A Spiritual Autobiography—VI
By J. A. L. Derby
THE more I have studied the law of God, the more I have found in it to study. Like the nerve fibers of the spinal column, which ramify into millions of subdivisions, extending to all parts of the body, so the law of God runs into the history of every moment of time, and directly or indirectly into every part of nature and revelation. The laws of nature are God's usual ways of acting with inanimate things—His will concerning the obedience of such objects. The Decalogue is His will with reference to the obedience of free moral agents. As a matter of fact, it is not man on trial during the ages; it is the law of God. Incidentally, man is tested, tho he is but the means by which the demonstration is wrought. When a third of the angelic host, with Lucifer as their leader, revolted, before time was, the results of disobedience to the divine law were not known by experience. Angels are but finite beings; therefore only by faith in God's word (I do not, of course, mean the Bible) could they know that rebellion against His government is ultimately death. Had the revolt of the angels been immediately crushed by their destruction, opportunity for doubt would still have existed. God will suffer sin to remain—in other words, will permit Satan to work out his claims—in as many ways and to such an extent as is necessary to satisfy every rational creature that infraction of the law must result in ruin. What was the test in the Garden of Eden?—Obedience or death. The old serpent denied it. And ever since, he has been persuading men not only that there is something faulty with God's requirements, but also that no such dire results will follow rejection of them. When I once clearly saw this fact, and remembered, further, that the arch-adversary of God is still “the prince of this world,” I knew for certain that I should find the majority of people in so-called Christian lands tinkering the law up in some way different from the form in which God gave it. And is it so?—Most assuredly. Where is the “Christian” nation that does not observe Sunday instead of the Sabbath? Yet God has never, with reference to His law, had any other purpose than obedience. If necessary, we might quote illustrative texts covering the period from creation to Moses. But it will be sufficient to begin with the Exodus and the Mosaic law. Observe the emphatic statement in Jer. 7:21-23: “Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: but this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be My people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.”
Again, later on, when the chosen people had demanded a king, and the Lord had granted one, the same principle is reasserted. To King Saul, the prophet Samuel said: “Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to harken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.” 1 Sam. 15:22, 23. So from creation to Christ, obedience and sin stand as opposites. To be obedient was to refrain from sin. To sin was disobedience. When Jesus came, we find Him accepting unquestioningly this antithesis as correct. And we have already seen that His first preaching was a call to repentance from sin, with no intimation that sin was in any sense a different thing from what it had been since creation. Sin in the time of Christ was sin precisely as in the time of Adam or Solomon. And such it is to-day, and such it will be forever. The same law that condemned the sin of Cain, condemns any kind of murder to-day. I may commit murder by drinking whisky; you may murder yourself by wilful starvation. But Cain and you and I all violate the same law: “Thou shalt not kill.” I may worship joss; you may love money so much as to make you dishonest; another may love his tobacco so dearly that it keeps him from becoming a Christian. But we all three break exactly the same command as did the worshipers of Moloch: “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” You may keep Sunday; I may keep Friday; another man may keep Wednesday. But none of us would be keeping the day God blessed and sanctified as a memorial of His creative work, and set apart for us to observe as a sign that He is the Lord our God. (Eze. 20:12, 20.) Jesus kept the Ten Commandments, and taught that salvation depends upon our accepting Him to enable us to keep them. Each True Messenger and the Decalogue
This brief sketch of the rule of duty through the ages is sufficient to illustrate how every true messenger of God has confirmed obedience to the Decalogue. Nay, more: As far back as we trace events in heaven, before time was, we find no change in the righteous standard that points out sin. In the eternity past, the Father and the Son, foreseeing the departure of man from that standard, planned (I speak human-wise, for God does not plan) to bring Their erring creature back. “We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory,” etc. (1 Cor. 2:7-10.) “Who hath saved us [from sin, to eternal life, which Jesus said depends on keeping the Ten Commandments], and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” 2 Tim. 1:9. In a former article I gave in outline the line of Bible study by which I came to see that God has but one fundamental law for His government both on earth and in heaven. To this agree the words of the psalmist, “Forever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven.” Ps. 119:89. We noticed the final nature of that law,—a fact well understood by His ancient people, as brought to light in such texts as the following: “I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before Him.” Eccl. 3:14. A still more emphatic declaration of this truth was made by Jesus Himself: “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.” Luke 16:17. And later, the great apostle, showing the relation of faith to the law, affirms unequivocally: “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.” Rom. 3:31. But what did Paul mean by our establishing the law? Was it not firmly settled before? Did God need the feeble hand of man to make His law permanent? That is not the sense in which the apostle uses the word. What he means is, that we acknowledge and verify the truth and obligation of the law. That is exactly what the obedience of faith does. Yet, notwithstanding the absolute permanency of the law, from the standpoint of the divine purpose, that fact could not be fully appreciated by finite creatures until they had a demonstration of it. The occasion for such a demonstration came about by sin. Would God change His law to save guilty man, or must that law be satisfied? The penalty for violation is death. Must man die? Death there must be, or the law altered or abolished. But God could not change the law; for being, as it is, a law of perfect righteousness, it must be a transcript of God's character—the very righteousness of God. Therefore man must either die or provide a substitute. But as no finite substitute could avail, God forever demonstrated the unalterable nature of His law by Himself suffering the penalty for man. Righteousness is life; sin only ends in death. Hence death could have no final conquest over God manifest in flesh. If, then, we by faith unite ourselves with Him, our lives are “hid with Christ in God,” and He being risen from the dead, henceforth to die no more, we have eternal life in Him.8 The Supreme Manifestation of Love
But the death of Christ was something besides the vindication of Heaven's law; it was the supreme manifestation of God's love for man. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. There is a remarkable law of human nature, ultimate in character, and passing analysis, that love begets love. I know of no explanation of this any more than of the fact that we laugh instead of cry at the ridiculous, manifest sorrow by weeping rather than by laughing, or burn with indignation at injustice, etc. All we can say is that we are so made. Gravitation is, and that is all we know of its origin, except, of course, that its source is God. Now if the love of God, especially as displayed in the sacrifice of Jesus, is not enough to arouse our highest loyalty to Him, and reconcile us to His law of love, I—well—but surely none can resist it, if he understands it. And thus we have the new covenant—the law written in our affections by love, established in our hearts by faith. And thus shall it be throughout the universe, when these dark days of sin shall have been blotted from the calendar of eternity. Then shall righteousness cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Then “it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the Lord.” Then shall be “heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth,”—yea, even by His law of love.