsible for man’s not being reconciled to him; and that when God removed his barrier, the reconciliation was speedily accomplished.

Christ’s work of bringing about the reconciliation of men to God necessitated a perfect oneness between the Sender and the One sent. It necessitated also that the One sent should not set up his own way and will, nor institute laws and ordinances in opposition to the laws and ordinances of him who sent him. Otherwise the One sent would also need to be reconciled to the eternal One, and he would have nullified his own mission, and made the breach between God and man wider than it was before.

In heaven one who had greater faith in his own greatness than in God’s goodness and wisdom sought to abolish the law of God and set up laws of his own; and the load of sin under which the world—nay, the universe—groans to-day is the result of that work of the one-time covering cherub who sought to rule for himself, and make laws of his own, without regard to God—in spite of God.

Notwithstanding that fact, and in the plain light of the consequences of that act, our Lord Jesus Christ is continually accused—and by those who profess to honor him—of doing the same thing, of setting up a law of his own, and thus supplanting the law which God had written with his own finger upon the hearts of men. And that accusation is made in spite of our Saviour’s own emphatic declaration recorded in Matt. 5: 18: “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled;” or as expressed in Luke 16: 17, “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.”

That was the uncompromising position which Christ himself took. It was the only position he could take and be man’s Redeemer. He set up no law of his own in opposition to the law of the Father; he set up no will but the will of him that sent him; he wrought no works for his own glory, but rather emptied himself, and became obedient unto death, that he might show forth the justice and the mercy and the undying love of God. He himself came under the law, and with his own life paid the penalty of man’s transgression of the law, that the righteousness of the law might be made manifest unto men, and its perpetuity be recognized. The very law which many professed Christians are to-day accusing him of having abolished he declares through the psalmist is settled forever in the heavens.

Nothing could have suited Satan better than for Christ to come to this earth with the purpose of abolishing the law of God. Christ declares that he did not come for that purpose. He could not have been man’s Saviour if he had attempted to carry out such a work. He could not have been the Mediator between God and man if he had attempted to abolish the law of God, whose transgression by man had made mediation necessary.

The ground of man’s hope in Christ is in the fact that he was a law-keeper rather than a law-breaker. If a law-breaker could save us, we might reasonably look to Lucifer for salvation. Christ was our great example of loyalty to God; he could not supplant his law; he made our redemption sure because he did not try to do it. Harken to this declaration of Holy Writ, and never again be troubled over the possibility that God’s holy law was a transient affair, a temporary expedient: “I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it: and God doeth it, that

men should fear before him.” Eccl. 3: 14. The law of God certainly is included in whatsoever God doeth; therefore it is among those things that shall be forever. Christ loyally adhered to and magnified his Father’s law; and they that are his will do as he did.

C. M. S.