The Law and the Gospel

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 8, 1875

The Law and the Gospel.

TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES OF CHRIST CONSIDERED.

In calling attention to the teachings of the apostles, touching the Law and the gospel, we should understand that their epistles and their acts were written after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and the day of Pentecost. These inspired men wrote after all the changes from the first covenant to the second had taken place, and the Christian church had been fully established, and had passed down in her history in the Christian age a number of years. And as no dispensational changes have taken place since that time, it follows, as a matter of indisputable fact, that what they wrote in the first century, relative to the object and work of the divine law, applies with equal force in the nineteenth century. Having briefly defined the bearing which the writings of the apostles have upon truth and duty in the Christian age to its close, we will now examine some of their most direct statements as to the relation of the law of God, and the gospel of his Son, in the conversion of men from sin to obedience and holiness.

1. The address of Paul to the elders of the church at Ephesus, whom he called to Miletus. The apostle appealed to them in the most touching manner as follows: “Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons, serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews; and how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you, and have taught you publicly and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” Acts 20 : 18-21.

The great apostle, on the important occasion of addressing the leaders and representatives of the Christian church at Ephesus, makes no point more prominent than that in true conversion the sinner has to do with both the Father and the Son. The gospel which Paul preached calls sinners first to the Father to exercise repentance toward him, as the author of the divine law which they have transgressed, and then to Christ to exercise faith toward him in order to obtain pardon. The gospel, as taught by the great apostle, first shows the sinner the nature and extent of his sins by the moral code, and then invites him to come to Jesus as the only means of pardon.

The most eminent gospel ministers the world has ever known have spoken very plainly of the object and work of the divine law. “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law; for sin is the transgression of the law.”—John. “Where no law is, there is no transgression.” “I had not known sin, but by the law.”—Paul. “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”—James. And what makes these declarations a standard, before which false opinions fall in the minds of Bible readers, is the fact that they were written by inspiration of God.

The eminent Paul would show the nature and extent of the malady of sin, by the law, before presenting the remedy in Jesus Christ. His manner of teaching is a plain rebuke of the surface work carried on in the popular revivals of our day, where sinners are invited to come to Jesus Christ before they are instructed as to the nature and extent of their sins. Genuine conversion cannot result from such teachings. When the excitement produced by the sensational revivalist has passed off, the victims of this surface work fall back into a far more hopeless condition. These ministers who with a velvety tread have walked all around the ten commandments, and have avoided to touch the sins of the people, and have not taught repentance toward God, as necessary to true conviction of sin before coming to Christ for pardon, have, in the words of Pollok,

— “With quackish ointment healed the wounds And bruises of the soul, outside, but left Within the pestilent matter unobserved, To sap the moral constitution quite, And soon to burst again incurable.”

2. Paul’s statements in his epistle to the church at Rome concerning the work of the law and its relation to the gospel in the conversion of sinners. Whether the reader shall consider that the apostle is describing his own personal experience, or that he is delineating the true process of genuine conversion to Christ, his good words have equal force. He says, “I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” Chap. 7 : 7. He here quotes from the tenth commandment to show that by the word law he means the ten precepts of the moral code.

The law of God is the appointed means to discover sin. “I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came sin revived and I died.” Verse 9. The law is the means of producing conviction upon the mind of the sinner before he can come to Jesus Christ understandingly, and in a manner to secure true conversion.

In view of the great work of the law in the conversion of sinners, the apostle states his opinion of its holy character for the benefit of the Christian ministry and the church. “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” Verse 12. “For we know that the law is spiritual.” Verse 14. “I delight in the law of God after the inward man.” Verse 22. And let it be borne in mind that the epistle to the Romans was written A. D. 60, more than twenty-five years later than the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and the day of Pentecost. Whatever, therefore, was the character and work of the ten precepts of the moral code when this epistle was written, is their character and their work in the conviction of the sinner at the present time.

In another chapter Paul declares that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Rom. 3 : 23. And in the verses that follow, the apostle speaks of the only remedy through Jesus Christ. “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.” Verses 24, 25. The divine law must stand as firm as the throne of Heaven, while a system of pardon and justification is introduced through Christ by which God “might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” Verse 26. We may now feel the force of the apostle’s concluding declaration in the last verse of this chapter: “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law.”

The justice of the Eternal Throne must be maintained. And such was the changeless nature of the divine law, that God could be just in pardoning the unworthy transgressor of his holy law only through the worthy name of his Son. If that law could have been changed, Christ need not have died. But because the law of God must stand as firm as the changeless throne of Heaven, Christ died for sinners. Here, then, is the burden of the gospel of the Son of God as taught by Paul. It is not that Christ died to change or abolish the divine law, but that he died for our sins. With great power the apostle appeals to the church at Corinth, that he had made this fundamental principle first, and most prominent in the gospel of Christ which he had preached to them. “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” 1 Cor. 15 : 1-3.