A NEED OF FURTHER "STUDY."
By W. N. G.
OUR attention has been called to a copy of the Pacific Baptist, of date May 4, 1893, containing an article entitled "A Study of the Sabbath Question," by Rev. I. W. Read, of Seattle, Wash. We are requested to notice some of the results of the aforesaid "study," and will do so as briefly as possible consistent with comprehensive comment. As a sample of the arguments presented we give the following:— There are those who, in relation to the Sabbath, desire to live under the law both in letter and spirit, while others deny the binding force of the letter, but unhesitatingly accept the spirit of the law. It is the desire in this study to prove, if possible, that neither the letter nor the spirit of the law, as such, is binding upon the Christian. He is above and beyond law. He lives under a system of grace and not works. The ten commandments as given by Moses to Israel are not in force to-day. They were given under a system of works; we live under a system of grace. For one, I have no desire to live under the law,—I have something better. It is evident that the author here quoted is laboring under a misunderstanding as to what it is to be "under the law." This misunderstanding has led him into a perfect slough of error, filling five columns of the paper. He is apparently beating around Rom. 6:14, or, rather, a part of that verse, as those who use it for the purpose of making void the law usually pervert it by quoting only the expression "ye are not under the law, but under grace." Let us read the whole verse: "For sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace." Now what is sin? Let John answer: "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law; for sin is the transgression of the law." 1 John 3:4. Then those who transgress the law are they over whom sin has dominion; and those over whom sin has not dominion are of course they who obey the law, and are therefore "not under the law." Let us now read the next verse: "What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid." Bear in mind that "sin is the transgression of the law," and we have Paul's question thus: "Shall we transgress the law because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid." The same question is asked in the first verse of the same chapter: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" Remembering again John's definition of sin, we have Paul asking, "Shall we continue to transgress the law, that grace may abound?" and himself answering, "God forbid." But John is not alone in defining sin as the transgression of the law; Paul himself says that "where no law is, there is no transgression" (Rom. 4:15), and "sin is not imputed when there is no law" (chapter 5:13). Returning to the expression, "How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" the question arises, What is it to be dead to sin? Verse 11 shows that it is equivalent to being "alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Without Christ all are under condemnation of the law, "for all have sinned" (transgressed), and the "wages of sin is death." But "by grace are ye saved through faith" (Eph. 2:8); that brings us out from the condemnation of the law. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:1. To this add Gal. 5:18: "If ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law." Therefore those who are not led by the Spirit, who walk "after the flesh," sinners (transgressors of the law), are under the law, and not under grace. Faith takes us out from "under the law"—by securing our pardon for its transgression, but does that destroy the law? Let Paul answer: "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law." No act of God could more forcibly declare the existence and force of the law than to pardon its transgressor; and no act of man could more emphatically acknowledge his obligation to the law than to confess himself a sinner and ask for pardon; for, as before quoted, "where no law is, there is no transgression." Again the same apostle says, "I had not known sin, but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." Chapter 7:7. As to the assertion that the Christian "is above and beyond law," that is equivalent to saying that he is "above and beyond" the Lawgiver. We read of a certain party "who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God" (2 Thess. 2:3, 4), but he is called "that man of sin," "the son of perdition." The author says he has "no desire to live under the law;" but his proposed remedy is disobedience. Neither do we "desire to live under the law;" but our proposed remedy is obedience. "Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." But we pass to another quotation which, with its context, is simply the outgrowth of the former error:— Christ was the end and the fulfillment of the law, as is clearly set forth in the New Testament. Christ said, as recorded in Luke 16:16, "The law and the prophets were until John; since that time the kingdom of God is preached," clearly showing that men now had something better to think about and act upon. Further on, the author conveys the idea that the "end" was the stopping place. He seems to lose sight of the fact that the word "end" has other significations. It here means "the object aimed at" (see Webster), as in Rom. 14:9, "For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living;" also, as in 1 Peter 1:9, "Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls." The object in view is that the whole creation should have the perfection of Christ, who kept his Father's commandments (John 15:10), and of whom it was written, "I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart" (Ps. 40:8). Thus "Christ is the end [object] of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth." Rom. 10:4. The expression, "the law and the prophets were until John," does not mean that they ended with John. But when Christ came, of whom the prophets spake, there was an additional feature of the proclamation of salvation. That John continued preaching the law is shown in that he called upon men to "repent" of sin (the transgression of the law), and denounced sin in all its forms. To this he added,755"for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." On Luke 16:16 Dr. Adam Clarke says: "The law and the prophets continued to be the sole teachers till John came, who first [in its fuller development] began to proclaim the glad tidings of the kingdom of God." When Christ began preaching, his message was the same as that of John, "Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Matt. 4:17. If the law were not still in force, there could be no sin for them to repent of; for, as already shown, "where no law is, there is no transgression." On the day of Pentecost, also, when the people, being convicted of sin, asked what they should do, Peter, speaking under the direct influence of the Holy Spirit, replied: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins." What sins, if the law ended with John the Baptist? Again, in Acts 17:30, Paul tells the Athenians that God "commandeth all men everywhere to repent." Then the law—whose transgression constitutes sin, and without which "sin is not imputed"—must be binding upon "all men everywhere." We make one more quotation, just to show how naturally the author, having started wrong, was led into other errors in order to maintain his position:— "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." Matt. 5:17. Where a thing is fulfilled it is not destroyed, but is simply a fact of history. The remainder of this fifth chapter of Matthew shows that Christ laid more stress upon the law than had been done before, showing that it not only takes cognizance of the outward acts but of the thoughts of the heart. Christ, on another occasion, summarized the law into two leading thoughts, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself." Luke 10:27. Is this "simply a fact of history," or is it duty yet? The question needs no answer. But this summary of the law is, in Matt. 22:37-40, put in the form of "two commandments," and the Lord says that on these "hang all the law and the prophets." Every principle of the law is involved in this brief summary; hence "love is the fulfilling of the law" (Rom. 13:10), "and this is love, that we walk after his commandments" (2 John 6). It is not enough that Christ fulfill the law. He is our example, and in him it is made possible for us to "walk even as he walked;" and "he that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk." 1 John 2:6. The law itself could not help the transgressor to become obedient; therefore "what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin [the transgression of the law] in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:3, 4. Thus we see there is yet considerable fulfilling to be done before the law of God becomes "simply a fact of history." It is clear that the student to whose conclusions we have here referred would do well to make one more "study," the next time from a correct standpoint.