The Divine Government by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 4, 1883

The Divine Government.

By Editor

(Continued.)

AS THERE cannot be diverse or unlike attributes of Deity, so there can be only one rule of holiness growing out of those attributes—one moral law for his Government. And upon obedience or disobedience to this law must all good and evil, life and death, be suspended. Therefore the following declarations apply to these commands, or to this law, and to no other:—

Lev. 18:5. "Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments; which if a man do, he shall live in them."

Deut. 30:15, 16. "See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; in that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments." See verses 19, 20; chap. 11: 26-28.

Isa. 51:7. "Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law."

Ps. 19:7. "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul."

Ps. 40:8. "I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart." Also Ps. 119.

Eccl. 12:13. "Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man."

Matt. 19:17. "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments."

Rom. 2:13. "The doers of the law shall be justified."

Gal. 3:12. "The law is not of faith; but the man that doeth them shall live in them."

1 John 3:4. "Sin is the transgression of the law."

Rom. 7:12. "The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good."

Verse 14. "For we know that the law is spiritual."

This law is also referred to in certain scriptures wherein it is called God's holy covenant, and the covenant commanded.

Deut. 4:13. "He declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments."

1 Chron. 16:15-17. "Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations; even of the covenant which he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac; and hath confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant."

Gen. 26:3-5. "I will perform the oath which I swear unto Abraham. . . . . . . Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge; my commandments, my statutes, and my laws."

For breaking this "everlasting covenant," the inhabitants of the earth will be desolated with a curse, and burned up. Isa. 24:5, 6.

By indignation against the "holy covenant," was the man of sin, the abomination that maketh desolate, set up. Dan. 11:28, 30.

As this law has sometimes been confounded with other laws, to which the foregoing declarations of Scripture will not apply, it will be in place to notice the distinction of laws:

The system (not the law) under which the people of God lived in the past dispensation was complex; its elements were moral, civil, and ceremonial. The moral was the basis of all, existing prior to, and independent of, the others, and was from the beginning the standard of duty to God and to our fellow-men. The civil enforced the moral; especially in men's relations to their fellow-men, making application of its principles to every-day life. The ceremonial expiated the violations of the moral, and had especial reference to their relations to God. But both the ceremonial and civil were merely typical, looking forward to the priesthood of Christ and to his kingdom; and therefore illustrated the true relation we sustain under Christ to the law of God, the moral rule, in this and the future dispensation.

This distinction of the two laws, moral and ceremonial, is shown in the following scriptures:—

Jer. 6:19, 20. "Hear, O earth; behold I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it. To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me." Here one was kept and the other rejected; but the observance of the ceremonial was not acceptable when the moral was disregarded. That this was illustrative of our position in this age is proved by Matt. 7:21-23, and John 7:16, 17, where the efficacy of faith in the Son, and of the knowledge of his doctrine, is dependent on obedience to the will or law of the Father.

Jer. 7:22, 23. "For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice." We have seen that to obey his voice was to keep his covenant, the ten commandments; and this shows that when God gave his law, which himself declared to be the rule of holiness, the ceremonial law of burnt offerings and sacrifices was not included. He spoke only the ten commandments, and wrote only this law on the tables of stone; this alone was put into the ark over which the priest made atonement for sin. No other law had such honor bestowed upon it.

The Saviour himself explicitly declares that he came not to destroy the law; yet we know he did set aside the ceremonial law, by introducing its antitype.

The same is proved by Paul in his letters to the Ephesians and Romans. In one, he speaks of a law which Christ abolished (Gr. katargeo), Eph. 2:15, and in the other, he speaks of a law which is not made void (Gr. katargeo), by faith, but rather established. Rom. 3:31.

It has been noticed in another place that it is not consistent with justice to relax the claims of a just law, neither can the acts of abolishing the law and pardoning the transgressor be united. Hence, if the law of God had been abolished by the gospel, justice would be trampled under foot. But the Bible is not thus inconsistent with reason. God is infinitely just, and his law must be satisfied; Christ, a voluntary substitute, is set forth as our Saviour, that God might be just, and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus. Rom. 3:26.

Though many other scriptures might be given to the same intent, those quoted are sufficient to show that the Bible truly harmonizes with the great principles of Government examined in the light of reason.

As objections are stronger with some persons than even positive proof, it will not be amiss to notice a few objections urged against the perpetuity of the law of God, by those who would make it void through faith, and pervert the gospel to a system of license.

Luke 16:16. "The law and the prophets were until John; since that time, the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it."

It is unjustly inferred that the question of the existence of the law is here introduced. The translators saw that the passage was elliptical, but violated the laws of language by inserting the word "were," which does not make the sentence complete; the verb "is" being the antithesis of "were," the word "preached" is redundant. The following must be the correct view. The word or words understood or to be supplied must be antithetical to the words "is preached;" and therefore "were preached" would complete the sentence. The omission of these words prevents tautology, while nothing would require the omission of the word "were" if it alone belonged there. "The law and the prophets were preached until John; since that time, the kingdom of God is preached." Now no one will claim that the law and the prophets ceased with John; even the ceremonial law remained in force later than the time of his death. Thus it is evident that the subject of the existence or continuance of the law and the prophets is not introduced in this scripture; therefore there is no objection in it.

Rom. 3:21. "But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets."

In considering this text, and any other in this argument, we must bear in mind that the subject is justification by faith, and the object is "the remission of sins that are past." And no one who understands the principles of Government will for a moment insist that a sinner can be justified by the law which he has transgressed. Justification to the transgressor comes by pardon without the law; but it never comes at all to the person who continues in transgression. Pardon, in the gospel system, stands closely related to conversion, for none but the converted will ever be pardoned. But none are truly converted without an amendment of life. Paul says we shall not sin that grace may abound. Grace superabounds above sin, to save from it; but grace never combines with sin to save any who continue in it. That justification for past sins is without law, by faith only, does not prove that a right character in the future may be formed without law, or by faith only. We are aware that without faith it is impossible to please God; and we are as well aware that faith without works is dead, being alone.

But there is another part to this text which objectors to the law never consider. It says that the righteousness of God is "witnessed by the law." But a law cannot witness concerning that to which it does not relate. Now Paul says that "the doers of the law shall be justified." Rom. 2:13. That does not prove that any can now be justified by the law, for alas, there are no doers of it. Rom. 3:9-19. But it does prove that the law contains the principles of justification; that it is of that nature that it would justify man if he had always kept it. In other words, it contains the true principles of righteousness; it is holy, and just, and good, and spiritual. Rom. 7:12, 14. And Solomon attests the same truth when he says the commandments contain "the whole duty of man." Eccl. 12:13, 14. For man is a moral agent, under a moral Government in which the Supreme Governor says: "Be ye holy, for I am holy." 1 Pet. 1:16; Lev. 19:2. And the law of God is the only rule of holiness given to man. To a sinner it is no longer the means of justification, but to all classes and under all circumstances it is the rule of justification, or of righteousness. It witnesses to the righteousness of God because it contains the principles of his righteousness; it is the expression of his will; the foundation of his moral Government; the very outgrowth of his attributes. Surely, we find in Rom. 3:19 no ground for objecting against the law of God.

Rom. 6:14. "For sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace."

It is not difficult to show that the objection based on this text arises from an entire misapprehension of its meaning. As sin is transgression of the law, sin surely has dominion over the transgressor of the law. It is only the obedient that are free from the dominion of sin. To set man free from sin, to turn him from violating the holy law of God, is the object of the gospel. Of Jesus it was said by an angel, "He shall save his people from their sins." Matt. 1:21. And Paul said "he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Heb. 9:26. That is, he saves us from breaking the law of his Father; he puts away transgression. He had no transgression of his own to put away, for he kept his Father's commandments. John 15:10. Of course he came to put away our transgression; to restore sinful, fallen men to allegiance to the divine law—to loyalty to the divine Government. But this object is not accomplished in him who continues to transgress the law of God. Such are not saved from sin. Over such sin has dominion; how then can they be under grace?

If it be replied that all are under grace now because the dispensation of law is past and the dispensation of grace has taken its place, we say then, that is destructive of the sense of the text. The apostle offers the fact of our being under grace as the reason or the evidence that sin shall not have dominion over us. But if the relation is dispensational and not personal, then the distinction noted in the text is obliterated; if all are under grace, then also the multitudes are under grace over whom sin has dominion, and the text has no force.

EDITOR.