OUR PATTERN IN LOYALTY.
By 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. That “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 that sent Him. His whole ministry was the ministry of reconciliation—not to reconcile God to man, but that man might be reconciled to God. This necessitated a complete, 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. To have done so would have been to nullify His own mission, and make the breach between God and man wider than it was before, and include Himself among the number who needed to be reconciled. That is just what made the trouble in heaven in the first place. Lucifer sought to set up a kingdom of his own, laws of his own, and to make the angels his subjects; 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 terrible 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 that God had written with His finger upon the hearts of men. And that accusation is made in the very face of Christ’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 who 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; that He might establish in the hearts of men the law which man had broken, the very law that professed Christians to-day are accusing Him of having abolished, supplanted, overthrown; the very law [His Word] which the psalmist declares is settled forever in heaven. Ps. 119:89. Nothing would have suited Satan better than for Christ to come to this earth to abolish the law of God, as professed Christians have declared He did. But He did not; He Himself declares He did not; He could not have been man’s Saviour if He had attempted to carry out such a work. The ground of man’s hope in Christ is in the fact that He was a law-keeper and not a law-abolisher. He was the 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. Hearken 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.