p. 148 | THE LAW OF THE GOSPEL

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 10, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 10.

THE LAW OF THE GOSPEL.

By The Occident (Presbyterian)

PAUL says, "By grace are ye saved." "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified." Then, some have asked, what have Christians to do with the law? It is still the rule of duty—the measure of our conformity to the will of God. Our Saviour in his sermon on the mount said, "Be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect." And he inspired the author of the epistle to the Hebrews to declare that without holiness no man shall see the Lord. And he declares in Revelation that in the last day every man shall be judged according to his works.

The Common Version of Rev. 22:14 is, "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." The Revised Version reads, "Blessed are they that wash their robes," etc. The difference is less than it seems. In one case perfect obedience, in the other perfect purity. We are to be measured by the celestial standard, and if we fall short we are excluded. All this and much more that we might quote shows that Paul understood full well the relation of the gospel to the law, when he cried so indignantly, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid."

The object of Christ's humiliation and sufferings was not to save those who continue in sin, but "to save his people from their sins." Hence the great apostle writes to the Thessalonians, "Ye are called unto holiness." And to the Ephesians, that Christ gave himself for the church, that he might sanctify and cleanse it, and present it unto himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, holy and without blemish. As a wise builder rejects every stone and timber that his plummet condemns, as he will not put in anything that is crooked and will not square with the perfect parts of

his edifice, so God will reject, in the construction of his glorious church, "anything that defileth or worketh abomination or maketh a lie."

What then is the practical lesson to each believer of this relation of the law to the gospel? Is it not progressive sanctification? Is it not that he who has chosen us in Christ will by his truth, his Spirit, and his providence make us meet for the inheritance of his saints in light? When he applies the plumb-line, he will also apply the mallet and the chisel. We all as lively stones are built up a spiritual house. But stones must be squared before they are laid in a wall. The architect cannot square the building until he has squared every stone that is to go into it. Lively stones can feel the cutting of the graver’s tools. We shrink from the discipline that we need. We sometimes murmur at the wise Master Builder and think he deals harshly with us. But all that he does is necessary—is for our good. An old writer says, "The souls that God loves best he oftenest has his tools upon." And Jesus himself said, "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten."

By the law, its spirit as well as letter—by the law as the standard of perfection, we are tested day by day—to it every line and angle of our characters is to be gradually but surely conformed. We go to Heaven as holy as the angels, as perfect as the jewels in its walls. There can be no true happiness without conformity to the will of God, without transformation into his image. That is the slow and often painful, yet the blessed work of his grace from day to day. And he who would be perfect must not shrink from the testing that reveals his imperfections, nor from the providence, however harsh it seems, by which God would correct them. The church to-day is tempted to antinomianism, and we ought to ponder, prayerfully, the fact that Christ came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it.