The Perfection of the Law
By T. H. Starbuck
"The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." Ps. 19: 7. THE divine perfection of the law of Jehovah is far beyond the power of the finite intellect to comprehend. "God is love," and His great and wonderful love is revealed in His government of all rational beings by moral law. The Creator of worlds would have all His intelligent creatures to be sinless, and to reflect in their lives His divine perfections so far as they are capable. For this purpose He mirrored His perfections and attributes in the form of moral law for the government of His creatures, that obedience to it might insure peace, love, and righteousness thruout His illimitable dominions. The felicities of heaven can be secured only by perfect obedience to a perfect law. But God's law can not be perfect unless it embodies all the divine perfections of His character. It must reflect every characteristic of the Godhead. It would have to embody every moral principle, and be universal in its adaptations, naturally fitted for the moral government of all morally accountable beings. That it is of this character is proved from the nature of God as revealed in His word. Its Author is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. He is universally and eternally the same being, which would necessarily make His moral rule the same in all worlds. If the intelligent beings of one world are made subject to one moral code, and those of another world to a different code, the two codes would not agree, and could not manifest in their respective subjects the perfect character of the same God. He could not exercise one kind of moral government in one world, and another kind in another world, for that would make Him inconsistent with Himself, and show Him to be imperfect as a moral governor. A perfect moral law can not be limited in its adaptations or jurisdiction. Two perfect moral codes are an impossibility. The inhabitants of this world, and the different orders of angels in heaven, are subject to the same moral principles. This becomes apparent when the true nature of sin is fully understood. Sin is the transgression of the law—the same law which Inspiration says is perfect. But sin originated with Satan in heaven long before this world existed. Then the sin of the fallen angels was the transgression of the moral law, which proves that they were amenable to it before man was created. This is obvious from another consideration—whatever evil disposition was in Satan after his fall was the same which he instilled into man's nature when he led him to disobey God in Eden, for he could not impart to man a disposition which he did not possess himself. As the trend of character which he imparted to man was a disposition to violate the moral law, it is clear that he had transgressed that law long before in heaven, for the evil nature is obtained only thru disobedience. But it would be impossible for him to transgress a law to which he was not amenable. From such considerations it necessarily follows that all intelligences in heaven and earth are amenable to the same moral law. It might here be objected that angels are not amenable to the seventh commandment, because the marriage relation does not exist among them; but there is nothing here to militate against the absolute perfection of the law. If there is a moral relation among men that does not exist among angels, they are not subject to that moral principle, while men are. The law is broad enough in its scope to cover the moral relations of all created intelligences. If it were not, it would not be perfect. If, in certain conditions of life, the moral relations of the creatures do not cover all the moral principles embraced in God's perfect law, then such beings are not under the jurisdiction of that part of the law not contained in their relations to each other. God is infinite in His ways, and adapts His moral government to the nature and requirements of His creatures in any state of existence.