The Law and the Gospel.
By C. R. Austin
We are living in a time when we hear a great deal said about the law and the gospel. Many are claiming (and those too who are expecting soon to see Jesus) that we are not under the law, but under grace, and that faith is what is required of us without obedience to the whole law, instead of perfect obedience to every precept of the law and faith to establish that law. It seems to me of infinite importance to every christian that they should look at the mutual relation of the law and the gospel in the true light. The moral law planting itself upon the changeless relations of man to his Maker and to his fellow-man, demands of him love supreme to the former, and impartial love to the latter. God requires us practically to regard the rights of all beings according to their real and relative value. But man through depravity and selfishness has utterly failed to do this. To man in this state of failure the gospel comes. For what end? Is it merely to save him from destruction? or is its great object to restore him to that perfect love which the moral law demands? In other words, does the gospel come to take the place of the law, setting it aside, and saving man without any reference to it; or does it come to put man in a condition to feel the force of motives to obedience, and to bring motives of resistless power to bear upon the heart for the very purpose of securing the absolute sway of the law of love. If the former be the right view of the matter, then the leading practical question is, Do I certainly repent and believe in Christ, so that I may be saved at last? The heart where this is the ruling idea will not be particularly anxious to know whether he obeys the law of God perfectly; perhaps he does not expect any such thing in the present life; perhaps he deems it enough if he obeys a portion of that law and has occasional desires to obey it more; and, withal, is careful to have seasons of repenting and applying afresh to Christ for pardon. The mind lingers perpetually around its hope and the evidences on which it rests. It loves the gospel—not the law. This is one type of professedly christian experience. Right over against this lies the experience of the christian whose heart cleaves to the law of God with intensest love—who can say with the sweet singer of Israel, "O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day." Who thinks little of the gospel except as a mighty attraction drawing his soul to love God and man, and as affording him omnipotent aid in gaining the victory over his own selfishness, and in attaining a state of complete conformity of heart and life to the great law of love. He does indeed value pardon; but when placed in comparison with purity of heart it almost disappears in insignificance. He loves the gospel, and he uses it abundantly; but its chief glory to his soul is that Jesus came to save his people—not from destruction, but from their sins. It seems to me that this is placing the gospel in its true relation to the law of God, and I pray God to "sanctify his children wholly, soul, body, and spirit, and preserve them blameless unto the coming of the Lord." We know that if we are saved from sin here, we shall be from destruction hereafter. I thank God that he has yet a people who love his whole law, and though I am a stranger to nearly all the readers of the Review and those who keep the Sabbath of the Lord living many miles from any one of like precious faith, yet I feel that they are my brethren and sisters and I look forward with joy to that day when we shall meet in the kingdom of God and join with all the redeemed in praising God and the Lamb. O let us strive to be faithful unto the end, and be found watching so that, that day may not come upon us unawares.