p. 5 | NO CONTRADICTION by G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Aug 2, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 31.

NO CONTRADICTION.

By G.

"FOR as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law, . . . in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to My Gospel." Rom. 2:12-16. The statement, in 1 John 3:4, that "sin is the transgression of the law" does not contradict the foregoing thought of sinning "without law." Nor is the latter expression contradicted by the assertion that "where no law is, there is no transgression." Rom. 4:15. There are no contradictions in God's Word, for His Word is truth. And it is all truth; for man shall live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Matt. 4:4.

How is it, then, that there are sinners "without law?"—The answer is that they are sinners without the written law. The law existed long before it was written. We have no record of any written word, or law, until the time of Moses; yet it existed before, as is shown by Abraham's keeping it. Gen. 26:5. So the people before Moses' time had the law, but not the written law.

God's Word is written in the things that He has made. "The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they [unbelievers] are without excuse," as verily as tho they had rejected the written Word.

In our day of multiplied Bibles there are millions dying without knowing anything of the contents of the Book. In these days of much preaching of the Gospel, millions live and die without hearing the living preacher. And, while those who have the greater light of the Gospel are censurable for slackness in proclaiming it, yet those who have been neglected are without excuse in not knowing God; for Christ ever has been "the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." There is, therefore, a spark of light planted in the mind of every intelligent person, which, if followed faithfully, must lead to a knowledge of Christ and His Gospel. If not followed, it will just as surely go out. "If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." No man dies, except as a consequence of sin; "the wages of sin is death." And "sin is not imputed where there is no law." G.