The condition of man is, as we have seen, one of enmity against God, not retaining God in his knowledge, and his foolish heart darkened, therefore he must of necessity be dependent on revelation for revival or certainty of any knowledge of that God who was, to all intents and purposes, lost to him.
If by a rule of life be meant man's course in relation to God, (and what else can it mean?) it is plain that revelation, according to its terms and scope, is in all ages and dispensations the only role of life proper to man or appointed by God, since his fall and alienation from all that was good and true. If man did not retain God in his knowledge, where could he obtain any just or adequate conceptions, in order to return to Him, but from revelation? Study the mind of man in its own activities, and see how it searches on all sides to extend its information of all that is pleasant to it, eagerly ranging over it as the eye travels over beautiful scenery, proving that it has not obtained what it wants to know, and its very curiosity betraying its ignorance, as well as the fear of the consequences of its ignorance. In fact, nothing but a divine revelation could relieve this lurking insatiable necessity. What was Adam to do after he fell, if he had no divine revelation? Where was he until it came? Dressed with fig leaves; and his conscience so alarmed by the voice of God and the consciousness that he was naked, that his acquired information only leads him to hide himself among the trees of the garden. What could have been his rule of life without revelation? That which he had, he had broken and despised; and now he was undergoing the penalty of his transgression, and notwithstanding all his human information, be was without clue or guidance how to extricate himself or order himself under a new rule. Revelation alone supplied this to him. By it he learned what his course on earth should be. By it he learned what was to be his deliverance, and how it should be effected; and by God was he clothed and prepared to enter on his new and changed circumstances. It is easy to say or think that man's own sense would have discovered what alone seems sensible; for wisdom, when once declared, is always palpable; and people wonder they had not seen what appears so self-evident. But in Adam we have an instance of the action of human intelligence, having fallen from one rule of life, before it received another through revelation; and how that revelation supplied it with distinct lines of knowledge and hope, of which it knew nothing before. Moreover, that in adhering to the light and rule which these lines presented to him, he was observing the only rule of life either offered or known to him. It was vain for him to attempt to return to that which in unbelief he had abrogated, and to which, according to the terms of the penalty of disobedience, all return was impossible. He presents to us the spectacle of a great man degraded without any ability to repair his ruined fortunes, though having sense and intelligence to know that his circumstances were disastrous and humiliating. In this helpless condition, a revelation from God is vouchsafed to him, and its light and counsel is to afford him a true and distinct rule of life; that is to say, if he be subject to and influenced by it, he would tread the path by which he should be extricated from all the misery and darkness in which he found himself; but if he did not, he must only return to the confusion of an enlarged intelligence, which rendered him all the more bitterly sensitive to a position which could neither counsel nor extricate him from judgment, nor restore him to happy relations with his Creator. God's purpose, and his mind towards man, and therefore man's relation to Him was the true rule of life. To depart from that one jot or tittle was to lose it. Adam accepted it, for he believed it, and called his wife's name Eve, as the mother of all living, though judicially, and apart from revelation, she was the mother of all the dying. In Cain, Adam's firstborn, we see how the rule of life is abandoned the moment the light and doctrine of the revelation is overlooked or disregarded. Cain slipped away from it sadly by recognizing no judgment on man or on the earth; and the consequence was that, however good his intentions, he was not accepted; and his murder of Abel only established the fatality of having left that rule of life, by the observance of which Abel finds full acceptance with God, who counted him " righteous;" beyond which no rule of life could lead or place him.
Let it be admitted that God's revelation of His mind was always the truth which indicated man's course and relation before him; and we have it without controversy, that the knowledge of that revelation, and subjection to its claims, was the true rule of life in every age, and specially given for and suited to that particular age or dispensation. Not that any previous revelation was set aside or disregarded, for all that God reveals must be truth; and subsequent revelations do not contradict previous ones, but confirm them, though the adaptability of each is according to the special need in which it found man for whom it was given. And the fuller it is, the more distinct is the claim it asserts over the believer to walk according to it. When man reverts to a prior revelation, however good in itself, he has lost the rule of life suitable and necessary for him in the day and hour in which he needs it; simply, because God has since given him a fuller one, and the fuller light is suited to the greater need; and is not only the better revelation, but the only one competent to overcome increasing evil, or with which faith would simply engage the soul. If I am not in the light of the revelation given to me of God, I cannot be in the rule of life incumbent on me according to the terms of the revelation. If Noah had confined his rule of life to that of Abel, he would have been lost in the flood. If Abraham had reverted to that of Noah, he never would have left Ur of the Chaldees. And if a Christian revert to the law, Christ is for him " dead in vain."
Let us trace a little more fully how the revelation unfolded the rule of life. Adam, Abel, Noah, Abraham, all acted in accordance with the revelation given to each, and became heirs of the righteousness which is by faith. More they could not have desired. Their rule of life was satisfactory for them, and their righteousness was of faith and not of law. But in process of time the law was given, and this was a different revelation to any which God had previously made to man. It did not unfold. His grace and purpose towards man as previous revelations had, (I now speak simply of the law itself,) but it declared God's claim on man, on His chosen people, who professed themselves able and willing to respond to it.
Now the law, though verily a revelation from God, and given for a special purpose, which we shall notice presently, did not of itself comprise the rule of life even for those to whom it was given.
It could not, for it was only a revelation of God's claim on man, and not of His heart towards man; and however ignorantly and recklessly man might accept that claim, God's grace was too great to leave him solely under it for a rule of life. Nor would it have been possible, for there were sins to be remitted which were not a direct infraction of law. The gracious God then at the same time ordained a course of sacrifices through a priesthood, which, while the law spoke of His claim, proclaimed, though darkly, the grace of His heart in providing a ransom for sins outside law. The sacra-floes were as much a rule of life for Israel as the law was; and were necessary even when the law made no judicial claim. The one was God's demand on man; the other, in type, His grace to man; proclaiming that " it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul."
For what purpose then was the law given? Was it to reveal God? Was it a transcript of what God is in Himself or in His relation to man? Not at all: it was God's righteous claim on man; and given to convict of sin; " for by the law is the knowledge of sin." So that it could be no rule of life with reference to what God is. And this, i.e., what God is, had been time rule of life for the saints of God in all previous revelations: the claim on them was to respond by faith to the declaration which God had made of HIMSELF, and by yielding this response, they became heirs of righteousness. But no faith could respond to law. When that was given, a new claim was preferred against man; viz., as to what God required of him; a claim which he must either satisfy or sink into the place of utter helplessness and condemnation. It was an exaction from him, straining his strength to the utmost, and never in any degree offering him any succor; so that the law (instead of revealing GOD and affecting man in the light and knowledge of that revelation as heretofore) could do naught but reveal man in all his rebellion and corruption, that " by the commandment sin should become exceeding sinful." If I educate my son and furnish him with stores of intelligence, and then point out the path and the rule I wish him to adhere to, he ought to be able to accomplish my wishes, because the very difficulties of the path would only disclose to him the value of the information with which I had stored him. But if I took an uneducated slave and required him to master languages and execute works of which he had neither knowledge nor ability for, though I might be quite justified in doing so, it is plain he must sink under my imposition. Now this is what the law did. It addressed man as he was; furnished him with no light nor increased moral power, but simply exacted from him, and thereby tested his ability. Demands on me that are greater than my resources necessarily test my power and inconceivably press on me; but they are not a rule of life for me practically, unless I can satisfy them. And even then only in part, for I should only be what God demands of me, and not what His own nature requires, if I would walk with Him. Hence, Enoch and Noah, though they knew not, and there-fore did not, keep the law, walked with God in all intimacy, which Saul of Tarsus, who was " touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless," never could.
What then is the real rule of life for any quickened soul? The same I reply in principle as it was for saints in all dispensations; for Adarn Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham. Even that which leads it in company and fellowship with the mind of God, according as that mind is revealed. To us, unlike the saints of old, it is wholly revealed, and that in the Lord Jesus Christ, who declared the Father, expounding fully what God was, and what a true man (for such He was Himself) should be towards Him. Therefore, to " put on Christ," and nothing less is for me the full and true rule of life; and for this end I have His life, which places me in communion with the Father and the Son. He is the sum of all promises, the substance of all shadows, the end of all law, the expression and impersonation of all that suited God, the. Man who pleased God. The law exacted an observance of a part of the will of God, but Christ, giving full expression to that will, went far beyond the law, inasmuch as the whole of anything must include all its parts, and left us an example to follow His steps, having, at the same time, placed us by His death as much beyond judgment as He is; for "as he is, so are we in this world." So to make the law our rule of life is wholly derogatory to our high standing. It is all the difference between being merely what God claimed of man, and being suited to Him in the closest relationship. The law is for the slave: the spirit, life, intelligence, manners, and ways of the Son are for the sons; for though " the righteous claim of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit," it is infinitely exceeded by us, as in fellowship with the Father and the Son. And to make anything short of the Son, my rule of life, is to ignore my union with Him, and the full revelation which God has now given of Himself in Him, as well as the life and spirit which He has given to every believer to walk in conformity to His mind and ways.
I have said that subsequent and fuller revelations do not invalidate prior ones; and it is plain that, by making the believer's rule of life of so much higher an order and aim, we do not make void the law. On the contrary, it holds a place, though a distant one, as to what God demands of man as man, though not as in the near place of sonship. Nor should I hesitate to make use of the law if I wanted to convict a man of anything contrary to sound doctrine. But if I wanted to urge one to his high estate, I should point out the way and manner of Christ to him. To convict a willful one of excess, and to exhort a willing one to progress, are two very different things. If a man is so willful, that to say to him, " You are not like Christ," would, though true, be inapplicable, it only shows how far below the light of God's revelation he has fallen. The law, by which of old " sin became exceeding sinful," I might use to show how God's lowest claim on man. had been transgressed by him, and thus silence him. He must, in the light of it, either repent or be condemned; for it would give him no succor. It is negative; and a man must be persisting in the flesh, when I should use it against him, merely to convict and condemn. But when I want to stimulate a true disciple, be he never so failing, I point out to him the spirit in which Christ walked; and the spirit of Christ in him responds to the exhortation. I want to invigorate such an one, not to condemn him; and I therefore seek to engage his soul with, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," and to whose image be is to be conformed.
To " put on Christ," I have already said, is now the rule of life, because we have His life, and He is the new man; and it is to Him as the new, risen, and heavenly man that we are being conformed. The soul of the believer has no neutral ground. It is to " put of the old and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." And what could it have more? There are two states in which this rule of life acts. The apostle says, " That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death." Now this passage shows that the practical life and position of a Christian is connected with the two states passed through by our Lord-the one in resurrection, and the other in death and suffering here. The rule of life must embrace the two; and if I fail in fellowship with either, I must be defective in my rule of life. First, I must know Him in the power of His resurrection, otherwise I am in death or its consequences. But in knowing Him thus, a new object of interest, and a wondrous power even-a power out of death-is known to me. It is knowing Christ, where He is, and the power which placed Him there. The man who has this rule of life must be preeminently distinguished from the natural man, who does not know God, and who is in bondage and weakness because of death. But this is only one state which the rule of life embraces. The other is knowing Christ as He was down here-not as a Jew, or walking in Jewish circumstances; though, of course, He was such, and did so walk: but as the suffering man, and thus knowing the fellowship of His sufferings, " conformity to his death." The rule of life for me embraces all with regard to which He could say that He has left us an example to follow His steps. His path was one of suffering unto death; and though, of course, He entered into both in a way and degree that we never could, still, in following His steps, we take the place of suffering and death here, and that because we know Him in the power of His resurrection as above it all. Because in spirit we are with Him in heaven, where our citizenship is. Now if the rule of life embraces these two lines for me, I am, like the apostle, " found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of God by faith." It is a righteousness quite apart from, and above, law; as we read, " Now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested "-a 'righteousness that, so far from being measured by any commandment or sum of commandments given by God to man, has no lower measure than Christ Himself. His life in me, His resurrection-life, reaches up to where He is, knowing the power that placed Him there; and, at the same time, puts me into the place of suffering here which He occupied. And so perfect is the rule of life given me, that it will take no lower ground than to be "found in him," in " the righteousness of God."
In conclusion, I repeat, that man's correspondence with the revelation of God in every age was the rule of life. So is it now; and my correspondence must be with the full revelation of God in His Son, who is at once the model for me, and the One from whom a new life flows to me, which enables me to walk in likeness to Himself, and in such acknowledged acceptance before God, that as He is, so am I in this world: beyond judgment, and in the righteousness of God through faith. Revelation helps man to act with reference to God, for it reveals God. Law exacts from ruined man in order to reveal himself, expose his poverty, and the pride in which he denied his poverty. Useful, I admit, for the same end even now, but not as a standard or model. Such alone now is the life-giving Lord, "God manifest in the flesh," to whose image we are to be conformed. To His own likeness in word and deed He seeks to lead us, until we all come "in the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of Him, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." The better I know my Lord, and walk in communion with His mind, and in the power of His Spirit, the better do I know the high and blessed sphere which occupy before God, and what is that great and holy rule of life proper to me. So Much so, that I do not judge any of my acts by the law, but by Him (and I hereby "establish the law" and immeasurably exceed it) who as man was the Father's delight, not only obeying Him, but in every possible way well-pleasing to Him, not only paying Him what He required, (for that is law, and that He did also,) but saying, " I delight to do thy will, 0 my God.,"
In Him, and through Him, it is that we have a rule of life and therefore are inconceivably above all law. Little, alas! do we walk in it. May we do so more and more, and thus know better the blessing and power accorded to us therein.