Is Any Man Able Perfectly to Keep the Commandments of God?

A. No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God,J but doth daily break them in thought, word, and deed.k

1 Eccles. vii. 20: For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not. i John i. 8: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Ver. 10: If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. Gal. v. 17: For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

k Gen. vi. 5: And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Gen. viii. 21: The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Rom. iii. 9: What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. — And so on to verse 21. Jas. iii. 2: For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body. — And so on to verse 13.

No mere man — “That admirable discrimination, united with conciseness and perspicuity, which characterizes the whole of our Shorter Catechism, is strikingly visible in the Answer before us “(Dr. Ashbel Green). It would not have been scriptural to have said no man since the fall, because our Lord was a man. But then He was not a mere man, for He was God and man. This limiting term corresponds to the third clause in Answer 16, “all man kind descending from Adam by ordinary generation.” (See also Answers

21, 22.)

since the fall — It was necessary also that this clause should stand here, because man and mere man, Adam and Eve namely, were able perfectly to keep the commandments of God, and for a season they did actually keep them. (See Answer 10.) But no mere man since they fell has even approxi mately kept the commandments of God. (See Answers 16, 17, 18.)

is able in this life — Here again we sec the discrimination, conciseness, and perspicuity celebrated above. For a multitude that no man can number of mere men will in the life to come be able to keep in thought and word and deed all the commandments of God. (See Answer 38.) But the doc trine of the Catechism is a sad truth, and it is put still more explicitly in the Larger Catechism Answer: “No man is able, either of himself, or by any grace received in this life, perfectly to keep the commandments.”

perfectly to keep the commandments of God — This well-chosen phrase recognizes the cheering and inspiriting truth that God’s people are enabled and endeavour to keep His commandments increasingly, while on the other hand it teaches the humiliating fact that no complete or adequate success is ever in this world attained by any man with his best endeavour. The language of Richard Hooker is found in the mouth of every child of God: “The little fruit which we have in holiness, it is, God knoweth, corrupt and unsound; we put no confidence at all in it; we challenge nothing in the world for it; we dare not call God to reckoning, as if we had Him in our debt-books; our continual suit to Him is, and must be, to bear with our infirmities, and pardon our offences.”

but doth daily break them — There are three transgressions, say the Talmudists, from which a man can no day ever in this life be free: the thoughts of sin, wanderings in prayer, and an evil tongue.

in thought, word, and deed. See Answer 18. “All the sins which men commit are reducible to three heads, as being either in thought, in word, or in deed” (Waterland). “If our hands did never offer violence to our brethren, a bloody thought doth prove us murderers before God: if we had never opened our mouths to utter any scandalous, offensive, or hurtful word, the cry of our secret cogitations is heard in His ears. If we did not commit the evils which we do daily and hourly, either in deeds, words, or thoughts, yet in the good things which we do, how many defects are there intermingled! ... It may seem somewhat extreme which I will speak; therefore let every man judge of it, even as his own heart shall tell him, and no otherwise; I will but only make a demand: If God should yield to us, not as unto Abraham; if fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, yea, if ten good persons could be found in a city, foi their sakes that city should not be destroyed; but if God should make us an offer thus large: Search all the generations of man sithever the fall of your father Adam, find one man that hath done any one action, which hath past from him pure, without any stain or blemish at all; and for that man’s one only action, neither man nor angel shall feel the torments that are prepared for bolh; do you think that this ransom, to deliver men and angels, would be found among the sons of men?” (Hooker).

But see the whole of A Learned Discourse of Justification by this master of English and of evangelical truth. And masterly as this passage is, Christian’s Conversation with Ignorance on the same subject is worthy to stand beside it.

“I in Man residing through the race,
His thoughts, his looks, words, actions, infect.”

—SIN in Paradise Lost

USES. — i. “I will never forget Thy precepts, for with them Thou hast quickened me.... Through Thy precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way” (The Psalmist).

2. “A true Christian hath ten times more to do with his heart and its corruptions than a hypocrite has. The sins of his heart and life appear to him in their awful blackness they look dreadful; and it often appears to him a very mysterious thing that any grace can be consistent with such corruption, or should live at all in such a heart” (Jonathan Edwards).

3. “The very smallest of our Lord’s commandments are to a spiritual mind solemn, arduous, and inexhaustible.... How manifold are the ways of the Spirit, how various the grace which He imparts; what depth and width is there in that moral truth and virtue for which we are created!” (Newman).

QUESTIONS.

1. Point out the exact significance and great importance of the limiting clauses: No mere man, since the fall, is able in this life, perfectly to keep.

2. Hengstenberg points out that this trilogy of thought and word and deed runs through the whole Decalogue. Trace it.

3. Since all sin is reducible to one or other of the three categories given in the text, giue examples of each taken from Scripture.

4. Write out a criticism on the following passage taken from Josephus: — Whence one may wonder at Polybius, who, though otherwise a good man, yet saith that “Antiochus died because he had a purpose to plunder the Temple of Diana in Persia;” for the purposing to do a thing, but not actually doing it, is not worthy of punishment. Compare the Conversation between Prudence and Christian.

’ 5. Explain the following scriptures, and reconcile their teaching with the doctrine of the Catechism .- — That man was perfect and upright (Job i. 1). I am holy (Ps. Ixxxui. 2). They wore both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless (Luke i. 6). I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day (Acts xxiii. 1). He cannot sin, because he is born of God (1 John Hi. 9).

6. Explain Goodwin’s saying: Evil thoughts are the eldest children of original Sin; and ponder and make self-application of Prou. xxiii. 7.