“RAILWAY TRACTS.—NO. 6.—CONVERSION.”
By Charles L. Boyd
The above is the title of a tract received from a teacher to whom a package was sent for gratuitous distribution through his school. From it I quote the following, adding a few remarks. A railway traveler is represented as saying to a companion, “How do you really think a man is to be saved?” He replied, ‘No doubt the man who keeps the ten commandments is a happy man, and I believe that is the way to be saved.’ His fellow-traveler remarked, ‘I did think so, but I heard Dr. — of Leeds preach a sermon which convinced me that it was necessary to keep only the last six.’ I replied, ‘I will not say ten, nor six; but now if one had to be kept for salvation, tell me who could be saved?’ If Adam, happy in innocence, did not keep one, but fell, would it not be a fearful thing for us, fallen in sin, and surrounded by temptations as we are, to have our eternal salvation depend on our perfect obedience even to one command?” Did Adam violate every one of the ten commandments? Has God given us a law and commanded us to keep it, of which it is impossible for us to keep one-tenth part? “No, my friends, redemption through the blood of Christ is a very different thing from our trying to keep the commandments. We must have redemption first through the blood of Christ, even the forgiveness of sins; and obedience will come after [obedience to what?]. Not the obedience of law-keeping for salvation; that is impossible when you have got salvation first. It would be utterly impossible to be in this carriage, and at the same time to have something to do to get in. Just as impossible is it to receive Christ as my salvation, and yet have to keep the law to get saved.” “Often the person who tries most to keep the commandments feels more keenly the gnawings of conscience and the burden of sin.” If men who desire to keep the law of God are lost through such sophistry, from those whose “lips should keep knowledge,” and from those from whose mouth they have a right to “seek the law,” how great must be the condemnation of these “blind guides!” Surely they are causing “many to stumble at the law.” Again, the writer says, “Oh, the weight of guilt! The law can give you no relief. It can only curse you. For ‘as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.’ And you know well that you cannot continue in them. Again and again you have tried, but in vain. Well, you say, ‘If a man cannot keep the law, why was it given?’ It was given because of transgressions.” John says, “sin is the transgression of the law;” hence the law must have existed before sin was committed. Here is a plain contradiction between this author and John. Again, “Believers are saved entirely by grace through Christ Jesus, and not by works of their own. I say, is it not marvelous that men will not believe God himself?” Is it not more marvelous that men dare pervert God’s word? Reader, has God given us no part to act in our own salvation? “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” James 1:22. “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” Luke 6:46. Once more we read, “As for yourself, you do not really believe you are utterly ruined by sin. If your hat fell into the river and was injured, it might be restored; but if ruined, it is past mending. Sin has not only injured man, it has ruined him. Every attempt to keep the law for righteousness is an attempt to prove that Christ died in vain, and that you are not so ruined as to need such a gift as Christ.” Did Christ prove that his blood was spilt in vain by “magnifying” his Father’s holy law? Said a Baptist minister in Iowa, “Whoever keeps the seventh-day Sabbath denies Christ.” Will the act of that redeemed host, in coming up from one Sabbath to another, be a denial of Him whose blood was shed to redeem them from the penalty of that law which so justly condemns them? “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” Surely, if there ever was a period when the word of God was perverted by those who should “teach knowledge,” we live in that time. CHAS. L. BOYD.