God's Law a Witness of His Own Attributes
By J. O. Corliss
WHO is the God of the Bible? This question has been asked many times by those whom we have no reason to suspect of duplicity. Having never seen Him nor heard His voice, they have seemed unable to identify Him, or to declare His power. Indeed, "no man hath seen God at any time" (John 1:18), from the remotest age. This being true, how could God consistently ask men to recognize His claims upon them without giving them some means by which to know Him? There was some reason for the position taken by the absolute monarch of all Egypt when word was sent him that God would have the Israelites released from bondage. Said this haughty king: "Who is the Lord [Jehovah], that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go." Ex. 5:2. Considering his earthly sway and his ignorance of a heavenly Ruler, who can say that Pharaoh was unreasonable in the attitude he assumed? How can any man be expected to render obedience to some invisible, mysterious Being, who has not condescended to reveal His attributes? How could responsibility possibly be imputed for refusal to recognize the voice of one whose identity is undiscoverable? It scarcely can be thought possible that Jehovah, tho dwelling in the secret recesses of the vast universe, has failed to give a standard by which His character and purpose may be made known. But where is this criterion, and in what does it consist? One thing must appear certain to all; God, being perfect, can not possibly reveal His attributes in a perfect manner through an imperfect medium. Had man retained the image of God in which he was created, he would himself have stood as God's representative on earth. But having been alienated from the life of God through sin, man's heart became darkened, and his perceptions blunted to spiritual things. Eph. 4:18. In this condition, a precept, tho perfect, is not enough to convey to human minds a knowledge of divine character. Infinite love must be learned by a revelation of intense self-denial, constituting love-action, rather than by some mere wordy definition of love. Certain facts may be made the drapery of love, but man needed a revelation of living love — real generative essence — in order to make known to him a God of love. A living being was therefore necessary to manifest living love to man. That being, too, must be one in whom the Infinite is seen to dwell and act, in behalf of the finite. This infinite power and wisdom united in the flesh would be a union of the divine and the human in one person. Thus through perfect humanity, Divinity would be seen elevated above humanity, yet in conjunction with it. In this way divine love would be exhibited in and through humanity for its exaltation. In such a being the divine prerogative could be exercised through humanity, while the distinction between the human and the divine was clearly exhibited. In other words, this would be a revelation of "God in the flesh"—the indwelling of "all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." Col. 2:9. So "the Word became flesh" and dwelt among men, that they might receive the "light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." John 1:14; 2 Cor. 4:6. Thus in the order of Heaven, Christ was made the second Adam, formed in the image of Jehovah. It was therefore necessary that, like the first Adam, His humanity be created directly by divine energy, that He might set forth not only the attributes of Jehovah, but also "gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad" (John 11:52), and so become what the first Adam was designed to be, the universal father of the people of God. The Holy Spirit having "overshadowed" the virgin Mary, Christ was conceived, as the union of the divine and the human. So both the human and the divine were recognized in Christ's person when He was here in the flesh. He ate and drank as man, yet created food for others as God. He wept as man at the death of Lazarus, yet called him forth to life as God. On the cross His agony witnessed the human, while nature's agony witnessed the human, while nature's earthly ministry, however, love, and privilege, of both the human and divine, were displayed through that wonderful Being divinely appointed to be "God with us." How plainly evident that "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself" (2 Cor. 5:19); that is, bringing man into harmony with Jehovah's government. We may therefore comprehend how that, while "no man hath seen God at any time," God did not leave the world without a witness of Himself, but by "the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father," God has declared His own attitude toward the world. John 1:18. For this reason no one may know the Father "save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." Matt. 11:27. Being alienated from God's life, through sin, man has no way to know God of himself, because his mind is "fleshly," or "carnal." There is but one appointed way to know God since man transgressed the law of His government, and that is through Jesus Christ. Had man never sinned, he could not have died, so would not have needed a Saviour3to give him eternal life. Christ came that man might have life, and that more abundantly. John 10:10; 3:16. He came to "seek and to save that which was lost." Luke 19:10. Through sin, which is the transgression of God's law (1 John 3:4), man separated himself from the life of God, and so from the knowledge of God, which resulted in death. Rom. 5:12; Eph. 4:18. To regain the knowledge of God through Christ is eternal life. John 17:3. Adam came from the hand of God a perfect image of his Maker, in mind as well as in body. His knowledge of God and His ways was therefore complete, because the life of God animated every impulse of his being. When separated from that life by the transgression of God's will, his heart became so darkened that he lost the knowledge of the divine. Had he not violated the law of God's government, the original life of God would have remained in him, and so knowledge of God's attributes would have been maintained. Thus Paul says: "The commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death." Rom. 7:10. Thus we learn that the original design of the law was to maintain the knowledge of God in man, and so continue him in life. But when that law was once transgressed, spiritual insight was darkened and the knowledge of God declined, until among some people, spiritual knowledge is an unknown thing, and no word of their vocabulary can express a single attribute of God's character. When once transgressed, the law has no power to restore man's moral sight and knowledge. So "what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:3, 4. Notice that Christ came to place us where we might carry out the righteousness of the law by walking according to the Spirit. Then to know God and the guidance of His Spirit, is to walk in the way of His commandments. This thought is well expressed by the apostle in Rom. 10:4, when after showing the failure of the Jews to be benefited by the law, not seeing in it the righteousness of God, he says: "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." The word "end" as here used has the same significance as in James 5:11, where the apostle says we have "seen the end of the Lord" in afflicting Job. It means design, or purpose, and would therefore convey the thought that Christ is the design of the law; that is, He, in His life, revealed God's righteousness, just the same as the law would have done for man, had he not darkened his mind through transgressing that law.