Will you kindly explain the following points in connection with Romans 8:4: ―
1. What is the righteous requirement of the law?
2. Is it on the line of “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all?”
3. If so, do we fulfill it practically, i.e. as far as our side of the “covenant” is concerned? — FOREST HILL.
THE “righteousness” or “righteous requirement” of the law was expressed in an immense variety of details. All of them however, can be summarized under two heads, viz., love to God and love to one’s neighbor (See, Luke 10:27,2827And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself. 28And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. (Luke 10:27‑28)). So we might answer your first question in one word — LOVE.
If we understand rightly your second question we should answer, No. The verse which you quote from James 2 states the underlying principle of the law of Moses which formed the basis of Israel’s relationship with God. On that line they were wholly and at once condemned, and under the curse of the law they came. Now we Christians are not under law but under grace, as Romans 6:1414For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. (Romans 6:14) definitely says. Romans 7 shows us that the practical effect of the coming in of the law is to revive sin and consequently to bring in condemnation and death. Law consequently revealed the incorrigible nature of the flesh but it could not condemn judicially sin in the flesh, and yet at the same time empower man to fulfill the law.
Now what the law could not do God has done in the sending of His own Son and in His sacrificial death. Sin in the flesh has been condemned and, the believer receiving the Holy Spirit, the love of God is shed abroad in his heart. Thus the believer has power to fulfill the law, and in so far as he walks in the Spirit he does actually fulfill it. The believer fulfils the law not on the line of law but on the: line of grace, and faith, and the indwelling and operations of the Spirit of God.
The answer to your third question is, Yes, we fulfill it practically as regards its righteous requirement though we are not under it as regards its multifarious enactments as was decided at the Jerusalem council recorded in Acts 15. Nor do we fulfill it as our side of any covenant.
There is of course the new covenant to be made in a future day with Israel, and into the spirit of that we come in an anticipative way as other Scriptures show. But there is no “our side” to that covenant for it is all a question of what God is and of what He will do, and those who come under it are the subjects of it and not parties to it. There is however no reference to any covenant in Romans 8, and to imagine that the believer fulfils the righteous requirement of the law as his side of a hard and fast bargain is about as complete a falsification of the teaching of Romans 6-8 as can well be imagined.
The fact is that the Spirit-controlled believer obeys with the glad obedience of a son of God and not with obedience of a mere servant, as Galatians 4:1-91Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; 2But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. 3Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: 4But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. 6And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. 7Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. 8Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. 9But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? (Galatians 4:1‑9) testifies; consequently he does more than fulfill the strict legal requirement of the law. He finds in Christ a far higher standard than even the law of Moses.
Will you please explain the following passage of Scripture, Hebrews 10:26-3026For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 27But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. 28He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: 29Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? 30For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. (Hebrews 10:26‑30). Is the willful sin any particular form of sin — CHELTENHAM.
In this particular passage the writer of the epistle reverts again to the particular sin of which he had spoken in chapter 3:12 and 6:4-8. These Hebrews naturally were inclined to view matters from a Jewish standpoint and they had been accustomed to repeated sacrifices. Did they sin? Then they brought a sacrifice. Did they sin again? Then again they brought a sacrifice. But that order of things had now passed away. Christ’s one complete and sufficient sacrifice had been offered and now “there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins.” This is a fact of intense gravity in connection with the willful sin.
But what is this sin? Put the three passages together and you will see. It is to depart from the living God. It is to fall away from the profession of Christ in such fashion that “they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame.” It is to tread underfoot the Son of God, to count the blood of the covenant wherewith one is sanctified an unholy thing, to do despite unto the Spirit of grace.
There is one sin which embraces within itself all these terrible things, the sin of APOSTASY. That is the sin referred to here. It had special dangers for these Hebrews who at the time were grown somewhat cold, as the later part of chapter 10 shows. No true believer apostatizes though some who are professed believers have done so, and upon the ground of their profession these Hebrews were addressed. Some among them might grow weary of persecution and trials and wish to drop their Christianity and gain reinstatement in the Jewish synagogue and that would entail these terrible things.
The great mark of a true child of God is that he continues in the faith, he abides in the light, and that abides in him which he has heard from the beginning. Such never apostatize.
“Evolutionary doctrines involving the denial of the 1St of Genesis and of the fall of man recorded in the 3rd of Genesis, have become the vogue even with dignitaries within the professing church. The fallacy is propagated that the denial of these in no wise affects the foundation truths of the New Testament, but to repudiate Genesis as must be evident to any serious student of Scripture, is on the contrary to find oneself at irreconcilable variance with the great gospel Epistle to the Romans where the foundations of all the arguments educed are the responsibility and accountability of man towards God, and his moral distance from God in his unregenerate state as the result of the fall. The rejection of Genesis may he presented as the sure road to intellectual freedom, but it will prove to be an easy path to a hopeless spiritual morass.”
The above extract is taken from a pamphlet which has just been sent to us entitled, Evolutionary Theories and Scriptural Teaching, by Roderick McCallum, M.A. B.Sc. We are glad to be able to commend it to our readers. It is published by Marshall Bros. Ltd, of London and Edinburgh, price Ninepence, and may he obtained from them or from the office of this Magazine.