THE DEFINITE ARTICLE, AND THE LAW.
By Uriah Smith
We have been accustomed to use Rom. 3:31, as a good proof text upon the subject of the perpetuity of the law: “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law.” We claim that the moral law is definitely pointed out, and its perpetuity in the strongest manner affirmed. But our friends on the other side have made a discovery and are jubilant. They find that the article, the, is in the Greek omitted before the word, law, in this text, and hence they claim that the text refers to no definite law, but to law in a general sense: “Do we then make void law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish law.” But what is gained by such a position? Does not law in a general sense include all laws in a particular sense? What they desire to maintain is that all law that existed prior to Christ was destroyed by him, or is made void by faith in him. And if we read the text according to their ideas, and on their own ground, a most glaring contradiction is involved; thus, “Do we then make void law through faith?” And they must answer, Yes, all law that existed before Christ. But how, then, does Paul’s answer fit, “God forbid; yea, we establish law”? Oh! yes, they answer, that law which they, by some microscopic examination, think they find in the New Testament. The terms, “make void,” can be used only in reference to past law; but the same law that is not made void is established by faith. Therefore faith establishes law, whether we use that term in a general or a specific sense, that existed before Christ. But then, of course, it would be understood that all such laws were excepted, as had been set forth as only temporary regulations, or to expire by limitation, as the national and ceremonial laws of the Jews. But this is only one text out of a mass which prove the perpetuity of the law; and if it could be shown that this is indefinite, nothing whatever is gained toward unsettling this question; there is plenty of proof in other quarters. The most that can be said of the absence of the article in favor of the claim of our opponents, is that it gives them a chance to make an assertion, and, on the same principle that drowning men catch at a straw, they are not slow to improve it. The word law occurs in the New Testament one hundred and eighty-nine times. One hundred and twenty times it is used with the article, in the original, and sixty-nine times without it. And sometimes in the very same verse it is used both with and without the article, when both words undeniably refer to the same thing. Thus in Rom. 3:19, the article is used, “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law;” but in the very next verse the word law occurs, in the Greek, without the article: “Therefore by the deeds of law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by law is the knowledge of sin.” Does any one suppose that these two verses do not refer to the same law, or that they refer to any other law than that which is the rule of moral action, and the test of sin? Yet the use of the article is with Paul seemingly a matter of utter indifference in this instance. The same use of the article is noticed in Rom. 2:12, 13: “As many as have sinned in law, shall be judged by law. For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law.” And the next verse, verse 14, furnishes an instance where the article is both used and omitted in the same verse: “For when the Gentiles which have not law do by nature the things contained in the law.” Also verse 23: “Thou that makest thy boast of law, through breaking the law dishonorest thou God.” In Luke 2:23, the law is shown by other limiting words to be definite, yet the article is not used, thus: “As it is written in law of the Lord.” Verse 24 the same. But in verse 39, the same expression is used, and the article is expressed; thus, “According to the law of the Lord.” So we might go on through the whole list, showing that the use of the article or its omission seems to be a matter of indifference, and proves nothing whatever. But if any should still claim that its use is significant, then we answer that the important texts in which it is used, as in Matt. 5:17, 18; Luke 16:17, &c., are more in number than those in which it is omitted. Finally, relative to the usage of Greek writers in this respect, we quote the following from Crosby’s Greek Grammar, ¶ 533:— “Omission of the article. With substantives which will be recognized as definite without the article, it is often omitted; particularly with (a) Proper names . . . . (c) Abstract nouns, names of arts and sciences, and nouns used generally. . . . (d) Familiar designations of place, time, and related persons or objects.” ¶ 534, 5: “The insertion or omission of the article often depends, both in poetry and prose upon emphasis, euphony, or rhythm; and upon those nice distinctions in the expression of our ideas, which, though they may be readily felt, are often transferred with difficulty from one language to another. Its omission in many cases, doubtless, comes from the retention of earlier usage. In general the insertion of the article promotes the perspicuity, and its omission the vivacity of discourse. It is consequently more employed in philosophical than in rhetorical composition, and far more in prose than in poetry. It should be remarked, however, that there is perhaps none of the minutiæ of language in which manuscripts differ more than in respect to its insertion or omission, especially with proper names.” Under these circumstances, considering the use and omission of the article in the Scriptures, and the statement of the grammar respecting the law for its omission, whoever tries to build an argument against the perpetuity of the law upon the omission of the article in Rom. 3:31, or in any other text, is simply erecting a structure far less substantial than a house of straw upon a foundation of sand. U. S.