The Law in the Cross

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 17, 1863

The Law in the Cross.

THE representation is continually made, in our sermons and religious writings, of a hostile and exclusive opposition between the law and the gospel. The law, with its rigorous, impossible, and hopeless claims, is the spirit and injunction of the Old Testament; the gospel, with its mercy, forgiveness, and easy salvation, is only and wholly the teaching of the New Testament. Says a recent writer, in setting before ministerial students what should be the matter of their preaching:

"The law must be preached. It is indispensable to the authority and cogency of the pulpit; but not so much the law as the gospel; chiefly, the cross of Christ."

Now the objection, and it is very decided, is against the notion, implied if not intended, that there is no exhibition of the law in the cross of Christ. We believe in the "law-work," as the fathers called it, in the conviction and conversion of men. We most earnestly believe in it, to the full depth and extent of Paul's experience in the seventh chapter of Romans. There is all too little of it in the preaching and conversions of the present day. Too many Christians are still-born. They do not come with a pang and a cry, and a new life that is positive and powerful. But the place from which to portray this "law-work," and the place in which to experience it, is not Sinai. It is Calvary, before the cross and the Crucified. Fearful and majestic as was the giving of the law amid the thunderings, and lightnings, and quakings, and trumpet-blasts of Sinai, it was vastly inferior to the execution of the law on Calvary, with its rent veil, and earthquakes, and darkened sun, and awful cry of the forsaken Christ. We do not need to lead the sinner from the Old Testament to the New, to effect in him the successive experiences of penitence and love. All may be done here in presence of the cross. Nay, all must be done here, for neither sorrow for sin, nor love for the Saviour, are ever born except in sight of him who died for sin, that he might save the sinner. Law and grace each find their clearest utterance from the cross, and every statement of both Testaments is in complete harmony with this. Take what expression you will in the Bible, of terror or of mercy, of the severity, or of the goodness, of God, and it points for explanation and fulfillment to the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. The law of God is seen in the cross as it is seen nowhere else, and such is the only representation warranted by any part of Scripture.

1. The extent of the law is seen in the cross. No one could convince Christ of sin. The great adversary had nothing in him, not in his most secret thought or latent desire. The temptation of the wilderness and the agony of Gethsemane, could not for an instant shake, to the slightest degree, the steadfast obedience of his soul. The ordeal of crucifixion, when all his sufferings culminated, and the baptismal waters went over his head, was equally powerless to turn him from the commandment which he had received of the Father. "He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Otherwise the holy Spirit could never convince the world of righteousness. Clearer than in precept reiterated to the thousandth time, does this example show us the extent of the law in its requirements upon us. God is no respecter of persons. His commandment is exceeding broad. In every instant of time, to every slightest impulse and every most transient thought, the demand is for spotless purity and perfect obedience. The least failure, even in the most trying moments, would have marred Christ's work and accomplished his condemnation before God. The least failure does as much for us. Stand before the cross and think of this. Christ was without sin. He died, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.

2. The immutability of the law is seen in the cross. If exception from its rigor and full extent were possible, it must have been in favor of the Son of God. But God spared not his only Son. "Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death." To think of exemption for any one else is the highest presumption. Nor is there alone this universality. The law that demanded the obedience of Christ, makes the same demands upon us. He was made of a woman, made under the law, the same law under which we are, and from which he offers to redeem us. It is immutable and impartial. Men may think it dead, that somehow, through the infirmity of man or the indifference of God, its claims are weakened or vacated. The cross most conclusively refutes this fatal unbelief. Here is God's only Son, without blame and most righteous in himself, set forth as the way of God's great mercy and love to man. But he must endure the last penalty, and exhaust the last curse of the law, because as man's substitute he is made man's sin—to redeem from the curse and penalty which man has incurred. Let no one think of mutation in the precepts or exactions of the law in his behalf, if there was no mitigation of the original and full demands in behalf of such a sufferer.

3. The severity of the law's penalty is seen in the cross. We have many illustrations of God's displeasure with sin—of his purpose and power to vindicate the law by executing the penalty. The branding of Cain, the drowning of the Old World, the burning of Sodom, the captivity of Israel, the smiting of Ananias and Sapphira, the fearful death of Herod—these and other such instances attest the repeated declaration, that God can, and will, punish for transgression. But they rather affect, so far as we can see, the temporal and physical well-being of men. They are suggestions, hints, examples to those who afterward shall live ungodly, proofs that the threatenings of spiritual and eternal undoing shall likewise be faithfully visited. But in the cross we see more than this. Christ passed beyond the horrors of temporal suffering, and became a curse, an offering for sin. Wrath to the uttermost came upon him, when it pleased the Lord to bruise him and put him to grief. The severity of the law's penalty is here shown as nowhere else, and the impenitent sinner can read his doom in the cross, as he shall himself feel it if Christ be not his Saviour. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." "Our God is a consuming fire." Let us learn the meaning of these words from the cross, and may the lesson hasten our escape.

4. The righteousness of the law is seen in the cross. We are taught that the law of the Lord is perfect. The commandment is holy, and just, and good. But how is all this enforced in the death of Christ. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, as a sheep dumb before her shearers, so he opened not his mouth. No complaint, no murmur, no withholding of his back from the smiter, or his cheek from him that plucked off the hair. The Father bruised him and made his soul an offering for sin, but still with filial trust and cheerful acquiescence, he committed his spirit to the Father's hand. Surely we shall be speechless, and have nothing to answer when God riseth up. If the exactions and penalties of the law, when met and borne in their full power, found no resistance or complaining in the divine sufferer, we must consent unto the law that it is good. The righteousness of its broad and all-comprehending requirements, and the righteousness of its awful sanctions, will be felt and confessed by us, though we be so criminal as to bear its eternal curse. If Christ found no fault with it when he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, no more can we. We may murmur now, and this is our ignorance and our sin, but very soon the time will come when we shall have nothing to reply against God.

O, Christian, O, sinner, see the grace and love of God in the cross, and glorify his name for these. Let them lead you to constant and hearty repentance. But see also the terror of the Lord—the rigor and righteousness and certainty of his law—and be persuaded and persuade others to flee from the wrath to come.—Examiner.