One Royal Law by R. F. Cottrell

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 4, 1886

One Royal Law.

By R. F. Cottrell

MANY persons claim that the teaching of the New Testament, is that Christians are under no obligation to keep the ten commandments, but that they are under the law of faith (Rom. 3:27), which they call the "law of Christ" (Gal. 6:2), "the royal law" (James 2:8), and "the law of liberty" (James 2:12). But let us briefly examine this position.

1. The new commandment of Christ is that his disciples should love one another. The bearing of one another's burdens fulfills this law; for it is the proof of real love. So also the proof of our love to God is that we keep his commandments. 1 John 5:3. But the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves was not new in the days of Christ. It was "an old commandment" which had come down from the beginning. 1 John 2:7, 8. In Lev. 19:18 we read: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." The most pious disciple of Christ could do no more than this. What, then, sustains its character as new? The example of Christ, which furnishes a new motive to obedience. Said he, "This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you." John 15:12.

2. The royal law—the law of liberty. A royal law proceeds from royalty; in other words, it is the law of a king. That of which the apostle speaks is the law of the King eternal. This law is perfect. "But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty." James 1:25. God's law in ancient times was perfect. Said David, "The law of the Lord is perfect." Ps. 19:7. A perfect law cannot be improved. The slightest change would make it imperfect. And there cannot be two perfect rules of moral action differing from each other. Therefore the perfect law of David and that of James is the same law precisely.

The apostle teaches his brethren to "fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Instead of writing a new law for this dispensation, he goes back to the Scriptures of the Old Testament for his authority. We have quoted the particular scripture to which he refers.—Lev. 19:18. It contains the grand principle, or sum, of the last six commandments of the ten. To have respect of persons violates this principle; and to violate this principle is to violate this portion of the law which teaches us our duty to our fellow-men. Therefore the apostle says, "But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors." This is harmonious. "Sin is the transgression of the law"—the law convicts of sin. And he teaches obedience to the whole law. Says he, "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." Of what law is he speaking? The next verse reveals it. He continues: "For he that said [margin, that law which said], Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill." These two precepts are a part of the law of ten commandments; and the apostle expressly inculcates the keeping of the whole law of which these are a part. This is the royal law, the "perfect law of liberty." It is the only standard of morals. By this law all men, both ancient and modern, are to be judged.

How strange that men can be so blinded, their reasoning powers so perverted, that they can refer to this text as proof that the ten commandments have been abolished and superseded by a vague, undefinable something which they call the law of liberty, which they vainly fancy gives them the liberty to break one of those precepts the "whole" of which the apostle so emphatically requires! How sad to be awakened by the decisions of the Judgment to the fact that they have taken unwarrantable liberty with the law of God, instead of so speaking, and so doing as they who are to be judged by it!

R. F. COTTRELL.