From the Top, Down

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 16, 1878

FROM THE TOP, DOWN.

People ask us why we spend so much time exalting the commandments and speaking of the requirements of law, and what men are to do to be saved. Why not preach Christ, exalt Christ, and let these other matters pass?

Well, indeed, would this not be the best way? Why should we not act on the same principle that men do in building a house? That is, if we were to put up a building, why not build the upper part of the chimney, put on the roof, finish off some of the upper rooms, and see how the thing is going to look, before building the lower part or providing a foundation? What is the use of hammering away so long on the foundation, and getting that all right, before putting up the house? The superstructure is the part that makes the most show anyway. Let us have the upper stories, the chambers, the roof, the towers, but no matter about the sills and the foundation.

Just so with Christian doctrine. No matter about the commandments and the law, and rules of life and moral obligation, but let us have Jesus, his love, his mercy, his promises, seek Jesus, confess Jesus and be saved.

We have now lying before us a letter dictated by distorted views of this kind. The writer says:—

“Please ask yourself if you are not mistaken in spending so much time exalting the fourth commandment. It appears to me that Christ Jesus should be the theme of every Christian. Why, Paul said he was determined to know nothing else. His promises, his blessings, his loving words to his children—what more do we need? ‘The Spirit and the bride say, Come.’ Come and hear, come and see, come and reason, come and rest, come and eat and drink, come and dine, come and find grace, come unto the marriage, come and inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world—and then his promises of eternal life to those that will come,” &c.

All true, and all right enough in its place; but we must have something before this. Before we can reach these themes, we must find a foundation upon the eternal Rock, from which by successive steps we can bring ourselves up to them. To make these first, last, and only, the theme, is to begin at the top to build instead of at the foundation.

We are to come to Christ; but how are we to come? By repentance and faith, we should be told, if people would stop now-a-days to ask and answer such a question. But why are we to repent? Because we have committed sin? And what is sin? The apostle answers, 1 John 3:4: “Sin is the transgression of the law;” and another apostle adds, “By the law is the knowledge of sin,” “Where no law is there is no transgression,” “Sin is not imputed when there is no law.” Rom. 3:20; 4:15; 5:13.

So few and short are the steps which bring us directly to the law, when we bestow one serious thought upon this great question of coming to Christ, and when we ask for the whys and wherefores involved therein. Now we have a foundation upon which to build. The law shows us our sins. The law holds us under condemnation. The law dooms us to death. And the law is holy, just, and good. It was necessary that it should be given. The whole universe would be but a howling universe of anarchy without it. God could do no otherwise than lay its claims upon his morally responsible creatures. Christ comes in to save us. How? Not by releasing us from obligation to obey, thus hurling insult into the face of his Father, but to save us from the guilt of having transgressed, and then giving us a disposition to be the children of obedience for time to come. Then no terms are too strong, no notes too high, to show forth the praises of Christ.

But any preaching for the salvation of men which leaves out these great foundation principles, is sound without sense, wind without water, the froth of the sea foam. It cannot be likened to a house built upon the sand; for that illustration contains a house too much to be applicable.

True Christian character is not built from the top down. It starts from a solid foundation and is securely and symmetrically built upward. And that foundation is a recognition of the law of God, an acknowledgment of its claims, a painful consciousness of having transgressed it, and pungent conviction of the sin of such a course. Then can come the superstructure of faith in Christ as the sin-pardoner, with the grateful acknowledgment of all his work, and the joyful acceptance of all his promises, the freedom from condemnation, and the hope which his pardoning love inspires. But this can continue only so long as we endeavor to live a life of obedience, avoiding the sins of the past for which we have received a Saviour’s pardon. For if we claim acceptance through Christ, while we willfully or willingly continue to transgress, we make him the minister of sin.