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 2
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 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; 2 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. Ail, 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, 0 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 the world; there is no time to lose; look to Jesus at once, believe on 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).
The history of man, from Adam to Christ, may also be viewed as the history of God's grace and goodness in His dealings towards him. Condemned, indeed, we know rebellious man to be, but still, in patience infinite, God's grace lingers over him. The sentence, long pronounced, is not yet executed. But every day that sentence is suspended must be owned as another day's grace to the world. There was no such lingering love shown to the rebel angels; their punishment was immediate and irremediable. But man! oh, living, abiding miracle of grace! is still borne with, and still allowed to prosper in this life, though he continues to despise the grace, and rebel against the majesty, of heaven; but the awful consequences of his unbelief will surely come, though the day of reckoning may be delayed. Thus the history of man is twofold: unbelief and apostasy on his part from the beginning, and patient grace and unwearied goodness on the part of God. We will now consider man's responsibility under law.