The Wonderful Law of Life
LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. No. 5.
The Wonderful Law of Life.
ALL life is from God; for with Him "is the fountain of life." Ps. 36:9. This must never be forgotten. From the great Fountain, the Heart of the universe, pulses the life currents to all the creation from mineral to man. God's life is given subject to two relations: (1) "The relation of the creature to the Creator; (2) the natural manifestations, fruits, developments, etc., as regards the law of the creature's own being. In man, the first relation, as hitherto pointed out, is governed by the law of character, spiritual in its nature; the second relation of life, as regards the natural manifestations, developments, etc., is governed by physical law. The first law is all-dominant in man's career. It is the law of God's life. Its basis is righteousness, the very character of God. For as "God is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works," His life must flow to all His creatures in harmony with His holy law. In other words, God's law is the law of His life. It is the expression of life's normal flow. According to it, life would flow on forever, knowing no perversion, no death. For "in the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death." Prov. 12:28. "The commandment . . . was ordained to life." Rom. 7:10. That law is the law of man's character. "Be ye holy; for I the Lord your God am holy," is the Lord's injunction to man. This law is given in a twofold form to man,—largely negative in the Decalogue; positive in the character of love in Jesus Christ. It comes to sinful man in its negative form. That sin—"the transgression [perversion] of the law"—might be seen to be "exceeding sinful;" that man might forever know without excuse what sin was, God spoke His law from heaven with His own voice. God wrote His law in the beginning in man's physical being, but man so perverted it that with His own finger God wrote it again in tables of the enduring rock. It was a complete law in itself. "He added no more." Ex. 24:12; Deut. 5:22. This is what James designates "the royal law according to Scripture," "the law of liberty," by which men "shall be judged," the law which prohibits killing and adultery. James 2:8-12. This clearly shows that the Decalogue is the royal law to which the apostle refers, the law of the great King. Other scriptures clearly show the same truth. Here are four expressions:—
"All unrighteousness is sin." 1 John 5:17.
"Sin is the transgression of the law." 1 John 3:4.
"By the law is the knowledge of sin." Rom. 3:20.
"Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." Rom. 7:7. The only law which declares, "Thou shalt not covet," is the Decalogue. It enjoins all righteousness; it condemns all sin. There is not an act or principle of righteousness in all God's character but what the law witnesses to it. There is not a sin in the whole Satanic catalogue of transgression that is not condemned by the law. "But," says the anti-nomian, "the law, the Decalogue, says nothing about hatred or selfishness." Let us see. Each commandment is the expression of a principle, striking against the highest transgression of the principle, and including in its scope every lower transgression. For instance, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me," not only condemns rival gods to Jehovah, but condemns all that selfishness which would even seek to divide affections with God. "Thou shalt not kill," not only prohibits murder, but every principle and passion which if developed to the ultimate would result in murder. It therefore condemns envy and pride and hatred. "Thou shalt not commit adultery," includes in its exceeding breadth every impure cherished thought. Such is the nature of God's law in its negative or prohibitive form. In its positive form it is the law of love and life, enjoining love to God with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength, and one's neighbor as himself. In this way it was manifest in the life of Christ; and His blameless life no precept of the Decalogue condemned. When man lived the perfect law of God, the eternal life of Christ flowed in continual streams into every fiber of his being. The physical law of his life was in harmony with God's righteous law. When he transgressed God's law, he perverted God's life in the law of his physical being. The transgression of righteousness is sin. The perversion of life is death. Before man sinned, righteousness was incarnate, or infleshed, and would have forever so reigned if man had never transgressed. But after man fell, sin became incarnate. Man's physical nature became subject to a perverted law, the law of sin working counter to God's law of righteousness. Still God gave His life. Still from the great Heart of Heaven pulsed forth into humanity the streams of eternal life. But man received that life into a sin-subject body, and, tho it sustains him for a time, perverted life eventuates in death. Such has ever since the fall been the law of man's physical being. He sinned, and he died. He could give to his posterity nothing more than he himself possessed, and hence all mankind are doomed to death. In all mankind by nature sin is incarnate. The mind, the soul, the affections are in harmony with sin. "The carnal mind [the minding of the flesh] is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8:7. And "to be carnally minded is death." Death and all its concomitant woe and misery have been the heritage of the sinful race ever since the fall, and the whole creation has groaned and travailed, longing for deliverance. Now, as in righteousness alone is life, it follows that man must obtain righteousness, in order to again receive into his own being the eternal life of God. How he may do this will be the subject of our next.