I am sure that those who, like our author (p. 119), say that our statements on this subject recall the vagaries of Antinomian heresy, can have no direct or full acquaintance with them, any more than understanding of those he criticizes now. The fatal defect in all those misguided visionaries, singular to say, is the same defect which appears no less in their legal adversaries. Neither side knew life in Christ risen from the dead as the real present life of the Christian. Both A. Burgess and R. Towne, to take those clashing combatants of the Commonwealth period as an instance, were on the same superficial ground where most pious people in and out of the National Establishment are found to-day; unless some are yet lower, putting their trust in saving ordinances But most look for evidence of fruits of the Spirit to satisfy themselves that they are indeed born of Him, leading to so much internal examination as may give a hope, and often plunging the godly in fear. How different this from the blessed grace and truth in Christ, the object of faith before our souls, which by the Spirit are brought into living association with Him! Thus there is a real life imparted, and the believer is united to Christ, and looks to share the bright inheritance of glory along with Him. Even now, in virtue of this wondrous grace, God has not only forgiven us all trespasses, but quickened us together with Christ, raised us up together, and seated us in (not yet with) Him in heavenly places.
Now neither the Antinomians nor the Legalists understood these fundamental privileges of the Christian's standing in Christ, and I see no trace that they are one whit better known even by real Christians generally in our day. Hence the inability to appreciate truth on most subjects, particularly on such a question as the one before us, where Mr. T. admits “the evident desire of many of their writers to enforce a high standard of practical holiness” —a thing never true of real Antinomians. We may here again see shortly whose doctrine and logic are most at fault.
Now it is an unguarded statement of Brethren's assertion of scriptural truth, that “by the law, they explain themselves to mean, not the whole Mosaic system, but the moral as distinguished from the ceremonial portions of it” (p. 116). Mr. T. ought to know that, in the tenth vol. of the Collected Writings of one most esteemed among them, there occur on this very point the following words, with which every brother would concur:— “If I speak of moral law (which scripture does not) I make it by the very expression a fatal thing to be delivered from it. Yet Paul says, the Christian is delivered from the law. If I make of the law a moral law (including therein the principles of the New Testament) and all morality in heart and life), to say a Christian is delivered from it is nonsense, or utterly monstrous wickedness; certainly it is not Christianity. Conformity to the divine will, and that as obedience to commandments, is alike the joy and the duty of the renewed mind. I say, obedience to commandments. Some are afraid of the word, as if it would weaken love, and the idea of a new creation; scripture is not. Obedience, and keeping the commandments of one we love, is the proof of that love, and the delight of the new nature. Did I do all right, and not do it in obedience, I should do nothing right, because my true relationship and heart-reference to God would be left out. This is love, that we keep His commandments, We are sanctified to the obedience of Christ. Christ Himself says, The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me; but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father hath given me commandment, even so I do. His highest act of love is His highest act of obedience. But this it is that just makes it so mischievous to put the Christian under the law, and change the scripture phraseology to another, and speak of the moral law being gone as a rule of life; and having no passage in which moral law is used, quoting Paul's statements as to ‘law,' from which he says, and insists on it as one of the chief topics of his teaching, we are delivered. Not merely that we are not justified by its works (yet we should be if the moral law were kept, and so he declares, the doer of the law shall be justified ); but that we are delivered from it. A Christian is delivered from it, because it is ruinous in its effect to every fallen son of Adam. Is it morality that is ruinous, or obedience to Christ's precepts? That were a blasphemy to say, and shocking to every Christian mind. But it is of law the apostle declares, what was ordained to life he found to be to death. (Rom. 7) It is a ministration of death, and ministration of condemnation (2 Cor. 3:7-97But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: 8How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? 9For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. (2 Corinthians 3:7‑9)). As many as are of its works—on the principle of it—its works are not bad ones—are under a curse (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)). That is, law means, in the apostle's use of it, something else than a rule or measure of conduct. It is a principle of dealing with men which necessarily destroys and condemns them. This is the way the Spirit of God uses law in contrast with Christ; and never, in Christian teaching, puts men under it, but carefully skews how they are delivered from it—are no longer under it. Nor does Scripture ever think of saying, You are not under the law in one way, but you are in another; you are not for justification, but you are as a rule of life. It declares you are not under law but under grace; and if you are under law, you are condemned and under a curse. It must have its own proper force and effect. Remark, it puts it as a principle contrasted with grace. But will a man say, You wrong us in saying we hold that a Christian is under law? I ask, How is that obligatory which a man is not under?—from which he is delivered? No; the apostle carefully insists that the law is good, that it is not the fault of the law that we are condemned, if we have to say to it (but he as carefully declares we are if we have); and that in fact we are delivered from it; that if led by the Spirit, we are not under law. He uses it to express a principle, a manner of dealing on the part of God, contrasted with grace. That is the way he speaks of law. I repeat it, scripture speaks elaborately of being delivered from the law as ministering death and a curse, declaring that we are not under it. Use the ‘term moral law,' and say so, and see where you bring us.” (Doctrinal iii. 4-7.)
One might have written to the same effect, but I considered that the words of an essay written solely to expound the truth, not to contradict another, would be more to the purpose, and therefore I add this extract more, to save needless argumentation:— “I declare according to scripture that law must have its effect, as declared in the word of God, always necessarily upon whatever is under it; but that that effect is always, according to scripture, condemnation and death, and nothing else, upon a being who has in him a lust or a fault; that it knows no mercy, but that it pronounces a curse upon every one who does not continue in all things written in it; and that whosoever is of the works of the law is under the curse. Now in fact the Christian has sin in him as a human being, and alas! fails; and if the law applies to him, he is under the curse; for it brings a curse on every one who sins. Do I enfeeble its authority? I maintain and establish it in the fullest way. I ask, Have you to say to the law? Then you are under the curse; no escaping, no exemption. Its authority and claims must be maintained, its righteous exactions made good. Have you failed? Yes, you have. Then you are under the curse. No, you say; but I am a Christian: the law is still binding upon me, but I am not under a curse. Has not the law pronounced a curse on one who fails? Yes, you are under it; you have failed; and are not cursed after all! Its authority is not maintained; for you are under it: it has cursed you, and you are not cursed! If you had said, I was under it, and failed, and Christ died and bore its curse! and now, as redeemed, I am on another footing and not under law but under grace, its authority is maintained. But if you are put back again under law after Christ has died and risen again, and you are in Christ, and you fail and come under no curse, its authority is destroyed; for it pronounces a curse, and you are not cursed at all. The man who puts a Christian under law destroys the authority of the law, or puts a Christian under the curse; for in many things we all offend. He fancies he establishes law but destroys its authority. He only establishes the full immutable authority of law, who declares that a Christian is not under it at all, and therefore cannot be cursed by its just and holy curse.” (lbid, 10, 11.)
Is it not strange that Mr. T. had this very paper under his eye, as appears from his quotation in p. 117, and yet labored under the impression he states as to the moral law?
I. First then, how comes it that we do not find Anglicans, any more than Puritans, dilating (as the apostle does) on the death of the Christian from law, and on his deliverance so as to be under grace, not law? Brethren dwell on it, as believing in its reality and all-importance through redemption; if others do not, it is because, not understanding it, they feel not its comfort.
But it is sought to neutralize the Christian's death to law by reducing it to the relations of law to man unrenewed. Of course this is common ground: all agree (1) that the law cannot justify a sinner; (2) that it cannot give life or power; and (3) that, far from quickening, it provokes by its prohibitions the evils in the flesh it condemns. But it is wholly false that these cases exhaust or explain the apostle's teaching. 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) is said evidently to mean as many as depend on their works of justification, also Gal. 5:1818But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. (Galatians 5:18), and ii. 19. Here we fairly join issue. Our censor maintains that in these passages the apostle is not treating of the law as a rule of life, but, of those unrenewed men who looked to the law for justification; we maintain that Scripture embraces both and sets aside all such misuse of the law. In his unconverted state Paul was once alive apart from law; when renewed he through law died to law that he might live to God. So far from being in this last state, a man seeking justification by law, he is showing the great Christian privilege of death with Christ as the one door of deliverance, after realizing death in his conscience as the inevitable consequence of being under law. He only when converted owned all its force in death that he might be cleared, not only from sin but from law, and live to God; he could say, I am crucified with Christ, and no longer live I, but Christ liveth in me.
This evidently goes farther than resting on Christ's blood for the remission of sins. It is a person dead with Christ and alive in Him to God, dead to law as well as to sin, but Christ living in him. Paul is explaining the principle of the life of faith right through the course, on the pound of the grace of God in deliverance from law. In Gal. 3 the apostle is avowedly correcting the Galatian error of seeking perfection in flesh by law after receiving the Spirit by the report of faith; which is enough to refute the defective view of Mr. Teulon. This he follows by citing Deut. 27 to show that law has no blessing, nothing but curse for as many as take the principle of works of law. This is not merely justification, but life; and both are by faith, not law. Even as God blessed Abraham before the law, and has now made good the promise to us, faith having come, and ourselves (even if we had been Jews) no longer under the tutelage of law (Gal. 3:2323But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. (Galatians 3:23)): a passage which strikes even a prejudiced mind. As to Gal. 5 it is extraordinary how any one could apply the latter half otherwise than to the exclusion of law from being our rule of life. After freedom by and in Christ the Galatian saints were to beware of being again in a yoke of bondage. he whole thing is excluded, not only justification by law, but having it as a rule of life, to which he opposes walking in and by the Spirit as truth and power against fulfilling flesh's lust. The latter verses treat exclusively of life and walk, not under law, but under grace, as opposed to Catholicism as to evangelicalism. No one denies that one so walking can and ought to derive divine guidance from every part of the Old Testament as well as from the New Testament.
With this agrees of course all that the Epistle to the Romans says on the matter, and it is remarkably full as well as precise. Not so Mr. Teulon (p. 127), who from 1 John 3:44Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. (1 John 3:4) says that as ἀνομία means disregard of law, walking in newness of life must involve the keeping of the law—as wrong in philology as in doctrine. “Sin is lawlessness,” say the Revisers correctly. Mr. Toulon reasons from transgression or disregard of the law, the old error of the Authorized Version so fertile in mischief on this head. Lawlessness is that self-will which sets God's will at naught for one's own, if one never had heard of the Ten Commandments, the open contrast with Christ who came to do, and ever, the will of God His Father, which went immeasurably beyond the law, even as the Christian's obedience should also. But necessarily the greater includes the less: and if one walks according to the Spirit as we ought, a fortiori is the righteous import, the δικαίωμα, of the law fulfilled in such a conversation. Our walk as Christians ought to be by the Spirit the suitable expression of the life we have in Christ, governed by the whole word of God.
The query in Rom. 6 is the usual objection of the flesh, that sovereign grace seems to allow living in sin. This the apostle answers, not by asserting the law as the Christian rule as if we were Jews, but by declaring that in our very baptism we died with Christ to sin, and therefore buried with Him have now to walk in newness of life. He argues, not from a motive, but from the blessed fact of Christ's death and resurrection in which the baptized profess to have part. But he goes on to declare that by His death we have done not only with sin, but with law and are under grace, and that sin shall not have dominion over us because we are: a solemn consideration for those whose teaching keeps them under law.
Even Mr. Teulon confesses that ch. 7 certainly seems at first sight against his view. If he understood it duly, he would feel that the truth of Christ's death and of ours who believe with Him closes the question of law which has dominion over a man only as long as he lives. But the Christian as such has died, or become dead, to the law by the body of Christ, to be to another, to Him who was raised from the dead that we should bring forth fruit to God. To be under the law, when we have thus Christ risen, is in the apostolic doctrine spiritual adultery and exactly the system here commended to us, but rejected by us.
II. The reasoning (p. 131-137) on man's position with God between the fall and the law of Sinai is in the usual style of hypothesis, without and against Scripture, to the total loss of the understanding of God's ways when man was without law, and when put, as Israel alone was, under law; but wholly distinct from the gospel going out as now. And some of us know enough of the Fathers to say that they knew the truth even less than an evangelical: so that all of what is called the ancient church teaching weighs less with us than one shred of Scripture. III. It is unfounded that Christ is by the apostle opposed to the law only as the ground of justification and as the source of life. Christ is the pattern Man whose example is set before us, and whose words by the Holy Spirit transform us as we behold Him on high. It is false that, because the Lord came under law, we ought to be; for even those under it (the Jewish believers) He came to redeem that they might receive sonship, as Gal. 4 carefully shows. Whereas the Galatians became sons through faith, without any such previous subjection to law, and had the Spirit of His Son sent into their hearts accordingly. The mischief for them was coming under law in any shape, ceremonial or moral, after Christ was known, the very thing which is so unintelligently urged on us. And it is an exceeding though of course unintentional derogation from the depth and height, length and breadth, of Christ's doing the will of God to lower it down to its least part, the obedience of the law. No one doubts that this is true in every Christian walking not after the flesh but after the Spirit; but we are called far beyond law every day to imitate God as dear children, to walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave Himself for us; to endure a great fight of afflictions; and when we do well and suffer, to take it patiently. This is not law (though we do love God and our neighbor, as no doubt all believers ever did), but it is grace with God, and the path of those who follow Christ's steps.