That the will of God, where it is expressed in the word, ought to govern the Christian, every soul truly converted will own. But the word of God is wiser than man; never does it set the Christian under the law since the death of Jesus. It was a schoolmaster until Christ. The word speaks of commandments; they are dear and precious, and are not painful to the living Christian. But it never places the Christian under the law; I repeat, the word comes from a God who knows the heart of man, and who knows what is necessary for Him, and what is injurious to Him or impossible. He has employed the law to convince him of sin. The law, says the word expressly, is not for the righteous man; men say that it is. I believe the word, the wisdom of my God more than men. I believe that He can guard holiness, without which none shall see Him, better than human wisdom can. He knows, and the man who is taught of Him, and is familiar with his own heart, knows that the law—all law—is a ministry of death and condemnation, and that it could not be anything else. He knows that if man is set, in any measure whatever, under a law, you must either condemn him or enfeeble the obligation of the law. In a word, men do not understand the mind of God about the law. They speak vaguely of the notion of obligation of law, of being bound by the law. But if they are bound by the law, assuredly even Christians have not kept it in fact, though their new nature loves it, and love is the accomplishing of it. Now, if they have not kept it, and yet are bound by it, they are condemned; the law drives them, even as Christians, from the presence of God. If you are bound by the law, and have failed in your obligation-which is just the truth, either the obligation must be weakened and destroyed, or you must perish. The only obligation which the law knows is to keep it or be lost-nothing else. The law knows nothing of grace, and it ought to know nothing of it. You, Christian, have not kept the law. Are you under the obligation of doing so? In order to escape, the obligation must be blotted out. Such is the inconsistent conclusion of those who could place Christians in subjection. We know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully: they desire to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.
Faith and the grace of God alone maintain the authority of the law-and for this reason: I own myself lost if I am under the law, and I see that Christ has undergone its curse, and has placed me in a new position which re-unites two things; perfect righteousness before God, because it is the righteousness of God, accomplished in Christ; and life, the participation in the divine nature, according to the power of resurrection. I cannot have the two husbands, the two obligations, at the same time-the law and Christ. In Christ I am dead. Now the law has authority, and binds as long as we live; but being dead (because Christ is dead for me) I am delivered from the law, in order that I should belong to another-such is the positive language of the word-to Him who is raised from the dead, that I should bring forth fruit unto God. If you are bound by the law, the law will maintain its authority and this obligation with rigor; it ought to do this, and it will condemn you as sure as you are a sinner. If I am dead, it has no more authority over me, for it does not pass over that barrier. I belong to another. I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Christ was under the law while he lived; risen, He is no longer so. Now the commandments, whether we say of God or of Christ, have another character for the Christian. All that Christ has said, all His apostles have said, all the things in which the Old Testament enlightens us upon His will, direct and govern the life that we already possess, and have the authority of the word of God, that is, of God Himself over our soul. I have the life; the words of Christ, His commandments, (and that which is found elsewhere in the word of the same character, is the same in principle) are the expression of this life in Him, its fruits in all respects, according to the perfection and the will of God Himself, and the direction of this life in me. I walk, following them according to the thoughts of God and His will; it is the law of liberty, because I possess already the life, the perfection, of which it lays down; and being the expression of the will of God, it is also of obedience. But if you return to the law, you return to death and condemnation. The law does not give life, nor does it give strength for holiness, any more than it justifies. If people felt what the law is, they would feel that upon that ground they are lost, because the law has not lost its strength, and it is always and everywhere (for man) a ministry of condemnation and death. Not that we would make such a thing a reproach; for many dear souls are found under the law-not, of course according to God's will, but through their own want of faith, and through bad teaching.
But the New Testament speaks to us of the law as a thing from which we are delivered. It tells us that the law has dominion as long as we live, but that we are dead and cannot have two husbands at once, the law and Christ; that is, that we cannot be bound, in two ways, to two objects. The apostle expresses himself thus: “to them that are under law, as under law, while I myself am not under law, [a most important clause left out in the common text,] that I might gain them that are under law: to them that are without law, as without law, being not without law to God, but ἕννομος Χριστω, i.e. subject, or bound by obedience, to Christ.” We cannot be too watchful for holiness; we are sanctified unto obedience. The independence of the will is the principle of sin; but the law is not the means of arriving at holiness. It does not give a new will, nor strength when we have one. The New Testament always speaks of it as a means of death, condemnation, and weakness. Those who are of (or on the principle of) the works of the law, (and these are not bad but good,) are under the curse (Gal. 3). It is not for a righteous man,- δικαιῶ νόμος ο’ν κεῖπαι nothing more absolute. It is to ignore what the heart of man is to suppose that he can be under a law coming from God, and live.
The word of God is clear as the day. and it is evident to him that understands what man is, that, unless one be condemned, there is no such thing as having to do with the law without weakening its obligation. Grace alone maintains its authority, If I put myself under a mixture of law and grace, I ought to beseech God (like the people with Moses) to hide from me His glory as an unbearable thing; whereas, when I see it in Christ, by the ministry of righteousness and the Spirit, I can contemplate this glory with unveiled face, and be changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.