Romans 5:6-116For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. 11And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. (Romans 5:6‑11)
We have now clearly seen, from God’s dealings with Abraham and his seed, that the blessing of both Jew and Gentile is secured by promises, and that, too, without the question of man’s condition as a sinner being raised. Abraham knew nothing of law, or of conditions on his part, as the ground of the promise being fulfilled. It was by unconditional promise that God gave to him the inheritance. “To Abraham and to his seed were the promises made.” It was purely of grace on the part of God, and His faithfulness will perform in due time all He has promised.
But man utterly failed to understand, to appreciate, grace as the ground of God’s dealings towards him, and being naturally self-righteous, terms were proposed which raised the question of law-righteousness, and claimed it on the part of God the period of law.
Four hundred and thirty years after the date of promise the law was given. Redemption having been prefigured by the slain lamb in Egypt, and the passage of the Red Sea, the children of Israel journeyed to the wilderness of Sinai. Then, alas! insensible of their mercies, they gave up the ground of grace, and entered into covenant with God, on the ground of their own competency, to keep the law. Thus it happened.
“In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. For they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness; and there Israel camped before the mount. And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine. And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. And Moses came, and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded him. And all the people answered together, and said, “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do” Exodus 19:1-81In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. 2For they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness; and there Israel camped before the mount. 3And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; 4Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. 5Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: 6And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. 7And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded him. 8And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord. (Exodus 19:1‑8).
Up till this time all was grace. The murmurs and the unbelief of the people only served to show the riches of God’s grace, and His tender mercy towards His poor failing people. But here the course of grace formally terminates, and obedience to the law is made the condition of blessing. This was a great change, a most important epoch, in man’s history. How fully all this proves what man’s state of mind really was as to the things of God!
1. It proves that the preciousness of grace—so priceless to every Christian that knows it—had never truly entered the heart of the Jew. In place of leaving the promised blessing to rest simply on the infallibility of the Promiser, they vainly preferred to rest it on condition of their own obedience to the law. Never was man’s self-righteousness—the legality of the human heart—more fatally manifested than here, for the law worked wrath, and brought men under the curse, because of their utter failure. Had that unspeakably, inconceivably, precious thing, grace, been appreciated, they would all have cried out as with the heart of one man, “May we have no such terms proposed to us, Ο Lord; no such responsibility laid upon us. We dare not place ourselves under such conditions, we should certainly lose our blessing. Thy grace, O Lord, is our only hope as sinners.” But no, they undertook to do all that the Lord had spoken.
2. Their conduct at Sinai also proves that they had no just sense of their own weakness in the sight of God, and no proper knowledge of His righteousness and holiness. Grace, grace without rebuke, is the only ground on which the sinner can stand, the only plea he can urge, and the only refuge in which he can find a shelter.
“Grace is a mine of wealth
Laid open to the poor;
Grace is the sovereign spring of health;
‘Tis life for evermore.”
WHY THE LAW WAS GIVEN.
But why, it may be asked, were such terms proposed to Israel, when they had no strength to keep them? God saw that it would be good and wholesome for man to know the truth about himself, and the nature and extent of God’s claims upon him; and for this end He gave the law. It was the perfect standard of what God required of man, of what man ought to be, and the prohibition of that to which he was strongly inclined. The ten commandments, for the most part, are like an interdict on the human will. “Thou shalt not.”.... “Thou shalt not” is the stern, prohibitory voice of the moral law.
It will now be seen that the office of the law was to detect and register man’s deeds, and put in evidence his character as a transgressor. “Wherefore then serveth the law?” says the apostle; “it was added because of transgression.” From the fall, down to the promulgation of the law at Sinai, man had been left to prove what his fallen nature is without the restraints of law: after that period, we see what he becomes when subjected to an authority which forbids and opposes the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Without law men were lawless, under law they are law-breakers; and when Christ came, fall of grace and truth, Him they rejected and crucified.
But to return to the question. “Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgression.” Not because of sin, observe, but because of transgression. It is important to mark the difference. Again, the apostle says, “Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound.” Not, of course, that sin might abound. God could never sanction anything that would cause sin to abound. But what is the difference? some may inquire. Sin is the lawlessness of the flesh, a much deeper and wider thing than transgression. Sin was in man from the fall, but transgression is the violation of a known and positive law. Who filled the world with corruption and violence? And who afterward filled it with idolatry? Sinners, most assuredly. But this was before the law entered, and they are not called transgressors. “For where no law is there is no transgression.” The apostle does not say, observe, “Where no law is there is no sin.” This he could not say, for sin was as much in man before the law was given as after. At the same time let us not forget that all transgression is sin, though sin in its root and principle is never called transgression; it is not necessarily the violation of law.
Through the subtlety of Satan, some have endeavored to mystify the apostle’s reasoning, and affirm that where there is no law there is no sin. This is a most ruinous doctrine, entirely opposed to all scripture, and intended by the enemy to encourage men in doing their own will. We know that the natural tendency of the human heart is to do its own will, in spite of God, if it can. Thus Cain went and built a city, and established himself and his family, outside the presence of God. This was sin—the lawlessness of the flesh—and long before anything was heard of law as given by Moses. “Whosoever committeth sin,” according to the literal reading of 1 John 3:44Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. (1 John 3:4), “committeth lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.” Thus it was that God saw it to be necessary and important to introduce a law that would put man thoroughly to the test, place in evidence his real condition as a sinner, and raise the question of righteousness on the part of God. It never was intended that the law should bring man into blessing; that was infallibly secured by promise through the seed of Abraham; for man, being already a sinner, and loving sin, the holy law of God could only prove him guilty, and condemn him to its penal sanction. “ For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” Gal. 3:1010For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. (Galatians 3:10).
THE OBJECT OF THE LAW MISUNDERSTOOD.
Many excellent Christians, we are sorry to add, through the blinding power of Satan, completely mistake the real object of the law. Hence they look to it as the rule of life. This is a subtle snare of the enemy to draw away the heart from Christ, and back into the world. For the law has its place in this life, not in heaven. We cannot take the law as the rule of life without being on the world’s, or Satan’s, ground; and there he has blinding power. The blessed Lord Jesus, now in heaven, is the only rule of life for the Christian. The law, because of man’s sinful condition, must be to him the rule of death. “For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.” The apostle first experienced in his soul death by the law, then death to the law, and then in grace beyond it, life in a risen Christ—alive unto God. Communion with a heavenly Christ, through the power of the Holy Ghost, is the rule of a Christian’s life. “For me to live is Christ,” says the apostle. We may often come short of our divine standard, but to be content with a lower one is fatal to our practical Christianity. “He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk even as he walked.” Thus we have the two apostles in perfect harmony on this grand practical subject. Need we wonder, then, that so many Christians are harassed with doubts and fears, when we know that the law—which never fails to curse the sinner—is their object, in place of Christ, who never fails to bless, and to bless abundantly, all who put their trust in Him?
The law looked on to Christ. “It was added because of transgression, till the seed [Christ] should come, to whom the promise was made.” This explains the character and the limits of the legal period in the history of God’s dealings with man. It was the wholesome discovery to man himself of his real condition, that his conscience might be exercised, and that he might be well assured that there was no hope for him as a lost sinner but through faith in Christ, the heir of all the promises. For “ the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.” Gal. 3; Rom. 4 Cor. 3
For man “under sin” there cannot be one ray of hope apart from Christ as the crucified One. He is the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by Him. He died, the just One in the room of the unjust, that He might bring us unto God. He magnified God’s law which man had broken, and endured its awful sanction, which man had incurred. Having fully met every claim of heaven, the accomplishment of all the promises is established in His Person. It is only by His precious blood that guilt can be removed from the conscience, so that the believer can say in holy triumph, “no more conscience of sins.” There is no such thing on the face of the whole earth as a good conscience, a peaceful mind, a happy heart, a holy path, apart from that blessed One. As the stars disappear before the rising sun, so all thoughts, all schemes, all doings, all epochs, all dispensations, as shadows flee away before the bright, effulgent, transcendent glories of the once lowly, but now exalted, Christ of God. He is the perfect covering for the eyes, the filling up, the overflowing of the human heart. All, all, is gone for man save Himself. His death shuts the door on all the previous positions proposed to man. It writes death, absolute death, on the first man. His whole history is summed up and closed in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, the second Man, the Lord from heaven.
Forget not, then, Ο my reader, that where thou now art, as thou now art, without waiting to do something, or to be something, look to Jesus.
“There is life in a look to the crucified One,
There is life at this moment for thee.”
Every other door of hope is closed against thee, and closed forever. There is no salvation for any soul of man but through faith in Him. Oh, momentous truth! Thy soul may be quivering in the balance, a mighty struggle may be going on; who is to gain the victory? Christ or Satan? It must be the one or the other. There is no middle path or place; it must either be Christ and the full salvation of God, or Satan and the endless torments of hell. Oh, suffer not the enemy to deceive thee, to thy eternal ruin, by the attractions of this present evil world; there is no time to lose; look to Jesus at once, believe in Jesus at once, give thy heart to Jesus at once, surrender thy whole self to Jesus at once, take up thy cross, which is death to the world, and follow Jesus at once; then shall thy soul be saved, thy heaven secured, and thy eternal, unmingled, happiness far, far, beyond the reach of every foe. “But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” Eph. 2:1313But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2:13).