Life and Its Law

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 24, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 43.

LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. No. 3.

Life and Its Law.

IN every creature the Creator placed the law of that creature's life. Obedience to that law means continuance of life. Eternal obedience means eternal life.

Even the seemingly inorganic mineral comes within this reign of law and life, each particular kind having its particular law. For instance, the crystals of chloride of sodium, or common salt, have their characteristic form. If dissolved and again crystallized, they resume their own characteristic shape. The crystals of chloride of potassium of Iceland spar are of other forms, and so on to the end. The perversion of the law of the formation of these crystals destroys their cohesion, and disintegration, death, follows.

Plants have their law in life; in other words, there flows out from the great Fountain the eternal life of God into the plant. Normally the plant would live forever. If its law is perverted, the power of its life works death.

The same is true of animals—beast, fowl, reptile, fish, and insect, only in higher degree.

The life is the same in all. It flows out from the same eternal Fountain, furnishing each of God's creatures according to the law of its being, and perpetuating the existence of each as long as the law of its life is obeyed. From the highest man to the lowest polyp, nay, even to the crystal rock, all are maintained and sustained by the life of God, each according to the law of its being, written therein at its creation.

Over all these lower creations man was made king. "And God said, . . . Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." Gen. 1:26. "Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands." Ps. 8:6.

The law of man's life, of man's existence, of man's being, is the law of God's character. In other words, the moral law of God is the law of God's life; and to God's design that man should possess His character was coupled the glorious thought, purpose, that, having that character, man should live forever; his conscious, joyous existence should run parallel with that of his Maker.

Perversion of Righteousness and Life.

But the choice must be man's. If man preferred the glorious boon of God's eternal life, himself God's agency in ministering it to his own and to the creatures over which he was given dominion, he could choose and possess it by yielding willingly to its blessed law. But if man preferred his own way, which is ever the perversion of God's way, he must take the consequences of death; for as righteousness is the character of God, embracing all that is good, so sin is the perversion of God's righteousness. It is "missing the mark" of God's glory. It is turning by the power of choice the unselfish ways and works of God to selfish uses. For "the law is holy" and "spiritual," but used carnally it becomes in such uses a "law of sin." Rom. 7:11-25.

Righteousness is unswerving. A "right line" is a perfectly straight line. The least departure from a right or straight line makes it crooked. So the least perversion of God's perfect righteousness, or holy law, whether of intent or of ignorance, is sin. "Sin is the transgression of the law." 1 John 3:4. And "all unrighteousness is sin." 1 John 5:17.

As righteousness is the path of life, so sin is the path of death. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Eze. 18:4, 20. "Sin, when it is finished ["full grown," R.V.], bringeth forth death." James 1:15. "The commandment, which was ordained to life, I [the sinner Paul] found to be unto death." Rom. 7:10. "To be carnally minded is death; . . . because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8:6, 7.

From the above and previous considerations it will be evident to the candid, unbiased reader that God's life—the eternal life of the eternal God—always flows out from the great Fountain in harmony with His holy law. From Him all life flows as eternal life. If received and used in harmony with His holy, eternal law, it will be eternal life forever. So it is in the angels who never sinned.

But when that life is received by a selfish heart in harmony with a perverted law, the perverted law is sin, and the perverted life becomes death. The law of gravitation is a beneficent law. It secures the equilibrium and stability of earthly bodies, but if a man cast himself from a precipice, by the power of that, same law he is dashed to pieces. The law is good, but its power was perverted. Electricity is so harnessed that it propels street-cars and lights cities, and so used is a highly valuable agent, but if the current of the live wire which propels the car or lights the street be perverted by a broken wire, so that it enters a human body, death is almost the invariable result. The fault is not in the electricity, it is in the perversion of its current.

So the perversion of God's law is sin. The perversion of God's life is death. "The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law." 1 Cor. 15:56. There is no force or power in evil of itself. All the power sin possesses is the power of the good perverted. The evil is not, therefore, in the power, but in the perversion of the power.

Man was created "upright," "in the image of God." Before him were placed righteousness and sin, life and death, with the awfully responsible right of choice as the only means of developing character. God pleads with man to choose life, that he may live, but Infinite Power will do no more than plead and seek in every way possible to Infinite Love to win man's allegiance, but within the sacred circle of man's will God will not, can not, step without man's consent. He desires man to serve Him from choice and live; for that is the only righteous way. "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?" Eze. 33:11.