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Absurdities of the No-law Position

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 16, 1874

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 44, No. 1.

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Absurdities of the No-law Position.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

1. It assumes that the law did not exist till Moses; hence there was no law against idolatry, profanity, murder, &c., till that time.
2. It assumes that the Gentiles never had any law given to them, that God never made any claims upon them.
3. It gives no reason why God singled out the ten commandments and gave them in so conspicuous a manner as he did.
4. It teaches that the ten commandments were all abolished at the cross and nine of the ten re-enacted at the same instant.
5. This was done simply to get rid of the Sabbath as the law would have been all right but for that.
6. Or, as some claim, the law was abolished at the cross and re-enacted at Pentecost, which leaves an interregnum of fifty days without any law.
7. God came from Heaven to give his law, then sent his Son to abolish it.
8. Christ came to die for the law and in the very acts of dying for it killed the law itself.
9. Christ could not die for two laws at the same time; hence, if he died for the old law, he did not die for the new law; and vice versa. Therefore, either those under the old law, or those under the new law, have no Saviour and must be lost.
10. Christ died for his own law before that law existed or any one had broken it; thus making provision for sin.
11. It impeaches God's wisdom as a lawgiver, showing that his moral laws need altering, amending, changing, &c.
12. It makes Christ the law-giver and leaves the Father out entirely; and so we need an advocate with Christ.
13. It makes Christ an advocate between us and his own law.
14. The world was in rebellion against the law of the Father. God sent his Son to reconcile them to himself; but Christ abolished his Father's law and set up one of his own, thus becoming the greatest rebel of them all.
15. Men cannot be judged by an abolished law; hence all those before the cross will go free in the Judgment having no law to condemn them.
An abolished law is annihilated. “The general principle relied upon, independent of some statutory rule, is not controverted, that when a statute is repealed it must be considered as if it never existed, except with reference to such parts as are saved by the repealing statute.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.” Decision of the Supreme Court of Iowa, 1862.—Iowa Reports, Vol. 12, p. 311.
16. It assumes that a new law has been given, but can produce no record as to when it was given, where it was given, how many precepts it has, which is the first or the last commandment, who gave it, what its penalty is, to whom it was given, wherein it differs from the old law, &c.
When a new law is to be given to the people it must always be done in the most public and definite manner possible. Take as an example the New Constitution of Iowa. Art. 12, Sect. 13 reads: “We, the people of Iowa,” &c. “This Constitution shall be submitted to the electors of the State at the August election in the year 1857.” Then it provides how the voting shall be done. “And if it shall appear that a majority of all the votes cast at such election for and against this Constitution, are in favor of the same, the governor shall immediately issue his proclamation stating that fact, and such Constitution shall be the Constitution of the State of Iowa, and shall take effect from and after the publication of said proclamation.”
Are God's laws of less importance than men's? Is God less particular than men? Those who claim a new law ought to produce it in as plain a record as the above. But no such record exists, hence there is no such new law as is claimed. What would the people think of the man who would claim a new law of his State, but could produce no record of it?
17. When an attempt is made to find a new law, some of its precepts are found enacted during the life of Christ and before it is claimed that the old law was abolished, thus having two moral laws in operation at the same time.
18. Then other commandments are found for the first time in the epistles of the apostles not given till 30 year after the decalogue was abolished, thus leaving 30 years without any commandments against various sins.
19. This makes the apostles, instead of God, our lawgivers.
20. It assumes that the decalogue has been abolished when no record of its repeal can be found. Notice how carefully the record is made when even human laws are abolished.
Law repealed. “Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Iowa, That section 2498 of the Revision of 1860, be and the same is hereby repealed.” Approved Feb. 7, 1870.—Session Laws of the Thirteenth General Assembly of Iowa p. 112.
Let our opponents bring something like this for the repeal of God's law, and we will believe them.
21. Finally, upon the most important and vital of all subjects, the giving of the law of Jehovah by which the eternal destiny of the human race is to be decided, it leaves us to mere inference and guess-work.
A theory which involves so many and so great absurdities must be a very bad one.
D. M. CANRIGHT.
Oakland, Cal., May 2, 1874.