HOW TO MAKE VOID THE LAW.
[The following from Wesley, on Rom. 3:31, is so much to the point that I thought it might be of general interest to the readers of the REVIEW.—A. G. B.] “It therefore behooves all who desire either to come to Christ, or to ‘walk in Him whom they have received,’ to take heed how they ‘make void the law through faith’; to secure us effectually against which, let us inquire, first, which are the most effectual ways of making void the law through faith; and secondly, how we may follow the apostle, and by faith ‘establish the law.’” “1. Let us first inquire, What are the most usual ways of making void the law through faith? Now the way for a preacher to make it all void at a stroke is—not to preach it at all. This is just the same thing as to blot it out of the oracles of God. More especially when it is done with design, when it is made a rule ‘not to preach the law’; and the very phrase, ‘a preaching of the law,’ is used as a term of reproach, as though it meant little less than ‘an enemy of the gospel.’” “2. All this proceeds from the deepest ignorance of the nature, properties, and use of the law; and proves that those who act thus either know not Christ, are utter strangers to the living faith, or at least that they are but babes in Christ, and as such ‘unskilled in the word of righteousness.’” “3. Their grand plea is this: ‘That preaching the gospel (that is, according to their judgment, the speaking of nothing but the sufferings and merits of Christ) answers all the ends of the law.’ But this we utterly deny. It does not answer the very first end of the law, namely, the convincing men of sin, the awakening those who are still asleep on the brink of hell. There may have been here and there an exempt case. One in a thousand may have been awakened by the gospel. But this is no general rule. The ordinary method of God is to convict sinners by the law, and that only. The gospel is not the means which God hath ordained, or which our Lord himself used, for this end. We have no authority in Scripture for applying it thus, nor any ground to think it will prove effectual. Nor have we any more ground to expect this from the nature of the thing. ‘They that be whole,’ as our Lord himself observes, ‘need not a physician, but they that be sick.’ It is absurd, therefore, to offer a physician to them that are whole, or that at least imagine themselves so to be. You are first to convince them that they are sick. Otherwise they will not thank you for your labor. It is equally absurd to offer Christ to them whose heart is whole, having never yet been broken. It is, in the proper sense, ‘casting pearls before swine.’ Doubtless ‘they will trample them under foot.’ And it is no more than you have reason to expect, if they also ‘turn again and rend you.’” “4. ‘But although there is no command in Scripture to offer Christ to the careless sinner, yet are there not scriptural precedents for it?’ I think not: I know not any. I believe you cannot produce one, either from the four Evangelists, or the Acts of the Apostles. Neither can you prove this to have been the practice of any of the apostles, from any passage in all their writings.” “5. Nay, does not the apostle say, in his former epistle to the Corinthians, ‘We preach Christ crucified’ (Chap. 1:23) and in his latter, ‘We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord’? Chap. 5:4. “We consent to rest the cause on this issue; to tread in his steps, to follow his example. Only preach you just as St. Paul preached, and the dispute is at an end. For although we are certain he preached Christ in as perfect a manner as the very chief of the apostles, yet who preached the law more than St. Paul? Therefore, he did not think the gospel answered the same end.” “6. The very first sermon of St. Paul’s which is recorded, concludes in these words: ‘By him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest that come upon you which is spoken of in the prophets, Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish; for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you.’ Acts 13:39, etc. Now it is manifest, all this is preaching the law in the sense wherein you understand the term; even although a great part of, if not all his hearers, were either Jews or religious proselytes (verse 43), and therefore, probably many of them, in some degree at least, convinced of sin already. He first reminds them that they could not be justified by the law of Moses, but only by faith in Christ; and then severely threatens them with the judgments of God, which is, in the strongest sense, preaching the law.” “7. In his next discourse, that to the heathens at Lystra (Chap. 14:15, etc.), we do not find so much as the name of Christ. The whole purport of it is, that they should ‘turn from those vain idols unto the living God.’ Now confess the truth. Do not you think if you had been there you could have preached much better than he? I should not wonder if you thought, too, that his preaching so ill occasioned his being stoned; and that his being stoned was a just judgment upon him for not preaching Christ!” “8. To the jailor indeed, when ‘he sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ he immediately said, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.’ (Chap. 16:29, etc.) And in the case of one so deeply convinced of sin, who would not have said the same? But to the men of Athens you find him speaking in a quite different manner, reproving their superstition, ignorance, and idolatry; and strongly moving them to repent, from the consideration of a future judgment, and of the resurrection from the dead. (Chap. 17:24-31.) Likewise, when Felix sent for Paul, on purpose that he might hear him concerning the faith in Christ; instead of preaching Christ in your sense (which would probably have caused the governor either to mock or to contradict and blaspheme), he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, till Felix (hardened as he was) trembled. (Chap. 24:24, 25.) Go thou and tread in his steps. Preach Christ to the careless sinner, by reasoning of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come!” “9. If you say, ‘But he preached Christ in a different manner in his epistles,’ I answer, He did not there preach at all: not in that sense wherein we speak; for preaching in our question means, speaking before a congregation.” “But waiving this, I answer, His epistles are directed, not to unbelievers, such as those we are now speaking of, but to the saints of God, in Rome, Corinth, Philippi, and other places. Now, unquestionably, he would speak more of Christ to these than to those who were without God in the world. And yet, every one of these is full of the law, even the epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, in both of which he does what you term preaching the law, and that to believers as well as unbelievers.” “10. From hence it is plain you know not what it is to preach Christ, in the sense of the apostle. For, doubtless, St. Paul judged himself to be preaching Christ, both to Felix, and at Antioch, Lystra, and at Athens. From whose example every thinking man must infer that not only the declaring the love of Christ to sinners, but also the declaring that he will come from heaven in flaming fire, is, in the apostle’s sense, preaching Christ, yea, in the full scriptural meaning of the word. To preach Christ is to preach what he hath revealed either in the Old or New Testament; so that you are then as really preaching Christ when you are saying, ‘The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget God,’ as when you are saying, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!’” “11. Consider this well: that to preach Christ is to preach all things that Christ hath spoken; all his promises, all his threatenings and commands; all that is written in his book. And then you will know how to preach Christ without making void the law.”