GENDERING TO BONDAGE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 30, 1901

GENDERING TO BONDAGE.

“What Is the Covenant from Sinai?”

A PERPLEXED friend writes:—

What is the covenant from Mount Sinai that gendereth to bondage? Is that expression the same as this: “The law worketh wrath”? Is the covenant gendering to bondage, the words of the people found in Ex. 19:8; the law spoken from Sinai, or what is it?

1. The only thing that can bring bondage is sin. That can not be the law; for the standard by which is the knowledge of sin can not be the sin. Rom. 3:20. “Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law.” Rom. 7:7. That is settled. God’s good, holy law is not sin, and does not gender to sin’s bondage.

2. Transgressed, “the law worketh wrath.” God’s power is in His law. That power perverted works out death. “Sin [that perversion of God’s law], that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good [the law]; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.” Rom. 7:13. “The strength of sin is the law.” 1 Cor. 15:56. The foolish man perverts the current of electricity from the live wire, and is slain. The sinful man perverts God’s law of life to his own lusts (sins), and condemnation and death result.

3. The trouble with the covenant at Sinai was the promises; and the faulty promises were on the part of the people. Heb. 8:6–8. And promises broken are sure to gender to bondage. The covenant from Mt. Sinai which gendered to bondage was the people’s agreement to keep the law without God. They said in answer to the Lord’s requirement to obey His voice, “All that the Lord hath spoken will we do.” Ex. 19:8. There was nothing wrong about that, surely. Wherein, then, was the trouble?—They promised to do it without God. What is the proof of this?—Well, a little after their promise, God came near unto the people, because He loved them, and spoke His holy law. Deut. 33:1, 2. He desired to speak the law into their minds, to write it by divine power on their hearts, that their words asserting obedience might be proved true. Therefore said Moses, “Fear not; for God is come to prove you, and that His fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.” Ex. 20:20. The only power that will keep us from sin is God’s Word enshrined in the heart and life. Ps. 119:11; 17:4. So God wanted to write His law on their heart; and if they by faith had received God, it would have been written there. But what did they do?—They said to Moses, a man, “Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” Ex. 20:19. O, it was a sad thing! Moses heard God, listened to God, and plead for a greater view of God’s glory, and saw beyond the glory of condemnation and death to the glory of righteousness and life. Israel put God far from them, and went into the bondage of sin.

It was not God that brought bondage. He always comes with life and power to His people. It is when we shut God away, it is when we put man in His place, that the bondage comes.

There is much more that might be said. In the light of these suggestions, study the subject. There are light and power in it for every one who will hear God speak.