Obedience, and Whose?

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 25, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 33.

Obedience, and Whose?

GOD'S law, the Decalogue, demands obedience. The transgression of that law is sin. 1 John 3:4; Rom. 7:7. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Rom. 3:23. All are therefore condemned by the law, and worthy to die; for “the wages of sin is death.” Rom. 6:23; Eze. 18:4. God’s glory is His goodness, His righteousness. Ex. 33:18, 19; 34:6, 7. Now as God created man for His glory (Isa. 43:7), and as man has sinned and come short of that glory, there must be some means by which he may be brought back to that glory if he is to be saved. That means is the Gospel, “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; . . . for therein [that is, in the Gospel] is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” Rom. 1:16, 17. “Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe.” Rom. 3:22.

He, therefore, who believes in Jesus Christ is counted righteous, not with his own righteousness, not with his own law-keeping, but with “the righteousness of God,” with the obedience of Jesus Christ; “for as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One shall the many be made righteous.” Rom. 5:19. To this righteousness the law and the prophets bear witness, showing that the righteousness which God gives by faith is the same that is demanded by the law and taught by the prophets. Rom. 3:21.

From our transgressions of the first commandment—the worship of false gods—we are through faith justified by Christ’s obedience to that commandment. From our transgressions of the sixth commandment—murder and hatred—we are through faith justified by Christ’s obedience to that commandment. From our transgressions of the fourth commandment,—Sabbath-breaking,—we are justified through faith by Christ’s Sabbath-keeping.

Now, if we are justified from idolatry, or murder, or adultery, or profanity, are we free to indulge in those things?—“God forbid, how shall we that are dead to sin [“transgression of the law”] live any longer therein [in transgression]?” Rom. 6:1. By so doing we would make Christ the “minister of sin,” building again the things that were destroyed. Gal. 2:17, 18.

Now is not all this just as true of the Sabbath precept as of any other part of the law? Shall Christ’s obedience be accepted or be hoped for as respects one precept and despised as regards another? He would live His own life in us, in each one of His children, over again. Would He live a different life, a different righteousness, than when He was here on earth?—Nay, He would not. He is “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.” He who rejects a part of the obedience of Christ really rejects all. The law is a whole law of the one God and one Saviour. Those who are “partial in the law” do not keep God’s ways. Mal. 2:9.