THE LAW OF GOD by Joseph Harvey Waggoner

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 3, 1878

THE LAW OF GOD.

By Joseph Harvey Waggoner

BY ELD. J. H. WAGGONER.

In 2 Cor. 3:7 we find an expression upon which much stress is laid by opposers of the law. The controversy turns on the meaning of the phrase—

MINISTRATION OF DEATH.

The word ministration means, the service of a minister. Greenfield defines it, “ministry, serving, service, waiting, attendance.” In the text we have a comparison of two ministrations, both glorious, but one excelling the other in glory. One of the past dispensation—“done away.” The other in the present—“which remains.” One called the ministration of condemnation or death; the other the ministration of the Spirit, or of righteousness.

In this text we are taught one of two things: 1. It was the ministration or service of the priests that was engraven on stones, or 2. The ministry of the priests was concerning that which was engraven on stones. As a matter of fact we know that the arrangement of priestly service was not written on stones, for only the ten commandments were written thereon.

It is inferred from this that the ten commandments are done away. Before proceeding to examine this inference we will notice a position taken by some which is supposed to remove the difficulty and disprove the inference. It is, that the text does not refer to the tables of stone and to the commandments written thereon, but to the plastered stones on which other laws were written according to Deut. 27:2, 8. However plausible this may appear, we do not think it is the sense of this passage. We are told that this view offers a successful method of silencing an opponent. Were this so it would not present any inducement to use it unless it is the truth. As truth, and not mere victory, is our object, we must seek for the actual meaning, and not rest on a possible solution.

But we think that examination will show that the idea of successfully meeting opposition with that view is a mistaken one. In this chapter is a comparison of the priesthood of Moses and that of Christ. Moses is taken as the representative of the old covenant, because he was the first priest under that covenant. Ps. 99:6, &c. The reference in 2 Cor. 3 is not to anything commanded in Deut. 27, but there is undoubtedly reference to that which took place as recorded in Ex. 34. Joshua built an altar and wrote on it, after the children of Israel passed over Jordan. Josh. 8. But when Moses came down from the mount where he had been forty days and forty nights communing with the Lord, with the two tables of stone in his hands, his face shone with the glory which it brought from the presence of the Lord, so that the people could not look upon it, and he put a vail over his face while he talked with them. Of this Paul speaks in 2 Cor. 3.

We shall find on examination that that which was written on the stones is now written on “the fleshly tables of the heart,” by the ministration of the Spirit. Many have supposed there is in this chapter a contrast of ministrations. This is true only so far as their effects are concerned, righteousness and life being contrasted with condemnation and death. But the ministrations themselves are compared—not contrasted. One was glorious; the other is more glorious—“excell[ing] in glory.” Of the two there is neither contrast nor comparison. But one law is brought to view, as will be shown when we consider 2 Cor. 3:6 as a fulfillment of Heb. 8:10. There is, however, a wide difference between the places or materials on which the law was written. Under one it was written on stones; under the other, in the heart.

It was the face of the minister, not the law on the tables of stone, which was vailed. The children of Israel could not “look to the end of that which is abolished.” They could not look upon the glory of Moses’ countenance, or discern that which it represented. The service of Moses and of his fellow-priests was typical—it must pass away. But the words of Jehovah, written by his own finger on the tables of stone, which Moses held in his hands, were not typical; they are moral. They were not nailed to the cross—they are not done away. Paul says, “Moses was verily faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after.” Heb. 3:5. This clearly shows the typical character of the work of Moses.

We say the law of ten commandments is not typical, and no one who understands the nature of a type—who knows the difference between a moral and a positive law—will say in candor that it is. Every part of the ten commandments is moral, relating directly to God, our Creator, and to man, our fellow-creature. It may be replied that all positive or remedial laws also relate to God. But there is this essential difference: they are contingent, and are made necessary by man’s action, and his condition as a sinner. The fact that they are remedial sufficiently shows this. But moral law is not contingent; it does not grow out of man’s condition as a sinner, or depend on any secondary relation. It grows out of the will and action of God alone, without reference to the condition of the subject.

Every part of the ten-commandment law is of this nature. Every jot and tittle of it has for its sole origin and basis the action and authority of God the Creator, entirely independent of man’s action. Of the one contested point, the Sabbath, this is eminently true, it being founded only upon the act of the Creator and the work of creation. Ex. 20:8–11. Over this work man could not possibly have any control. But not so of the typical institutions. Had not man sinned they would never have had an existence; there would then have been no place or necessity for the gospel which they prefigured. If the law of ten commandments, including the Sabbath, is not moral, then nothing can be proved to be moral, and morality and moral character are meaningless terms.

In settling the meaning of a text of Scripture we must not altogether lose sight of the consequences of our conclusions. If they are found to be dishonorable to God and to his government, or if they lead to a conflict with other scriptures, we may be assured that our investigations have led us in a wrong direction. As all things were created for God’s pleasure and glory, it must be that the counsels of his grace will not be to the dishonor of his government, or at variance with the moral law which he has revealed. And as his word is yea and amen—not yea and nay—no one part of his word will conflict with another part, or no part will be contrary to the tenor of the whole. But above all things we should cultivate a spirit of reverence and submission to his will, and not let our feelings incline us toward certain conclusions, for if we do this we shall certainly pervert the word of God, and make it minister to our own selfishness. Let no one think this caution is not in place; for it is necessary on this subject above all others, because the carnal mind being enmity to the law of God, Rom. 8:7, and the law and the flesh being contrary to each other, Rom. 7:14, 18, there is danger that our natural dispositions will control us and incline us to accept conclusions not in harmony with the righteousness of the law. There is surely little danger that the carnal mind, or a fleshly, selfish spirit, will err in favor of the law of God, which is holy, and just, and good.

To make it appear that it was the law of ten commandments which was abolished, it will be necessary to establish the following points:

This law is not a rule of holiness; though Jehovah himself declared it was. Ex. 19:5–8; Deut. 4:12, 13.
It is not the condition of life; though both Moses and Christ declare it is.
It is not perfect; though David says it is.
It does not contain the whole duty of man; though Solomon says it does.
Christ did not magnify it and make it honorable; though the Lord by his prophet said he should do so.
Christ destroyed or abolished it; which contradicts his own words.
Men could have been proved sinners on the day of Pentecost in the absence of the law; which is contrary to reason and to Paul’s words in Rom. 5:13 and 3:20.
Sinners will not be judged by the law; but Paul says they will. Rom. 2:12, 16.
Sin is imputed without the law; but Paul says it is not.
The knowledge of sin is not by the law; but Paul says it is.
The law is made void through faith; though Paul says it is not.
The law is not spiritual; but Paul says it is. Rom. 7:14.
The righteousness (or precept) of the law is not to be fulfilled in the followers of Christ; but Paul says it is. Rom. 8:4.

This list might be largely extended, but it is not necessary. The theory of the abolition of the ten commandments involves the above and many other contradictions of Scripture, and is every way dishonoring to the moral government of God.

But, the objector inquires, is there not a difficulty in your view of the text, and does not ministration agree, grammatically, with that which is written and engraven in stones? We answer, Yes, there is such an agreement, and at first sight, without a thorough examination of the text, one might be led to infer therefrom that that which was engraven in stones is done away. We should not deny or seek to hide the difficulty even though we could not solve it. And even if we could not solve it we could not admit the view of the objector, because it involves a contradiction of known facts and of many declarations of Scripture. We invite the attention of the objector to the following quotations from Dr. Carson’s work on Baptism:— “It is an important truth that is stated by Dr. Hawkins, that ‘there may be truth, and truth supported by irrefragable arguments, and yet at the same time obnoxious to objections, numerous, plausible, and by no means easy of solution.’ I go further; there may be truth liable to objections that to us may be unanswerable, while the proof is irrefragable.”

It was with this just remark by Dr. Carson in view that we said we should not admit the objector’s position even if we could not answer his objections. But we do not intend to avail ourselves of the benefit of the truth he has stated; we do not need it. The objection is far from being strong against our position, because it cannot itself be harmonized with the Scriptures. Indeed, it involves a still greater difficulty by contradicting well-known facts. And this is admitted by the very best authorities even among those who are not with us in our views of the teachings of the law.

No class of religionists have made so free use of this text as the Disciples. Being antinomian in faith, they have used this as a stronghold of their position, and confidently referred to the Greek as proving that the law is done away. Prof. Anderson, of Kentucky, was of that church. He early conceived the idea of making a version of the New Testament, and gave himself up to the thorough study of the Greek in order to the accomplishment of the task. It was the work of his life, and he literally sacrificed his life to the work. He rendered this text as follows:— “But if the ministration of death by means of a covenant written and engraven in stones was glorious,” &c.

Prof. Anderson recognized the evident fact that the ministration or service of the priests of the old covenant, was not written on the stones, and he therefore supplied an antecedent in agreement with “written and engraven in stones,” and in harmony with the tenor of the Scriptures.

But Prof. Anderson was not alone in this view. We are confident that he gave such a rendering only after a careful examination of the subject of the text, and a careful consultation of authorities. Thus Olshausen says:— “The entupomene en lithois [engraven in stones] refers only figuratively to diakonia [ministration]; its primary reference is to the decalogue.”

Thus he considers that by a figure, putting that to which the ministry relates for the ministry itself, the apostle brings to view the effects of the ministration in the most direct manner. For, as Anderson renders it, it was only by means of the decalogue that the ministration or service of the priests had any efficiency or significance.

Bloomfield, in his Critical Notes on the Greek of the New Testament, says:— “I have in Beza’s Synop. shown that the sense of the verse is this: If the ministry or office of promulgating a covenant which in the letter (when written on tables

of stone) brought nothing but death with it, was glorious (namely, by the appearance of angels with the cloud of glory), and so glorious that the children of Israel were not able to look upon the face of Moses, because of the shining of his countenance,” &c.

Here again we have the same idea presented; the ministration was concerning that which was engraven on the stones. And so also Lange:— “By a bold turn of expression he combines the ministry itself with its object, and designates the whole as one which was engraven in letters upon stones (the only point in which we can here agree with Meyer, who regards the decalogue as Moses’ commission, or matricula officii). The ministration of Moses and of all his successors consisted in the presentation or enforcement of the law whose letters had been engraved upon stone tables.”

Dean Alford, in his “Testament for English Readers,” takes the same view; he says:— “It seems strange that the ministration should be described as engraved on stones; but the ministration is the whole putting forth of the dispensation, the purport of which was summed up in the decalogue, written on stones.”

Conybeare and Howson, in Life and Epistles of Paul, make the same distinction between the ministration and the law. They render it thus:— “Yet if a glory was shed upon the ministration of the law of death (a law written in letters and engraven in stones).”

And yet again, Barnes says:— “The word ministration means, properly, ministry; the office of ministering in divine things. The word here seems to refer to the whole arrangement under the Mosaic economy by which his laws were promulgated and perpetuated. The expression, a ‘ministration—written and engraven on stones,’ is somewhat harsh; but the sense evidently is, the ministration of a covenant, or of laws, written on stones.”

There are very few contested passages upon which there is such a remarkable agreement of eminent authorities. They all accept the fact, which every careful reader of the Bible understands, that the ministration or service of the priests was not written on the stones; they all recognize the clear distinction between the ministration and that which was written on the stones, and that it is by a figure of speech the ministration is thus spoken of. That that ministration, or priestly service, is done away, there is no dispute, for it was typical. But the law which that typical service concerned was moral and did not and cannot pass away; and to contend that it has passed away is to discard all morality, and to contradict a multitude of scriptures.

That the apostle has in this chapter introduced the service of the two covenants, all must admit. We will carry out the comparison by an examination of other scriptures concerning them.

In Heb. 8:6, Paul says Christ is the mediator of a better covenant, that is, of the new covenant. But “a mediator is not a mediator of one.” Gal. 3:20. There must be at least two parties between whom he mediates. The parties in this matter are God, the Father, the Lawgiver, and man, the sinner. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” 1 Tim. 2:5. Therefore, as Christ is the mediator of this covenant between God and men, he is not the party covenanting, but the Father is.

“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.” We know that these are the words of the Father, and not of the Son; for the Son is the mediator of the covenant, and, as already shown, there must be two contracting parties between whom he mediates.

Again, when the covenanting party says: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts,” Jer. 31:33, we know that it refers to the law of the Father, the covenanting party, and not to the law of the Son, the mediator. It is through the instrumentality of the mediator that the law of the covenanter is put into the hearts of those with whom the covenant is made. See 2 Cor. 3:3, 8, 17, 18, and many other scriptures which show that Jesus puts away our sin and reconciles us to his Father.

God publicly proclaimed his law to Israel when he made a covenant with them at Horeb. He wrote it upon two tables of stone. When Moses brought down these tables, when he came from the presence of the Lord, his face shone with glory so that he had to vail it while he talked with Israel. The glory upon his face represented the glory of that covenant of which he was the mediator, as Paul plainly says, which is done away. The law (which was not vailed, and is not done away) was put into the ark, and over it the high priest sprinkled the blood of the sin offering, to take away their sins, showing that in regard to this law they were sinners. This was the law concerning which the covenant was made. Compare Ex. 9:5–8; Deut. 4:12, 13; Ex. 24:6–8. When God spoke to Israel by Jeremiah, six hundred years before Christ, concerning the covenant he made with their fathers, and promised to make a new covenant with them in which he would put his law in their hearts, and forgive their sins, their minds were at once directed to the law which was the condition of the first covenant; for their sins, of which forgiveness was promised in the new covenant, were transgressions of that law. In the old covenant the law was written in tables of stone; in the new, in “fleshly tables of the heart.”

Coming down to the New Testament, Jesus said he did not come to make void the law, Matt. 5:17, and Paul says it is not made void through faith; Rom. 3:31; but by it all are condemned before God, for by it is the knowledge of sin; verses 19, 20. He was convinced of sin by the law; Rom. 7:7; and he consented unto it as holy, just, and good, showing that his mind approved it, insomuch that he called it the law of his mind; verses 16, 23. And not only did his mind approve it, but his heart embraced it, for he delighted in it after the inward man; verse 22. All this shows that that pre-existing law which faith in Christ does not make void, which the Saviour did not destroy, now proves men sinners, and that Paul, as a representative man under the new covenant, had this law put in his mind and written in his heart. And so the promise of the new covenant was fulfilled in him. And he also declared that the very object of the gospel of Christ is that the righteousness, or precept, of the law may be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Rom. 8:4. By this is shown that they who violate the law walk after the flesh, while they who fulfill it through faith in Christ walk after the Spirit, which is yet further shown in verse 7: “Because the carnal mind [literally, the minding of the flesh] is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God.” Paul also says “that the law is spiritual.” Rom. 7:14. Of course the spiritually minded love and obey it, while the carnally minded can do neither.

Now from the standpoint of these words of Paul, of his own experience, and of the promises of the new covenant, it is easy to perceive the drift of his remarks in 2 Cor. 3. “We, the apostles,” said he, “are able ministers of the new covenant, not of the old.” That was glorious; this excels in glory. In that the law was written on stones; in this, in these fleshly tables of the heart. When that was ordained, the mediator, or first priest, vailed his face to hide from Israel a glory which they could not look upon, for the import of which they did not understand; in this, we all with open face behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The law, when written only on stone, can have no converting power, and there was no promise of forgiveness in that covenant; in this, the law is written in the heart by the Spirit of God, past sin is forgiven, and the subjects are changed into the same image, the image of the Lord, the mediator, from glory to glory. As our sins are taken away by the blood of the covenant, and the carnal mind, the enmity to the law, is removed, we are reconciled to God, at peace with him, and can behold the glory with unvailed face, because we are partakers of the same glory.

One point, barely mentioned, deserves a further notice in this connection. The law on the tables of stone was separated from all other laws, and was put into the ark over which the priests ministered for sin.

A certain writer, highly recommended by his denomination, when pressed to give a reason for this distinction and separation of the decalogue from all other laws, said:— “The decalogue is the constitution of the Mosaic code, i. e., it sustains the same relation to the laws that the constitution of the United States sustains to our laws. . . . I can easily account for God’s writing only the ten commandments. They were the Jewish constitution, and constitutions are usually better cared for than other laws.”

This is truth, and it is an important concession. And as our laws are subject to change or abolition without affecting the constitution, so were theirs; the special, local, or positive laws given to Israel were abolished, but that did not affect the constitution on which they were based. That was of force and conviction of sin before they were given, and it remains of force since they were nailed to the cross; for it yet remains a truth that “by the law is the knowledge of sin.” We have traced these precepts from the beginning, and they have ever taken hold on man’s moral relations to God. They are the basis, or constitution, of God’s moral government on earth; and as long as that government exists—as long as man’s moral relations to his Creator exist—so long must these precepts endure.

But the objector says this was the constitution of the Jewish government, and that having passed away, the constitution is no longer of force. A more plausible objection cannot be stated, but it is a fallacy. The fact that the ten precepts are moral, and are indispensable for the welfare of society and the preservation of morality and religion, is quite sufficient to refute the objection. They are, in fact, the groundwork of all correct human governments; but the rise and fall of these governments has no effect on their perpetuity or power. Our government does not make it wrong to steal and to kill. It protects society by punishing these actions because they are wrong. And so it is in respect to all civil governments, the Jewish not excepted. Blasphemy, murder, adultery, &c., would have been wrong if the Jewish government or Jewish nation had never existed. According to the theory of the opposers of the law, these things first became wrong after Israel left Egypt! If it had been the basis of the Jewish economy only, having no force outside of that typical system, the objection would bear with force. But the most bitter opponents of the law accept the law as a necessity in society; they even pay a portion of respect to the fourth commandment by not discarding entirely its principle, for they choose a day as a substitute for the one enjoined in that commandment. We have proved that that law was the basis of the Abrahamic covenant, and also, by both Scripture and reason, that it was and is binding on the Gentiles as well as on the Jews. Therefore its being connected with any temporary system has no effect on its perpetuity.

But there is one very important fact, clearly revealed in Scripture, which this objection disregards. We insist that “the kingdom of Israel” is not abolished. It is only suspended for a season (“till he come whose right it is.” Ezek. 21:25–27). Israel is the scriptural name for the seed and heirs of Abraham, and therefore Israel cannot cease from before the Lord as long as the promises to Abraham stand sure. In Eph. 2, speaking to Gentile converts to Christianity, Paul said they were, before their conversion, “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.”

Both covenants were made with Israel. Heb. 8:8, 9. To them pertain the covenants, the promises, the adoption, and the glory. Rom. 9:4. And therefore “salvation is of the Jews.” John 4:22. The covenant made with Israel, Jer. 31:31, the promises, the adoption, the glory, the salvation, all remain to this day. These did not pass away that substitutes might be given to the Gentiles, but the middle wall of partition is broken down and the Gentiles are “grafted in,” Rom. 11, “that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.” Eph. 3:6. The conclusion is drawn by the apostle in Eph. 2:19. Still addressing converts from the Gentiles, he says: “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners [from the commonwealth of Israel], but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.”

It needs no argument to show that when the Gentiles are grafted in and become citizens of the commonwealth of Israel, they are in duty bound to obey the constitution of that commonwealth. And this they will do if they are good citizens; and if they refuse to do this, they disfranchise themselves. See Rom. 6:14–16. In harmony with this idea, Rev. 21:12, says the New Jerusalem, the heavenly city, has its twelve gates, named after the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. The “God of Israel” hath prepared for them a city, and because the commandments are Israel’s constitution it is said, “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” Rev 22:14. None but “the Israel of God” will enter those gates. Gal. 6:16. Compare Rom. 2:28, 29; Gal. 3:19.

The naming of the gates of the heavenly city after the twelve tribes of Israel is suggestive. That city belongs to the Israel of God. To enter those gates they must keep his commandments. When God gathered his chosen people on earth to the city which was called by his name, he gave by the Spirit a pattern of a temple. 1 Chron. 28:11, 12, 19. In this temple was an inner sanctuary, called the most holy place, in which was set the ark containing the constitution of the commonwealth. It was called the ark of the covenant. That city and temple are now destroyed, and the Israel of God, heirs of the promises, are taught to fix their hopes on the New Jerusalem, the city above, the mother of us all. And as in the earthly tabernacle the high priest was appointed to minister over the ark in behalf of the law which the people had transgressed, so in the heavenly, we have a High Priest ministering for sinners. And, as “by the law is the knowledge of sin,” he ministers to remove their transgressions of the law, and to vindicate its authority. And thus we read, “The temple of God was opened in Heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament.” Rev. 11:19. Here we behold Israel’s High Priest in Israel’s city, and the great constitution laid up in the ark. Truly the constitution is well “cared for,” as it is of exceeding great value.

We are willing to submit this part of the subject to every candid reader. The following points are established:—

The ministration, or service, of the priests was not written on the tables of stone.
The distinction between the ministration and that which was written on stone is a necessary distinction, resting on an evident fact, and is sustained by such authors as Anderson, Olshausen, Bloomfield, Lange, Dean Alford, Connybeare and Howson, and Barnes.
That Paul speaks of the ministration in a figure, as the above eminent authors clearly show.
The opposite view supposes that to be written on stone which, as a plain matter of fact, was not written thereon, and makes that void which Paul says is not made void, and perverts the gospel of Christ by substituting license for pardon.
Both the context and other scriptures, especially the promises of the new covenant, show that that which was written on the tables of stone is now written on “the fleshly tables of the heart.”