Absurdity of Supposing the Law Abolished by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 12, 1871

Absurdity of Supposing the Law Abolished.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

THOSE who take the position held by the Disciples (Campbellites), No-law Adventists, and others, that the law of God was given only to the Jews, and was abolished at the cross of Christ, have to maintain several most palpable absurdities.

1. The whole world was without any law for twenty-five hundred years. This is absurd in itself, and can readily be shown to be contrary to the Bible; but we do not propose to argue that now.

2. The whole heathen world was without law during the entire Jewish dispensation.

3. Jesus abolished that very law for which he came to die. This seems to us to be a most terrible position—die for a law and abolish it at the same instant! He died for the law, but the very moment he died, the law died also!

4. Then they maintain that Christ gave a new law of his own—the law of Christ, or the law of faith, under which the world has been ever since Christ's time. He died for this law also, to procure pardon for those who transgress it. Thus they have the Son of God dying for his own law—a manifest absurdity.

5. This new law of Christ was not put forth till after his death and resurrection. The Disciples affirm that it first went forth on the day of Pentecost, fifty days after the resurrection; thus we have Christ dying for his own law before it ever existed. Who could get up a greater absurdity?

6. And hence, also, he died for his law before anybody had transgressed it. Strange theology this!

7. There was a space of fifty days from the abolition of the old law, to the giving of the new law, when there was no law at all—the law of God was dead, the law of Christ not yet enacted. Paul says, Rom. 4:15, “Where no law is there is not transgression.” Here, then, were fifty days during which the carnal nature could revel in all its wickedness, and yet violate no law of God or Christ. This seems almost like blasphemy.

8. This position makes Christ die for two laws at the same time, which is an utter impossibility. No criminal can suffer under more than one law at a time. It is contrary to all principles of law and equity that a man should be punished under two laws at a time. Christ died but once. Hence he only died for one law. If that was for the law of God, then he did not die for his own law. If he died for his own law, then he did not die for the law of God. But if there is a law for which he did not die, then there can be no atonement made for those who transgress that law, and hence they are inevitably lost. So, either those who lived under that law, which was before the cross, have no sacrifice, no atonement, no Saviour, and hence must be lost; or else those who live under the law this side of the cross are without any atonement, and hence must be lost.

9. They tell us that the new law of Christ is that by which we are to live; is that which will condemn us if we sin; is that by which we shall be judged in the Judgment; and is that by which we obtain forgiveness when we repent. Here is another glaring violation of every established principle of law. No principle of law is better known and established than that a law which has once been violated can never after justify or pardon the transgressor of it. So if men violate the law of faith, that law can never pardon them; and as there is no other law by which men can be pardoned, they must all be lost.

10. If the law of God was abolished at the cross, then the Jews who were under that law can never be judged by it in the day of Judgment; for it is an established principle in law that an abolished law is to be considered just as though it never had existed, and people cannot be tried by it after it is abolished. Thus I read from the Decisions of the Supreme Court of Iowa, 1862, Iowa Reports, Vol. 12, p. 311:— “The general principle relied upon, independent of some statutory rule, is not controverted, that when a statute is repealed, it must be considered as if it had never existed, except with reference to such parts as are saved by the repealing statute. And equally well-settled is the doctrine that, though a party may have instituted his suit, and the same be pending at the time of the repeal, the jurisdiction is gone, without some saving clause.”

Was there any saving clause when the law of God was abolished? No, indeed! They claim that it all went by the board, from beginning to end. Nothing was saved. Hence in the day of Judgment the Jews must all go clear; for they cannot be condemned by a dead law.

A case occurred in Pennsylvania a few years since which illustrates the point. A man committed murder, was arrested and put in jail to wait his trial. While thus waiting, the old law against murder was abolished, and a new law enacted, somewhat changing the penalty. Then the man was brought up for trial. They proposed to try him by the new law. He said, No, he had never violated that law; hence they could not try him by that law. Very well, they said, they would try him by the old law. But no; he plead that that law was dead and gone. It did not exist. The consequence was, they had to set him free. On the same principle the Jews would all go free in the Judgment. Then we shall have a new interpretation of Paul's language: “And so shall all Israel be saved.”

11. They say that Christ is our law-giver in the gospel dispensation. Well then, if we sin, we sin against Christ, and hence we need an advocate with him, a mediator between us and Christ, for he is the one whom we have offended. This leaves God the Father entirely out of the programme, and it also squarely contradicts the Bible, which says, “If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” 1 John 2:1. “For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” 1 Tim. 2:5. This shows that it is God's law which we have broken and not Christ's. Such absurdities as these do false positions compel men to take, while the truth is always harmonious and consistent with every principle of law and reason.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

Leon, Iowa, Aug. 7.