Studies in the Gospel Message
THE subject of the Sabbath school lesson for May 31, the ninth in the present series, is The Law of God in the Ark and in the Heart. The actual tabernacle, and later the temple, and the round of services which were conducted in it, was a continual object lesson to the children of Israel. A record of all this, even to the minutest details, has been preserved for us, not with the expectation that we should perform this same ritual, but in order that we might receive the same benefit from the written word as they received from the visible forms. From this standpoint the study of that portion of the Scripture which deals with the tabernacle and its services is full of interest and profit. In Heb. 9: 2-7 we have a brief statement which covers the essential features of the tabernacle, its furniture, and its services, after which follows this important declaration: “The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holy place hath not yet been made manifest, while as the first tabernacle is yet standing; which is a parable for the time now present; according to which are offered both gifts and sacrifices,” etc. It is not our purpose in this article to attempt to point out the full meaning of this great parable, but only to call attention to the leading idea around which the remainder of the teaching will naturally group itself. A little thoughtful attention to the subject, and a general view of it, such as could be obtained by a connected reading of the whole record, will make it clear that the most important article of furniture in the tabernacle was the ark of the covenant, and that it derived its importance from the fact that the law of God was deposited in it. This law was first spoken by God’s own voice, and then written with his own finger upon the tables of stone, and by his own instruction it was placed in the ark built to receive it. All the services of the tabernacle had more or less direct reference to this law and man’s relation to it. The whole system was designed to be a revelation to Israel of the provision which God had made in the gift of his own Son for salvation from sin (“lawlessness.” 1 John 3: 4, R. V.), and for a life to be lived in harmony with his law. Those whose spiritual insight enabled them to put the great parable into words could read in advance the prophecy uttered through the psalmist: “Sacrifice and offering thou hast no delight in; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I am come; in the roll of the book it is written of me: I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart.” Those who were able to look steadfastly “to the end of that which is abolished” could see in the tabernacle and its services a great fact-prophecy of the coming of the Messiah in the flesh to reveal the glory of God’s law, and to place man on such vantage ground that it would be possible for him to render perfect obedience to every provision of that law. “The Word became flesh, and dwelt [“tabernacled”] among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.” And this experience of Christ was not for himself. “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” The law of God was in the heart of him who stood for humanity, in order that it might be in the heart of every one who would receive him as a Saviour. And thus by the tabernacle and its services the new covenant promise was constantly kept before the children of Israel: “This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” And thus was the gospel preached in days of old. The Son of God knew his Father’s law as life. “I know that his commandment is life everlasting.” It is this living law, brought to us in the gift of Jesus to our flesh, enshrined within the living temple, written “not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart,” which delivers from sin, and enables us to reveal the glory of God. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” The law of God is the real heart of the great controversy to-day. The enemy of God and his kingdom, with the deepest hatred toward God’s law, has inspired in the minds of many men a contempt for it, and has spread abroad6the idea, pleasing to the natural heart, that it has been abolished or changed. And thus the law which is “holy, and just, and good,” has been represented as “an hard saying” which none are able to hear. It is just this state of things which emphasizes the need of a message to the world which shall restore God’s law to its rightful place in the hearts of men, and bring out a people of whom it may be said, “Here are they that keep the commandments of God.” But this must not be a message of self-righteousness through a fleshly obedience to any human conception of the meaning of God’s law. It must rather be a revival of the living law in the heart, a fresh inflow of the life of love, which will be revealed in a character so much after the divine model that men will take knowledge of those who reveal it, that they have been with Jesus. This will be the testimony that the law has been written in the heart.