HOW THE LAW WORKS IN THE OBEDIENT AND IN THE TRANSGRESSOR.
By T. H. Starbuck
“The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” Ps. 19:7. “The law worketh wrath.” Rom. 4:15. These expressions from the word of God show unmistakably that the law is an active agency. If it converts the soul, then it is the power that works righteousness. This happy condition, however, can become established only in those who choose to have its pure principles written in their hearts; for this operation of the law in the heart depends upon the will or choice of the individual. God never interferes with the freedom of the will. He compels none to accept that condition. His word is life and power; and his law is primarily and constitutionally his word. As the law is an active agency of Almighty Power, it is in active operation in all living intelligences. The results of its operation are modified by the moral condition of the intelligent creature. They may be righteousness, or they may be sin, according to the mind which controls the individual. The Bible contains many expressions evincing that the law is an active, intelligent, forceful agency. Its work is compared to that of a minister. Its operation is called a ministration. Sin is a condition from which spring evil deeds; and righteousness is a state from which spring good deeds. The law is the natural power which God gives to his intelligent creatures and which gives them capacity to act. In this sinful state that power works wrath; but if the individual chooses Christ that same power works righteousness. In the former of these conditions the law is the “ministration of death;” in the latter, it is the “ministration of righteousness.” If God’s laws are not living, active agencies, working out his will, then he is not the Supreme Ruler. But it is known that his laws execute his will, for we read that he upholds all things by the word of his power. His word, or law, executes his will, which establishes his supremacy. He does not have to depend upon some ulterior agency to execute his will embodied in his law. He is supreme, and dependent upon nothing. Throughout his dominions all things proceed by the regular operation of his laws. There are two conditions then under which the law works out results. The first of these is normal, universal, and eternal; and is that phase of the operation of divine law which reveals God’s righteousness. It is the natural and characteristic revelation of God throughout his illimitable dominions. In this state of God’s native holiness, all his laws are conservatory forces. The natural trend of Almighty Power is not only to create, but to perpetuate without limit. All worlds except ours are embraced within this reign of righteousness. God is not the Author of death. All his laws are laws of life. “In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.” Prov. 12:28. Could we but be translated to other worlds, we would find conditions there under which life reigns as positively and supremely as death reigns here. The second of these conditions is abnormal, local, and transitory; and is unknown except where sin exists. Sin is contrary to God because it perverts the laws which he has set in operation in a manner to perpetuate all created things, and turns them into destructive forces. For this reason “the wages of sin is death.” This reign of evil introduced by sin is only local. It is unknown experimentally except in this one lost world. It is an excrescence striving for existence in the midst of God’s eternal and universal reign of righteousness, and draws its temporary nourishment from the life forces of God. It is rife with power; but it is God’s power perverted. “There is no power but of God.” Rom. 13:1. God’s conservatory forces of righteousness are turned by sin into the destructive forces denominated “the curse of the law.” Gal. 3:13. “Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.” James 1:15. This abnormal action is in the nature of divine law, and is an inevitable penalty; and it is best for the creatures of God that it is so, for it prevents the perpetuation of the miseries of sin. The evidences found in the Bible, and corroborated also by nature, are numerous, showing that sin changes the administration of God’s power into a destructive energy resulting in death. In Eze. 20:24, God’s accusation against Israel is that they had grievously transgressed his laws; and in the next verse the result of sin is stated. “Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live.” That which God says he gave them is simply the result of their transgression. He gave it through the abnormal operation of his laws which their sin ushered in. Sin perverted good laws, and changed them into channels of evil. Other scriptures confirm this theory. 2 Cor. 3:7-11 contains evidence that when the law was promulgated from Sinai, a ministration of death was written and engraven in stones against a sinful race; but that ministration of death can be disannulled by Christ and superseded by the ministration of righteousness. It is accomplished by the crucifixion of the flesh, so that there will be no obstacle in the way of the normal operation of the law in the individual’s life. Rom. 8:2 contains words of similar import. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” The same law is the law of life to the obedient, and a law of death to the disobedient. Christ disannuls the latter and establishes the former. It is only in Christ that the sinner can have any hope of having this transformation take place in him. There are evidences in nature all around7us that we are in the midst of a reign of evil. Nothing is permanent. All things are passing away. Death reigns because sin is doing its deadly work perverting the operation of the laws of God. The existence of this reign of death is evidence that there is a reign of life. If there were not an administration of power that is eternal, this reign of death would not have been possible. This imperfect state proves the existence of a perfect one. The forces of sin are not creative, but destructive. Sin can only destroy; it can not create. Hence the work of the Creator is to perpetuate, but the work of sin is to destroy; and if the Creator had not first done a work, sin could neither exist nor do its work. The Spirit of God is the source of all life, all divine law, and all the forces of nature. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” Zech. 4:6. The Spirit is the secret energy of all things. It is the “all power” that belongs to God. The modes by which it works out the will of God are his laws. That is why the word of his power is spirit and life. When God formed man he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, or his Spirit: “All the while my breath is in me, and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils.” Job 27:3. The Spirit of God breathed into man became the source of all the powers of his being. By breathing his Spirit into man’s wonderful physical organization, God wrote his law, or moral image, in the nature of man. All the powers of his being are God-given powers. The parable of the talents illustrates the way in which God imparts his power to men, and how he will require of each one the improvement of that which he bestows. The right, or normal, use of those powers is righteousness; but the abnormal use of them is sin. As the Spirit of God is the source of those powers, or the source of the law written in man’s nature, it is evident that sin is a defilement of the Spirit. By transgression, the Spirit which God gives to man becomes filthy. “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit.” 2 Cor. 7:1. While man is in sin the spirit in him is defiled. When he is converted that defiled spirit is renewed, or cleansed. “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” Ps. 51:10. When man was first created all the powers and faculties of his being were in harmony with God. He had complete self-control, and consequently could direct the use of his powers in the way of righteousness. He was led by the Spirit. But when he transgressed the word of God, he lost that complete self-control, and became subject to a mind directly contrary to the mind of the Spirit. In the state of sin all the energies of man’s being are subject to the “fleshly mind;” but in the state of righteousness they are under the control of the Spirit. There is the mind of the flesh, and the mind of the Spirit. So long as the mind of the flesh is active in man his life will be sinful; but if he heeds the word of God, and lets the mind which was in Christ dwell in him, his life will be righteous. The mind, or will, of the man modifies the results of the Spirit’s action. This is why God tells man to “keep the heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” Prov. 4:23. Sin has changed man’s nature to “sinful flesh;” and while the law (or spiritual force) is still in his being (Rom. 2:15), it can not work out righteousness there because of the weakness of the flesh. “For 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 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. The way the law works in transgressors is illustrated in humanity controlled by sinful flesh; but the way it works in the obedient is perfectly illustrated in Christ. The presence of Christ in sinful flesh is the only remedy for its weakness. “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.” 1 John 4:2. Happy is the man who has the Spirit of Christ in him; for in him the law works out righteousness. Self-control is regained by Christ within, the hope of glory.