Earlier text: THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFEWHEREFORE THE LAW?
By J. A. L. Derby
“Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions.” Gal. 3:19. THERE are a few instructive thoughts on the debasing nature of sin, which, tho often touched, I have never seen very fully amplified in exposition of this text. Let us begin with a few familiar truths in this connection. “It was added because of transgressions.” Transgressions of what?—Of law. It is therefore plain that law existed before it was “added.” The time when this addition took place is mentioned in verse seventeen of this chapter: it was four hundred and thirty years after the covenant made with Abraham. This locates the event at the time of the encampment of Israel at Sinai. Two distinct kinds of law were here given—moral and typical; or, since every command of God implies moral obligation, perhaps it would be better to say that both were moral, but one, the Ten Commandments, being a statement of unchangeable principle, is eternal, the other, consisting of rites, prophetic and typic, were in their nature temporary. Was either of these laws “added” as something which had been previously non-existent? Not the ceremonial (we use the term for convenience); for sacrifices and offerings were practised from the time of Cain and Abel to that of Moses. It was in this connection that the murder of Abel occurred. Abraham built an altar of sacrifice at each permanent stopping-place in his pilgrimage. Moses may have enlarged the ritual, but he did not introduce ritualism. Not the moral (again to save circumlocution); for murder—the sixth commandment’s violation—was sin in the days of Cain; and violation of the seventh commandment was one of the glaring sins of Sodom. Numerous other illustrations might be given showing that both these forms of law had pre-existed. It is evident that “added” can not be understood to imply original creation, inventive promulgation, or legislation, of either. But the record, in the chapter a portion of which we are studying, speaks of no law outside of these two. Hence “added” must mean the work performed at that time upon either or both of these. What was that work? This: they were reduced to written form. And why written?—“Because of transgressions.” Here begins a deeper study. Our first inquiry shall be concerning the form of the eternal part of the law, previous to its graphical promulgation at Sinai. Was it something carried only in the memory of men; or was it something fundamental in their nature. If eternal, it must still exist to-day, even among men who know nothing of it as a written code; for, “if we [any one anywhere] say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” 1 John 1:8. But as sin is transgression of the law (1 John 3:4), the law must be with all men everywhere, as says the apostle, in Romans 3:23, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” One step deeper: In what form have all men, even the heathen, the law? Certainly not delineated in words, for millions have not written language, nor are they able to reproduce—or rather produce—this law from their memory. Paul explains it. He says they have the “work of the law written in their hearts.” Rom. 2:15. It thus becomes clear that God has placed within the mind of man a certain organic or fundamental principle, to which the latter feels an intuitive obligation to conform all his acts. This principle must be the gist or essence of the Ten Commandments. The texts which reveal what this is are probably familiar to all. A few passages may be cited: Rom. 13:10; Matt. 22:37-40; 1 Tim. 1:5. This regulative principle is love. This is the summary of the law. Love, therefore, and love only, is the one absolutely right or good thing in the universe. What resolutions or reformations are wrought into this mighty word! How contemptible in its light appear all our carping criticisms of what others eat or drink or wear! I wish we might grasp the infinite force of this word. Love does not excoriate or judge or hawk at. Love is eternal reinforcement. Love helps. It knows the faults of others, but does not herald them abroad. It extenuates to others while it labors to inspire and aid the stumbling ones. But how puerile and partial are all these words, for love is the law and the prophets. This is the one thing written on the hearts of men. But a step deeper. If every command of the Decalogue is eternal and unchangeable in its nature, then, in the beginning, when man was nearer the perfection in which he was created, he could discern intuitively in this principle each of the Ten Commandments in detail. Here our subject broadens into the whole of moral science, the foundation of all right doing, and the rationality of faith. Let me try to make clear by a simple illustration, the form in which this moral sense existed in the mind of Adam, and its mode of action, and then let me prove it by a scripture. If you were a naked savage in the heart of Africa, and should pick up a pair of pants, you would certainly be removed a long way from the original intelligence of your first parents if you did not on a short examination discern their use. If you saw another person using them, say, as a coat or a bag, you would feel that such was not their proper purpose. Plainer still, if you saw a sheepskin used as a wine-bottle, you would know immediately that was not the original end or purpose of the skin. With any new machine you may see in machinery hall at the World’s Fair at St. Louis, in 1904, you will make the attempt to study out the end for which it was made. And when you perceive that end, to use it for any other object, would be unreasonable. For instance, to use a threshing machine to break stone or grind cornstalks is unreasonable; to use a buck-saw exclusively to cut butter, or a water pail for a hat, are alike foolish. A fool is a person who does an unreasonable thing. The individual who, in the face of multitudinous evidences of an intelligent cause of all things on every hand, can say, “There is no God,”5is pronounced by the Bible a fool; and rightly. The self-wise pygmies of to-day, to whom the Bible is ancient mythology; Christ, if historic at all, a demi-god of superstition, and God a total and absolutely unnecessary fiction of the mind—these, as we shall presently see, if we do not see it already, are the greatest evidence of the unfathomable degeneration of the race. For look at Adam. He knew at sight the purpose of every living thing. Do you want proof of this? Read in Gen. 2:19-20. “God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.” He saw the features and characteristics which revealed the purpose and individuality of every animal, and he gave it a name which was a type and summary of all these. Just as the word “love” is the gist of the law and the prophets, so the names given by Adam were an epitome of the nature or individuality of each creature. Looking at himself, what did he see? He saw his own dignity as the crown of all creation. He saw his own humble station as less than nothing in the sight of an infinite God. He saw the manifest goodness of God on every side, and his dependence on Him for his very existence. Looking at his own constitution, he could behold the purpose for which he was made, as clearly as with his physical eye the nature of every animate thing. He saw that the purpose of his appetite was to minister to the well-being of the body. Above and higher than these, he saw the desires designed for the well-being of the mind. In all these he discovered the law of their use, namely, an activity appropriate to their end. To him the use of tobacco or whisky would have been immoral—a sin, indeed; for, so far as contributing to the well-being of the body, indulgence in them would have been a perversion of appetite for the ruin of the physical frame; and the appetites were not designed to aid destruction, but to build up. With unclouded vision he could perceive the same relation between the mind and its desires, continued existence, knowledge, property, power, and good-will. But these were still further irradiated by the light from a still higher—the highest—set of faculties, the affections. In his constitution he found nothing higher than these. But affection, what is it?—LOVE. But love is not self-centered. It does not look so much to the good of self as of others. Affection looks beyond, outside of self. It seeks an object more satisfying than self. Adam saw what you and I may see in ourselves,—that we have two phases of affection. These are the moral and the natural; the former implies God, and is presided over by conscience; the latter finds its satisfaction in other beings like ourselves. And this is Christ’s own summary of the Decalogue: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matt 22:37-40. Adam in the perfection of all his faculties could see all this, and infinitely more, at a glance. Did he need the written law?—Assuredly not. Neither did his immediate posterity. But as time went on, the mental and spiritual powers of men were dulled, and blunted, and dimmed by sin. The degeneracy manifested in the shortening of life from the nine hundred sixty-nine years of Methuselah to the paltry third of a century which now constitutes the average life of man, is but a faint type of what has occurred in man’s intellectual and moral faculties. How many men now can discover by natural intuition, or even by a lifetime use of their natural reason, that they were made to love and serve God? How many discern their true end? How many scientists find God? The law “was added because of transgressions,” and remain it must till transgression is no more. As regards the temporary part of the law of God—the ceremonial, I am not prepared to say that even rites, in the nature of positive commands, have not, during the years of time at least, a necessary principle underlying them. Else why baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, and the ordinance of humility? And why some form of ritual even from the time of the introduction of sin? The forms of this ritual may be changed at God’s pleasure, as they have been changed, while the basilar principle of some positive commands to represent, typify, or commemorate certain new stages or facts in the development of God’s purpose—this principle may likewise remain. That the law was added “till the Seed should come,” could with perfect harmony and consistency refer, as to the temporal and changeable part of God’s law, to the first advent; as to the written form of the Decalogue, it could, and certainly does, look forward to the second advent. THE BETTER WAY.
By Helen M. Winslow
I SAID
If I could see the light ahead,
Could know the ships I sent to sea
Were blown by Fortune's gale toward me,
I could believe, in matters great or small,
God watcheth over all. O, selfish heart!
Canst thou not see the nobler part?—
To bear with patience sure defeat,
To upward climb with stubborn feet,
In spite of disappointment's iron thrall,
For God is over all! Because Thy Sins Were Increased
By W. S. Sadler
THE MISSION OF PAIN AND THE LANGUAGE OF DISEASE. NO. 8.
Because Thy Sins Were Increased
“The show of their countenance doth witness against them.” Isa. 3:9. EVEN the show of the countenance is a witness against the evil-doer. There are certain inevitable results that, sooner or later, make their appearance as a consequence of every transgression of either physical or spiritual law. The symptoms of physical disease or spiritual backsliding are a warning voice, admonishing us to return to our rest. The prophet Jeremiah, who was compelled to undergo many hardships and endure much suffering, has left on record for our benefit much that sheds light upon the mission of pain and the object of affliction. Let us here consider some points found in his prophecy. “For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee; tho I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee; but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished.” Jer. 30:11. Every correction is measured by the evil it is designed to correct and by the love of the divine Corrector. Human affliction is presided over by a loving Creator. Man may often have sown for his complete destruction, but yet the Lord says, “I will not permit him to make a full end of himself.” He will so manage the harvest of man’s evil sowing that he shall experience such pain and hardship as will bring him to a realization of his evil work before the end is reached. God is managing the correcting afflictions of humanity with infinite precision, dealing out its sorrows and sufferings with far more precision than any apothecary could deal out his medicine. “For thus saith the Lord, Thy bruise is incurable, and thy wound is grievous. There is none to plead thy cause, that thou mayest be bound up; thou hast no healing medicines.” Verses 12, 13. From a human standpoint the bruise of sin; the wound of iniquity, is incurable. There is none that we may go to for help. There is none on earth to plead our cause. We have no healing medicine. There is no power on earth to heal disease, to restore the health that has been lost in transgression. So these conditions are brought upon us that we may recognize our utter helplessness, and turn to Him who is our strength and health. “All thy lovers have forgotten thee; they seek thee not; for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of thine iniquity; because thy sins were increased.” Verse 14. The evil habits that were formerly so sweet to the sinner, the evil associates that professed so much love for him, have fled in the time of affliction, the time when our flesh wasteth away and our body is consumed as the withering grass. Says the Lord, “I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy.” True, God has bruised us with the harvest of our transgression, but it was the enemy that tempted and led us to transgress. He says that He has chastised us with the chastisement of “a cruel one.” Yes, the Lord loves His creatures, and therefore He chastens them. But not without cause, for even His chastisement is that of a “cruel one.” The enemy of the soul must succeed in tempting us to stray away from God before His correcting judgments are dealt out to us. And why is this affliction and distress permitted? The answer is plain: “For the multitude of thine iniquity; because thy sins were increased; . . . because thy sins were increased, I have done these things unto thee.” The first step to take in seeking to free ourselves from the consequences of disobedience is to examine into the cause of our affliction, to repent sincerely of the deeds that have made it necessary for God to speak to us in the language of adversity; and then learn the lesson which Paul had learned when he wrote, “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” Phil. 4:11. But too often man comes to look on God as altogether such a one as himself; and so regards Him as an all-powerful Being who punishes His subjects in wrath or anger when they have in any manner displeased Him. The God with whom we have to do is not such a being. He is a God of love, one of infinite mercy and justice; even one in whose justice His love is shown forth. His correcting hand of judgment is laid upon His children only when the still small voice of His Spirit has been persistently disobeyed or ignored. It is a Satanic delusion that human beings may continue in transgression, trampling under their feet daily the light and truth of heaven, and then, when the penalties of their disobedience are as piercing arrows within the soul, and body, be able to appeal to the doctors, and—without repentance or reformation—secure physical healing, or appeal to the ministers, and—without a change of their evil habits—receive spiritual healing. Very often there is work for both doctor and minister to do; but their work can help the wrong-doer only so far as it assists him in discovering the error of his way, and in departing from his soul-and-body-destroying practices. In other words, the first help the doctor or the minister must give to either the spiritual or physical sufferer is that of pointing out the sinful cause that is responsible for these effects of affliction. “For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord; because they called thee an outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after.” Verse 17. If repentance and reformation have been permitted to do their work for the soul, the Lord promises to “restore health” and heal “thy wounds;” thus clearly proving that all the way along it was not His purpose to cause to6unnecessary suffering or to destroy the wrong-doer. Pain, suffering, and sorrow, which are permitted to overtake us, are only designed to call us away from our wrong habits and purposes, our soul-and-body-destroying practices, and guide us back to the path wherein may be found restoration of health,—healing for the wounds that sin has made in soul and body. CREATION AND REDEMPTION.
By W. C. Mathewson
Inexpressibly lovely was the face of nature when earth came in absolute perfection from the hand of the great Creator. In the lofty mountain summits; in the valleys of living green; in the towering trees of the forest; in the tiny flowers of the field; in the broad expanse of ocean waters; in the winding, rippling brooks; in the blue skies of the vaulted heaven, and in the gently rolling surface of the earth, beauty reigned supreme. Serpents often venomous now and revolting to the sight, were beautiful flying creatures, perfectly harmless. The wild beasts of the forest, of lamb-like gentleness, were the companions of man. Birds of divers colors warbled their sweet songs. The wind murmured in refreshing breezes, rustling the leaves of Eden, and wafting the sweetness of many a fragrant flower. What a pleasant home was this for earth's new sovereign! How befitting a kingdom for a king enthroned by Divine Majesty! Who can fail to take delight in gazing at a scene so extremely pleasing? Alas! that picture has become obliterated. A long dark night of woe was ushered in at the departure of that bygone day of Edenic brightness. The entrance of one sin, followed by an innumerable host of malicious intruders, spreading destruction and desolation to earth's remotest bounds, has disfigured the face of nature, until old Mother Earth, in her present sin-cursed state, bears but faint traces of her primitive fertility and beauty. How terrible and far-reaching are the results of sin! Altho no more than six literal days were employed in the creation of sinless nature, her restoration must be preceded by a long, dismal period of 7,000 years. About six thousand years ago only one sin, apparently small and insignificant, was committed by the mother of our race. That sin, in its innumerable posterity exists on the earth to-day, to live on for another thousand years, until destroyed with its original progenitor, “that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan.” Rev. 20:2. O, if man had not tampered with sin, if he had not by his own hand destroyed his perfect manhood, then would he have realized that— “No slightest touch of pain,
Nor sorrow’s least alloy,
Can violate our rest, or stain
Our purity of joy.”
The world’s night of sin is growing darker. Suffering of every form—disease, idiocy, insanity—is increasing at an alarming rate. By natural law alone the human race within a few centuries would become extinct, but the God of tender pity will most mercifully deliver humanity from such a protracted state of suffering. He will soon appear to impart rest to all. The wicked rest in death, while the righteous enter into the endless rest of a glorious immortal life. We are soon to be redeemed; soon to be re-beautified; soon to enter unutterable joys; soon again to be a “royal priesthood.” 1 Peter 2:9. Redemption has already begun, and is continuing with amazing success. Now dying man is receiving “everlasting life,” pure “divine nature,” and the mind “which was also in Christ Jesus.” John 5:24; 2 Peter 1:4; Phil. 2:5. Glorious prospects are before us. Unsurpassing possibilities are within the reach of every human soul. Who will not grasp the proffered gifts of the all-benevolent Giver? “Every one that asketh, receiveth.” Matt. 7:8. LIFE is given by God, and therefore none but God has a right to take it. We see a particular sacredness in human life in the fact that it is created in the image of God, and, therefore every one has a right to possess that life as long as God permits, or until duly forfeited by law for the safety of other lives. Many an undutiful and wrong-doing son may kill his parents by the vileness of his life. Many a wife has been killed by the coldness and brutality by the infidelity and intemperance of her husband. Those things kill as surely, if not as quickly, as poison, pistol, or the knife, and they who thus kill are in every sense of the word murderers and violators of this commandment. Christ declared that whoever has hate in his heart is a murderer. He has the root of murder in his heart, liable at any time and under any provocation to break forth and kill. How needful, therefore, the command to love our neighbor as ourselves. He who habitually does so will never be guilty of an infraction of the sixth commandment.—Christian Work. How They Became Convinced
[Believing it would be of interest to our readers, the editor of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES has asked Sabbath-keeping ministers and evangelical workers to tell in a few words the scripture or scriptures, the truths and principles, which constrained them to accept the unpopular truth of the seventh-day Sabbath. These testimonies must not exceed 500 words. Let us hear from all.] A GLORY IN THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.
I grew up a Methodist. In 1860, living with my parents in Wisconsin, a few numbers of the Review and Herald found their way into our home. My father became interested in an article on the “History of the Sabbath,” by J. N. Andrews, and to prevent his destroying the harmony that I thought then existed in the family, I began the study of the Sunday question. To get at it in the quickest way, I appealed to our local Methodist preacher, and asked him to give me the Bible proof for Sunday-keeping. Taking his Bible he read Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1, 2; Luke 24:1. While he was reading these texts I noticed that the Sabbath was mentioned as being the day before the first day of the week. While reading the last text, my eyes rested on the closing verses of chapter 23. “See here, elder,” said I, “would not the disciples of Christ, who had been with Him during His public ministry, whom He had taught, have known of any change in the Sabbath? Yet, without seeming to recognize any change, they ‘rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment,’ and the next day was the first day of the week. Now, elder, turn to the commandment, and that will tell us just which day is the Sabbath.” Turning to Ex. 20:8–11, he read the fourth precept of the Decalogue. “But,” said I, “I want the command for keeping Sunday.” “That is all the command there is in the Bible for the observance of a Sabbath,” he replied. “What! and you go to that command to prove Sunday-keeping?” “Certainly, since that is the only Bible command for Sabbath observance.” “Well, then, we might just as well give up first as last; for that text positively declares that ‘the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work.’” I stood trembling before the command of God. Instantly my mind was illuminated, and I saw a glory in the fourth commandment that I had never seen before, and my whole being cried out for the living God. Soon Satan suggested, you must not accept this without further study; but I thank God that His sweet Spirit did not leave me, but ever kept the commandment before my eyes; and, at last, when I did yield to the gentle entreaties of the Holy Spirit, what a peace pervaded my soul; it was a new conversion; and I found my father, mother, sister, and her husband ready to unite with me in the observance of all God’s commands. To-day I find myself in perfect accord with all the truths of the Third Angel’s Message, and hope to share a home forever with the servants of God in the earth made new. There are many; the paramount reason is that God requires it. He spoke it, and wrote it as one of the commands of His law upon enduring stone. Ex. 24:12. No other part of God’s Word has been so honored by this distinction. He also says, “My covenant I will not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of My lips.” Ps. 89:34. In honoring God we should never rest on mere opinion, but His Word. The saying of Christ, “In vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matt. 15:9), may as well refer to individual opinion averse to His Word as to the command of others. Every command of God bears its own reasons with convincing power. So with the Sabbath command: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Ex. 20:8–11. The Sabbath therefore antedated sin, and is thus incorporated in the original, eternal law of love. He “rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” The resting marks a period to His work, and sets a seal to His creation, indicating that His labor is eternally fixed. No rebellion could thwart His purposes. He established not the earth “in vain.” Isa. 45:18. No act of God is selfish. His resting and refreshing was a necessity, that His creatures might enjoy “His rest.” “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” Heb. 4:8. It is the hallowed souvenir to bless His creatures of faith in the renewal by the Gospel. As it is God’s rest, nothing can surpass it, and this the Gospel renews as a gift to the believer in Christ. Matt. 11:28. “The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” It “was made for man,” that the refreshings of God should bless him. Mark 2:28; Gen. 2:1–3. Personally I was led to keep the Sabbath day, not only because of parental influence, but by the express command of God. The fleshly birth does not make free. “Ye must be born again.” John 3:1–3. The power of the new birth is found in the Sabbath commandment, as that is creative power, and nothing less is capable of producing it. It is the “all power” of the Gospel. Matt. 28:18; Rom. 1:18. So the Sabbath is the memorial and sign of creative, sanctifying power. Ex. 31:13. To sum up individual reasons for Sabbath-keeping: (1) The command of God showing the Sabbath to antedate sin; (2) His unalterable Word; (3) it is vain worship to teach for doctrine the commandments of men, and there is no other command for any day except the seventh day; (4) it belongs to the Gospel from first to last. Judge by Direction, Not by Falls
CENSURE not any to be either better or worse for some particular action, but consider what his main bent is. He that goeth up a hill may have many slips and falls, yet is said to be going up the hill because his face is toward the top. A sheep may slip into a ditch as he is leaping over it, yea, lie there some time till the shepherd find it and help him out.—Puritan. Thus Jesus taught His disciples to pray to the great God of heaven. The very expression gives the lie to all the heathen conceptions of God. He is not a tyrant of whom we hear, but never wish to see except afar off. He is not a cruel monster whose hellish wrath must be placated by gifts, offerings, and sacrifices. He is not so high and lifted up that we must obtain access to Him only through numberless intermediaries of varying degrees. He is not abstract essence or force. No, God is a Father. The child can go to the father, even tho he is a king. He can climb upon father’s knee, look into father’s eyes, rest his head upon father’s breast, and feel the beating of the strong, sympathetic, loving heart. He can tell father his troubles, and know that his story will be heard. He can lay before father his needs, and he knows that if possible they will be supplied. He can speak to father of his ambitions, his desires, his victories, and find a sympathetic and helpful listener. Yea, more; if he has sinned, he can tell this to father and find forgiveness and strength. All this is true of the kind, true, noble, earthly father. Is it not pre-eminently true of God? Whence did every father, any father, obtain even one excellence which he possesses?—Was it not from the great Creator, “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?” Will the great Father withhold from His children that which He has given to earthly fathers to impart? No earthly father excels in everything. One is pre-eminently noble, one intellectual, one generous, one wise, one sympathetic, one strongly religious, one brave. Some earthly fathers have some of these qualities combined in a large degree. But God has them all, pre-eminently, in sublime, associated beauty. He is the One altogether lovely and good and just and wise and noble. He has every quality of good in its utmost perfection. Surely, then, if we admire and love earthly fathers because of their qualities of heart, how much more should we love God. If we can go to them in confidence because of these qualities, how much more ought we to go to Him! Has He not assured us—we who are sinners—that “like as a father pitieth his children, so Jehovah pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust.” Ps. 103:13, 14. But more than this: Jehovah is “our Father.” He is not alone the Father of Jesus, or of Adam in his sinlessness, or of Moses in his faithfulness, or of Elijah in his loyalty, or of Paul in his devotion. He is our Father if we will but believe, however small we are in earth’s eyes. Isa. 57:15. He is a Father to whom we can go, with whom we can come into touch. Tho invisible to us, because in our mortal state of sinful imperfection His glory would destroy us, He has not left Himself without witness. He sent His only-begotten Son, to live God’s life in the flesh that we might know and see God’s goodness. But all that Jesus revealed of the glorious qualities of perfect goodness were but the revelation of the character of “our Father.” He is a personal Father. He has a personal presence. He is not some great abstraction, as formless as chaos, which creeds of philosophic heathen origin have endeavored to explain as without body or parts. Not so does God represent Himself in His Word, and He does not tantalize His children. We can never understand all that He says, all that He means, for He is infinite and we finite. But what we can understand is not intended to mislead. “Our Father” is a personal being, the very center of the great universe, ballasting its shining orbs, and guiding its retinues of suns, yet noting even a sparrow’s fall. From Him, Jehovah, the personal God, “our Father,” pulses out to all parts of His creation His own life currents, bringing Him into constant touch with every living creature. Then, dear soul, go to Him as your God and your Father, personal, omnipotent, omnipresent, infinitely loving, more real than any earthly father can be, and He will comfort your hearts in Christ Jesus. THE PENALTY PAID.
By G. L.
The law demands the death of the sinner. How then can the law be satisfied and the sinner still live? Paul says, “I through the law died unto the law, that I might live unto God.” Gal. 2:19, R. V. From this it appears that Paul had paid the penalty of sin, yet he was alive. His explanation is this: “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me; and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.” When Christ was crucified He died, and every one who accepts that fact by faith is also reckoned to have died with Him. Thus by the death of Christ the law concedes that every one who confesses its claim, and pleads the death of Christ as his substitute, has paid the penalty. Being thus connected with Christ in His death, the resurrection of Christ naturally gives new life to the dead sinner who died with Him. The same apostle sums up the situation in these words: “For he that hath died is justified from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him; knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died unto sin once; but the life that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Even so reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus.” Rom. 6:7–11. This is all made possible by the voluntary sacrifice of the life of the Son of God. And it is made a fact in the experience of the sinner by a change of heart—a change of mind, or purpose in life. The conception is so wonderful as to be incomprehensible to the finite mind, yet it is so simple in its application that a child may intelligently rest in the belief of it, and know that it is true. And it is all done without a change of so much as “one jot or one tittle of the law.” In human jurisprudence the criminal sentenced to death may escape through the pardon of the governor. He goes free, yet the law which he violated is satisfied, and he is reckoned as having paid the penalty. But the pardon does not repeal the law. Should the pardoned one again violate it, he is again subject to the penalty. So the pardon of the sinner, his escape by faith in an accredited Substitute, does not do away with the law of God. It still stands as a rule of life, and will again convict if the individual turns again to sin. The doctrine of the penalty paid is illustrated in the ordinance of baptism. Says the apostle: “We were buried therefore with Him through baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.” Then the penalty having been paid for us, and we having accepted the pardon—a receipt in full for the debt—we are under renewed obligation not to incur the penalty again. If the law were repealed, there would be no danger of that, for “sin is not imputed where there is no law;” “where no law is, there is no transgression.” But we are forcibly reminded of such danger, and of our renewed obligation. Peter says that “the time past may suffice to have wrought the desire of the Gentiles, and to have walked in lasciviousness, lusts, etc.” And John tells us that “he that saith he abideth in Him [Christ] ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked.” And he further instructs us how we may know that we know Him, and that is, “if we keep His commandments.” So the continuance of freedom from the penalty of sin implies continuance of obedience to the law whose transgression is sin. “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.” Tho Christ be the propitiation “for sins that are past,” the disciple is instructed for the future, to “let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.” Faith in Him who has paid the penalty for us, and obedience to His Word, is the only assurance of final victory. Many of the friends of the Bible professedly—teachers in Christian institutions of learning, editors of Christian journals, and ministers in pulpits dedicated to the preaching of the Word—seem to lose no opportunity to endeavor to belittle that Book. Formerly it was covert attacks almost wholly, through evolution and geology with their uncertain hypotheses. The last year or so it is through archeology that some of the most insidious attacks are coming. Archeology has as to its facts confirmed over and over the truth of the Bible; it confirms it still. But it is not an exact science. One of the most uncertain things about it is its chronology, so admitted to be by some of its ablest men. The strange thing is that the perverted stories and traditions of such events as creation and the Deluge are taken as the originals from which the records in Genesis are adapted. It never seems to occur to these “friends” of the Bible that after all the true story of earth’s genesis may be the Bible story, and that all these others are but perversions more or less gross, according as the people have kept or lost the knowledge of the true. Many savage tribes have traditions of the Deluge. The universality of the tradition demonstrates a basis in truth somewhere. Who knows, friends, but that the Old Book tells the true story? Would it not be well to try that as a working hypothesis for a time? You might strike a new lead which would yield much better results to the Christian Church. You would find the great veins of inexhaustible gold better “workings” than the “tailings” of heathen apostasy.