Section 1. Law - outline of objections
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1. Adventists quote much from the Old Testament in proof of their doctrines, particularly the law and the Sabbath. Christians find their guidance and doctrines in the New Testament
2. Adventists seek to prove that there are two laws described in the Bible, one moral, the other ceremonial. But there is only one law.
3. The Ten Commandments did not exist before the time of Moses.
4. "The very wording of the Sinaitic law proves that it was designed only for the Jews. The Ten Commandments is introduced thus: 'I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee ... out of the house of bondage' (Ex. 20:2). To whom is that applicable? Only to the Israelite nation, of course." See also Deuteronomy 4:8, Romans 9:4, and similar passages, which state specifically that the law was given only to the Israelites.
5. The Bible says that the Ten Commandments are the covenant that God made with Israel at Sinai, that is, the old covenant. (See Dent. 4:13) This covenant has been abolished, and we live under the new covenant. There fore we have nothing to-do with the Ten Commandments.
6. Paul states that ministration of death, written and engraved in stones was "done away." Therefore the Ten Commandment law, which was written on the tables of stone, has been done away. (See 2 Cor. 7:2)
7. Paul's allegory on the two covenants in Galatians 4 proves that we have nothing to do with law in the Christian dispensation.
8. Paul declares that we are not under the law, but under grace. (Rom. 6:14) The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. (John 1: 17) Paul also declares that "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes." Rom. 10:4. These texts prove that the law was abolished by Christ.
9. Luke 16:16 proves that Christians have nothing to do with law
10. Romans 7:14 proves that the law is done away. Under the figure of marriage Paul explains that we are "delivered from the law," that, indeed, the law is dead.
11. Ephesians 2:14, 15 and Colossians 2:14, 16 prove that the law was abolished at the cross
12. Through Moses, God gave commandments to His people. Fifteen hundred years later Christ also gave commandments. Adventists fail to make a distinction between God's law, which was abolished at Calvary, and Christ's commandments that bind the Christian. Hence Adventists mistakenly contend that the Ten Commandments and Christ's commandments are the same and equally binding.
13. The only command that we need to keep now is Christ's new commandment to love one another, for He declared that we should keep His commandments even as He had kept His Father's commandments. And does not the Bible say that love is the fulfilling of the law?
14. Seventh day Adventists are constantly preaching that men should obey God's commandments, keep the law, as if that were the sum and substance of true religion and a passport to heaven. But the Christian has nothing to do with law; he lives wholly by the grace of God, which is made available to him through faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thus, and thus only, can any man he right with God and be in readiness for heaven.
15. Why preach the law when no one can be saved by obeying it? Furthermore, man is morally unable to keep the commandments.
16. By preaching the law you endeavor to deprive Christians of the glorious liberty of the gospel.
17. The Bible repeatedly and emphatically declares that no one can be justified by keeping the law. Hence to preach the keeping of the law is to preach another gospel. "Whosoever of you are justified by the law; you are fallen from grace.”Gal. 5:4
18. 1 Timothy 1:9 proves that the Christian has nothing to do with the law, for we read there that "the law is not made for a righteous man
19. Seventh day Adventists teach that a man must keep the commandments in order to be saved
Section 1. Law - answers
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Objection 1
Adventists quote much from the Old Testament in proof of their doctrines, particularly the law and the Sabbath. Christians find their guidance and doctrines in the New Testament.
We do quote much from the Old Testament. We also quote much from the New. Actually we make no distinction in authority between the Old and the New Testament, and for the very reason that we, are Christians. We believe that the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is inspired of God and thus rightly the guide for our lives.
Some people, when they discuss the law and the Sabbath, seek to set up a contrast or even conflict between the Old and the New Testament, as though the former were of little or no value and quite superseded by the latter. This false contrast lies at the root of much of the erroneous reasoning that marks the arguments of those who contend that the law and the Sabbath were abolished at the cross.
The "Bible" of the apostles was what is now known as the Old Testament. The first writings of these earliest Christian ministers did not begin to come from their pens until twenty, thirty, and more years after the ascension of Christ. Nor were there printing presses and fast mail service quickly to distribute these writings. Only slowly did they gain circulation. It is wholly reasonable to believe that during the first century of the Christian Era the term the Scriptures, mentioned repeatedly in the New Testament, was largely understood to mean what we call the Old Testament.
Christ admonished the Jews to "search the scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." John 5:39. And then He added, "Had you believed Moses, you would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if you believe not his writings, how shall you believe my words?" Verses 46,47
The reason the disciples did not understand the events of crucifixion week was that they did not rightly understand the Scriptures, the Old Testament. (See Luke 24:27) On His resurrection day He showed them how His death and resurrection were a fulfillment of prophecy: "Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures." Luke 24:45. Christ knew nothing of the doctrine of discounting the Old Testament.
Nor did the apostles give any hint that they discounted the Old Testament in favor of some writings they were soon to produce. Paul wrote to Timothy: 'From a child thou has known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly
furnished unto all good works." 2 Tim. 3:15-17. Could the New Testament accomplish more than this!
Both Christ and the apostles repeatedly cited the 0ld Testament in confirmation of their teachings. To Satan, Christ said, "It is written," and thrice quoted the Old Testament. (See Matt. 4:4-10) He chided the scribes and Pharisees by quoting the fifth commandment, from the book of Exodus, and by quoting the words of Isaiah. (See Matt. 15:1-9) See also Christ's conversation with the rich young ruler and with the lawyer. (Matt. 19: 16-19; Luke 10:25-28) Prominent in these references to the 0ld Testament are the quotations from the Ten Commandments.
How did Paul prove that all men, Jews and Gentiles, were guilty before God and thus in need of the salvation offered through Christ? By quoting from the Old Testament. (See Rom. 3:9-I8.) And how did he know that he himself was a sinner before God and in need of the gospel? By calling to mind what was written in the Old Testament, specifically what was written in the Ten Commandments. (See Rom. 7:7) To the church at Rome Paul commanded: "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loves another hath fulfilled the law." Rom. 13:8. And did he profess to be setting forth a new code, which was the result of a new revelation then given to him? No, he quotes the Old Testament, and specifically the Ten Commandments. (See verses 9, 10) And how did Paul support his appeal to children to obey their parents? By quoting from the Old Testament, specifically the Ten Commandments. (See Eph. 6:1-3.)
As James develops his argument against having "respect to persons," does he set forth new laws? No, he quotes the Old Testament, focusing on citations from the Ten Commandments. (See James 2:8-12)
And what proof did Peter offer in support of his declaration that we should be "holy"? "Because it is written, Be you holy; for 1 am holy." 1 Peter 1: 16. His proof is a quotation from Leviticus 11:44.
The Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation, are one whole. The source of the Old and the New Testament is the same: the inspiration of the Spirit of God. Their objective is the same: to unfold the plan of God, to reveal Christ, to warn against sin, and to present God's holy standard of right.
Someone long ago well observed: The New Testament is concealed in the Old, the Old Testament is revealed in the New. We can best understand the promise in the last book of the Bible, of a re-created, a new, earth and a verdant tree of life, when we turn to the first book of the Bible that describes. the good earth, with its original tree of life, that came forth from God's hand when He first created this world. We best grasp the meaning of the cross, and Christ's words, "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me," when we read the Genesis account of man's fall.
We should never forget that the very titles "Old Testament" and "New Testament" are man-made titles. Bible writers do not thus divide the ' Scriptures. Both Testaments deal with old and new in the drama of sin and salvation. The Old Testament presents the promise of a new earth and a new covenant, as well as picturing man's iniquities from earliest days. The New Testament discusses at length the "old man" of sin and the ancient problem of man's rebellion, as well as describing the "new man" in Christ Jesus and the glories of a world to come.
The interrelationship of Old Testament to New, the dependence of one on the other, has ever been understood by our adversary the devil. That is why he long ago began his attacks on the Bible by seeking to undermine the historicity and authenticity of the Old Testament. It was at this point that higher criticism of the Bible began. And with the Old destroyed, the New soon collapses for lack of historical foundation and meaning. It is understandable that Modernists should be found minimizing the spiritual authority and significance of the Old Testament. But what is inexplicable is the attitude of some who consider themselves Fundamentalists of the Fundamentalists in regard to the Old Testament. Why should they seek to tear in two the seamless garment of Scripture? Why should they set forth the doctrine that a holy command of God in the Old Testament must wait for restatement in the New before it has authority in the Christian Era, when the record is clear that the New Testament writers quoted from the Old, not to inform their readers that particular passage from the Old was still binding, but to provide corroborative proof that their newly uttered New Testament declarations agreed with the Old and thus were also binding. In other words, the apostles, who reminded their readers that the "holy men of God" in "old time" "spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," wished those readers to see that they, the apostles, spoke by the same Holy Ghost. (2 Peter 1:21) Hence they repeatedly cited in support of their admonitions and doctrinal reasoning the words of those "holy men" who wrote the 0ld Testament.
It is true that a ceremonial ritual described in the 0ld Testament expired, by limitation, at the cross, for then the shadow met reality. And the New Testament writers specifically state that those rites, as set forth in a series of ceremonial laws, had come to an end. But that fact in no way makes the 0ld Testament inferior to the New or justifies the contention that the New supplants the 0ld.
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Objection 2
Adventists seek to prove that there are two laws described in the Bible, one moral, the other ceremonial. But there is only one law.
The logic of the objection is this: There is but one law; the Bible speaks clearly of a law abolished; therefore, the Ten Commandments were abolished, including, necessarily, the fourth, on which Adventists build their case for the Sabbath.
So much false reasoning has been reared on this one-law doctrine that it must be considered at length.
The word "law" is used in the Bible in a number of ways. In the phrase, "the law and the prophets," the word "law" rather uniformly means the books of Moses, because in his writings the laws of God are specially set forth. The word "law" is sometimes used without reference to any particular code, as a collective term to describe any and all laws. Again, the word "law" is often employed to designate a particular code, for example, the moral law, or the ceremonial law, as we shall seek to show.
To contend that every time the Bible uses the word "law" it means the same code would be as reasonable as to contend that every time the Bible uses the word "day" it means the same period of time. The facts are that "day" may mean (1) the light part of the twenty-four-hour cycle, as day in contrast with night, or (2) the whole twenty-four-hour period, as seven days in a week, or (3) an indefinite period of time, as “now is the day of salvation." What would we think of the man who reasoned that because certain texts in the Bible speak of the ending of the day, therefore the day of salvation has necessarily ended?
The Bible does say that "the law-was-abolished-by Christ. (See Eph. 2:15) But Paul, who wrote that statement, also declares: "Do we, then, make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law." Rom. 3:31. The contrast between the statements is sharpened when attention is called to the fact that Paul used the same Greek root for the words here translated "abolished" and "make void." That root, kataigeo, means "to make inoperative," "to cause to cease," "to do away with," "annul," "abolish." But did the inspired writer, Paul, say to one church that "the law" is "abolished," and then to another church exclaim, "God forbid," at the very thought that "the law-is abolished, and refer to the same law in each instance? Obviously Paul must be speaking of two different laws. These two texts are sufficient in themselves to expose the fallacy of the argument that the Bible speaks only of one law.
The first formal recording of all codes of divine laws for man was at the time of the Exodus. Then it was that God who had chosen a people for His name, set them on their way to the Promised Land. The former centuries possessed no Scriptures, for none of the sixty-six books of the Bible had been written. Through Moses God began to give to men a written revelation to guide them, and from his day onward, with one striking exception the words of God for man, including His laws for man have been penned by human agents, the prophets. That one exception was a code of laws that God spoke to men with His own voice. Sacred history records no other sermon ever preached by God to man amid the supernatural, flaming glory that surrounds the eternal God. Referring to this lone majestic instance, Moses declared to Israel:
'For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it? Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou has heard, and live?" Deut. 4:32, 33.
And when God had spoken the code, the "ten commandments," the record declares, "He added no more." (See Deut. 1: 13; 5:22) The sermon was finished, it was a complete whole, there was nothing more that God desired to add. Then He wrote down the sermon with His own hand in "two tables of stone." (Deut. 5:22) On no other document in the history of man has the hand of God ever been inscribed. "The tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables." Ex. 32:16. And what God wrote on those tables of stone He described as a law." (See Ex. 24:12)
Then follows another dramatic moment, a sequel to the giving and the writing of this "law." Moses started down from the mount with the two tables in his hands. He was bringing to Israel the permanent record of that awesome sermon by the God of heaven. His indignation at the sight of Israelites worshiping the golden calf caused him to dash the stones to earth and break them, a symbol of their breaking of the divine code.
Did the Lord then command Moses to write a copy of the code to take the place of the broken tables? No. The Lord wrote the Ten Commandments a second time on new tables of stone. A most distinctive code, indeed, that God Himself should twice write it on stone. He entrusted to His prophets many vital messages for men, but the Ten Commandments He wrote Himself.
The focal point, the most holy object of the religious service instituted by God for the Israelites, was the ark of the covenant, above which hovered the holy light of the presence of God. When, in the journeying of the Israelites, the ark was to be moved, none were to touch it lest they die. And in that most sacred of the sacred objects of the sanctuary Moses was instructed to place the tables of stone. (Deut. 10:5) Nor was any other code of laws placed within that sacred ark. "There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb." 1 Kings 8:9.
Again, this code of laws was distinguished as the basis of a covenant between God and the Israelites. Those who oppose the Scriptural doctrine of the perpetuity of the moral law, which Adventists believe, have sought to support their view with this fact but what they have overlooked is this: The very fact that the ten commandment law is described as uniquely the basis of a covenant, proves once more that the Ten Commandments is a distinct code, not to be confused with any other. Said Moses to Israel: God "declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone." Deut. 4:13.
Let us summarize these historical facts concerning the giving of the ten commandment law:
1. God spoke the law with His own voice in the hearing of all Israel - He gave no other law in that way. "He added no more."
2. God wrote the ten-commandment law with His is own finger-the only law that He ever wrote out for man.
3. God wrote the law on stone, and Himself prepared the stone-the only law of Bible record that was ever thus written.
4. God sent Moses down from the mount in the sight of all Israel, bearing the two tables of stone that contained only the Ten Commandments.
5. God Himself rewrote the law after Moses had broken the first tables.
6. God instructed Moses to place the tables within the ark of the covenant. The only law thus honored.
7. God declared that the ten-commandment law was "his covenant" - the only law thus described.
Many objectors profess to be unable to find in the Bible any grounds for believing that the ten- commandment law is a distinct code of laws, not to be confused with any other code. We would ask: If they could have dictated the manner of the giving of this law, and had wished to provide convincing proof that it was a law set apart, what procedure could they possibly have followed that would have set it apart more fully or more convincingly?
But the ten-commandment law was not the only one formally set forth by God at Sinai. There was a code of laws, known as ceremonial laws, that gave the rules for the religious ritual that the Jews should follow; for example, their sacrifices and offerings, their annual feast-days, the duties of the priesthood. The book of Leviticus is filled with these laws. There were also civil laws to govern the Jews as a nation, such as laws on marriage, divorce, slave holding, property. (See Exodus 21) To the extent that the dim spiritual understanding and willingness of the Israelites permitted, the Lord caused these civil statutes to reflect the perfect idea expressed in the ten- commandment law. The statute on slave holding is an illustration of the adaptation of moral principle to the low spiritual state of a people. Of the divorce statute Christ declared: "Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.-- Matt. 19:8. (See Mark 10:4-6)
But these ceremonial and civil laws were not given by God directly to the hosts of Israel. As to how God made known these laws, who wrote them, and where they were deposited, the Scriptures are clear:
1. After stating that the Lord wrote the Ten Commandments "upon two tables of stone," Moses adds immediately: 'And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments." Deut. 4:13,14. A later Bible writer sets forth the same distinction: "Neither will I make the feet of Israel move any more out of the land which I gave their fathers: only if they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them." 2 Kings 21:8.
2. In telling the events of Sinai, Nehemiah, in addressing the Lord, also speaks of the fact that certain laws were spoken by God and others were given to Israel through Moses: "Thou came down also upon mount Sinai, and spoke with them from heaven, and gave them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments: and made known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commanded them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant." Neh. 9:13, 14. "Moses wrote this law." Deut. 31:9.
3. "And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee." Deut. 31:24-26. The words: "Put it in the side of the ark," might seem to suggest that this book was placed within the ark. But that would make it contradict the already quoted words of Scripture, that the Ten Commandments was the only law placed therein. The Revised Version reads: "Put it by the side of the ark." With this translation of the Hebrew, commentators agree.
Because of the fact that the ceremonial law, and also the civil statutes, were written down by Moses, and by him given to the people, they are generally described in the Bible as "the law of Moses." See, for example:
1. 2 Chron. 23:18. Priests to offer burnt offerings, "as it is written in the law of Moses."
2. 2 Chron. 30:16. Priests conducting Passover "according to the law of Moses."
3. Ezra 3:2. Building of an altar for burnt offerings "as it is written in the law of Moses."
4. Dan. 9:13. The destruction of Jerusalem had come "as it is written in the law of Moses."
5. Malachi 4:4. "Remember you the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb [Sinai] for all Israel."
The New Testament also reveals, in many of its references to law, the same distinction between the ten-commandment law and the code of laws given through Moses. Note the following references to the law of rites and ceremonies, sometimes described as the "law of Moses," and sometimes simply as "the law":
1. "If a man on the Sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken." John 7:23.
2. "But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses." Acts 15:5. Later in the chapter, when the claim of these Pharisees is restated, it is abbreviated thus:- You must be circumcised, and keep the law."
Verse 24. This well illustrates how a New Testament writer may use the non qualifying phrase, "the law," and yet mean a very specific law, in this instance, "the law of Moses." The context is generally sufficient to make clear what law is intended. Certainly if circumcision is under discussion in the New Testament-and it is often the bone of contention-it is sufficient to refer to the code of laws enjoining circumcision, simply as "the law"; that is, the law of rites and ceremonies given by Moses.
3. "The law of commandments contained in ordinances." Eph. 2:15.
4. "The sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law." Heb. 7:5.
5. "For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law." Verse 12.
6. "For the law makes men high priests which have infirmity." Verse 28. 7. "There are priests that offer gifts according to the law." Heb. 8:4.
8. "And almost all things are by the law purged with blood." Heb. 9:22.
9. "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect." Heb. 10:1.
The ten-commandment law gives no instruction or information on burnt offerings, the Passover, the building of an altar, the judgments that would come on Jerusalem because of disobedience, circumcision, the order of the priesthood. But the Bible repeatedly reveals that there is a law that does give such instruction. That law is the ceremonial law, described in the Bible as the law of Moses."
It is true that "the law of Moses"-was also the law of God, because God was the author of all that Moses wrote. Hence it is not strange that a Bible writer should, at least occasionally, describe this law of Moses as "the law of the Lord," though such instances are few. See, for example, Luke 2:22,23, where both phrases are used to describe the same law. However, nowhere in the Bible is the Ten Commandment law called the law of Moses.
Note, now, some representative New Testament references to another law, which does not deal with rites and ceremonies, but with moral questions, the ten-commandment law, which is also referred to, at times, as simply the commandments:
1. "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." Matt. 19:17. Then Christ immediately names several of the ten commands.
2. "And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment. Luke .23:56.
3. "I had not known sin, but by the law: For I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shall not covet." Rom. 7:7.
4. "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For He that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak you, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty." James 2:10-12.
5. "Whosoever commits sin transgresses also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law." 1 John 3:4. What law? Certainly no one in the Christian Era believes that a failure to obey the law regarding rites and ceremonies is still in effect. Yet John warns us that transgressing the law is sin. He did not feel it necessary to explain what law he meant. How eloquently that argues that there was a certain law, known to all John's readers, that was the moral rule of life. What confusion and consternation his words would have created among the first century Christians if they had been laboring under the impression that there was but one law, a law that was a mixture of ceremonial and moral precepts! And that transgression of that law in the Christian Era is sin!
In conclusion, let us summarize certain of the contrasting statements made in the Bible concerning the moral and the ceremonial codes of laws:
Attribute The Ten Commandments The Ceremonial Law
1. Spoken By God Deut 4:12 Moses Lev 1:1-3
2. Written By God Ex 31:18 Moses Deut 31:9; Deut 10:3,4
3. Written On stone Ex 31:18 paper Deut 31:24; Deut 10:3,4
4. Inside Ark yes Deut 10:1-5 no Deut 31:26
5. Complete? yes Deut 5:22 no Lev 1:1-3, 4:1-3
6. Eternal? yes Ps 111:7,8 no Heb 7:12
7. Good? yes Rom 7:12 no Col. 2:14
8. Points Out? sin 1 John 3:4 Saviour Lev 4:27-31 John 1:29
9. Obey? yes Matt 5:19 no Acts 15:24
10. Spiritual? yes Rom 7:14 no Heb 7:16
11. Perfect yes Ps 19:7 no Heb 7:19
12. Liberty yes James 2:11,12 no Gal 5:1
13. Delight yes Ps 119:17,77 no Acts 15:10
14. Christ Upheld yes Is 42:21 no Eph 2:15
15. Till Eternity yes Matt 5:18 no Gal 3:19
16. Our Standard? yes James 2:8-12 no Col. 2:16,17
17. Sabbath Began Creation Ex. 20: 8-11 Sinai Lev 23:24
18. Sabbath Began Before sin Gen 2:1-3 After sin Lev 23:24
These and other comparisons that might he made reveal beyond all controversy that the Bible presents two laws. To conclude otherwise would be to say that the Bible presents a hopeless series of contradictions.
We grant that there are certain references to "the law," particularly in Paul's writings, where the context fails to make wholly clear which law is intended. In some instances it seems evident that neither law is singled out, but only the principle of law, in contrast to grace, is under consideration. But these facts provide no proof that there is only one law. Because there are obscure or difficult texts in the Bible does not mean that we cannot he sure of the meaning of the clear and the simple texts. And those easily understood texts should protect us from drawing false conclusions from the difficult ones.
Reference to the two laws in terms of the centuries before Moses will also aid us in maintaining a clear distinction between them. Though we may rightly focus on the Exodus as the great time of the giving of the law, both moral and ceremonial, we should not conclude that the time before Moses was a period of no law, at least of no Ten Commandments. This point we shall examine more fully under objection 3. We need only remark here that the Ten Commandments existed in Eden. Also the first tender shoots of the ceremonial vine, which was to grow large at the Exodus, made their appearance in the form of the simple sacrificial services of our first parents after sin entered.
Who has not had the experience of looking at a towering tree and marveling at its heavy and varied foliage, only to discover on closer scrutiny that a vine is entwined around the tree and that what appeared to be one is really two. Though a far look at a high branch, especially if it is swaying in the breeze, may fail to reveal this fact, an examination of the trunk near the roots, where the vine first makes contact with the tree, leaves no doubt that there are two.
Now the Ten Commandments might be likened to a stately tree, with ten stalwart branches, that our first parents found flourishing in the Garden of Eden. After their fall a vine of ceremonial law was planted close by, watered by the blood of animal sacrifices. For centuries the vine grew little if any. Then at the time of the Exodus it suddenly assumed a definite form and grew large. The tree did not need the vine in order to live but the vine was wholly dependent on the tree. In later centuries men inclined always toward cultivating the vine rather than the tree, until the foliage of the vine well-nigh hid the tree and threatened to choke it. It is therefore easy to understand why some Christian people today, looking at the Biblical word picture of that tree, with its clinging vine, should fail to see that the two are not one. Particularly is this true if the winds of theological discussion are swaying the branches. But as with a literal tree, there need be no uncertainty in the matter if attention is focused, not on the topmost limbs, but on the trunk and roots. To speak literally, an examination of the origins of the two laws, and the formal giving of them at the Exodus, leaves no possible doubt that there were two.
Nor can Adventists claim any special Biblical vision in discerning that there are two, not one. From the days of the Protestant Reformation onward the great church bodies have clearly seen this and recorded the fact in their creeds and confessions of faith. See page 493 for extracts from the creeds, et cetera. The claim that there is but one law has gained currency today among a certain segment of Christians in a fervent endeavor to meet the force of the Sabbath evidence now so vigorously and widely being presented by Adventists. In the following pages we shall examine several arguments against the law that owe their appearance of strength to this one-law theory.
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Objection 3
The Ten Commandments did not exist before the time of Moses.
The average reader will probably remark that inasmuch as we live since the time of Moses, the law applies to us, and we are therefore not concerned as to just when the law was given. Very true, and we might dismiss the matter right here were it not for the fact that the objector is endeavoring to build a plausible argument on this objection. If we grant that the world moved along safely for centuries before Moses without the Ten Commandments, then we have halfway prepared ourselves to believe the next objection, namely, that the law was abolished at the cross. Surely if godly men like Enoch and Abraham needed not the Ten Commandments, why should Christians?
Therefore, because of the subtle reasoning built upon it, we must give some attention to this claim that the Ten Commandments did not exist before Moses.
Right on the face of it this is an unbelievable claim. The Ten Commandments commands men not to make idols, for example, not to take God's name in vain, not to kill, steal, or commit adultery. Could we possibly bring ourselves to believe that such a code of laws was not in force before Moses? There are some things too incredible to warrant belief, and this is one of them.
Nor, indeed, do any of the leading denominations thus believe. There is no point on which the great branches of the Christian church agree more cordially than that the Ten Commandments were in force from the beginning of the world. (See page 493 for quotations from church creeds on the law of God.)
The plausible core of the objection before us is the assumption that those who sinned before Moses' day could not possibly have been transgressors of the Ten Commandments, because it had not yet been given. Here is the argument:
"Angels sinned' (2 Peter 2:4), but they did not violate the law of Sinai, for it was not given until thousands of years after they fell and they were not under it anyway. Adam 'sinned' long before that law was given (see Romans 5:12-14); Cain sinned (Gen. 4:7); the Sodomites were 'sinners' (Gen. 13:13), and vexed Lot with their 'unlawful deeds' (2 Peter 2:8). Surely none of these violated 'the law,' which was not given till Moses."
But the conclusion does not necessarily follow that because the ten precepts of the Ten Commandments were not audibly proclaimed before Sinai, or written down before that date, therefore those precepts were not in existence before that time. Analogy to human laws reveals how unwarranted such a conclusion is. For long centuries England has had what is known as "the common law," which law is an integral part of the whole system of English, and later, American, jurisprudence. But only slowly was the common law codified and placed in written form. For centuries many of the statutes of this common law were passed on from one generation to another with little or no written reference. But even unschooled yeomen had had passed on to them by their fathers enough of the common law to make them often times embarrassingly acquainted with their primary rights under the law. There was no particular moment in English history when the common law was all transcribed in a book and proclaimed by the king as the law of the land. And even if there had been such a moment in England's legal history, what would we think of the person, who, looking back on the event, declared that previous to that great legal proclamation such criminals as troubled England never violated this law? Pray tell, what other law did those Criminals violate in the days before England had a written legal code for all men to see and read?
No, history teaches us that a law need not be formally proclaimed or written in a book in order to be enforced. Even so with the moral laws of God for man. When Adam and Eve were created perfect and served God with a whole heart. Hence we properly conclude that they had the law of God written in their hearts. God also talked to them. For a lifetime of nearly a thousand years they were permitted to pass on the divine instruction they had received. Neither they nor their children needed a code written on parchment or stone. Paul well says that "the law is not made for a righteous man," that is, the law as it is ordinarily understood, a formally announced code duly written down. The law is written on the righteous man's heart.
After Adam's sin men soon began a rapid descent into the pit of corruption, as Paul describes it. (See Romans 1) Could they excuse their evil deeds on the ground that they were not aware of any law that they had violated? No. Paul emphatically declares that they were "without excuse." (Verse 20) But how could they be without excuse unless they still retained some knowledge of God's holy requirements and laws? Our accountability for our sins is in terms of our knowledge. (See John 15:22) Paul enlarges on the matter by explaining that when the "Gentiles, which have not the law [that is, have no written law, no Holy Scriptures containing the moral code], do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness." Rom. 2:14, 15.
We believe there is only one reasonable conclusion from these facts: Though men early fell away from God, the knowledge of Him did not immediately or completely fade from their minds, nor was the divine code, originally written on the hearts of their first parents, Adam and Eve, suddenly erased. The troublesome light of conscience, even though the rays grew dim, illumined the dim but heavenly outlines upon the heart. As the Revised Standard Version translates the passage: "They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.”
Unless we hold that the world before Moses knew sufficiently of the law of God to understand the moral import of their acts, we shall be charging God with injustice in destroying them for their evil deeds. The only possible way for the objector to avoid the embarrassing force of this fact is to contend that though men who lived before Moses knew nothing of the Ten Commandments, they did have a knowledge of certain eternal moral principles of heaven. If this reasoning has any validity, it must reside in the assumption that these eternal moral principles - left undefined by the objector - were different from the Ten Commandments. Only thus can it be held that the Ten Commandments are not eternal.
But what principles are more eternally moral than those of the Ten Commandments? And how could God be just in condemning the ancients for deeds that we can describe as sinful only by their nonconformity to the Ten Commandments, if indeed these commandments were not yet in force? Furthermore, if all the sinful deeds of devils and ancient men call be judged and condemned in terms of the Ten Commandments, what need is there to invoke some wholly undefined, unrevealed, moral principles in order to deal with the moral rebellion of those who lived long ago?
And can their deeds be condemned as sinful in terms of the Ten Commandments? Yes. The Bible says that Satan was "a murderer from the beginning," and also "a liar." John 8:44. The Ten Commandments deal with his deeds. He also sought to set himself up in the place of God. Here is a violation of the first commandment. Adam and Eve most certainly coveted the forbidden fruit, else they would not have reached for it when God had expressly told them that it was not theirs to have. They both coveted and stole. And the Ten Commandments cover those evil deeds. Cain killed his brother. 'The Ten Commandments are adequate to judge him. The Sodomites were distinguished by their lustfulness. Christ revealed that the seventh commandment covers both the impure thought and the impure act, and they were guilty of both.
But we are not left to the processes of deduction-conclusive though they be-in order to reach the conclusion that the Ten Commandments were in force before Sinai. The Bible writers have much to say about sin and sinners. And how do they define sin? "Sin is the transgression of the law," says John. (1 John 3:4) And Paul observes: 'Where no law is, there is no transgression," "for by the law is the knowledge of sin." Rom. l:15; 3:20. We are left in no possible doubt as to what law is intended, for Paul adds, "I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shall not covet." Rom. 7:7. And what law says, "Thou shall not covet"? The Ten-Commandment law.
When James spoke of those who "commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors," he also left no doubt as to which law he meant. It is the law that says, "Do not commit adultery," and, "Do not kill." James 2:9-11.
There are those who say, and we quote their words, that "sin is a disregard for some law, but not necessarily the so-called 'moral law,' or the Ten Commandments." But that is not what Paul and James say. We do not see how they could more clearly have stated that the breaking of a certain law is sin and that that law is the ten-commandment law.
Furthermore, the objectors forget to tell us what law John means - 1 John 3:4 - if he does not mean the Ten Commandments. They do not know, for the Bible throws no light on "some law morally binding on men other than the Ten Commandments. And the objectors as well as we are dependent on the revelations of Scripture. The same was true of those who lived in John's day. Hence, how incredible that he should define sin-that awful thing that keeps men out of heaven-as the "transgression of the law," without defining what law he meant, if indeed he meant some other law than Paul and James meant when they wrote of sin! The very fact that John offered no explanatory comment as to what law he meant, is the strongest proof possible that he meant the law which his readers, who by now had read Paul and James, understood as "the law', the Ten Commandments.
A favorite text of those who seek to prove that the Ten Commandments was unknown before Sinai is Moses' statement: "The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day." Deut. 5:3.
The argument runs thus: God declares that the Ten Commandments are His covenant. Moses is here speaking of this covenant and declares it was not made with the fathers before Sinai, therefore the Ten Commandments were not given, in fact were unknown, before that time.
What strange beliefs we would have to hold if we came to this conclusion! In the immediately preceding chapter Moses refers to this covenant and warns Israel: "Take heed unto yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the Lord thy God hath forbidden thee." Deut. 4:23. Are we to conclude that none of God's children before Sinai knew that it was wrong to make graven images? We can hardly believe anyone will answer yes. But the prohibition of images is the second command of the ten. Hence those who lived before Sinai must have known of the Ten Commandments. That is the only conclusion we can reach.
Then what does Moses mean in Deuteronomy 5:3? We think that the simplest explanation is that he viewed the gathered hosts at Sinai as the birth of the chosen nation that God had promised Abraham would spring from him. Through Moses, God told Israel that if they would be obedient to His covenant, "you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation." Ex. 19:6. Not until Sinai was it thus possible literally to make a covenant with the "nation" or "kingdom" of the Jews. It is also true that not until Sinai was there any formal proclamation of the Ten Commandments. The fathers before Sinai had never heard God speak His law to them as Israel had. And it was the law thus proclaimed that was the basis of the covenant. Hence in a very real sense the covenant made with Israel at Sinai had never been made before.
Commentators differ in their endeavor to clarify this text. Adam Clarke seeks to do so with the addition of parenthetical words, thus:
"The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers (only) but with us (also)."
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown observe:
"The meaning is, 'not with our fathers' only, 'but with us' also, assuming it to be 'a covenant' of grace; or 'not with our fathers' at all, if the reference is to the peculiar establishment of the covenant of Sinai; a law was not given to them as to us, nor was the covenant ratified in the same public manner, and by the same solemn sanctions. Or, finally, 'not with our fathers' who died in the wilderness, in consequence of their rebellion, and to whom God did not give the rewards promised only to the faithful; but 'with us,' who alone, strictly speaking, shall enjoy the benefits of this covenant by entering on the possession of the promised land."
(For comment on the claim that because there is a new covenant, therefore the Ten Commandments is abolished, see objection 5.)
But says the objector finally: 'the Decalogue was in existence before Moses, how is it that it was first proclaimed and first written down at Sinai?' Such a question reveals a forgetfulness of history. We might as appropriately question whether any (if the moral instruction of the Holy Bible is really binding on us, seeing that none of it was written before Moses. The simple facts are that by the time of Moses and the children of Israel the knowledge of God and His laws had become so blurred in men's minds that it became necessary that a written revelation be given to the world.
Coming directly out of Egyptian darkness, the Israelites were in special need of clear cut declarations on the great moral precepts. For this reason God with His own finger carved in the everlasting stone the Ten Commandments. No one need then be in doubt. The changing moral conceptions of those Israelites could ever be corrected by the unchanging words graven in the stone.
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Objection 4
"The very wording of the Sinaitic law proves that it was designed only for the Jews. The Ten Commandments is introduced thus: 'I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee ... out of the house of bondage' (Ex. 20:2). To whom is that applicable? Only to the Israelite nation, of course." See also Deuteronomy 4:8, Romans 9:4, and similar passages, which state specifically that the law was given only to the Israelites.
We would ask: To whom else could the Lord have given the 'Ten Commandments? To the Egyptians, the Philistines, the Amalekites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, or any other of the many pagan peoples that cursed the earth with their unholy presence? No, you say. God could not make a revelation of Himself to any people until that people were of a mind and heart to hear Him. God found in Abraham and his descendants such a people. Accordingly He gave to them a revelation of His will and ways. Yes, He spoke exclusively that great day at Sinai to a literal people called Israelites, who had been delivered from a literal bondage in Egypt. But, we inquire again: To whom else could He have spoken?
We would further inquire: To whom was God speaking when He gave His great messages through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and all the mighty prophets of Old Testament times? The answer is, To the Israelites. The inspired messages that constitute the Old Testament were addressed almost wholly to the Jews, and the prophets who delivered the messages were Jews. But does any lover of the Bible wish to suggest that therefore the beautiful messages of salvation in Isaiah, for example, which are so often addressed directly to Jerusalem, are not also addressed to us? We doubt not that many a Christian minister has taken for his text these typical words from Isaiah: "Cry aloud, spare not, lift tip thy voice like a trumpet, and show thy people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." Isa. 58:1. But no listener in the pew is troubled or confused or informs the preacher that the text is addressed to Jews, not Gentiles.
And who are the writers of the New Testament? With one possible exception they are all Jews. To whom did Christ address virtually all that He said while on earth? To the Jews. To whom is the Epistle to the Hebrews addressed? Obviously, to Jews. To whom is the Epistle of James addressed? "To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad." James 1:1. But does any Christian have difficulty with these facts, or feel that any portions of the New Testament are not really for him? No.
In the objection before us, Romans 9:4 is cited. It reads as follows: "Who are Israelites; to whom pertains the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises." Evidently it is offered as proof because it says that "the giving of the law" was to them. But it says more than that. The "covenants" also were given to them. Note the plural. Both the old and the new covenant! The new covenant is made with the "house of Israel,
and with the house of Judah." (Jer. 31:31; Heb. 8:8.) But does any Christian believe that the new covenant is confined to the believing Jew? No. We all claim a part in it and believe that the new covenant promise is intended for us as well, even though the announcement of it is addressed directly, and apparently exclusively, to the Jews.
The words of Moses in Deuteronomy 4:8 are also cited. They read as follows: "And what nation is there so great, that bath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?" We would simply say that this statement is a good commentary on Romans 9:4. And we have found that this verse in Romans proves more than the objector desires. Another inspired comment on Deuteronomy 4:8 is the statement of Christ: "Salvation is of the Jews." John 4:22. But has any Christian despised salvation because of this fact?
We must never forget that the revelations and admonitions of the Scriptures are not given in a vacuum. Almost always they are placed in the context of historical events and flesh-and-blood people. The sermon on the mount has as literally a rocky platform as the address from Sinai. And the multitudes addressed in that sermon were as definitely Jewish as the hosts gathered before Sinai. Often God took occasion in giving a revelation, or invoking a certain course of conduct, to refer to some actual experience through which the listeners had passed. That is one of the marks of Bible revelations. But that fact in itself never troubles any of us, nor prevents us from believing that those counsels of God's Word apply to us as well.
Now, inasmuch as God worked mighty miracles to draw out of the turbulent sea of paganism a people for Himself, how appropriate that He should place His eternal revelation to them in the context of the immediate experience that they had miraculously gone through. Thus they might be prompted to give that revelation maximum weight in their minds and be most diligent in obeying it. Furthermore, that historical context provides a setting that we today, who are also flesh and blood, can understand, and, understanding, be likewise prompted to greater obedience to God. Well does the Bible commentator Murphy observe on Exodus 20:2:
"This [deliverance out of Egypt] in the manner of Scripture and of Providence is the earnest and the guarantee of their deliverance from all other and greater kinds of bondage. The present is the type of a grander future. We must descend the stream of revelation to the New Testament before we fathom the depths of this greatest deliverance." - James G. Murphy, Commentary on the Book of Exodus.
Any display of God's mercy and deliverance to His children at any moment in earth's history is a reason why those living at that time and those who read of the account in all subsequent ages should serve Him with their whole heart and obey His holy will.
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Objection 5
The Bible says that the Ten Commandments are the covenant that God made with Israel at Sinai, that is, the old covenant. (See Deut. 4:13.) This covenant has been abolished, and we live under the new covenant. Therefore we have nothing to do with the Ten Commandments.
The text reads thus: "And he [the Lord] declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone." Deut. 4:13.
The key word here is "covenant," translated from the Hebrew word berith, which may be translated "compact. .... league." "covenant." Now, these terms have as their most essential feature the idea of agreement between two or more parties. Webster's Dictionary thus defines "covenant": "An agreement between two or more persons or parties." We normally think of a covenant as an agreement made. And appropriately we find various references to God's covenant with the Israelites of the Exodus, couched in this very language. For example, "The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb." Deut 5:2. "The tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you." Deut. 9:9.
Then why should Moses describe the Ten Commandments themselves as the covenant? For the same reason that Moses should say to the Israelites, "And I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burnt it." Deut. 9:21. Strictly speaking, the sin was their turning to a false god, an action of their rebellious will, but the calf was that concerning which the sin was committed. Likewise, though the covenant was "made" by the action of the will of the Israelites in response to God (see Ex. 19:5-8), the Ten Commandments were that concerning which the covenant was made. Our English language employs this same figure of speech. Webster says further on "covenant": "A solemn compact between members of a church to maintain its faith, discipline, etc.; also, the document recording such a compact."
When the Israelites came to Sinai the Lord said to them through Moses: "Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: and you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shall speak unto the children of Israel." Ex. 19:5, 6. The response of the Israelites was agreement: "And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord bath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord." Verse 8.
Then follows in the next chapter the proclaiming of the Ten Commandments by the voice of God. This is followed, in the next three chapters, by a summary of civil statutes, which show the application of the Ten Commandment's principles, and by an even briefer summary of certain ceremonial requirements that the Lord gave to the people through Moses. Then in chapter 24 we read that Moses "told the people all the words of the Lord," and again the people responded, "All the words which the Lord bath said will we do." Verse 3."And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord.... And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord, hath said will we do, and be obedient.-Verses 4-7. Then Moses took the blood of certain sacrificial animals and "sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words." Verse 8.
Here the record explicitly states, not that the words of the proclaimed statutes and judgments and laws were the covenant, but that the covenant was made "concerning all these words."
Refer back for a moment to objection 2, on the two laws. Here two comments may properly be interjected:
1. The fact that Moses wrote a copy of the Ten Commandments in this "book of the covenant" does not minimize the force of the distinguishing fact that God wrote the Ten Commandments with His own hand on tables of stone. A copy implies an original. Endless copies of the Ten Commandments have been made. The Israelites had simply heard the Ten Commandments as God spoke it. They promised to be obedient. Moses, in giving them a copy to see in a book, made doubly certain that they fully realized what they were covenanting to do. God Himself had not yet transferred the words of the Decalogue to stone. The distinction between the earthy touch of Moses hand and the divine hand of God and the sharp distinction between the varied laws in the book and the one supreme moral law are sharply emphasized a few verses further on: "And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and he there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou may teach them." Verse 11.
2. The fact that statutes and judgments and certain ceremonial precepts in addition to the Ten Commandments were included in the covenant does not make them all one law or confuse their distinctive features one whit. The essence of the covenant, the agreement, between God and the Israelites was that they would obey Him. This meant that they would faithfully keep not only the Ten Commandments but also the civil statutes, which were to govern them as a nation, and the ceremonial precepts, which dictated the religious ritual by which they expressed their desire for forgiveness for transgressions of the moral laws.
However, the very fact that the civil statutes were simply an extension of the Ten Commandments' principles, and the ceremonial precepts simply set forth the means by which the Israelites were to express their sincere desire for freedom from sins committed against the moral code, fully justified the Biblical description of the Ten Commandments as that concerning which the covenant was made. The civil statutes and ceremonial laws were accessory to the Ten Commandments; they owed their existence and meaning to it, but it was not dependent on them.
With these facts in mind we are able to understand a whole series of statements concerning the "covenant" that is found in the Bible record following the Exodus experience. Five facts stand out sharply as we trace the record of this covenant through the Old Testament:
1. The frequent references to it by one after another of the prophets.
2. The sorry fact that Israel so repeatedly broke it.
3. The repeated combining of the statement that the people broke the covenant, with the statement that they had violated various commands of the Ten Commandments, the latter fact explaining the former.
4. The reminding to Israel that sacrifices were not a substitute for obedience, and the essentially minor status that the Lord gave to the ceremonial ritual.
5. The promise of a new covenant.
Anyone who reads the Bible attentively will surely agree with these five statements. Moses warned Israel against transgressing the covenant by serving "other gods." (Deut: 17:2, 3)
The Lord revealed to Moses that after his death Israel would "go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land. ... and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them." Deut. 31:16. When Joshua was dying he warned of the day when Israel would transgress the covenant by serving "other gods." (Joshua 23:16) A judgment was pronounced upon Solomon because he had gone after "other gods" and had not kept "my covenant.(1 Kings 11:11.) In the last years of the kings of Israel the inspired writer recounted their long years of turning repeatedly to heathen gods and rejecting God's covenant. (See 2 Kings 17:7-23) Jeremiah was instructed by the Lord to tell the "men of Judah" in their dark hour of national disaster that they had failed to keep the covenant He had made with their fathers at Sinai, "saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall you be my people, and I will be your God." But "they went after other gods to serve them." Jer. 11:4, 10. Hosea declares: "The Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood touches blood." Hosea 4:1, 2. And he goes on to add a little later in his description: "They have transgressed my covenant." Hosea 8:1.
Despite their almost constant turning away from God's moral precepts, they did not always turn from the ceremonial laws of sacrifices, burnt offerings, feast days, and the like. They evidently at times, glorified these ceremonies while transgressing the Ten Commandments, as though the ritual that was intended of God to give expression to their sorrow for sin-transgression of His law- could serve as a substitute for obedience. It is this fact that explains some striking passages in the Old Testament and reveals still further the sharp contrast between the ceremonial laws and the moral laws.
Through Hosea the Lord said to the morally corrupt "inhabitants of the land": "For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. But they like men have transgressed the covenant." Hosea 6:6, 7. It is true that the Israelites sometimes forgot even the ritual of their religious services. But that, evidently, was not at the heart of their apostasy. Long after they had "transgressed the covenant" by their moral corruption they were still carrying on a ceremonial service in obedience to the ceremonial law, as if the outward forms were a proper substitute for heart obedience to God's moral requirements. That is why the Lord, through Hosea, pronounced this judgment: "I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts." Hosea 2: 11. A reference to the ceremonial law reveals that all the special days here listed are found in that code.
In similar language the Lord inquires through Isaiah, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?" Isa. 1:11. He describes their offerings as "vain oblations." "Incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity." And why was this whole ceremonial service of offerings and special holy days so abhorrent to God? Because their carrying on of this ceremonial service was hypocritical. The sacrifices, the Passover Sabbath, Day of Atonement Sabbath, and essentially all the ceremonial ritual were intended of God to provide an expression of repentance for violations of the moral code and a desire for cleansing from sin. But the Israelites were set in evil ways and had no heart desire to reform. "Your hands are full of blood." Verse 15. After pleading with them to turn from their corrupt ways, the Lord declares, "If you be willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land." Verse 19. Here is the echo of the covenant agreement made at Sinai.
Jeremiah presents a similar description of the violation of God's moral code by rebellious Israel: 'Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom you know not; and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?" Jer. 7:9,10. Then follows this declaration that shows perhaps more sharply than any other in this series of passages the clear distinction between moral and ceremonial laws: "Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: but this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk you in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you." Verses 21-23.
But did not the Lord give commandments at Sinai concerning offerings? Bible commentators believe that the only way to resolve the apparent contradiction is by interpreting this passage in Jeremiah to mean that by comparison with the glory and primacy of the moral code given at Sinai, the ceremonial statutes pale into insignificance. To borrow the words of the learned commentator, Lange, on this passage:
"Thus those commentators are right who find here this meaning, that the whole of the enactments relating to sacrifices do not enter into consideration in comparison with the importance of the moral law."
It is doubtless in this same sense that we may understand those scriptures that equate the covenant with the Ten Commandments (Deut. 4:13), even though certain ceremonial laws and civil statutes were also involved (Ex. 24:3-8). As earlier stated, the civil statutes were only an extension of, and the ceremonial laws only all accessory to, the moral code.
Now, in this long, dismal record of Israel's backsliding, where lay the trouble? Were the terms of the covenant at fault? Nowhere do the prophets suggest that the Ten Commandments were either inequitable or deficient. Had God failed in His part of the agreement? No. The trouble was with the Israelites, who failed to live up to their promise to be obedient to God's voice, His holy law. They were stiff necked, hard of heart, rebellious. Christ could say to His Father, "I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart." Ps. 40:8. But not so with the children of Israel. "Their heart went after their idols." Eze. 20:16. "The sin of Judah ... is graven upon the table of their heart." Jer. 17: 1.
The children of Israel had promised at Sinai, "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do." Ex. 19:8. But they knew not how deceitful were their hearts, how weak their will and their spirit. It is in this setting that we are able to appreciate the promise of the new covenant as foretold through Jeremiah: "Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, says the Lord: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, says the Lord. I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people." Jer. 31:31-33.
The promise of the new covenant is not a forecast of an era when grace would supplant law, but of a time when the law of God would be written in men's hearts by the grace of God acting upon those hearts. So far from God's law being abolished, it is enshrined within those who have received a new heart. Now, if there is only one law, as some contend, then the new covenant, under which all of us declare we may live today, calls for the writing upon our hearts, not only of God's moral precepts, but of all the ceremonial statutes also! The logic that requires this conclusion is unanswerable-if there is only one law. Could better proof be offered that there must be more than one law?
The writer of Hebrews, in referring to this passage in Jeremiah, makes clear that the trouble with the old covenant lay, not with the law, but with the people. The Lord found "fault with them." (Heb. 8:8.)
In the same connection we read concerning the new covenant, that Christ "is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises." Verse 6.
The first covenant broke down on the faulty promises of the Israelites. The second covenant is built upon the divine promise of God to change our hearts.
The first covenant was ratified at Sinai by the shedding of the blood of sacrificial animals. (Ex. 24:5-8) The second covenant was ratified at Calvary by the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ. (Heb. 9:12,23)
The mediator of the first covenant was Moses. (Ex. 19:3-8; 24:3-8) The mediator of the second covenant is Christ. (Heb. 8:6)
Under the first covenant the worshiper brought his offering to all earthly priest, who ministered at an earthly sanctuary, which ministry could not of itself "make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience." Heb. 9:9. Why? Because this earthly sanctuary service "stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them, until the time of reformation." Verse 10. Only as the worshiper looked by faith beyond the animal sacrifices to the sacrifice of Christ, the promised Messiah, could he receive genuine spiritual blessing and forgiveness of sins. And because it was possible for a child of God in the days preceding Christ's first advent to exercise true faith and to look beyond, the new covenant experience could be his.
Under the new covenant we appropriate by faith the offering made by the Lamb of God, coming boldly to the throne of grace and into the presence of our great High Priest. We look back to Calvary and upward to heaven. (Heb. 9:11-15, 24-26; 10: 19-22) It was foretold of Christ that He would "cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease." Dan. 9:27. No longer was there any occasion for the slaying of animals. Hence the ceremonial laws regarding all such offerings expired by limitation. There were no longer to be earthly priests drawn from a certain tribe and according to a certain law of the ceremonial code. Hence we read, "For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law." Heb. 7:12. The Levitical priesthood was changed, abolished, and so was the law that governed the selection and the ministry of that priesthood. Yet under the new covenant God promises, "I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts." Jer. 31:33. How evident that we are dealing with a wholly different law from that mentioned in Hebrews 7:12.
To sum up the matter in briefest form, note these comparisons and contrasts between the two covenants:
Old Covenant New Covenant
1. Parties to covenant: God and Israel. 1. Parties to covenant: God and Israel.
2. Mediator: Moses. 2. Mediator: Christ.
3. Based on mutual promise of God’s 3. Based on mutual promises of God and our acceptance of
and Israel promise by faith.
4. Text of covenant: Ten Commandments. 4. Text of covenant: Ten Commandments.
5. Written: On tables of stone. 5. Written: In the believer's heart.
6. Ratified at Sinai. 6. Ratified at Calvary.
7. By the shedding of blood of animals. 7. By the shedding of the blood of Christ.
8. Its ministration: In terms of an endless 8. Its ministration: In terms of one sacrifice by Christ, our
number of animal sacrifices, whose blood High Priest who now ministers His shed blood in the
was ministered by earthly priest in earthly heavenly sanctuary.
sanctuary.
Not a change in the terms of the covenant, the Ten Commandments, but a change in the location of these commandments, this is the essence of the difference between the two covenants. And the effecting of this change requires Christ and His divine sacrifice. In other words, to live under the new covenant is to live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us. Faith and obedience to God's commandments go hand in hand. How significant in this connection is the description of those who will finally be awaiting the return of Christ: "Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Rev. 14:12.
Yes, and how significant is Paul's statement that the "carnal mind," which distinguished rebellious Israel, is "not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8:7. Also his statement of what has taken place for "them which are in Christ Jesus": "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us [that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us." R.S.V.], who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:3,4.
The weakness is not in God's holy law but in us who are too weak of ourselves to give obedience. When we are changed by the gospel from carnal to spiritual, then the law can be written in our hearts. The person who says that he has nothing to do with the law because he lives under the new covenant, reveals instead that he has nothing to do with the new covenant, for the new covenant believer has the law engraved on his heart.
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Objection 6
Paul states that the "ministration of death, written and engraved in stones" was "done away." Therefore the ten-commandment law, which was written on the tables of stone, has been done away. (See 2 Cor. 15-11)
Let us see what Paul really did say. The introduction to the passage before us finds Paul declaring to the Corinthian brethren: "You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: forasmuch as you are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart." 2 Cor. 3:2,3.
Here is the key to interpret the words that follow. His figure of speech is patently borrowed from the Scriptural contrast between the old and the new covenant,-Tables of stone-contrasted with "tables of the heart", "ink" contrasted with "the Spirit of the living God." These Corinthians, he said, were "ministered by us."
By an easy transition Paul moves into a discussion of the two covenants by adding immediately that Christ "also hath made us able ministers of the new testament [covenant]; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life." (The word 'testament' in this and almost all other instances in the New Testament does not have the meaning of a "will as made by a testator in anticipation of death, but of covenant, and is so translated in the Revised Version.)
We might close the discussion right here, for our examination of the two covenants revealed clearly that the ratifying of the new covenant did not mean the abolishing of the, Ten Commandments. However, let us proceed.
"But if the ministration of death, written and engraved in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: how shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more does the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excels. For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remains is glorious. Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: and not as Moses, which put a vale over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished." Verses 7-13.
Here is a series of contrasts, intended not so much to belittle the old dispensation as to glorify the new. It was ever Paul's studied endeavor to prove that Christ and His ministry are the blazing glory beside which the spiritual glory of the former times seems pale. This argument by contrast particularly marks the book of Hebrews, which was written for the Jewish believers, who, until they accepted Christ, had thought that the glory of Sinai and the ministration of the divine law under the Jewish priests and rulers were the last word in heavenly glory. The contrasts that Paul seeks to make are essentially the same as the contrasts between the old and new covenants:
1. "The ministration of "death" versus "the ministration of the spirit.”
2. "Ministration of condemnation" versus "ministration of righteousness.”
3. "Letter kills" versus-spirit gives life.”
4. "Was glorious-versus-exceed in glory.”
5. "Done away" versus "remains."
Numbers one and two are simply variant expressions. The questions are therefore:
1. What are these two ministrations?
2. What is meant by letter and spirit?
3. What is this relative "glory"?
4. What was "done away" and what "remains"?
The objector quickly answers: The "ministration of death" was that which was "written and engraved in stones," and is plainly the Ten Commandments. But not so quickly. Is it correct to speak of a "ministration" and a "law" as synonymous? No. It is correct to speak of the "ministration" or, as we would say, the administering of a law. The administering of the law is the means by which it is put in operation, and is not to be confused with the law itself. Therefore, "the ministration of death," or "the ministration of condemnation," refers to the ministration, or the administering, of the law that was "written and engraved in stones."
By a simple figure of speech the law is called death and condemnation. On a certain occasion in Elisha's day the sons of the prophets gathered with him around a "great pot" in which had been cooked certain "wild gourds." Evidently the gourds were poisonous, for one of those eating cried out: "There is death in the pot." (See 2 Kings 1:38-40) He meant, of course, that there was something in the Pot that would cause death, and substituting cause for effect, he cried out as he died.
Paul had earlier said to the Corinthians, "The sting of death is sin: and the strength of sin is the law." 1 Cor. 15:56. That is, if it were not for the law of God, which condemns those who violate it, there would be no sin, and hence no death in penalty for sin, "for where no law is, there is no transgression.-Rom. 4:15. Thinking on this fact and the contrasting fact that "the law is holy ... and just, and good," caused Paul to inquire: "Was then that which is good made death unto me?" Here he speaks of the law as "death." Now, how does Paul say that we escape from this
"ministration of death",-this "ministration of condemnation"? By abolishing the law of God? Listen to his words:
"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of' the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:1-4.
We escape from "condemnation" through Jesus Christ, who changes our hearts so that "the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us." Paul describes this changed state as walking "after the Spirit," and adds that "to be spiritually minded is life and peace." Verses 5, 6.
Here is a state of "condemnation" and "death" changed to one of "no condemnation" but rather "life." In other words, a ministration of condemnation and death exchanged for a ministration of the spirit and life. How evident that we are here discussing the two covenants. And how evident also that Paul's words in Romans 8 parallel his words in 2 Corinthians 3. That is the plain teaching of the Scripture.
The cold letter of the law as it appeared on the stone tables had no life-giving power. It could only point accusingly at every man, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. An administration of the law based on its letter alone results only in death for violators. But an administration of it based on the forgiveness possible through the action of God's Spirit on the heart results in life. The contrast between "letter" and "spirit" does not mean a contrast between an age of law and an age of freedom from all law. As we have already noted, when God's Spirit is in control, the law's requirements are carried out in our hearts.
What, now, of the "glory" mentioned by Paul? He plainly speaks of the relative glory of two ministrations. The justice and righteousness of God shone forth in awesome, even terrifying glory on Mount Sinai as He proclaimed His law. He stood there as a consuming fire. But how much greater the glory of God that bathed the earth with its life-giving rays where Christ came down to "save his people from their sins." Matt. 1:21. Here was the glory of justice and mercy combined, for in dying for our sins our "transgression of the law" Christ revealed how God at one and the same time could "be just, and the justifier of him which believes in Jesus." Rom. 3:26.
This brings us to the last question: What was "done away" and what "remains"? The question is really already answered. The glory attendant upon the giving of the law is so greatly excelled by the glory attendant upon the saving of men from its violation that Paul could appropriately speak of the first as-glorious" and the second as "the glory that excels." But right here Paul weaves in an incident in connection with the giving of the law at Sinai to illustrate a point that he wishes to make in the verses that immediately follow this disputed passage. When Moses came down from the mount with the tables of stone in his hands, "the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him." So Moses "put a vale on his face-while he spoke to the Israelites. (See Ex. 34:29-35)
Paul refers to this: "The children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away." 2 Cor. 3:7. He refers to this again in verse 11, saying it was "done away," and then again in verse 13 in these words: "And not as Moses, which put a vale over his face, that the children of Israel could riot steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished."
It was the glory of the former ministration, now ended, and not the law administered, that was "done away," "abolished," even, as by historical analogy, Paul reminds them that it was the glory on Moses' face that was "done away." The record declares that the veil was on Moses' face, not on the tables of stone, that it was his face that shone and not the tables of stone, and that it was the glory on his face that faded, not the luster that ever surrounds the divinely written Ten Commandments.
Well do Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, in their Bible commentary, make this general observation in their comments on 2 Corinthians 3:
"Still the moral law of the ten commandments, being written by the finger of God, is as obligatory now as ever; but put more on the Gospel spirit of 'love,' than on the letter of a servile obedience, and in a deeper and fuller spirituality (Matthew 5.17-48; Romans 13.9)."
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Objection 7
Paul's allegory on the two covenants in Galatians 4 proves that we have nothing to do with law in the Christian dispensation.
In the fourth chapter of Galatians, Paul recounts that Abraham had two sons. After relating the incidents of the birth of Ishmael to the bondwoman Hagar and the birth of Isaac to the free woman Sarah, the first "born after the flesh," the second "by promise", Paul declares:
"Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which genders to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answers to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. -- Gal. 4:24-26.
God had promised Abraham a son. He believed the promise, and the Lord "counted it to him for righteousness." Gen. 15:6. This promise was of vast significance to Abraham, for God had also promised him: "In thy seed [Christ] shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." Gen. 26:4. (See Gen. 12:3) But his faith and that of his long-childless wife, Sarah, evidently waned. She encouraged him to take Hagar to wife and thus raise up seed. But the Lord told him that Ishmael, who was born of that union, was not the fulfillment of the divine promise of a son and that that promise would yet be fulfilled.
Adapting this historical incident to the current experience of the Galatian Christians, who were trying to secure Heaven's promised salvation by their own works -- "you observe days, and months, and times, and years, " Gal. 4:10 - he declares that here is an "allegory," a figurative. description of "the two covenants."
In the allegory Hagar stands for Sinai. She was a bondwoman, and her children would therefore be in the same state of slavery. She also stands for "Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with, her children." From Mount Sinai came the old covenant. How can it be said that the old covenant-"genders to bondage"? All Bible commentators, along with the apostle Peter, agree that our brother Paul wrote some things hard to be understood, and the book of Galatians illustrates that fact. But we believe that in two ways the old covenant might be regarded as leading into bondage.
1. The ceremonial ritual of numerous sacrifices, feast days, and the like, by which the Israelites were to express their desire for freedom from sin-the transgression of the moral law-tended to become more and more an intolerable burden upon them as the rabbis constantly refined and multiplied the ritual. At the Jerusalem council the early Christian leaders first considered in a formal way the contention of certain Jews who declared "that it was needful to circumcise them [the Gentile converts], and to command them to keep the law of Moses." Acts 15:5. To this contention Peter replied, "Now therefore why tempt you God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" Verse 10.
This question seems to parallel the one that Paul asks the Galatians: "But now, after that you have known God or rather are known of God, how turn you again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days, and months, and times, and years." Gal. 4:9,10.
Obviously here is a "bondage" that suffices to provide a reasonable interpretation of Paul's words about the Sinaitic covenant genders to bondage. The Pulpit Commentary well observes on Galatians 4:25:
"The religious life of Judaism consisted of a servile obedience to a letter Law of ceremonialism, interpreted by the rabbis with an infinity of hair-splitting rules, the exact observance of which was bound upon the conscience of its votaries as of the essence of true piety."
2. The moral law, central to the old as well as the new covenant, can be considered as bringing a man into bondage if that man seeks to keep the law in his own strength. "The law works wrath," says Paul. Rom. 4:15. Why? Paul explains: "I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." Rom. 7:9. And when a man is dead in sin is he a freeman? Again Paul speaks: "Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants, you are to whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" Rom. 6:16.
Now, how could those of whom Paul was speaking "Jerusalem which now is, ... with her children"-hope to escape from their bondage? The answer is, By moving from the old over to the new covenant.
By contrast to those "in bondage" Paul, in his allegory, declares that "Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all." In Hebrews, Paul employs this figure also: "For you are not come unto the mount [Sinai] that might be touched, and that burned with fire,... but you are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel." Heb. 12:18-24.
Without going into a detailed examination of figures of speech, which would carry us beyond the range of the particular question at issue-the perpetuity of the Ten Commandments-we may simply say that Paul here turns to describe the state of those who are under "the new covenant." We have already found that under the new covenant God's law is written in our hearts. In this very passage in Hebrews, Paul makes clear, by a series of contrasts and comparisons, that obedience to the voice of God is still of pre-eminent importance:
1. "Not come unto the mount [Sinai].” 1. "Come unto mount Zion the heavenly Jerusalem.”
2. 'That burned with fire.” 2. "Our God is a consuming fire."
3. To Moses the mediator of the old covenant. 3. "To Jesus the mediator of the new covenant.
4. "And the voice of words." voice of God, 4. "See that you refuse not him that spoke."
commanding obedience.
5. "If they escaped not who refused Him that 5. "Much more shall not we escape if we turn away
spoke on earth.” from him that speaks from heaven.
6. To the blood of sprinkling of animal sacrifices, 6. "To the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better
even as "Abel" offered long before. things than that of Abel.” [The blood of Christ.]
7. "Whose voice then shook the earth. 7. Yet once more I shake not the Earth
only but also heaven.”
Because we come under the new covenant by our act of faith in accepting the promise of God to write His law in our hearts, we are no longer "by nature the children of wrath, even as others (Eph. 2:3), but the children of promise. The figure is apt. We become children of God by the sacrifice of our Lord, and by accepting through faith God's promise of a new covenant relationship. Isaac also was a child of promise, an answer to an act of faith on Abraham's part. Blending the two ideas, Paul really comes to the climax of his allegory with these words: "Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise." Abraham's act of faith in believing God's promise was counted unto him for righteousness. Our act of faith in believing God's promise is counted unto us for righteousness. That is the way we acquire true righteousness, new covenant righteousness.
And why did the Lord make His promise to Abraham? "Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws." Gen. 26:5.
And how are those described who are literally waiting to be taken to Jerusalem which is above"? "Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Rev. 14:12.
No, Paul's words in Galatians do not teach freedom from the law of God. They teach freedom from bondage to sin, freedom from transgression of the law of God, through Jesus Christ and the new covenant relationship.
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Objection 8
Paul declares that we are not under the law, but under grace. (Rom. 6:14) The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. (John 1:17.) Paul also declares that "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes." Rom. 10:4. These texts prove that the law was abolished by Christ.
There is no conflict between law and grace, or between law and gospel. A simple definition or two will help its out in this matter. By law-we mean God's standard of right and wrong, the yardstick by which we can tell whether we have fallen short of God's requirements. The word "gospel' means good news-good news of salvation from sin. (See Matt. 1:21) And the Bible defines sin as any violation of the divine law. (See 1 John 3: 1-4.) So, then, the gospel is the good news of God's plan to save us from breaking His holy law. Thus instead of law and gospel being in opposition, they are in close fellowship. And the very existence of the gospel proves that the law is still in force, for what would be the point in preaching the good news of salvation from breaking the law if the law were no longer in force? A man cannot break that which does not exist.
Let us now read, in its setting, the key text in this discussion: "Sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid." Rom. 6:14, 15. We discover immediately that whatever else Paul wishes its to understand by this passage, he does not want us to think that the reign of grace frees us from obedience to the law, 'What then?" says he; "shall we sin," that is, break the law, "because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid."
The very next verse makes clear that Paul here uses the phrase "under the law" to mean "under its condemnation," and "under grace" to mean "living under the plan that God has offered of salvation from the bondage of sin." For Paul follows right on to say: "Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? ... Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness." Verses 16-18.
The contrast is between servants "of sin" and servants "of obedience unto righteousness." What is it that gives strength to sin? It is the law, says Paul. (See 1 Cor. 15:56) The fact that the law exists and pronounces a death penalty for evildoing and evil living is what gives to sin its power over those who indulge in unlawful acts. The law does not lay its strong hand on the man who does not violate it. Its strength is felt only by the lawbreaker.
Paul says sin is no longer to hold us in its grip, because we are living under, or have accepted, God's plan of grace, which gives us a power that breaks the grip of sin. Thus instead of being servants of sin, we become servants of "obedience unto righteousness." And what is righteousness? It is right doing, right living, a state of heart the very opposite of sinfulness or lawlessness. Paul in a later chapter tells how the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ brings righteousness to us, and how this righteousness is directly related to the law. We read: "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:3,4.
Paul deals with the same problem in Galatians 3:24, 25: "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster."
The law can show us our sinfulness and bring to us such conviction of sin that we shall be driven to Christ, who can free us from our sins. When we receive Christ we are no longer under the domination-the condemnation-of the law. But we are not freed from obedience to God's law, for in accepting Christ we receive divine power for obedience to that law, as is explained in the passage just quoted from Romans 8. Thus Galatians 3:24, 25 gives no support to the claim that the law is abolished.
How plain and simple it is, then, that when we accept God's Son and the grace He offers, we do not turn our back on the law. Rather, we find that the "righteousness of the law-is "fulfilled in us." Instead of being sinners, breakers of God's law, we find that we are obedient to it.
In the light of these facts there is no difficulty in the text: "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." John 1:17. While Moses served a very great purpose in the plan of God-for through him God gave to the world the written form of the moral code-yet through Christ came divine grace, without which the law cannot truly be kept.
The man who accepts Christ no longer strives to obtain righteousness by keeping the law. Upon his acceptance of Christ, the Savior's righteousness is imputed to him. Says Paul: "Now the righteousness of God without [or, apart from] the law is manifested being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe." Rom. 3:21, 22. Because "the righteousness of God can be obtained apart from the law, Paul can well declare: "Christ is the end of the law of righteousness to every one that believes." Rom. 10:4. To everyone who believes on Him, Christ brings to an absolute end the use of the law as a means of obtaining righteousness. Or, again, we may understand that word "end" as meaning the objective or purpose. Christ was the objective the law had in view; for the purpose of the law is to cause men so to realize their sinfulness, their unrighteousness, that they will go to Christ for His righteousness, which not only is imputed in justification but is actually imparted in the daily living, as is clearly taught in Galatians 2:20. This use of the word "end" is found in James 5: 11 and 1 Timothy 1: 5.
Both law and grace came from heaven. How happy are we as Christians that we are not called upon to reject one in order to have the other. By the power of God's grace we no longer dwell under the condemnation of the law, but are in Him raised up to the lofty plane of complete obedience to this divine code.
Well do Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, in their Bible commentary, make this observation in a note at the close of their comments on Romans 6:
"The fundamental principle of Gospel-obedience is as original as it is divinely rational; that 'we are set free from the law in order to keep it, and are brought graciously under servitude to the law in order to be free' (v. 14, 15, 18). So long as we know no principle of obedience but the terrors of the law, which condemns all the breakers of it, and knows nothing whatever of grace, either to pardon the guilty or to purify the stained, we are shut up under a moral impossibility of genuine and acceptable obedience. Whereas when Grace lifts us out of this state, and through union to a righteous Surety, brings us into a state of conscious reconciliation, and loving surrender of heart to a God of salvation, we immediately feel the glorious liberty to be holy, and the assurance that 'Sin shall not have dominion over us' is as sweet to our renewed tastes and aspirations as the ground of it is felt to be firm, 'because we are not under the Law, but under Grace."
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Objection 9
Luke 16:16 proves that Christians have nothing to do with law.
Luke 16:16 reads as follows: "The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presses into it." Place beside this the parallel passage in Matthew 11: 13: "For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John."
The word "were" in Luke 16:16 is a supplied word. Luke simply wrote: "The law and the prophets, until John." If the translators had compared his words with those of Matthew, they would have seen that Luke did not mean that the law and the prophets ended in John's day, but that they "prophesied" until that day. The difference is very great and provides the key to the meaning of the passage under discussion.
The phrase, "the prophets and the law," or more commonly, the law and the prophets," is used often in the Bible to describe the writings of Moses plus the writings of the other Old Testament prophets. The writings of Moses were so distinguished by the codes of laws there recorded that they very understandably were often described as "the law," in contrast to the writings of the other prophets. That fact in itself really removes this objection from consideration, for neither Luke nor Matthew is really discussing the ten-commandment law.
But what did these two gospel writers mean? The context gives the answer. Skepticism of the mission and character both of Christ and of' John the Baptist marked many of the Jews. They insisted that they believed Moses and all the prophets. Christ sought repeatedly to make clear to them that He was the one foretold by the prophets, and likewise his forerunner, John the Baptist, was foretold, and that now the kingdom of God was being preached unto them.
When Christ began His public ministry He declared, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand." Mark 1:15. The prophets had foretold the coming of the Messiah. Christ announced that those prophecies were now fulfilled.
To the skeptical Jews, who failed to see in Christ the fulfillment of these prophecies, He declared: "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuses you, even Moses, in whom you trust. For had you believed Moses, you would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if you believe not his writings, how shall you believe my words?" John 5:45-47.
When Philip found Nathanael and sought to bring him the thrilling news that the promised Messiah had come, he said, "We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth." John 1:45.
When Christ was resurrected from the dead He came that same day to the troubled, bewildered disciples and inquired, "Why are you troubled? And why do thoughts arise in your hearts?" Luke 24:38. Then He reminded them that what had happened to Him on that fateful weekend was what the prophets had foretold, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me." Verse 44.
Paul declared that his mission in life was witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come." Acts 26:22.
Hence it is evident that the prophesying of Moses and the other prophets was one of the prime proofs offered by Christ and the apostles in support of the claim that the Messiah had come. Prophets prophesy "until" the time when their prophecies meet fulfillment, after that prophecy becomes history. Thus our Lord in declaring that the "prophets and the law prophesied until John, was simply announcing that "the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand." He was not implying that either Moses or the prophets were now abolished, much less that the ten- commandment law had come to an end.
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Objection 10
Romans 7:14 prove, that the law is done away. Under the figure of marriage Paul explains that we are 'delivered from the law," that, indeed, the law is dead.
What is Paul discussing in this chapter? The same general subject that he is discussing in the chapters immediately preceding and following the subject of the carnal man, the slave of sin, who is unable to save himself, and who must find salvation through the grace of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. Paul sets down the premise: "The law hath dominion over a man as long as he lives." Rom. 7:1. In various ways in this epistle he shows that the sinner, because he has transgressed God's law, is under the dominion of sin. In other words, our old sinful nature, which Paul describes as "the old man," has dominion over us. It is because of this that Paul declared, of his former state: "For what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I" Verse 15. "The strength of sin is the law." 1 Cor. 15:56. Once we have become transgressors of the moral law, which knows no revocation, and demands judgment upon the violator, we cannot gain freedom, for we have no power within ourselves to escape from the domination of sin.
Now, how do we escape from "the old man;" that holds us in servitude? By the death of this "old man," that is, by our conversion, for at conversion our old nature is crucified. "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him [Christ], that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." Rom. 6:6. But there is not only the death of "the old man," there is also the birth of "the new man." "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Verse 4. Paul refers to this changed state of the Christian when he says, "Lie not one to another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." Col. 3:9, 10. Because Christ's followers have put off "the old man" and put on "the new man," Paul says we should reckon ourselves "to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ." Rom. 6:11.
It is to illustrate this transition from the domination of sin to the rule of righteousness that Paul employs the figure of marriage. There are four principal parts to the figure he uses: a woman, her first husband, her second husband, the law of marriage.
"The woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he lives; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. ... If her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man." Rom. 7:2, 3.
The first and most important point in this illustration, from which Paul proceeds at once to draw his lesson, is this: He is not speaking of the death of the law, but of the death of a husband. In fact, there would be no point to his illustration if the law were dead, for in that event, there would be nothing to hold the wife to either husband, and any discussion of adultery would be pointless. How could there possibly be adultery, which is transgression of a precept of God's law, if the law containing the prohibition against adultery were dead? The marriage law is not abolished in a country because a husband dies. It remains on the statute books to govern all who are married or who seek to marry.
Now follows Paul's application of the figure to the life of the mail who has turned from sin to righteousness:
"Wherefore, my brethren, you also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that you should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." Verse 4.
We have been crucified with Christ, His crucified body vicariously ours. All the condemnatory claim that the law had upon our old man ends with the death of that "man." Now we are free from its condemnation and can be married to Christ. We call put on "the new man."
Well do Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, in their Bible commentary, remark on this passage:
"It is we that are 'crucified with Christ,' and not the law. This death dissolves our marriage obligation to the law, leaving us at liberty to contract a new relation-to be joined to the Risen One, in order to spiritual fruitfulness, to the glory of God. ... Believers are here viewed as having a double life-the old sin-condemned life, which they lay clown with Christ, and the new life of acceptance and holiness to which they rise with their Surety and Head." - Comment on Romans 7:4.
Because of this new union we "bring forth fruit unto God," whereas, "when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death." Verse 5. In other words, while we were under the dominion of sin, the only fruitage of our actions could be further condemnation and renewed certainty of death, and all because the law of God was in force against us and giving "strength" to sin.
To prevent his readers from thinking that the trouble was with the law rather than with sinful man, Paul immediately adds: "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shall not covet. ... For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me." Verses 7-11. The wages of sin-that is, the wages of-law breaking-is death. That is why Paul says, "The commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death." Verse 10. Then to make doubly sure that no one would conclude that anything in his argument was intended to throw discredit on God's law, he declares, "Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good." Verse 12. The trouble, he emphasizes once more, is with sinful man: "For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin." Verse 14.
Paul comes to the climax of his argument in the opening verses of the next chapter. He explains that God "sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law ["the just requirement of the law," R.S.V.] might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:3, 4. Christ's death made possible our salvation, which in turn results, not in the death of the law, but in the implanting of that law in our hearts. Thus we are enabled to "bring forth fruit unto God."
Returning, now, to the figure of marriage, let us adapt a little Paul's illustration, and summarize his argument: Even the most perfect marriage law cannot make a marriage a success. Hence the failure of a marriage is no reason for repealing the law. All that the marriage law can do is to set a standard for marriage. If the standard is violated, the violators are condemned, but the law remains. Thus with God's moral law. It sets a standard for our lives. If we violate that standard, we stand condemned, but God's law remains. The trouble is not with the law, which is "spiritual," but with us who are "carnal, sold under sin." "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Verse 7. While we are "sold under sin," that is, enslaved by it, we are under the domination of "the old man." That domination is broken by the death of the "old man" and the putting on of the "new man." In our former state the law pointed only a condemning finger at us. In our redeemed state the "righteousness of the law" is 'fulfilled in us," for the law is written in our hearts.
We do not know how Paul could have been more explicit in the matter. And it is in the setting of the whole context that we examine the only clause in the passage that appears to make Paul teach the abolition of the law. Romans 7:6 reads, "But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held." If Paul here teaches the death of the law, he not only confuses the figure of speech he has been using, but also squarely contradicts the very literal statements he has made in the same context. He has spoken of the death of a husband, and by application of the figure, our death. In the fourth verse he speaks of our becoming "dead to the law." Does he turn around in the sixth verse to tell us that it is the law that is dead? We do not wish to charge Paul with such confused reasoning.
There are two ways of relieving the apparent contradiction and confusion.
1. By explaining the clause, "that being dead wherein we were held," as referring to the sinful nature, "the old man" that has had dominion over us. Sin, operating through our sinful nature, is what "held" us. (See verses 24,25)
2. By taking the position that the clause, "that being dead wherein we were held " which is the reading in the so-called Authorized Version, is not the correct reading. Later versions, which draw from further and sometimes older manuscripts, give a translation that is consonant with Paul's whole argument. For example, the American Standard Version-generally called the Revised Version-gives the clause thus: "having died to that wherein we were held." The Revised Standard Version gives it thus: "dead to that which held us captive." On this point Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown remark:
"It is now universally agreed that the true reading here is, 'being dead to that wherein we were held.' The received reading [of the Authorized Version] has no authority whatever, and is inconsistent with the strain of the argument; for the death spoken of, as we have seen, is not the law's but ours, through union with the crucified Savior." Comment on Romans 7:6.
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Objection 11
Ephesians 2:14,15 and Colossians 2:14,16 prove that the law was abolished at the cross.
Very true. But which law? Under objection 2 we found that the Bible speaks of more than one law, and that these two texts describe the ceremonial law. Strictly speaking, we might therefore throw out the so-called proof before us without further discussion. But so plausibly are these texts set forth by many that we shall here examine them further.
We found that "where no law is, there is no transgression," and that specifically the law that makes sin known to us is the one containing the command against coveting-the Ten Commandments. (See Rom. 4:15; 7:7) The simple proof that there was sin long before Moses' time established for us the fact that the law must have been in existence before then.
It is evident that by the very same process of reasoning we can quickly discover whether the law existed after Christ's time. Did sin exist after the cross? Most certainly. The apostles went out to preach to sinners after Christ's return to heaven. The New Testament has as much to say about sin and sinners as has the Old. "But sin is not imputed when there is no law." Rom. 5:13.
Thus it is as clear as a spring morning that the Ten Commandments is as surely in existence after Christ as it was before Moses. No Christian would admit that in the centuries before Christ men lived by a higher moral standard than we, for certainly there could not be a more exalted code than the Ten Commandments. How could we longer contend that in the Christian dispensation men were brought up to a higher moral plane if we say at the same time that in this dispensation men are freed from the highest conceivable code, the Ten Commandments?
We are therefore prepared to believe, even before we examine the texts quoted by the objector, that they cannot possibly teach what he claims. The texts declare: "He [Christ] is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments, contained in ordinances; for to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace." Eph. 2:14, 15. "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.... Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of a new moon, or of the Sabbath days." Col. 2:14,16.
What do we generally mean by "ordinances" when we speak religiously? The Standard dictionary thus defines the word: "A religious rite or ceremony as ordained or established by divine or by ecclesiastical authority; as, the ordinance of the Lord's supper." We found that the Jewish church before Christ had certain ordinances, even as we since Christ's time have ordinances, such as the Lord's supper and baptism. Only they had many more. They had special rites and ceremonies, like the Passover and various holy days and meat offerings and drink offerings, et cetera. We read, for example, "This is the ordinance of the Passover." Ex. 12:43. When these are referred to in the New Testament, the same language is used, for example: "Meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances." Heb. 9:10.
We also found that there were various laws and commandments stating just how these ordinances should be carried out. These were all written down by Moses in a book, and are generally described by Bible writers as the law of Moses, or the ceremonial law, which is not to be confused with the ten-commandment law. How evident, then, that the law which Paul here says is "abolished" and blotted out, does not include the Ten Commandments.
The book of Hebrews contains the best explanation of the relation of the ancient Jewish ceremonies to the work of Christ. Incidentally, this book is generally regarded as having been written by Paul, the author of the two texts we are considering in the objection before us. In it we read of "the law having a shadow of good things to come." Heb. 10:1. Plainly the writer means the ceremonial law, first, because the moral law could not be described as a "shadow" of something "to come," for it deals with eternal principles; second, the writer says "the law" there spoken of deals with "burnt offerings and offering for sin," et cetera. Verse 8.
All the offerings under the Jewish service were intended to shadow forth the good things of the gospel, when Christ, the great sacrifice, should be offered up. When that one great, perfect sacrifice for sin was made, there was no longer need of imperfect shadows. Christ "offered one sacrifice for sins for ever." Verse 12. The laws and ordinances commanding the offerings of sacrifices, of meat and drink offerings, of annual holy days, like the Passover, were all abolished at the cross. Shadow met reality.
In view of this we have no difficulty in understanding what Paul refers to when he speaks of the "law of commandments contained in ordinances," and the 'handwriting of ordinances," in the two texts we are examining. He means simply the ceremonial law. He makes this doubly clear by saying in the succeeding verses that because these "ordinances" are abolished we are no longer under obligation as to offerings of meat or drink, and certain holy days, which "are a shadow of things to come." The comparison with the language of the book of Hebrews is exact.
This conclusion is made doubly evident by the following facts:
1. Contrast Paul's words concerning meats and drinks, et cetera, with the words of the Ten Commandments. Those commands deal with great and soul-shaking matters, such as idolatry, blasphemy, lying, stealing, adultery.
To illustrate the contrast, let us imagine that a certain country repealed all its traffic laws. Would it not be almost humorously obvious for a government official to declare solemnly that now no one may judge you for parking overtime, or failing to have your car inspected, when actually no one may judge you even for driving a hundred miles an hour through town and endangering a thousand lives. And so on the highway toward heaven. If actually in the Christian Era travelers are suddenly freed from "the law," including the Ten Commandments, how unbecomingly irrelevant for an inspired guide to inform them that now no one may judge them on relatively minor matters, as "meat" or "drink," when actually no one may longer judge them on such mighty matters as killing or stealing. Or why should a guide feel it impressive or important to announce that the travelers need no longer be concerned with holy days when actually, if the Ten Commandments is a part of the blotted-out law, they may, with impunity, commit the sacrilege of blasphemy and idolatry? And with sacrilege permitted, what possible significance could a holy day have anyway?
On the other hand, if a certain country repealed only those traffic laws that dealt with such minor, and often burdensome, matters as parking, how understandable for an official to make the announcement that no one may now be judged in the matter of parking. Likewise, if the government of heaven has repealed only the ritualistic laws on meats and drinks, et cetera, how appropriate and relevant Paul's words become.
2. The law mentioned in these two texts is said to have been abolished by the death of Christ. If the Ten Commandments is a part of that law, then God sent His Son to shed His blood to repeal, among other things, the formerly divine ban on idolatry, profanity, murder, and all the other evils denounced in the Ten Commandments. What a monstrous idea!
3. Again, this abolished law is said to be "against us. .... contrary to us." Will anyone be so presumptuous as to say that the Ten Commandments are "against us. .... contrary to us"?
So far from these texts teaching that the ten-commandment law is abolished, they do not even mention it.
(See objection 29, for a further discussion of the Colossian passage as it relates specifically to the Sabbath command.)
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Objection 12
Through Moses, God gave commandments to His people. Fifteen hundred years later Christ also gave commandments. Adventists fail to make a distinction between God's law, which was abolished at Calvary, and Christ's commandments that bind the Christian. Hence Adventists mistakenly contend that the Ten Commandments and Christ's commandments are the same and equally binding.
Here is a new and rather breath-taking idea: It is a mark of legalism to keep the Father's commandments, but a mark of grace to keep the Son's! The substance of most of the contentions against the law that we have had to consider is this: The Christian has nothing to do with the law, meaning, the ten-commandment law. Now we are informed that the Christian has much to do with law; in fact, he must give obedience to many commandments, for a number of references are given to prove that Christ set forth a list of new commandments.
The references given are largely from the record of Christ's sermon on the mount, beginning with Matthew 5:29. The reader, of course, is familiar with Christ's commands in this notable sermon. We need not enumerate them here. Suffice it to summarize them by saying that they deal with a variety of human relationships and are really an exposition of what we call the golden rule. In fact, the golden rule is given as a kind of climax to this sermon. (See Matt. 7:12) And strangely enough, this very reference is given, among others, to prove that Christ set up a new code of laws that were to supersede those given by God in an earlier era. But let us read the text:
"Therefore all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." Matt. 7:12.
Christ emphatically declares that the golden rule is but the epitome of the "law and the prophets." As just stated, His various commands given in this sermon on the mount are summarized in the golden rule. Hence, His allegedly new commands are simply an exposition of the "law and the prophets." This understanding of the matter is in harmony with the classic Protestant view of the Scriptures; namely, that the New Testament is infolded in the Old and the Old Testament is unfolded in the New. (See the discussion on this point under objection 1)
That Christ was indeed commenting upon and expanding very specifically God's ten- commandment law is evident in various of the references given by the objector as proof that Christ set up new commandments to supplant those of His Father. Take this reference: "And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses." Luke 12:15.
Many of the allegedly new commands of Christ are most evidently an expansion of this tenth precept of the Ten Commandments.
Or take this reference, which for some reason is not given by the objector: "You have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shall not commit adultery. But I say unto you, That whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." Matt. 5:27,28.
Is Christ here freeing us from the seventh precept of God's ten-commandment law, and setting up a new law? The idea would be blasphemous. Instead, He is showing how broad is the import of that command.
Christ did not set aside God's law; instead, He magnified it. And this is what the prophet Isaiah foretold of Him: "The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honorable.-Isa. 42:21. The well-known Pulpit Commentary observes on this text:
"He will magnify the Law; rather, to magnify the Law-to set it forth in its greatness and its glory before his people. It is not the original giving of the Law at Sinai only that is meant, but also its constant inculcation by a long series of prophets. Israel's experience (ver. 20) had included all this; but they had not profited by the instruction addressed to them."
We have looked in vain, among the references offered by the objector as proof that Christ gave commandments to supersede the law of God, for the words of our Lord to the rich young ruler, who had asked what he should do to "have eternal life": "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. " Matt. 19:16,17. And did Christ here set forth a new set of commandments? Surely here was the time to do it, for the eternal life of a human soul was at stake. But when the young man asked Christ to be specific as to "which" commandment, our Lord recited a number of the commands found in the Ten Commandments, and ended with the summarizing command: "Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself." And this last command, be it noted, is not new; it is quoted from Leviticus 19:I8.
What further evidence need be offered than this to prove that no new commandment from Christ was necessary to salvation.
This passage provides also a most excellent proof that apparently new commandments from Christ are but an amplification of principles set down in the commands long before given by God. When the young man declared that he had kept all these commands from his youth up, and inquired, "What lack I yet?" Christ told him to go and sell all that he had and give to the poor and "follow me." This command to sell was simply an exposition of the tenth precept of the Ten Commandments and a commentary on Luke 12:15. And would anyone think of contending that the command, "Follow me," meant that the youth should turn his back on God's holy law?
We have Christ's own words, expressed over and over, that He did not come to set up new laws, but only to set forth what had been given unto Him of His Father. Note these typical references- which the objector failed to include in his presentation:
"For 1 have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak." John 12:49, 50.
"He that loves me not keeps not my sayings: and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me." John 14:24. (See also John 7:16; 8:28)
These passages harmonize perfectly with Christ's declaration: 'I and my Father are one." John 10:30.
They also dispose of the claim that the apostles set forth new commandments that took the place of the law of God. Would the apostles do something that even Christ would not do? When Christ sent forth His disciples on the great task of carrying the gospel to all men, He declared that they were to teach men "to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Matt. 28:20. And Christ declared, "The Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say." John 12:49.
That the Father and Son are united in this matter of commandments is further revealed by the fact that Christ was present when the Israelites were in the wilderness, where they received the ten-commandment law. (See Neh. 9:11-15 and 1 Cor. 10:1-4.)
Not three lawgivers, the Father, the Son, and the apostles, but one only. That is what these texts teach. They agree perfectly with the words of James: "There is one lawgiver." James 4:12.
Need we no longer keep God's commandments, but only Christ's? The texts before us give the clear answer. For good measure let us add two more. The saints of God in the last days of earth's history are thus twice described:
1. "The remnant .... which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus." Rev. 12:17.
2. "They that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Rev. 14:12.
In fact, the Bible knows of only two classes of people-those who keep God's law and those who do not. Those described as "saints" (Rev. 14:12) are subject to His law. Those who are not are thus described by Paul: "The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8:7.
(For a discussion of a closely related line of reasoning see objection 13)
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Objection 13
The only command that we need to keep now is Christ's new commandment to love one another, for He declared that we should keep His commandments even as He had kept His Father's commandments. And does not the Bible say that love is the fulfilling of the law?
It is quite true that Christ said, "A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another." John 13:34. Would the objector want to reason from this that all other commandments are abolished? The text does not allow such a conclusion. Christ did not say that we should keep His commandments in the place of His Father's commandments. It would be rebellion for the Son to free us from the Father's laws and set up new ones in their place. Christ's purpose was not to destroy the great moral teachings and laws that had been given in former centuries. In His sermon on the mount He declared:
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Matt. 5:17, 18.
And when we read further in that wonderful sermon, we find Christ telling His hearers that they were viewing various commandments of the Ten Commandments in too narrow a sense. Instead of abolishing or even restricting His Father's commandments, Christ magnified them.
Thus in His commandment to the disciples concerning love, Christ wanted them to view love in a more magnified, a more holy sense than formerly. He wanted them to love one another, not as the world interprets love, selfishly or even merely sentimentally. By His life Christ had set before them an example of what true, unselfish love really is, such love as had never before been witnessed on the earth. In this sense His commandment might be described as new. It charged them, not simply "that you love one another," but "that you love one another, as I have loved you." John 15:12. Strictly speaking, we have here simply one more evidence of how Christ magnified His Father's laws.
But what of the statement that love is the fulfilling of the law? The objector often expands this by saying that Christ declared that all we are to do is to love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves. Let us read exactly what the Bible does say on this matter.
"Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Matt. 22:35-40.
Christ was here setting forth no new doctrine. On the contrary, He was answering the specific question, "Which is the great commandment in the law?" His answer is almost an exact quotation from the Old Testament. (See Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18) In other words, the two great commandments to love God and to love our neighbor belong definitely to Old Testament times. Now then, if these two commandments take the place of the Ten Commandments, why were the Ten Commandments ever given? But the very Israelites who listened to the exhortation to love God and their neighbor also listened to the clear-cut command to obey the ten precepts of the Ten Commandments.
No, these two commandments on love do not take the place of any other law. Instead, Christ declared that "on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." How evidently wrong, then, to make these two commandments hang by themselves, and cut off everything else. This is contrary to the teaching of Christ.
According to the Bible you cannot separate love from law. "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." 1 John 5:2, 3. Thus reads the Good Book. If we truly love our fellow man, we will not steal his goods or lie about him or kill him. Indeed, we will not do any of the things prohibited by God's commandments. And if we truly love God, we will not bow down to false gods, or take God's name in vain, or use for our own purpose His holy Sabbath day. In other words, if we love God and our fellow men, we will not willfully break any of the Ton Commandments. Thus is love the fulfilling of the law.
Instead of love's being a substitute for law, it is the one power that brings forth true obedience to God's commandments. The Bible warns us against those who say they know and love God but refuse to keep His commandments. (See 1 John 2:4.) Such love is counterfeit.
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Objection 14
Seventh day Adventists are constantly preaching that men should obey God's commandments, keep the law, as if that were the sum and substance of true religion and a passport to heaven. But the Christian has nothing to do with law; he lives wholly by the grace of God, which [He] made available to him through faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thus, and thus only, can any man he right with God and be in readiness for heaven.
We freely admit that we preach that men should obey God's commandments. We also preach with equal vigor that a man's only hope of heaven is through the grace of God made available in the gospel. There is no conflict between the two declarations, as we shall seek to show. Note, first, these similar declarations regarding obedience, as set forth in the Old and the New Testament:
Old Testament New Testament
1. "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 1. "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least
Of every tree of the garden thou may freely eat: commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever
thou shall not eat of it: for in the day that thou eats shall do and teach them, the same shall be called
thereof thou shall surely die." Gen. 2:16, 17. great in the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 5:19.
"I will perform the oath which I swore unto Abraham "Why do you also transgress the commandment
thy father; because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and of God by your tradition?" Matt. 15:3.
kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and
my laws." Gen. 26:3-5. "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." Matt. 19:17
"Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, "In vain do they worship me, teaching for
and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar doctrines the commandments of men.
treasure unto me above all people: For laying aside the commandment of God,
for all the earth is mine." Ex. 19:5. you hold the tradition of men." Mark 7:7, 8.
"Thou shall love thy neighbor "He that bath my commandments, and keeps them,
as thyself!' Lev. 19:18. he it is that loves me." John 14:21.
'And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight "For this: Thou shall not commit adultery, Thou shall
in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the not kill. Thou shall not steal. Thou shall not bear false
voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than witness, Thou shall not covet; and if there be any other
sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying,
1 Sam. 15:22. namely. Thou shall love thy neighbor as thy self." Rom. 13:9.
"Turn you from your evil ways, and "But who so looks into the perfect law of liberty
keep my commandments and my statutes, according and continues therein, he, being not a forgetful
to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and hearer, but a doer of the work, this man
which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.” shall be blessed in his deed.” "So speak you and so do, as they
2 Kings 17:13. that be judged by the law of Liberty.” James 1:25; 2:12
"But this thing commanded I them, saying, obey my "By this we know that we love the children of God
voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my when we love God, and keep His commandments.
people: and walk you in all the ways that I shall have For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments:
commanded you, that it may be well unto you." Jer. 7:23. and His commandments are not grievous.” 1 John 5:2,3.
"For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day "Here is the patience of the saints: here are they
that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, that keep the commandments of God, and
even unto this day, rising early and protesting, saying, the faith of Jesus." Rev. 14:12.
Obey my voice." Jer. 11:7.
"The great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant
and mercy to them that love him, and to them
that keep his commandments." Dan 9:4.
Note now the similar declarations of the Old and the New Testament concerning the grace of God that is made available through faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because of the fact that the experiences of certain Old Testament worthies are revealed to its through the comments of New Testament writers, the column entitled "Old Testament Times" will contain a number of New Testament texts:
Old Testament Times New Testament Times
"And I will put enmity between thee and the "And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shall call
woman, and between thy seed and her seed; his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from
it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise their sins." Matt. 1:21.
his heel." Gen. 3:15.
"And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the
"By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent kingdom of God is at hand: repent you, and
sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness believe the gospel!' Mark 1:18.
that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts.
and by it he being dead yet speaks." Heb. 11:4. "The next day John sees Jesus coming unto him,
and says, Behold the Lamb of God, which takes
"By faith Noah, being warned of the God of things away sin of the world." John 1:29.
not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to
the saying of his house; by the which he condemned "Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized
the world, and became heir of the righteousness every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for
which is by faith." Heb. 11:7. the remission of sins, and you shall receive the
gift of the Holy Ghost.” Acts 2: 38
"And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be
blessed; because thou has obeyed my voice." Gen. 22:18. "You are the children of the prophets, and of the
covenant which God made with our fathers,
"For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all
to glory., but not before God. For what says the scripture? the kindreds of the earth be blessed.” "Neither is
Abraham believed God. and it was counted unto him for there salvation in any other: for there is none
righteousness. Now to him that works is the reward not other name tinder heaven given among men,
reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that works not, whereby we must be saved." Acts 3:25; 4:12.
but believes on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is
counted for righteousness. David also describes the "And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must
blessedness of the man, into whom God imputes I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the
righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shall be saved,
whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Even as and thy house." Acts 16:30, 31.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.”
"Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace: to the end "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ:
the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only for it is the power of God unto salvation to every
which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith one that believes; to the Jew first, and
of Abraham; who is the father of us all." ROM. 4:2-8, 16. also to the Creek." Rom. 1:16.
"For this commandment which I command thee this day, "But now the righteousness of God without the
it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in law is manifested. Being witnessed by the law
heaven, that thou should say, Who shall go up for us to and the prophets; even the righteousness of God
heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon
do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou should say, all them that believe: for there is no difference."
Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, Rom. 3:21,22.
that we may hear it, and do it? But the word is very
nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou "Therefore being justified by faith. we have peace
may do it." Deut. 30:11-14. (Paul quotes this passage in with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom
Deuteronomy, prefacing it thus: "The righteousness also we have access by faith into this grace wherein
which is of faith speaks on this wise." See Rom. 10:6.) we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God."
Rom. 5:1, 2.
"Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving
kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender "But by the grace of God I am what I am."
mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly 1 Cor. 15:10.
from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.”
"Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit "But God, who is rich in mercy for his great
within me." "For thou desires not it in sacrifice; else would love wherewith he loved Us, even when we
I give it: thou delights not in burnt offering. The sacrifice’s were dead in sins, bath quickened us together
of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, with Christ (by grace you are saved;) and hath
O God, thou will not despise." Ps. 51:1,2,10,16,17 raised us up together and made us sit together
in heavenly places In Christ Jesus: that in the
ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches
of his grace in his kindness toward us through
Christ Jesus. For by grace am you saved through
faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of
God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”
Eph. 2:4-9.
"For the grace of God that brings salvation hath
appeared to all men." Titus 2:11.
"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let
him that hears say, Come. And let him that is thirsty
come. And whosoever will, let him take the water
of life freely." Rev. 22:17.
Here are the evident conclusions we must reach from studying these passages on obedience and grace in the Old and the New Testament:
1. Throughout all the history of this earth God has had but one rule for those who desire to be His children and thus qualify for heaven, and that rule is, obedience to His commands.
2. Likewise throughout all history there has been but one means by which men can be cleansed of the sin of their past disobedience and be enabled to give true obedience in the future; namely, the grace and power of God, which are made available through faith in the gospel.
Answers to a few questions will help to make these conclusions even more evident.
1. How did sin begin in the human race? Answer: By man's failure in the Garden of Eden to give obedience to God's will, His holy command.
2. Where is God's will most concisely expressed? Answer: In His holy law, the Ten Commandments.
3. What is the attitude of rebellious men toward His law? Answer: "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8:7
4. How is sin defined in the Bible? Answer: "Sin is the transgression of the law." 1 John 3:4
5. How many of us are sinners? Answer: "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Rom. 3:23.
6. Then how do we stand in relation to God? Answer: "Guilty before God." Rom. 3:19.
7. Can a man remove his guilt for past sins, and thus stand justified before God, by faithful obedience to God's law in the future? Answer: "By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight." Rom. 3:20.
8. What is the purpose of the law in relation to a guilty man? Answer: "By the law is the knowledge of sin." Verse 20. "For where no law is, there is no transgression." Rom. 4:15.
9. What is the gospel? Answer: The good news that Christ has come to die for our sins and to offer to men the grace of God (Matt. 1:21; 2 Cor. 5:18-21)
10. What is grace? Answer: The unmerited favor of God displayed toward man in saying and preserving him.
11. How is the grace of God toward guilty man displayed? Answer: (1) By offering him a means by which he may be freed from the guilt of his past sins. (2) By taking away his "carnal mind' and stony heart, which are "enmity against God" and "not subject to the law of God," and giving him a new heart and mind that delights to do the will of God. (Rom. 8: 7; Heb. 8: 10.)
12. How is man freed from the guilt of past sins? Answer: "You know that he [Christ] was manifested to take away our sins." 1 John 3:5. "Being justified freely by his “ grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:... for the remission of sins that are past." Rom. 3:24,25.
13. How does the guilty man avail himself of this proffered cleansing? Answer: By simple faith in Christ. "That whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16.
14. At the moment of accepting Christ by faith what takes place for repentant sinners? Answer: There is fulfilled for them the promise of the new covenant: "I will put my law into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people." Heb. 8: 10.
15. With God's laws thus written in our minds and hearts how do we relate ourselves to its holy requirements, its claim on our obedience? Answer: Christ "condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law ["the just requirement of the law," R.S.V.] might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:3,4.
16. How else is this miraculous new life of the pardoned sinner described? Answer: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh 1 live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Gal. 2:20.
17. Now if Christ is the one who lives out His life through us, what will be our relation to God's law? Answer: The same relation to it that Christ bore.
18. What was Christ's relation to God's law? Answer: "I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart." Ps. 40:8.
19. How does the pardoned sinner reveal that he is no longer at enmity against God, but that he truly loves Him? Answer: By obedience to God, which is the opposite of rebellion against Him. "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments." 1 John 5:3.
20. How may we summarize the contrast between the sinner and the pardoned child of God? Answer: In this way:
The Sinner The Pardoned Child of God
1. "Enmity against God.” 1. In harmony with God.
2. "Has a carnal mind!' Minds the things of the flesh. 2. Walks "not after the flesh, but after the spirit."
3. "Not subject to the law of God.” 3. God's law in his mind and heart.
4. Controlled by Satan (Rom. 6:16), 4. Christ lives in him, and Christ has His
who originated all rebellion. Father's law in His heart.
How evident, then, that there is no conflict between law and grace; between obedience to God's holy law, which is the true mark of the child of God, and salvation from sin through God's grace displayed in the atoning sacrifice of Christ. We are saved from sin, law breaking, that we might live a life of obedience, law keeping. No sinner will enter heaven. The "saints" standing in readiness for Christ's Second Advent are distinguished in two vital ways:
They (1) keep "the commandments of God" and (2) "the faith of Jesus." (Rev. 14:12) Adventists, who seek to prepare their hearts and the hearts of others for the Second Advent, preach that men should "keep the commandments of God" and possess "the faith of Jesus." Thus law and grace are combined. And it is because "the faith of Jesus" is kept that "the commandments of God" can be kept.
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Objection 15
Why preach the law when no one can be saved by obeying it? Furthermore, man is morally unable to keep the commandments.
This objection is really only a variant of objections already answered. But because the no-law argument is made to appear so plausible under different guises, let us examine this objection.
We agree with the objector that no one can he saved by keeping the law, and that man is morally unable to keep it. But we do not agree with the conclusion he would have us draw from these facts; namely, that the law was abolished at the cross. What would we say to the man who should argue that mirrors ought to be abolished as worthless because no one can obtain beauty by looking into them? Why, we would say that it is not the business of a mirror to make people beautiful, that no one ever made any such claims for mirrors. The function of the mirror is to provide us with a means of knowing whether we look as we ought. And when we have discovered how we look, we can take appropriate means for remedying the imperfections.
Even so with the law. The law was never intended to make man holy or pure or beautiful. Its task is not that of saving man from his sins and imperfections, but of providing him with a means of discovering just what his condition is. When he gazes at the law, with mind quickened by the convicting Spirit of God, he sees immediately where this moral defect or that mars the beauty of his soul, even as he discovers from gazing into a mirror just where this physical defect or that mars the beauty of his body.
And when men thus see their spiritual defects, and become conscious of their uncleanness, they are in a frame of mind to listen to a message that offers cleansing from their defilement. In other words, only when a man realizes that he is a sinner is he ready to listen to the gospel, which is the good news of salvation from sin.
It is by the law that we have the knowledge of sin. (See Rom. 3:20.) Therefore it is evident that only as the law is made known to men can they be brought into a frame of mind that will cause them to wish to hear and accept what the gospel offers them.
We would ask: If sinful man is unable to keep the law, and when he becomes a Christian he need not keep it, pray tell why was the law of God ever given? Shall we make a farce of God's law, and charge Heaven with proclaiming a code that was for thousands of years impossible of being kept, and that for the last two thousand years need not be kept?
We are puzzled to understand why the objection before us should be used to prove that the law was abolished at the cross. Men were no more morally able to keep God's holy law in the centuries before Christ than they have been in the centuries following. Nor could they in those years before Christ hope to obtain salvation through the law, for, as we have found, God has had only one way of saving men from the days of Adam down, and that is through the sacrifice of Christ. (See objection 14) So, then, if the objection before us really proves anything against the law today, it proves it against the law in all past days, back to the beginning of man's sinful history. In other words, there would be no useful place for God's law at all in the whole history of the world.
The fact is, that instead of the law's being abolished for the Christian, there is really no true keeping of the law except by Christians. The divine code would be a dead letter in this world were it not for the Christians who obey it. By faith Christ comes into our hearts, and lives out in us the precepts of heaven. (See Eph. 3:20; Gal. 2:20; 1 Cor. 1:23,24) Thus, instead of God's law being wholly ignored and flouted in this rebellious world, there are found men and women upholding and establishing it in the only way a law can be upheld-by living in obedience to its claims. That is why Paul says, "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law." Rom. 3:31. Our faith in Christ has not abolished but established the law.
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Objection 16
By preaching the law you endeavor to deprive Christians of the glorious liberty of the gospel.
Christ declared, "Every one that commits sin is the bondservant of sin." John 8:34, A.R.V. And what is sin? "Sin is the transgression of the law." 1 John 3:4. Therefore it is the man whose life is not in obedience to the law of God who is deprived of liberty. The righteous man willingly obeys God's law, and finds happiness in such obedience.
Law and liberty are not opposite words. You need not surrender one in order to have the other. True, there are men who stand up at street corners and declare that the only way to have real liberty is to abolish all laws. But as good citizens we do not take such talk seriously. Instead, we know that laws wisely made and well kept provide the only sure foundation for liberty in any country. In fact, someone has aptly remarked, "Obedience to law is liberty." And this phrase is often found inscribed on public buildings in the liberty-loving United States of America.
In any country the ones who find in law a curtailing of their liberty are those whose habits of life are in opposition to the law. The man who is accustomed to steal or to murder finds that the law checks the freedom of his actions very greatly.
If as citizens of this world we find liberty in obedience to manmade law, why, as citizens of the heavenly world, do we need God's law abolished in order to have liberty? Is it because the laws of heaven are unjust and deprive us of the freedom that ought rightfully to be ours? It were blasphemy to utter the thought.
The law of God prohibits making or worshiping idols. No man who calls himself a Christian can feel deprived of liberty by such a prohibition. The law also commands us not to take God's name in vain or to desecrate His holy Sabbath day. Does the child of God want to be freed from these prohibitions? Likewise the law commands respect for parents, and prohibits killing, adultery, stealing, lying, and coveting. Certainly no follower of Christ will feel that these precepts deprive him of liberty.
Indeed, the Bible definitely speaks of God's holy law as "the law of liberty." (See James 2:10-12.) True, if the law is preached to men apart from the gospel-the saving power of God-the result will be only a feeling of condemnation on the part of the hearers. They will simply be brought to a realization of how guilty they are. But when the high code of heaven is presented in terms of God's promise to give us of His Divine Spirit to carry out the law's holy requirements, then the hearers can find happiness and liberty in such preaching; for "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 2 Cor. 3:17.
No one would ever have thought of bringing against Seventh day Adventists the charge of depriving men of Christian liberty if it were not that we preach the law exactly as it reads in the Bible. Protestant denominations believe in the law and declare that obedience to it is necessary. (See page 493 for references to creeds.) They have believed so strongly that the Ten Commandments should be obeyed by all that they have persuaded legislatures in most of the so-called Christian countries to enact statutes for the observance of the fourth commandment, the Sabbath command, as they interpret it.
Just why we who invoke only the grace of God to enable men to obey the command to keep holy the seventh day, should be charged as legalists, while the hosts of Sunday keepers who invoke the strong arm of the law in order to compel men to rest on the first day of the week, should claim to be the exponents of grace, is surely one of the strange contradictions in modern religion. Seventh day Adventists have ever been vigorous opponents of the principle of approaching Sabbath rest from the legal standpoint, whereas Sunday keeping preachers are the ones who have lobbied almost every legislative body in Christian lands into passing strong laws to enforce Sunday rest.
Just what is there about preaching first-day sacredness from the fourth commandment-as Protestant denominations, in general, do-that allows them to bask in the warmth of grace; whereas the preaching of seventh day sacredness from the same fourth commandment consigns such preachers to the chill limbo of legalism? The explanation cannot possibly he found in the theory that we who preach seventh day sacredness do so more sternly and rigorously than first- day preachers. Even a cursory acquaintance with Protestant history reveals that Sunday sacredness has quite generally been proclaimed with a severity that frightened into conformity the majority, and thrust into jail the remainder. If today there is a certain relaxation of this severity, it surely does not reflect any change of view toward the first day by Sunday keeping religious leaders. They bemoan the laxity that has crept in.
When we declare that a certain definite day has been set apart as holy, we are frequently met with the argument that there is no difference in days in the Christian Era, that it is unreasonable to maintain that a special sacredness or significance attaches to a particular day in the cycle of the week. But evidently by the actions and statements of Sunday keepers themselves there is a vast difference in days, so vast a difference that the keeping of one particular day means that you are shackled by legalism, and the keeping of another particular day means that you roam freely over the wide expanses of grace. Seventh day Adventists never taught a sharper contrast in days than this.
Therefore the point at issue is not whether the Ten Commandments should be obeyed or not; virtually all Protestant creeds clearly teach obedience to the Ten Commandments. (See p. 493) Nor is it a question of whether there is a wide difference in days. Protestants in general believe there is so mighty a difference as to justify civil laws and penalties to maintain the difference. The real question is this: Seeing that the Ten Commandments is in force, and seeing that there is a difference in days, which day is the right one, the seventh or the first? In the series of Sabbath objections beginning on page 123 a partial answer, at least, will be found.
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Objection 17
The Bible repeatedly and emphatically declares that no one can he justified by keeping the law. Hence to preach the keeping of the law is to preach another gospel. "Whosoever of you are justified by the law; you are fallen from grace." Gal. 5:4.
In harmony with the Bible, Adventists repeatedly and emphatically declare that no one can be justified by keeping the law. (See objection 14) The confused reasoning in the objection before us resides in the evidently mistaken idea of what the word "justified" means Scripturally. The evidence presented under objection 14 revealed that the divine act of justifying a sinner takes place at the moment he comes to God, repentant and in faith, to claim the offered pardon for sins that are past through the sacrifice of Christ. To teach that man can wipe out past guilt, that is, past disobedience to the law of God, by faithful keeping of that law in the future, is to flout the grace of God and to preach another gospel.
The very word "gospel" means good news. Good news that a divine plan has been devised whereby sinful man may be purged of his guilt; that the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world has been delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. (John 1:29; Rom. 4:25.)
This is clearly revealed in the words of the angels who spoke to Joseph and to the shepherds. Said the angel to Joseph, regarding Mary's son that was to be born: "And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shall call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins." Matt. 1:21.
To the shepherds the angel declared: 'Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord." Luke 2: 10, 11.
When we preach the keeping of God's commandments we are not preaching a different gospel from the one just described. We are simply echoing the words of the apostle John: "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." 1 John 5:3. We are simply calling on the now justified child of God to live in obedience to God.
Paul, apparently, feared that some who read what he had written about men not being justified by the law might wrongly conclude that God's grace frees us from any obligation to keep the law. He states the matter thus: "What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law [that is, not under the condemnation of the law], but under grace? God forbid.” [ Romans 6:15] Paul, who knew, of course, that "sin is the transgression of the law," is really asking this: Shall we transgress the law because we are under grace? He answers, "God forbid." We simply echo his answer and call on men who are saved by grace to refrain from transgressing God's law in the future.
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Objection 18
1 Timothy 1:9 proves that the Christian has nothing to do with the law, for we read there that "the law is not made for a righteous man."
Let us read the whole passage: "Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient. For the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers. For manslayers, for whore mongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for men stealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine." 1 Tim. 1:9,10.
The first fact that stands out from this Bible statement is that it says nothing about the law's being abolished in the Christian dispensation. Instead, it reveals that the law serves as definite a purpose in the Christian Era as in the centuries before Christ. The class of people against whom the law is directed-murderers, liars, etc, are found in every period of the world's history. Really there is no text in the Bible that proves more conclusively than does this one that the law was not done away at the cross.
The only way to attempt to offset this proof would be by contending that murderers and liars, for example, should obey the law, whereas Christians are free from it. To this strange conclusion would we be brought by following out the objector's logic.
But even that defense of the no-law position is unavailing. Can even the most devout among righteous men rightly claim that they never commit sin? No. Even the greatest saints have had to claim repeatedly the comforting promise. "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." 1 John 2: 1.
But the same apostle who wrote that promise also wrote, "Sin is the transgression of the law." 1 John 3:4. Therefore, every time we confess our sins, we confess that God's law is still binding and that we desire to be obedient to it. Then, as we again place our hand in the hand of God and walk in righteousness, we are not brought into conflict with the law, for "the law is not made for a righteous man."
There is really nothing hard to understand about this text. It is a simple statement concerning the purpose of law that every judge or legislator or layman would agree to today in matters civil as well as religious. For whom are our criminal laws laid down? For the law-abiding citizen? No, for the lawless, you say. That is right. But is the law-abiding citizen therefore freed from the requirements of the statute books? No.
The same is true concerning God's law. It is directed against the lawless, not against the righteous, who are law-abiding citizens of the kingdom of God. But are the citizens of the heavenly kingdom therefore freed from the requirements of that divine code? No.
Furthermore, good citizens in any government are not the ones who complain about the law. They have little occasion to complain. Their lives are in harmony with it. Even so in the spiritual realm. The man whose heart is right with God finds no occasion to fight the divine law or to tell others that it ought to be abolished. Instead, he says with the psalmist, “ O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day." Ps. 119:97. And if he is overtaken in a fault and falls into sin, he does not excuse his sinful act by arguing that the law has no claim upon him. Rather he confesses his sin-his law breaking- and seeks, through divine grace, more faithfully to obey God.
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Objection 19
Seventh day Adventists teach that a man must keep the commandments in order to be saved.
Again, we are confronted simply with a variant of objections already answered. But the present objection so tersely sets forth a mistaken idea regarding Adventist teaching that it is here examined as a separate objection.
To the rich young man who inquired of Christ, "Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?" Jesus replied, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." Matt. 19:16,17. The verses that follow show clearly that Christ referred specifically to the Ten Commandments.
It is surely unfortunate that so many Christians remember only one portion of the statements of Christ. They preach much about the passive side of Christianity, of accepting Jesus Christ as a Savior. But there is an active side as well, for Christianity embraces much more than the saving of a man from his past sins. It has to do with his living a sinless life. There is for the Christian a doing of God's will, a keeping of God's commandments, and a certain working out of his own salvation. (See Matt. 7:21; Rev. 14:12; Phil. 2:12)
Although we do not teach that a man keeps the commandments in order to be saved, we do emphatically teach that a man who is saved gives evidence of that salvation by keeping the commandments of God. It has been well remarked that although there is no salvation in keeping the law, there is awful condemnation in not keeping it.
Christianity does not free man from the claims of God's law, which he, as a sinner,, has not been able to fulfill. If it did thus free him, Christianity would be but an opiate to his soul, leaving him in the same unfortunate state as before. No, Christianity is God's plan whereby man can obtain power to keep the laws of heaven. It is the divine scheme by which Christ lives and works within us. (See Gal. 2:20)
We believe the words of Christ, "if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments," but we also believe that the keeping power is a gift from God. We confess that we of our own selves can do nothing, but we believe that we can do things through Jesus Christ who strengthens us. (See Phil. 4:13) We accept without reserve the words of our Lord: "I am the vine, you are the branches: he that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing." John 15:5. Though we say with Paul, "Work out your own salvation,” [Phil 2:12} we immediately add, as does the apostle, "It is God which works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure."