The Difference between Divine and Human Law
By Cyrus Simmons
THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. NO. 1.
The Difference between Divine and Human Law.
LAW is a rule of action—a human definition of a human law. The universally accepted, this definition is inadequate to truly define the law of God. Human laws essay to regulate conduct. They aim to prescribe what is right and forbid what is wrong. The law of God goes farther, and is “a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Heb. 4:12. It witnesses to the righteousness of the thought as well as the act. Love for God and love for man is the Lord’s definition of His own law. Matt. 22:37-40. Love has its being in the heart; it finds its expression in the act. Covetousness is a mental operation. Ex. 20:17. Anger and hatred are a breach of the injunction, “Thou shalt not kill.” Matt. 5:21-24; 1 John 3:15. The precept against adultery can be violated before the overt act is committed. Matt. 5:27, 28. Crime is the commission of some act that man has defined to be wrong. Sin is a transgression of God’s law. 1 John 3:4. All criminals are not necessarily sinners. Christ was condemned as a malefactor, and was adjudged a criminal; yet He “knew no sin.” John 18:30; 2 Cor. 5:21. Many of His followers have been condemned as criminals when they were morally guiltless. All sinners are not criminals. Hatred, covetousness, jealousy, and pride are infractions of the Decalog, but they are not offenses amenable to criminal statutes. Law against crime has done all it possibly can do when it regulates civil conduct. Malice aforethought and murderous intent are recognized by the character of acts, or the nature of declarations, or by both. The mind can only be revealed to others by the mediums of communications with which we are familiar. We know nothing of thought before it is spoken or acted. The dream of Nebuchadnezzar in which he saw the metallic image was a mental impression. The magicians, astrologers, sorcerers, and Chaldeans could not tell what the king had dreamed, altho such a revelation was in the line of their false pretensions. When God revealed to Daniel the deep and secret things, Daniel spoke thus: “As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed.” Dan. 2:22, 29. And he told Nebuchadnezzar what his thoughts were, and interpreted the dream. Dan. 2:31-45. The mind unspoken and unacted is a spiritual field that the devil and all his deceitful followers can not enter. It belongs to the individual. He can reveal it, or he can confine his thoughts to himself. Only God, besides ourselves, knows what we think before we reveal it to others. Judgment.—In order to be just and righteous in judgment, we should know all the facts and circumstances that make the case. If the facts of any part of a controversy are wanting, our judgment is likely to be wrong. God is denominated “the Lord, the righteous Judge.” 2 Tim. 4:8. We are told by the Saviour to “judge righteous judgment.” John 7:24. But if the State enacts a law which pertains to religion or doctrines of faith, the court, in attempting to construe that law, is likely to be unrighteous in its judgment. No legislative enactment can regulate religious convictions, because no human judge can pass sentence on unrevealed thought, or explore the hidden recesses of mentality. The State usurps powers never delegated to it when it passes any law restricting liberty of conscience. No good can come from State religions. Such laws eventuate in persecutions. Coercion is unscriptural. Instead of inciting people to piety, it arouses their combative natures, and drives them from devotional thoughts. Besides, if the thought be not correct, the act can not please God. No human law can set up a standard of righteousness for thought. If man could make such a law, it could not be righteously enforced, because no finite mind can judge a breach of law made by thought alone. It is charitable to think that ultra-religionists who lobby and memorialize Legislatures to pass laws to fashion the conscience of others after their own arbitrary molds, honestly believe that they are doing God service. For the Lord says, “The time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.” John 16:2. The Gospel that saves is the power of God. Rom. 1:16. The Lord doesn’t need the State’s power, nor your power, nor my power, to save a single individual. Sabbath and Sunday.—All the States in the Union, with two exceptions, have what is popularly known as Sunday laws. These laws are legislative enactments which state definitely what day of the week shall be kept holy, or as the Sabbath, and in what manner it shall be kept. To the casual observer these laws are apparently harmless. Those who were instrumental in their enactment were no doubt doing what they thought to be promotive of good. But when we take up the history of the Sabbath, we find it was a day set apart by God in the order of creation; that it is the last unit in the division of time by weekly cycles. The Lord authoritatively states which day of the week is the Sabbath: “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Ex. 20:10. He says that that part of time is His, “My holy day.” Isa. 58:13. The above quotation shows that the day is not only His, but it is holy. We find from the Scriptures that it takes the presence of God to make anything or anybody holy. Ex. 3:5; Joshua 5:15; 1 Cor. 3:16, 17. The State, however, has designated another day of the week to be kept as the Sabbath. Here is an actual conflict between the law of God and the law of man. Is Sabbath-keeping a matter of religion? Is it a question of faith? If it is, why should the State presume to tell which day is holy, or the Sabbath, or how it should be kept, any more than it should tell what baptism is—whether sprinkling or immersion—or how it should be performed, or prescribe the particular denomination to which we should belong? If it should attempt to legislate on baptism or denominationalism, the very religionists who clamor for Sunday laws would protest against such statutes as restricting their religious liberty. God says, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” Ex. 20:8. The day is holy, irrespective of man’s laws or his acts. To keep it holy we should keep the presence of God in that day. Can we do this without faith? Can it be done by the law of the land? The Lord tells us why He wants us to observe the Sabbath: “For3in six days the Lord made heaven and earth.” Ex. 20:11. The Sabbath is a sign of God’s creative power, and a sign that we believe in that power. We can not reason out the story of creation; we can not learn it from science, nor from the crab-like process of evolution. We simply have to take God’s word for it. It is purely a question of faith. “Thru faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God.” Heb. 11:3. It would be both wrong and impossible for the State to try to enforce the observance of the true Sabbath, the seventh day of the week. People can not be legislated into heaven. The Sabbath has to be accepted and observed by faith; but the observance of the Sabbath can not be acceptable to God unless we keep the very day of the week He told us to keep, as He told us to keep it, and unless we keep by faith the presence of God in that day, and believe that He made the heaven and the earth in six days. Formal religion is condemnatory. Keeping the seventh day of the week and not keeping God in that day, is not keeping the Sabbath holy. The day must be spiritually kept. The State can not make one do this; nothing but God’s Spirit dwelling in the heart can accomplish this miracle. If this is true of the observance of the God-appointed Sabbath, how can the State, or those who “have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge,” hope to do good by trying to make people keep a wrong day? Rom. 10:2.