THE two chief forms which have been presented by the sound and unsound portions of the visible church, are the religion of the letter which killeth, and the religion of the spirit which giveth.
Rash indeed would be the conclusion that, as time has rolled on and circumstances changed, the danger of the letter has diminished, or that it was confined to the days when Moses was read and the Jew still dwelt in his own land; that, with the passing away of the daily sacrifice and the services of the temple, has also passed away the peril of the religion of the letter. To me it seems as if the danger were greater now, insomuch as it is more concealed; to me, it seems as if the temptation were to the full as formidable now as of old, to substitute the law of a carnal commandment for the power of an endless life; and sure I am, that the ability needful to administer the New Testament does still pre-eminently consist in a right apprehension, and a bold declaration, of the righteousness of the new covenant, which is life, as opposed to the righteousness of the law, which is death; not our own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.
And it is to this new righteousness, revealed in the New Testament, that St. Paul ascribes the mighty energy of the Gospel of Christ unto Salvation; "it is the power of God unto salvation," for therein "is the righteousness of God revealed," (Rom. 1:17,) and therefore he was not ashamed of it.
The nature and design of the law may, therefore, be briefly considered, so as to unfold the evil which resides in the ministration of the letter.
Although the design of the moral law was obviously to enforce and ensure moral excellence; yet nothing is more certain than that it has utterly failed in this design; and although the design of the ceremonial institute was to provide a way of cleansing, to point to an atonement, and to a way of reconciliation with God, yet it is no less sure that it did not accomplish the expiation of the sinner, " for the blood of bulls and goats could not put away sin."
How did it, then, come to pass that, with circumstances of such impressive solemnity, God gave unto men a revelation of His will and law, and that the result should prove the total inadequacy of the law? Why was it necessary to try the peculiar people of God, for fifteen hundred years, with this fearful experiment of seeking for salvation by the law? Some weighty reason, some deep necessity, must have existed: some lesson of vast importance was to be impressed upon the human race.
This lesson is made known to us in the New Testament; it was to lead us from the letter which killeth, to the Spirit which giveth life; for although the design of the law was to enforce obedience, yet the design of God, in giving the law, was to show the impossibility of obedience—to show that, with every circumstance of advantage, the attempt to fulfill the law is altogether hopeless; that, with God's will revealed, not merely by the dim suggestions of conscience, but with his own finger in letters of light; with God's presence, not merely guessed at, but actually made manifest to sense; with God's bounty, not merely sheen in the ordinary blessings of his providence, but in the gifts which made the sojourn in the wilderness a succession of miracles; to show, I say, that, notwithstanding all these things, man's efforts to obey end only in sin, condemnation, and death.
Are we, then, to say that God's purpose was baffled? No! for His purpose was to prepare us for Christ by showing the hopelessness of any other way.
The evil which it cost so much to remove must strike its roots deep and far into the nature of man; there must be an irresistible impulse sending him to trust in the law, in meritorious exertions and external ordinances to trust in the phantom of moral excellence as the way of acceptance with God or, so large a portion of the world's history would not have been occupied with teaching the great lesson, that " by the works of the law no flesh can be justified; " that the effect of the law, when applied to a fallen being, is only to aggravate sin and to cause the offence to abound; nay, that the strength of sill resides in the law.
As long as man is fallen and un-humbled—as long as he is utterly sinful, and yet blind to his sin, so long will the law be most subtle and deadly poison in the cup which Satan mingles for the souls of man.
So it was from the beginning; this was the earliest enemy which the gospel of the grace of God had to encounter. Whether St. Paul writes to the Romans, the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians, the Hebrews, he has every where to deal with the law. We find him testifying to the Romans, " that we are not under the law; that the law worketh wrath;" to the Corinthians, " that the law is the strength of sin," and " the letter which killeth: " to the Galatians, " that a man is not justified by the works of the law; that we are dead to the law through the law; that, if righteousness came by the law, then is Christ dead in vain; that as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: " to the Ephesians, " that the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, was abolished and slain in the flesh of Christ: " to the Philippians, that " he that wins Christ and is found in him, is one not having his own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of God by faiths: " to the Colossians, that " the handwriting of ordinances is blotted out, removed, and nailed to the cross: " to the Hebrews, that " the law is weak and a shadow, and unprofitable, making nothing perfect, and disannulled."
It was in the papal system that the religion of the letter, with its mischievous results, received its most monstrous development; and the great struggle of Luther and his companions was against legalism in all its forms. And the noble army of our English confessors and martyrs fought for the same end—to exalt the banner of the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, above the ruins of the righteousness of the law.
Now, the unlawful use of the law develops itself in a twofold form: one is the relying on some moral excellence, obedience, or principle, as a ground of acceptance with God; and the other is the setting an undue value on that which is external and ceremonial, or " preferring the lesser to the weightier matters of the law."
One follows in the train of the other: once make obedience the title to the divine favor, and there will ensue a magnifying of ritual observances, and an exalting of human rules, traditions, and authority, to an exaggerated degree, because ritual obedience may be only carnal, and not spiritual obedience, and then will be an easy task.
The design, the ultimate design, of the moral law was to stamp condemnation on the fallen race of man; the design of the ceremonial institute was to point to a salvation for the condemned, by shadowing forth things to come. The moral law said, “This do and thou shalt live;" the ritual law said," This do for the purgation and remission of sins." But what was the result to Israel? Did the moral law bring life, or did the ceremonial law accomplish remission? No: the one proved but a curse, the other was only a shadow; the moral law knew nothing of grace, but only wrath; the ordinances contained only the type and adumbration, and not truth and reality. GRACE and TRUTH came not by Moses, but by Jesus Christ.
Thus, legalism, the religion of the letter, will discover itself in two ways: in the foundation which it lays for the acceptance of a sinner with God, and in the nature of the religious obedience which it enforces and commands.
If the ground on which God's favor and forgiveness are expected by a fallen being be in any form or any degree a moral ground—if it be any quality, principle, or righteousness inherent and internal, then here is "the letter which killeth, and not the Spirit which giveth life."
Or if you find men giving an undue importance to external religion, magnifying a ritual institute, exalting above their just place ordinances and sacraments, discipline and authority, preferring the lesser to the weightier, the positive to the moral, giving breadth and prominence to the visible and outward means, and thrusting into obscurity or holding in reserve the inward and spiritual; here again reigns the letter, and the ministration which prevails is of condemnation and death.
And wheresoever we find religion wearing the garb of a system prominently ceremonial and external, we may expect to find the further evil of unsound views as to the righteousness whereby a sinner is justified before God. Carnal ordinances and self-righteous claims grow naturally together; and men's notions of holiness are degraded when their views of justification are unscriptural. -Extracted, by kind permission, from a Sermon by G. S. Smith, D.D.