Spirituality of the Law of God by Joseph Harvey Waggoner

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 10, 1874

Spirituality of the Law of God.

By Joseph Harvey Waggoner

BY ELD. J. H. WAGGONER.

TEXT: “Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” Eccl. 12:13, 14.

There are two leading ideas in this text: that of duty, and of judgment. Duty is inseparably connected with accountability. When God commands, we must obey or suffer the consequences of our disobedience.

This text clearly shows that the commandments of God are the rule by which we shall be judged; we are exhorted to keep his commandments because he will bring every work into judgment. If we keep his commandments our works will be approved in the Judgment. If we do not keep his commandments we shall be found sinners, and shall stand condemned in that day.

And this text refutes the oft-repeated opinion that the system of government revealed to the Jews was one of merely temporal rewards and punishments. It is true that there was civil government among the Jews, as there is now among other nations. But the Jews as well understood the doctrine of a future life, and of future rewards as we understand it. The resurrection of the dead is as clearly taught in the Old Testament as it is in the New.

Again, our text teaches a future judgment on the same basis and to the same extent that the New Testament does. It presents the commandments as the rule of the Judgment. So Paul to the Romans says men “shall be judged by the law.” The text says every work and every secret thing shall be brought into judgment, and Paul says “the secret of men” shall be judged in that day. Rom. 2:12, 16.

Because God established civil government among the Jews it is not to be inferred that they were not accountable beyond that civil government, more than it is to be inferred that, because God ordained “the powers that be,” we have no accountability beyond the execution of the laws of the land. We may evade the civil law: so might they. But we cannot escape the judgment of God; nor could they. “Every secret thing” will be brought up in that day. “His hand will find out all” his enemies.

It is necessary that there should be a future judgment to meet the demands of justice; for man can neither judge nor execute so as to meet those demands. Many “secret things,” deeply criminal in their nature, escape the eyes of the strictest judges of this world. The motive cannot be discerned by man; therefore he cannot judge on moral grounds. The present requirements of society demand that civil government shall exist; and it only meets those demands. The murderer may be hanged; but who will argue that he will be acquitted in the day of Judgment because he has suffered the penalty of his crime on earth? “Every work” will be brought into God’s judgment.

But the law which says, “Thou shalt not kill,” had the same relations in the past dispensation which it has now. The penalty was the same. Every violation was reserved, to be considered in “the judgment of the great day.” So far as moral principles are concerned, and the vindication of justice, and the maintaining of governments there is no such difference of dispensation, as many suppose that there is. Men were sinners in the past dispensation; so they are in this. Forgiveness was offered through faith in the Messiah; so it is in this. Disobedience rendered faith and worship void in that dispensation; so it does in this.

On this point, in regard to the past dispensation we quote the words of the Lord by Samuel to Saul: “Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” 1 Sam. 15:22. And, “He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.” Prov. 28:9. And in regard to this dispensation, we quote as follows: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in Heaven.” Matt. 7:21. “Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Chap. 15:6, 9. “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” Jas. 2:17.

The expression has passed into an axiom that God is supreme moral governor. Let us consider what this implies. If he is a governor, he must have a government; for we can have no idea of a governor without a government. If he is supreme governor then his government is over all; it admits of no rivalry, and all responsible creatures are subjects of it. If he is moral governor then his government is a moral government; it must be maintained on moral grounds. And of course the Judgment in which the actions of his creatures are considered must be entirely on a moral basis. And to this all responsible creatures are amenable.

But what is true of his government is equally, and necessarily, true of his law. For law is the basis of government. Without this all would be anarchy and confusion; there could be no government. A moral government must have a moral law for its basis.

And such a law God has revealed to his subjects on earth; such a law is referred to in the words of our text. The ten commandments, spoken by Jehovah with his own voice, and written with his own hand, are a complete moral code, and the only one that has ever been revealed. Indeed, there could not be another; there can no more be two complete moral codes—than there can be two universal governments the same time, or two Supreme Beings.

In the ten commandments duties are classified, the greatest duty or sin being contained in the wording of the precept. Thus taking the second table, which regards our relations to our fellow-man; it enjoins a sacred duty toward parents, which commences with our childhood. It then presents safeguards to life, chastity, property, and reputation, and forbids wrong desire in regard to any and everything which is our neighbor’s. And these cover all the relations of life. Were all these relations regarded in the spirit of kindness and love, on which the law of God is based, we could ask no more of our fellow-men. Society would then be all that we could desire. Knowing this, it would appear marvelous, did we not understand the perverseness of human nature, that any should be found who will oppose this law in principle or in practice.

Objections have often been urged against this law, that it is not a complete code of morality; but these have all been of a trivial nature. In noticing them, we can only give such as have been given to us.

1. It has been objected that love is not inculcated in the ten commandments. But this is refuted directly in the second precept, wherein Jehovah said he showed “mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.” We shall show by the Scriptures that without love they cannot be kept.

2. A writer of some little note among Adventists raised the objection that the ten commandments are not of perpetual obligation, and therefore not moral, because they are not suited to the circumstances of the saints in a glorified state. For, said he, the commandment or prohibition supposes the possibility of disobedience, and of course the existence of a penalty, and he taught that only the two commandments of love to God and man could be required in that state.

The answer to this objection is two-fold. 1. If it were strictly true, it would contain no reason why the law is not binding now, nor why it does not cover all present moral relations. 2. The same objection will apply with equal force, allowing that it has any force at all, against any requirement in the glorified state. For the commandment to love God, if there binding, would just as truly suppose the possibility of not loving, and of course of a penalty for not loving. The objection is subversive of all law and all obligation. When we are prepared to admit that God will have a government without obligation, and an obedient people without any duty resting upon them, then we may admit the force of this objection.

3. A minister with considerable reputation for ability, especially in opposing the law of God, once urged that it did not contain all obligation, and cited Ex. 22:1, and Prov. 20:10. The first reads as follows: “If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.” And the second reads thus: “Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the Lord.” “There is nothing in the ten commandments,” said this minister, “about making restitution, or against divers weights and measures.”

The answer to this was easily given. The commandment says, “Thou shalt not steal,” and if this were kept, no restitution could be required. Restitution has respect to the claim of the law, because the necessity for it arises from the violation of the law.

Again, the man who has divers weights and measures has a desire for dishonest gain; but if he had respect to the commandment which says, “Thou shalt not covet,” he would have only right and honest weights and measures.

4. Said the same minister, at another time, “I may be a glutton and a drunkard, and you cannot prove by the ten commandments that I am a sinner.”

We can prove by the apostle Paul that the glutton breaks the first commandment, for he says of such, “Whose God is their belly,” or appetite. Phil. 3:19. Gratification of perverted appetite is idolatry; a violation of the law of God. Anything is an idol which we prefer to God; hence all those who forget God and find their joy in the things of this world are violators of the first commandment.

5. It has been confidently urged that the law is not complete, and that we should admit it, inasmuch as we teach baptism, of which the law says nothing. But baptism is not a moral obligation; it is only positive. It is not original, as all moral law is, because it grows out of the sinful condition of man. By original obligation we mean that which grows out of our original relations to God; such as existed of God’s sole will and power before sin was introduced. Baptism is for the remission of sin, and sin is the transgression of the law. Therefore, if the law had never been transgressed, there would have been no baptism. The law is the basis of everything in the administration of God’s government. And on examining its claims and relations we shall find, as David wrote, “Thy commandment is exceeding broad.”

The nature of a law may be as certainly learned from a statement of its effect upon the character of the doer as from a direct statement of its nature. Thus, if a man commits murder in keeping a law, we know that that law requires him to murder. If a man becomes a bad man by keeping a law, the law itself is bad: but if he becomes a good man by keeping a certain law, the law itself must be good. And a good character is formed in no other manner than in obedience to right law. A good character is not the result of emotions, or feelings, or of desires, but of right actions. An inspired writer has settled this point in these words:—“He that doeth righteousness is righteous.”

There never was a time when God did not require his creatures to be holy. And this requirement was placed upon the highest possible plane. It was not used in any conventional or local sense, as implying one thing at one time, and something else or something higher at another time. Thus the Lord said to the children of Israel:—“I am the Lord your God: . . . ye shall be holy, for I am holy.” As this requirement for them to be holy was based upon the holiness of his own character, both the requirement and the holiness required must be as unchangeable as his own character. It is a mistake, too often made, to think that the holiness or morality of this dispensation is higher than that of past dispensations. God’s character is forever the only model of holiness given to moral agents. And the nature of moral character or of holiness can no more change than moral principles or divine attributes can change.

As righteousness consists in right doing, and a character can be formed only by conformity to, or violation of, a rule of right, it follows that there must be a law given by the great Moral Governor which is the test of all actions and the measure of morality or holiness. Without this there could be no moral government, and no judgment on a moral basis. Such a law must not only exist, but it must be revealed; for to judge by a law not revealed, and therefore not known to the subjects of the judgment, would only be tyrannical.

That the position herein taken is reasonable, no one can deny; that it is Scriptural may be easily proved. When God was about to declare, with his own voice, his holy law from mount Sinai, he said to Israel:—“If ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.” Ex. 19:5, 6. That God’s covenant, commanded with his own voice, is the ten commandments, is fully proved by Deut. 4:12, 13:—“And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye

heard a voice. And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.”

Many make a serious mistake here and suppose that, because this law is called a covenant, it is therefore the old covenant made with Israel which has passed away. That was an agreement which was rendered inefficient by their non-performance, and it contained in Ex. 19:5–8. Compare Ex. 24:3–8. That a covenant, a contract or agreement, may be based upon a covenant or law, that is, that the law, which is called a covenant, may be the condition of a contract, which is surely a covenant, may be learned from 2 Kings 23:1–3. Verse 3 reads thus: “The king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in the book.” The law or commandments written in the book was a covenant, and their agreement to keep that law was another covenant. And this is precisely the relation that existed between the covenant made with Israel, in Ex. 19:5–8, and the covenant commanded to them, in Ex. 20:3–17.

The word covenant is very extensive in significance, and each one referred to must be identified by its characteristics, and not by its name. The agreement or covenant which is found in Ex. 19:5–8 depended entirely on their promise to obey, which they did not perform, and therefore the contract became a nullity. But a law is not invalidated by a failure on the part of the subjects to keep it. Sin has no tendency to abolish the law, but it tends rather to abolish the sinner.

The point under consideration is this; the Lord told them that if they would obey his voice and keep his covenant, by which he referred to the ten commandments, they should be a holy nation. We have seen that they were to be holy because God was holy; that the holiness they were to develop was according to the divine attributes; and we have noticed that a character can be formed only according to a rule of right, for where no law is, there can be neither transgression nor obedience. And by the words of Jehovah himself we have now learned that the ten commandments, which he spake with his voice, are that rule of right. By perfect conformity to this law they would have been holy.

But as has been noticed, the law cannot impart what it does not contain; that is, the character of the law-keeper will be according to the law he keeps. If the law is bad, he who keeps it must necessarily become bad. If the law is good, his character will be good who keeps it. In this case we learn that it is a holy law, fully sufficient to impart a holy character to its observer. This holy law reveals to man the will of God, and if man had kept it he would have been in harmony with the will of God. And this is as high in the scale of righteousness, morality, or holiness as it is possible for man to rise. This is our first Scripture proof on the nature of God’s law of ten commandments; of its completeness and spirituality, giving a holy character to its observer. And this is decisive, being the words of Jehovah himself.

Moses, in setting forth this law to Israel, said that life and death were set before them there in Deut. 30:15–20. “The wages of sin is death,” and man must die because he has sinned, or transgressed the law. He has failed of that holiness which he would have had if he had kept that law. Had he kept it and attained unto that holiness he would have lived, for “the law was ordained unto life.” And this again is all perfectly reasonable, for God would never punish with death a holy being.

David gives a decisive testimony on this subject, and a very direct one. He says, “The law of the Lord is perfect.” Some have depended on the marginal reading of Ps. 19:7, “the doctrine,” to take away this statement from the law. But it offers no real ground to evade our conclusion. The whole context shows that it is the law of which he is speaking. And the original is a word from which law is usually translated. It is found in such texts as Ex. 12:49; 16:4; 24:12; Ps. 89:30; in every occurrence of the word law in Ps. 119, and other places too numerous to notice. The perfection of the law, as we have seen, is on the very highest plane, as it is a rule of holiness, capable of imparting a holy character. It reveals the divine will, which is also a revelation of the divine character. For God required them to be holy as he is holy, and he said they would be holy if they kept that law. The holiness or perfection of that law is as high as Heaven itself—the very outgrowth of divine purity.

Some have been in doubt of David’s meaning in this text, because he says, “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” They cannot see how the law can have anything to do in converting the soul. A better understanding of what true conversion consists in may help them.

Paul says, “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” To be convinced of sin is the first, and a very essential, step toward conversion. In the work of conversion repentance is as necessary as faith. The apostle taught “Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” Repentance is of sin, and has respect to the law transgressed. Therefore we repent toward God, whose law we have transgressed, and have faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we receive remission of sin. Faith without repentance would never avail; it would produce no genuine conversion. True, the law alone has no power to convert, but Jesus “gives repentance,” as well as “remission of sins.” Acts 5:31. But as repentance has respect to the law, for sin is the transgression of the law, and by the law is the knowledge of sin, it follows that if the law were abolished there could be no repentance, and without this there would be no genuine conversion. And this leads us to doubt the genuineness of many professed conversions which are grounded on the faith of the abolition of the law. We speak with the greatest respect for the feelings of all. But the truth of God commands our highest respect, for all must be judged by the truth, but the truth is judged by no man.

Passing by other plain testimonies in the Psalms, especially Ps. 119, which might be used, we return to our text, Eccl. 12:13, 14, “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” As man is a moral agent, and God is a Moral Governor, and his Judgment of course on a moral basis, man’s whole duty, considered in relation to this Judgment, must comprise all moral obligation. The whole duty here enjoined is not in the sight of man, nor in view of the judgment of man; but it is before God, in view of his Judgment—his future Judgment—when every work and every secret thing shall be passed upon by “God, the judge of all.” That which comprises the whole duty of a moral agent is no less than a perfect law,—a rule of holiness—in obedience to which man would find purity of heart, happiness, life, and the favor of God. And such is God’s law of ten commandments. We come now to the New Testament. And first we find therein the words of our Saviour who always spoke in terms unmistakably clear in favor of the law of his Father. He said that they who kept and taught the commandments should be great in the kingdom of Heaven. Matt. 5:19. He said that the “golden rule” was an outgrowth of the law. Matt. 6:12. That they who made void the commandment of God offered vain worship to him. Matt. 15:3–9. That he who would enter into life must keep the commandments. Matt. 19:16, 17. That all the law hangs upon love to God and to our fellow man. Matt. 22:36–40. That the will of his Father, which is elsewhere defined to be his law, is the test of the doctrines of the gospel. John. 7:16, 17. That he kept his Father’s commandments, John. 15:10, and because he did always those things which pleased the Father, John. 8:29, the Father said he was well pleased in him. Matt. 17:5. God would likewise have been well pleased with man if he had always kept his commandments, and not sinned against him.

Now on these words of the Saviour we remark, that that law, obedience to which would exalt a man in the kingdom of God, must be a perfect law. A law, obedience to which would give eternal life, must contain man’s whole duty. A law which hangs upon supreme love to God and unselfish, impartial love to man, is no less than a holy law. Inasmuch as the Father was well pleased with his Son because he kept his commandments, those commandments must be very precious in the sight of the Father. And as we are admonished that we ought to walk even as our Saviour walked we may well pray with David, “Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” Ps. 119:18. And to seek that our souls may be so fully converted that, with David and Paul, we may delight in the law of God. Ps. 119:77; Rom. 7:21.

The apostle Paul has said more to vindicate the law of God than any other writer in the New Testament. His only rival in this respect in all the Bible is David, whose words are devotional rather than argumentative. Paul is the great, and universally accepted, reasoner on justification; and he first used the word justify in relation to doing the law! Rom. 2:13. He says, “The doers of the law shall be justified.” This does not assert that man can now be justified by the law, in his sinful state; but it does most emphatically vindicate the law as a complete rule of right, showing that it contains justifying principles; for that rule which is defective could never justify a moral agent.

In Rom. 3:1–9, Paul shows that all the world, both Jews and Gentiles, are proved sinners by the law. This also shows that it is a universal law, to which all classes in all the world are amenable. And such must be the law of God, the Universal Governor.

Verse 21 of this chapter says, “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” By this rule character is determined. Now it is clearly true that a law which is not now binding on man cannot prove man a sinner. If a man is condemned by a law it is because he is responsible to that law. If the law had no jurisdiction over a man he could not be condemned by it. And this declaration is very closely related to that of chap. 2:13, for it is evident that the same law which condemns the transgressor will justify the doer. The mechanic applies his rule to a board to see if it is right for his use. Of course there would be no certainty in the matter if the rule itself were not right. And if the rule is right it will both approve that which is right and condemn that which is wrong. Who would think of using an instrument of one certain shape to prove that a crooked stick is crooked, and one of another shape to prove that a straight stick is straight? One straight edge is used for both purposes. Even so one and the same law will justify the innocent and condemn the guilty.

In verse 21 the apostle says the righteousness of God is manifested without the law; that is, as we have all transgressed the law, and stand condemned by it, we must be justified by grace, and not by the law; but he says this righteousness of God is “witnessed by the law,” that is, the law of God is the measure of the righteousness which grace confers upon us. The gospel must bestow upon us just such a character as the law can approve; otherwise the law, by which we shall be judged, would still condemn us in the day of Judgment.

(Concluded next week.)