The Law of God | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 17, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 36.

The Law of God.

SOME Christians are in the habit of looking at 'the law' as a great enemy. Why? Because it does not countenance the least sin. It says, 'walk before me and be thou perfect.' Is this not right—could a perfect God recognize or make a law in any way imperfect? Surely not. The reason men count the law their enemy is that all have sinned, and ever since the disobedience of Adam they have been in the condition known as 'sinful flesh.' Prior to sin's entrance, the law was Adam's friend, and justified him; but the condition of death obtained after sin had entered, and man in this fallen condition of death finds it utterly impossible to so live and act in harmony with his Maker, that God's perfect law would not condemn him. And since all are sinners, of course none but a defective law could recognize such persons as perfect. The law of God has condemned all, and every one who has reasoning faculties seems to recognize that he is not perfect.

God has always had a law; even before the giving of it at Mount Sinai. Since God always has been perfect, his laws always have been perfect, and condemned and opposed to even the slightest sin. Abel, Noah, Abraham, and all the patriarchs recognized the fact that they were sinners when they made altars and sacrificed thereon. Thus they acknowledged that they were sinners and unable of themselves to approach God. How different from the way Adam and God walked and talked in the garden! No sacrifices or offerings for sin were there needed, for Adam was justified, or recognized as right by God's law. Thus we see that what the patriarchs knew of God's law condemned them. The giving of the law from Sinai did not take away man's sin. No, it only showed it the more fully. Did the keeping of it ever justify any of them? No; 'By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his [God's] sight.' Was the fault in the law, or in the people? Paul said, 'The law is holy,' and God's commands 'holy and just and good.' Rom. 7: 12. The imperfection was with mankind. Since the law did not justify them, it must have condemned them, even as it had condemned the patriarchs. Not any more really (for there is only one penalty,—death) but more loudly. They were no greater sinners than those of the patriarchal age who had not had the full law given them, but they were shown their condition as sinners more clearly. Why? That they might see their own fallen and imperfect condition, and learn the exceeding sinfulness of sin (Rom. 7: 13), and by this knowledge be prepared for the Redeemer.

We have seen that God always has had a perfect law which condemned every sin in every being, and how it was shown in different degrees to the patriarchs and Israel, yet that the effect was the same—condemnation—only more fully realized by those who saw the law most clearly. Now how about the great heathen world? Surely a righteous law could not say that the heathen are righteous, unless they live in harmony with God. And if you thought they were living in harmony with God you would not send missionaries to them. No, they too are condemned by God's law. And as Paul says: These that have not the law (the full written law as given to Israel) 'show the work of the law written in their hearts,' a spark of that principle of justice and knowledge of right and wrong which must have been an important part of the natural organization of the first perfect man, Adam; a spark merely, not quite extinguished by the degrading effects of sin.

What did this spark of conscience do for them? It sometimes justified, and sometimes condemned. But if their spark of conscience condemned them only once during their lifetime, it showed that they were imperfect—sinners—hence subject to the sin penalty, death.

Now 'all unrighteousness is sin,' and 'sin is the transgression of the law,' and 'the wages of sin is death.' So we see that the only voice of the law of God to any who hear it is: You cannot live. 'All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God,' therefore must 'every mouth be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God.' Rom. 3: 23, 19.

But when will the law of God release the sinner from the bondage of death? Never; if he could not obey the law while partially dead, he certainly cannot when completely so. Ever since the 'fall' from perfect manhood, through sin man has been in a dying condition, sometimes spoken of as already dead. See Matt. 8: 22. And none but a perfect man could keep a perfect law. But, says one, did not God send his Son into the world to show us how we could work our way up to spiritual life—appearing among us on the lowest round of the ladder; did he not point out to us the way? he being thus 'our forerunner'?

This view in many respects is held by a great many, mostly Unitarians and Universalists, and like many other views has a mixture of truth in it; but as a whole it is far from being 'the truth' on this subject. Jesus did indeed 'lay aside the glory which he had with the Father, before the world;' he did appear to 'set us an example that we should follow in his footsteps' and to be 'our forerunner,' but more, he is also our Redeemer from the curse of the law. The curse of the law upon us as sinners is death. How did he redeem us from death? To redeem is to purchase back. He is therefore said to have 'bought us with his own precious blood.' Blood represents life—'the life of the flesh is in the blood' (Lev. 17: 11), therefore shed blood represents death or sacrificed life. 'He gave his life;' 'He shed his blood;' 'He tasted death;' all have the same meaning.

But, says one, I thought that Jesus had nullified, set aside, and destroyed the law; and that therefore man could approach God. Oh no, that is a great mistake. Would it not be strange, indeed, if the Father made a law, which we have seen was 'just' and 'holy,' and in fact the only one he could give because perfect and holy himself, would it seem proper even to think of Jesus as setting aside and destroying that 'just' and 'holy' law, or in any way making a league with sin or sinners? No, no. He came to do the Father's will, and the law is the record of that will. Jesus kept it himself, and taught the true meaning of it to be higher than the letter, and that to be 'angry with a brother without cause,' was to violate the command, 'Thou shalt not kill.' No; said Isaiah: Christ 'will magnify the law [make it larger and more minute], and make it honorable,' show, in fact, that that law could not be set aside or broken. He showed, too, by keeping it perfectly himself, that God's law was just, and not beyond a perfect man's ability.

But we read, 'Christ is the end of the law.' What can that mean? The trouble is you have not quoted the connection. The text reads: 'For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.' Rom. 10: 4. To whom is he this? To believers. How? Righteously, not by breaking it, but by righteously fulfilling its requirements, and we in him are just before the law. Because we in him are reckoned dead to the world and alive toward God through him—our new life, another similar text reads: 'There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.' Why are those in Christ not condemned? Because, since coming into him by faith, they have received of his spirit, and with him can say, 'I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart.' Ps. 40: 8. They are then alive spiritually though yet living in the dead body of sinful flesh which they are opposed to, and which by the Holy Spirit given they are enabled to 'crucify.' These walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, and to all so walking in Christ, there is no condemnation from the law.—Zion's Watch Power.