God began by giving “promise.” And here there was nothing at all of man. But, because (as we shall see more especially in the latter part of the chapter, where the apostle speaks about promise from God—promise coming from Him when there was nothing in man to call it out, except indeed the ruin and need of man), when He had given the promise, before He had completed that which He had promised—redemption, before the revelation of Christ, He knew the constant tendency of the human heart to seek to satisfy its own feeling of responsibility, God gave the full extent of His demand upon it, with the consequence of failure. Because, I say, He knew what was in the heart of man, its tendency from the first (natural tendency, that is, until redemption and grace are fully known) to judge about itself by itself as to its future state; and also the pride of man, which supposes something in man which can be brought to God, or something from man which can be done for God, before He did anything for the accomplishment of His promise, He brought in the law, thus trying man in responsibility to the utmost.
It is quite right, most assuredly, to be what God has required in His revealed will. God has in the law demanded a certain amount of good in man, and I have the plain revelation of God about it. Therefore I cannot act as if there were no revelation. It is one of the sins of the heart of man, that of “intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,” thinking he can approach God by some means of his own devising. God requires something that is not merely the work of man's hands, something real in the soul, something which has to do with man's relationship to Himself, and to his fellow-creatures. There is this in the law—the direct requirement of God from man, of what man ought to be towards God and before Him. This is one way to take up the law. And, further, there is the prohibition of what sin had brought in.
There are these two things. The first is what God requires positively of man, expressed in the summary given by our Lord— “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.” There is also the other part, the prohibition of what man was indulging in. The law presented the requirements of God, that is, supposing man was right practically before God; and took cognizance of what man was not, and prohibited it. And that is all the law did; except, indeed, to pronounce the curse, if there was failure in the things required.
Now as soon as this is tried—the moment we get here, and see the law in this light—we find man at once brought in completely hopeless and helpless; and for this very reason, that he has done the things God forbids. He is “ungodly,” but not only so; he is, moreover, “without strength.” This is his condition naturally; and the moment there is real desire, and the endeavor, to serve God according to the law, it is found out. Supposing he desires (which I assume and grace produces it) to serve God, and not to do anything forbidden in the law, he discovers the very principle of his nature to be all wrong. There is “a law in his members, warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin, which is in his members,” which has selfishness for its basis, and corruption for its object. It is in himself. Hence the reason that we so often find persons crying out, “O wretched man that I am!” Moreover, when he comes to see what is in himself, it is that which brings him down into despair. It is not his past sins—he could easily suppose God might forgive them, nay, perhaps, that they were actually forgiven, when he was first converted. The trial is not there. But when he feels the principle of those sins to be in himself—the principle which produced them there still and working in him, now that he lives and “delights in the law of God after the inner man” —it is this which casts him down. And cast down he remains until he apprehends the ministry of grace.
Now, beloved friends, you see God has given law for the prohibition of evil. And, taking it in that point of view, He gave it to man already in sin. It came in after two things, evil, and the promise. It was a thing “added because of transgressions, until the Seed should come to Whom the promise was made” (ver. 19), neither the original condition of man, nor the purpose of God about man. It “came in,” it is said (though its elements, no doubt, are everlasting and eternal truth), “by the bye,” added because of transgressions. “The law παρεισῆλθε, that the offense might abound” (Rom. 5:2020Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: (Romans 5:20)). Hence we are taught, that its object was to make plain and evident—to discover that perverseness of the will of man, which would never otherwise have been discovered—the inclination, where there is the knowledge of good, and the desire after good, to do evil; and, therefore, the hopelessness of man's case before God. Man is concluded under sin (ver. 22). Such is the effect of the law.
It was quite clear that man delighted in sin. Natural conscience sufficed to spew there was sin and guilt. But then the law came in and was added to these, “that every mouth might be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God” (Rom. 3:1919Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. (Romans 3:19)).
What is said here? “As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse” (ver. 10). Mark the force of that expression. It is not, as many as are living in sin, neither yet merely as many as have broken the law (though this is the reason of it); but “as many as (ὅσοι) are of the works of the law.” How universal the statement! It is quite true that man is under “the curse of the law,” because he has been the breaker of the law, but it is all who are of the works of the law who are under that curse. The law was not given to prohibit lust, until man was a willful creature—a being in whom lust was found—until after sin had entered. I am not now speaking of the law respecting Adam's not eating the fruit, but of the law given by Moses (ver. 19). Coming in at that time, it pronounced the curse upon every one “not continuing in all things that were written in the book of the law, to do them.” It took this ground.
And even the very notice, in the scripture before us, is remarkable. The apostle says, “for it is written” (ver. 10), that is, he quotes Deuteronomy, where we find (chap. xxvii.) that six tribes were to stand upon Mount Gerizim, to bless the people; and six upon Mount Ebal, to curse. But where the details are entered into, there are no tribes mentioned for blessing. The blessing is not heard at all!—it is only the curse.
(Continued from page 56.)