THE LAW OF LIFE AND THE LAW OF DEATH.
God is the Source of all life. That life flows out from the great central Fountain to all parts of His created universe, carrying in its constant flow the presence and power of God. That life is the Spirit of God, by which God is everywhere present. The Spirit flows out from God always in harmony with God’s wondrous law. All things, therefore, in harmony with the law of God are recipients of the life of God. All these things, we have learned, are taught in the Scriptures of truth. But when sin entered, when the carnal mind placed itself athwart God’s law, the channel of God’s life, the good law, became perverted, and the power of God was turned to destruction instead of construction, to the weakening of being instead of its maintenance. Outside of where sin controls, God’s law is life. But as soon as it comes into that sphere where sin is dominant, it is perverted; it becomes another law, or, as expressed by the apostle, a “different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind [the righteous, normal law of God which the mind approves], and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.” Rom. 7:23, R.V. It is God’s good law perverted, or made evil by sin, by its perversion, or turning aside in a selfish channel. Let us look upon it in another light. God’s law is the law of love. Its principles are supreme love to God and equal love to our fellow-man. The inflowing of that life into God’s creatures is for the purpose of its outflowing more abundantly to others. But the carnal heart turns its power, its blessing, inward instead of outward, selfishly instead of lovingly, for death instead of for life. God will not own this perverted life as His, tho it originally came from Him. It is death. He will not own the perverted law as His, tho it exists wholly by the force of the original law. It is “another law,” “a different law,” “the law of sin and death.” And so God calls the life which exists in man in harmony with the perverted law, “thy life,” man’s life, because man has chosen that life in preference to the life of God, which is in perfect harmony with God’s law. It is for this reason that Inspiration tells us that those who walk “in the vanity of their mind” are “alienated from the life of God.” Eph. 4:18. They do not know God; they are doomed to die; for they are not in harmony with the law of His life. The following passages of Scripture state this same truth, that God’s law perverted works death to the transgressor:— “The way of the Lord is a stronghold to the upright; but it is a destruction to the workers of iniquity.” Prov. 10:29, R.V. “The ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them; but the transgressors shall fall therein.” Hosea 14:9. “For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish; to the one we are the savor of death unto death; and to the other the savor of life unto life.” 2 Cor. 2:15, 16. “Unto you therefore which believe He is precious; but unto them which be disobedient [“disbelieve,” R.V.], the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the Word, being disobedient.” 1 Peter 2:7, 8. The way which is the safest place to the obedient is destruction to the disobedient. The stone which is a foundation to the believer, is a stone of stumbling to the unbeliever. The words which are life and justification to those who receive them prove condemnation and death to those who reject them. The Holy Pillar was light to the Israelites, but darkness to the Egyptians. The glory of the Lord caused Moses’ face to shine, but it proved death to Nadab and Abihu. As man was, under God, given dominion over all the earth, and as the law of his being and existence is God’s moral law, even as man is a moral being, therefore when man transgressed, when he yielded to Satan and sin, when he perverted the highest law, he by so doing brought vanity and death upon all under him, and marred the harmony of the entire universe. Pervert the life-current which goes into the arm, and the hand and fingers are affected. Man was made subject to vanity because he willingly chose sin, and God therefore holds him responsible. But the beast, the bird, the fish, the tree, the flower, had no choice. So “the creation was subjected to vanity [emptiness, worthlessness, fruitlessness], not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it. . . . For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain with us until now.” Rom. 8:20-22, R.V., margin. Sin, the perversion of God’s perfect law, is responsible for it all. The misery, the wo, the groaning, the dying, the death, all come because the law of God’s life is perverted. And yet God in His wonderful mercy still pours out His life into the great fetid pool of sin, to keep alive the sinners, that they may turn to Him. Wonderful life, wonderful law, wonderful goodness!