Two Questions Answered by J. A. L. Derby

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 4, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 23.

Two Questions Answered.

By J. A. L. Derby

What did Christ not abolish?
What did Christ abolish?

First Question Answered.

Man is the incarnation of a perpetual and awful tragedy—a tragedy as much greater than Shakespeare ever wrote, as eternal things transcend the baubles of time; a being with capabilities and powers designed by the Creator to possess and appreciate the most exalted eternal blessedness, the means placed within his reach, yet finds himself slipping helplessly down to eternal death.

God, who knows the deeps of the human spirit, who sees the inmost springs of the heart, has made plain in His Word the plot and movement of this mighty drama.

Man, God’s son and freeman, sold himself into bondage to evil. From the bread of heaven he turned to feast on the carrion of sin, and to riot with the enemies of his Maker. Had the Father left him entirely to himself when the ingrate disobeyed, man would never have had so much as a desire or wish to return to purity or righteousness. He would have reveled in the offal of unholiness. As the buzzard loves the putrefying carcass, so his soul would have delighted in naught but spiritual uncleanness. This would have been a natural, inevitable result of the carnal, sinful mind which he had after his lapse from uprightness; for the inspired Word declares, “The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be,” and “to be carnally minded is death.” Rom. 8:6, 7.

But God pitied His erring creature. The Father still longed to restore him to sonship and happiness. He determined not to leave him alone in his corruption, to wander in the dark labyrinths of transgression until he perished. Infinite love prompted the Father to plant in the polluted heart of His rebellious child a longing for the things of God, a desire for restoration to the divine favor, a wish for purity. “I will put enmity between thee,” decreed the Sovereign of the hearts of men in the presence of their adversary, the devil, “and the woman [the church, 2 Cor. 11:2, compare with ch. 11:2, also Rev. 12:1–6], and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head; and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Gen. 3:15.

When this promise of the Gospel was given, there was not a righteous person in the earth; for Adam and Eve were “dead in trespasses and sins.” A soul dead in sin can not possibly have any desire to get out of that condition. They were, so to speak, totally depraved; and no man will ever repent who cares for nothing but unrighteousness. It is evident, therefore, that in this promise is implied not only the gift of Christ, who was “slain from the foundation of the world;” but also a longing in the hearts of men to obtain what He has to bestow—purity here and salvation in the world to come. Thus within weakened, unprofitable, sinning flesh, was put a loathing for that condition. To God be all the glory! “By grace are ye saved!”

Thus within man was placed the antagonism between the “enmity” (Rom. 8:7) and the love of better things. Paul experienced the meaning of this. “What I hate,” he said, “that do I.” Rom. 7:15. Read the whole fearful tragedy from the fifteenth verse to the twenty-fifth. This, then, is the enmity; and its result is the opposition of flesh and spirit, the war between the “law of the mind” and “the law of sin” in the flesh, the gravitation of the earth against the attractions of the heavens, with earth millions of times the nearest and therefore relatively the most powerful.

Man therefore remains in sin. Of himself he can do nothing. Inspiration has well stated it in Gal. 5:17, “The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other; so that ye can not do the things that ye would.” He would do right. He can not. But this is not to say that he does not do the things he would not. Indeed, these are exactly what he does do, as Paul says over and over in his experience mentioned above, in Romans 7. Individually, also, every person can testify to the truth of this fact, for we have all realized it. These works are all sin; and sin is the transgression of God’s law. 1 John 3:4.

Let us now sum up: The “enmity” hinders us from doing what we would. We would do the law of God. Therefore the enmity keeps us from doing the law of God; for “it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Rom. 8:7. But Christ “abolished in His flesh the enmity” (Eph. 2:15); by the cross slew in Himself the enmity. Verse 16, margin. That is, the Master slew, or abolished in Himself, that which would have prevented Him doing what He would. What He would do is plainly stated: “I delight to do Thy will, O My God; yea, Thy law is within My heart.” Ps. 40:8. Thus He was left free to perform God’s sacred law. Let Inspiration speak: “And ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin.” 1 John 3:5. “Sin is the transgression of the law.” Verse 4. He takes away our sin, not by abolishing the law, but by abolishing in us, when we are in Him, that which makes the performing of the law impossible, namely, the enmity; for this was what He abolished in Himself. Therefore, Christ DID NOT ABOLISH THE LAW OF GOD.

Second Question Answered.

What did Christ abolish?

The Scripture says He “abolished . . . the law of commandments contained in ordinances.” Eph. 2:15. The best commentary in the world on the meaning of this text is found in Paul’s letter to the Colossians. This and his letter to the Ephesians are supposed to have been written about the same time, which may account for the great similarity between them. At any rate their likeness will be strikingly seen by the following partial comparison:—

Ephesians.

Ch. 1:22, 23: God “gave Him [Christ] to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.”

Verse 5: “The good pleasure of His will.”

Verses 9, 10: “According to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself: that . . . He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth.”

Colossians.

Ch. 1:18: “And He [Christ] is the head of the body, the church; . . . that in all things He might have the pre-eminence.”

Verses 19, 20: “For it pleased the Father . . . through the blood of His cross, by Him [Christ] to reconcile all things, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.”

Compare further Eph. 1:15–22 with Col. 1:9–14. Any one can see by even a casual reading of these passages that the general thought of both epistles is largely the same. This parallelism continues in the texts that we shall now discuss.

In Eph. 2:12 the apostle speaks of the past spiritual condition of the Ephesians, reminding them that they “were without Christ,” “aliens,” “strangers.” In Col. 1:21 he reminds the Colossians of the same thing in their own experience, saying that they likewise “were sometime alienated and enemies.”

In Eph. 2:13 he speaks of their conversion, that they “who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” In Col. 1:21, 22, he recalls their conversion, saying, “You . . . now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death.” Notice also that this verse tells how they were reconciled, or, as expressed in the verse from Ephesians above, “made nigh;” namely, “in the body of His flesh through death.” The words explaining to the Ephesians how this work was done are, “having abolished in His flesh the enmity.” Verse 15. Thus his thought becomes very clear and definite. Colossians, Ephesians, or any others that are in Christ, have the enmity abolished in them as it was and is abolished in Christ, and so they are reconciled. They now can do the law of God, even as Christ did it, and as Paul did it after he got out of the experience of Rom. 7:15–24.

Continuing His statement to the Ephesians, the apostle indicates the result of the abolition of the enmity—this opposition of the carnal mind to God’s law (Rom. 8:7)—which is, in their practise, and in the practise of every other man that knows the Gospel, the abolition of the natural and universal effect and outgrowth of a carnal heart; viz., “the law of commandments contained in ordinances.” Eph. 2:15. The “enmity” is said to be “the law of commandments” of a certain kind. The law of a thing is the rule by which it works. Therefore this law of commandments is a statement of how the enmity works in a certain direction; and the way it works is said to be by producing certain “ordinances.”

Before we show what these ordinances are, let me ask the reader, Can you stand before God and say that you believe that ordinances or commandments produced by the carnal mind—the enmity to God’s law—are the law of God? If not, then Christ did not abolish

the law of God, or God’s commandments. For your answer to this question you must one day justify yourself before the tribunal of the Judge of all the earth. Let each reader test by this question the honesty and sincerity with which he comes to this investigation.

But what are these ordinances, then? Paul in his letter to the Colossians has defined them with the utmost precision.

In discussing, “What did Christ not abolish?” we found that the enmity results in wicked works; and this is exactly what he tells the Colossians, “You that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works.” Ch. 1:21. Let us sum up. To the Colossians: The enmity produces wicked works. To the Ephesians: The enmity produces ordinances. Therefore it is certain that these ordinances are wicked works in principle, whatever they may be objectively. This is their character; what are they in substance?

Again the apostle is very explicit: “If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as tho living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?” Col. 2:20, 22. “Are subject to ordinances” is a translation from the Greek of a single word whose root is the same as that of the word “ordinances” in Eph. 2:15 and Col. 2:14, which is never used in the Bible in reference to a command of God, if it is not so used here; and whether it is or not is placed beyond controversy by the context of this very scripture; for these ordinances (Greek, dogmas) to which we are not to subject ourselves, the inspired apostle declares unequivocally and without ambiguity to be “after the commandments and doctrines of men” (verse 22); and in verse 20 he affirms that they have as their base and authority “the rudiments of the world,” and these latter are, in verse 8 of this chapter, identified with “the tradition of men.”

Here, then, we may sum up the parts of this system of human ordinances: First, its root and origin is in the carnal mind—the enmity; second, its visible trunk has nothing more substantial than the traditions of men; there is no “Thus saith the Lord” for any of them; third, its fruit is every Jewish, every heathen, every Catholic, every Protestant, festival, fast, holy day, holiday, sacrifice, rite, ceremony, prayer, rigmarole, incantation, ordinance, and commandment. And finally, when Christ abolished in His flesh the enmity—the foundation of this whole superstructure of human works as a means of grace—He abolished for every individual in Him this whole system of self-righteousness. Therefore every commandment and ordinance of men supported only by tradition, resting only on human authority, and yet taught as essential to salvation, WAS AND IS FOREVER ABOLISHED. J. A. L. DERBY.