Faith Establishing the Law

Romans iii. 31. — “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.”

There are times in every Christian experience when it “becomes a question for the soul how to reconcile free salvation with the continual prescription of good works. Both are very clearly set forth in Scripture. We are said to be justified freely by his grace, without the works of the law, and we are commanded to be perfect as our Father who is in heaven is perfect. One passage tells us that by the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified, and another passage tells us that without holiness no man shall see the Lord The chief of sinners is invited to be saved by him who justifieth the ungodly; and the pure in heart are blessed, because they shall see God. Now, while a captious and half-learned mind will seize on these as discrepances, if not contradictions, and thus discredit the Word of God, the wise and reverent inquirer will fall back upon a maxim as modest as it is reasonable, by means of which to solve the problem, or at least to prepare the elements of a solution. It is this: In all communications from a high source, apparent inconsistencies must be ascribed to the want of sufficient knowledge in our minds. In the world of grace, as in the world of nature, we must sometimes sit down and wait for more light. Common reason will presume that in a book not only accepted by the Catholic belief of all Christian ages, but established by irrefragable proof as authentic and inspired, there can be no real contradictions. It is far more easy for a sound reasoner to believe that he is himself in the dark, than to believe that Holy Scripture contains propositions which are irreconcilable. It is more likely that any given set of words admits of another interpretation than that books penned and published by men of shrewdness, to say no more, should assert diametrical opposites. It is more likely that a single text, or a few texts, should be obscure, than that the concurrent lio:hts of the whole record should be deceptive. All which brings us safely and surely round to the divine principle of interpretation, viz.:” the proportion of faith.” Rom. xii. 6. All divine doctrine goes by a sacred analogy. If seemins: irreo:ularities in the motions of Mars* led Kepler to doubt the universal exposition of circular planetary orbs which belonged to astronomy even as reformed by Copernicus; much more may inconsistency with the “analogy of faith,” or the concurrent teaching of all Scriptures lead us to doubt our exposition of phrases however literal or natural these may seem. To give one instance out of thousands, it is thus we dispose of all those passages which asmbe bodily parts and passions to the Infinite and Unchangeable Spu*it. In like manner, humlle piety, here sustained by sound philosophy, conclude that the seeming contradictions of Scripture concerning salvation without works, and salvation with works, admit of being perfectly harmonized.

* Ency. Brit. iii. 739.

It is a great encouragement to think that we have lighted on a true interpretation of Scripture when we find such interpretation assailed by the same objections which assailed the original scriptural statement. For example, we interpret Paul as teaching that as the procuring cause of a sinner’s acceptance with God, his works, doings, righteousness, and merits have no validity; that pardon and title to life are received by believing and not by doing; and that justification is a gratuitous act of God, so far as our obedience is concerned, while in regard to the Mediator, it is founded on the obedience unto death of the Divine Substitute. This is what we derive from the Epistle to the Romans. Now, the doctrine thus derived is met with an objection of this sort: You thus destroy the motive to holy obedience and relax the binding stress of law. I say, it is encouraging to our interpretation of the passage in Paul to know that in Paul’s life time the same objection was made to his own words. He had been saying, iii. 28, that “a man is justified by faith without the works of the law.” What is the kind of objection which Paul anticipates and precludes? It is that by so teaching he vacates the law, verse 31, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid, yea, we establish the law.” But this is the very objection which in our own day is made against our j)reaching of a free GosjDel. It is therefore our encouragement to believe, that this free Gospel is the identical Gospel which was taught by Paul.

I desire to treat this part of Christian doctrine in its relation to individual experience, and the case of those who are about to pass, or who have already passed, from death unto life. The high and glorious doctrines of the Pauline theology never seem so self evidencing, and so precious, as when they are brought into apj)osition with the repentant soul, and when they are used as instruments in the hand of the Spirit, for converting the soul to God. If, leaving the schools of divinity, we proceed to investigate this matter in the light of inward experi’ ence, we shall find ourselves greatly aided. Divine theology was not sent down from heaven to be treated with dialectical nicety, or reduced to formulas as dry as the bones on the anatomist’s table. Taking our position, therefore, among new converts, we lend our ear to the objection, that he who believes himself justified without some personal obedience to render, proceeds as if the law were nullified. Let us go with this allegation into the court of religious consciousness. It is charged that this lately forlorn sinner, who just now stood trembling before the tribunal of divine justice, and who has just heard the gracious Judge pronounce his free acquittal, is released from all obligation, disposition, and motive. Now, if this objection were well taken, it would conclude not only agcainst the evansrelical scheme, but ao-ainst Christianity itself; inasmuch as the declarations complained of are inseparable from the book and appear in all their fulness on its face. The ethical reason is final and overwhelming — that what is immoral is not of God. No evidences for Christianity can be stronger than that would be against it. And therefore we defend Christianity, not by showing that immorality is endurable, but that Christianity is not immoral, which we shall now make obvious in the case of the returning sinner; following the very order of thought in the objection, which denies obligation, motive, and disposition.

FAITH ESTABLISHING THE LAW. IgJ

I. Oblioation. The believi:ng sinker ad-MITS AIS^D AVOWS HIS OBLIGATION TO OBEY THE

LAW No truly converted man, at the time of his conversion, has lower thoughts of duty than before, but altogether higher. At no moment of his life has he had such a view of justice and legal demand as he now has. His apprehension of the infinite Tightness and fitness of doing God’s will is greater than that of any legalist in the world. The fact that the legalist hoj)es by such obedience to merit life, does in no degree cause him to have higher moral convictions. Moral convictions, ^. ^., convictions of the Tightness or wrongness of actions are not deiendent on any notions of merit and reward. The rectitude, beauty, and binding validity of the law are distinctly viewed apart from its sanctions. The returning and now believing sinner has become convinced and ]3ersuaded that God, for Christ’s sake, is his reconciled Father and absolving: Judoe, fore:ivino; his offences and receivino him to favour and life without the consideration of any righteousness of his own; but the entire transaction as the ground of his confidence and peace is such as to exalt beyond all previous experience his estimate of holiness, justice, law, and righteousness. The sinner has fled to this grace of salvation, not because there was no claim of law, but because the claim of law was immense. He has rejoiced in this surety, not because payment was superfluous, but because he had nothing to pay. He has escaped breathless into this city of refuge, not because there was no retribution, but because the avenger of blood was at his heels. Justice, justice, it was, which drove him to grace. Justice, eternal justice it is which still abides. It was not simple fear, but contrition which impelled him to the altar; he not only dreaded penalty, he also had remorse for sin; it was more than wrath, it was conscience of guilt, which made him thirst for expiation. Now, conscience of guilt involves approval of rectitude, of holiness, and of law. Pardon of sin, though free, tends in no degree to lessen approval of law and consequent abhorrence of sin.

But there is much more to be said on this head. The believing sinner admits his obligation to the holy law, because he reads that obligation in the very method of redemption. The method is one of substitution and vicarious atonement. The high obligation of the subject to law has been assumed by the Son of God incarnate, acting in covenant as Mediator and Sponsor. What was it that made the soul despair? It was sense of obligation. What was it that made it necessary for the Word to become flesh? It was obligation. What was it that caused Jesus to obey the precept and endure the penalty? It was obligation. Man must die. “Die he, or justice must.” Divine justice becomes man, and dies to meet the obligation. In the stains of holy blood upon the ignominious tree, upon the accursed earth, and upon the fair cold body of the lovely Redeemer, the believing sinner reads, as in letters of crimson. Obligation, Obligation. This is a matter of experience. All true penitents find it so. Who shall affront my deepest sensibilities and holiest apprehensions of generous love, by charging that this my view of gratuitous redemption by the blood of the Cross tends to diminish my conscientious sense of duty to Him who died! What spectacle in heaven, earth, or hell, SO magnifies the Law as the spectacle of Christ expiring in the tortures of law, and of vicarious endurance? The faith that accepts this as redemption accepts it also as the grand testimony of obligatory command. Laying my hand on the head of the sacrifice to Infinite Justice, I thereby declare, as nowhere else, my obligation to the code of justice which demanded this sanction. He whom I behold dying in pangs and blood came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfil them. I believe in Him who is the end of the law for righteousness unto every one that believeth. And my conviction of the power of Law, henceforth and forever, is raised to its acme when I hear the cry of consummation from those lips, “It is finished!”

II. Motive. The BELiEvma smisrEE, m his

VERY BELIEVING, RECOGNIZES THE STRONGEST MO-TIVES TO PERSONAL HOLINESS. ThcSC motivCS,

though reducible to a common head, apply themselves to the mind with the distinctness of separate forces, all moving it to obey. Some of these arrange themselves under the heads of holy admiration of law, sight of perfect example, and grateful love. 1. Hohj admiration of GocVs law is a powerful motive to obey, and it is produced by faith; for the soul in believing looks forth on the Law as brightly effulgent in the plan of redemption. Proof of this has already been given. Admiration of the law is admiration of infinite holiness, which is admiration of God. This is immensely more operative than cold approval of moral beauty or excellence; it takes a wider sweep; it goes nearer the primal source of all ethical relations; it gathers around conscience the kindling fires of ascending passion; it reflects the radiance of a personal glow from the face of Jesus Christ, who is our law. Personal holiness in perfection is the realization of law. Now, personal holiness in perfection not only is apparent in Jesus Christ, but is most of all apparent in his cross and passion. That which faith apprehends at the moment of the sinner’s conversion, is this very glory of God as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ. The admiration of infinite loveliness can never rise higher than at this Cross; and thus the very belief which makes the sinner a trophy of free grace, subjects him, at the same time, to a motive of obedience. 2. The sight of a perfect example brings fresh motive to holiness before the soul that believes. The power of example is great and obvious. Example, as additional to mere precept, shows us several distinct objects: first, the beauty of holy obedience in palpable action; secondly, the practicability of holy obedience, and thirdly, the manner and detail of holy obedience. The only perfect example which the world has seen is the Lord Jesus Christ. Of his holiness thus exemplified in our human nature and under our human obligations, the crowning portions are in his atoning work. Never did he so please God the Father, never did he make manhood so lovely, according to the creative idea of the Father; never, in other words, did he radiate the splendours of so great a holiness, as when he sanctified himself in that offering, and gave up his life for his people. Of this work part was divine, and therefore inimitable; but a great and lovely part is sublimely exemplary. And these acts and sufferings of Christ, this subjugation and oblation of his innocent and blessed will, this atoning obedience unto death, are the very object of saving faith, the very point on wliicli the soul fixes its eye in believing, the very motive which the convert to free grace has to obey the law of his Redeemer. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? If baptized into Jesus Christ we are baptized into his death. The atoning work, which frees us from condemnation, wins us to holiness by its lofty example. 3. Grateful love is a motive to obey the law. The love of” Christ constraineth us, for we thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live imto themselves, but unto him which died for them, i. e.^ should obey. Love constrains. Grateful love constrains — and to obey! O, the childlike simplicity of the motive. I believe, I love, I obey. First I believe. I take in all the wonderful demonstration of Christ’s power and willingness to save me freely. I lean on it for my hope. Then, in this very instant of believing or accepting free pardon, I love. I love my redeeming God. And thirdly, I obey-.

for as obedience is love in act, so love is ob( dience in princi23le. This golden chain bind the sinner at his believing to the throne o: Christ. The voice of his Redeemer says: If y love me keep my commandments, and in propoition as he loves, so he obeys. Thus the sinne who acts upon the principle of free grace, doet while he exercises the faith which justifies witl out works, recognize the strongest motives t personal holiness, even the motives of holy ac miration of law, sight of perfect example, an< grateful love to Christ.

III. Disposition. The BELiEviijqa smNEE, a

HIS BELIEVIKa, AND BY ]IEANS OF HIS BELIEVINC IS BROUGHT IT^TO A DISPOSITION TO OBEY THE LA^

OF God. If this can be proved it must entire! remove the objection, of which the whole fore resides in the allegation that, in regard to thos who hold it, the doctrine of a free salvation b faith indisposes to holy living. What we mail tain, on the contrary, is that the soul which s believes in gratuitous redemption is at the sam moment brought into a state most favourable t obedience. Our proof of this respects thre particulars: the posture of the soul in believing the nature of the truth believed and the tender exercises of saving repentance,

1. The more you consider it, the more will you perceive that no condition into which a human soul can be tluown more disjDoses for the rendering of obedience to God’s law than that in which such a soul puts forth acts of belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. This will be evident if you remark the precise posture of the mind in believing a Divine record. It is a i)osture of inward obedience. It is a state of submission to the Great Supreme. Faith is obedience to God as true, just as right offerings and choices are obedience to God as holy and sovereign. So near akin is the temper of believing to the temper of obeying. He who is ready to believe is at the same time ready to obey. Both dispositions flow from one and the same spirit of self-surrender or grateful oblation of heart to God in Christ. Both are streams from the same fountain of principle opened in the soul by the regenerative power of the sj)irit. The new creature acts in both these parallel lines as by one and the same impulse, believing truth and performing duty.

2. How the disposition to obey springs up in the new convert will be further manifest from considering the nature of the truth believed. It is absurd to speak of belief, unless we imply some truth to be believed. Now, the particular truth which I believe when I “receive the atonement” is that God, for Christ’s sake, is reconciled to me, a sinner. This belief directly and infallibly operates to produce a disposition of loving obedience. Partly because sin is that from which I seek deliverance by believing, and deliverance from sin is holiness. Partly ]3ecause the sight of God reconciled through Jesus Christ is fitted above all other views to kindle the flame of gratitude. This is the faith which worketh by love, and this is the love which is the fulfilling of the law. This new disposition is properly called evangelical, because it proceeds upon motives of Gospel rather than motives of law. Sinai, with its barrier of threatening, its furnace smoke, its lightnings, its trumpet alarm, and its voices of terror, its wrathful volleys, and its portentous quakings, does not create one loving sentiment; but the accents of pardon issuing from the Cross compel the relenting sinner to love, gratitude, and obedience.

3. It is thus that faith causes repentance. By repentance I do not mean sorrow, wliicli is only one ingredient in it, but that grace by which the soul, convinced of the evil of sin, is also made to apprehend the mercy of God in Christ, and hence with sincere grief to turn the back on sin, and to turn the face towards God, in the full purpose of new obedience. By faith, therefore, we establish the law; because faith is this very apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ. Ko man ever truly beheld himself a wretched sinner and Jesus a glorious pardoning Saviour, without, in the very act, and in the very proportion of these exercises, desiring and purposing to walk in the way of God’s commandments. We rdight expect this from the consistency of God’s dealings in conversion. The Holy Spirit, who seizes on a chosen soul in order to save it, purposes in this salvation a doul)le deliverance, namely from guilt and corruption; from guilt by a baptism of blood, from corruption by a baptism of water. Both inward.

This is the twofold current from the sacred heart of Jesus; who came not by water only, but by water and blood. The blessed Quickener and Sanctifier at one instant breathes into the soul two influences, one respecting Truth and the other respecting Holiness; one is Faith, the other is Obedience. “Both worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit.” The hand which touches Christ as a Saviour or Priest, does homage to him as a King. It is true, indeed, that the justifying power of Faith does not consist in its being thus the root and origin of obedience. Exact theology prefers to say that the same renewed nature which breaks forth in believing on the presentation of Truth, breaks forth into loving obedience on the presentation of Duty. The very sense of deliverance by free grace makes the soul abhor the license of sin. “What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid!” “Now, being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.” Rom. vi. 15, 23. The temper of the believer is a temper of holy subjection; obeying not as a price for

FAITH ESTABLISHING THE LAW. l[)(J

life, but as an irrepressible expression and outgoing of a heart’ all in fusion from infinite compassion and grace. Thus the sinner, by faith, is brought into a disposition to obey the law of God. And, in recapitulation of our whole progress, we have proved, first, that the convert to free grace admits his obligation, secondly, that he finds his motive, and thirdly, that he acquires his disposition to serve; and all three by believing. And in so proving, we have established our position, that the doctrine of salvation l)y faith, without works of* merit, does not make void the law, but establishes it.

In coi^CLUSioN: While motives of mere law are cold and inoperative, in effecting genuine obedience, motives of the Gospel warmly and commandingly act on the affections and the will, and tend to universal holiness; thus the Gospel confirms the law. Give me these few moments to compare the two sets of motives, in regard both to principle and fact. 1. The princij)le of the legal motive is one of conscience, and it keeps in view retribution. Its maxim is: Do this and live; fail of this and perish. Especially, when its most violent forces are applied, it denounces the damnation of hell. It cruslies, but has no power to elevate, to melt, or to inspire. It reveals guilt, and seals condemnation; but it stupefies and petrifies in despondency and woe. It wakes up sin as light wakes up a torpid viper. “I was alive without the law.” The legal principle alone begets no love which after all is the true spring of obedience; and hence, in our fallen state, we cannot reasonably exj)ect the doctrine of merit to inspire afifection, nor the law to secure its own fulfilment.

What we thus admit in principle we observe to be true in fact. Answer all ye who under this yoke have been all your lives toiling to work out your salvation, like the slave, under the lash; and who, at each fresh agony of endeavour, find yourselves only more convinced of your incapacity to perfect holiness in the fear of God. Witness ye who day by day are no better, but consciously worse, from working amidst these sullen fires of obligation under the thundering doom ^’ Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” “The law worketh wrath,” and its effect is not acceptable to heaven, being void of love, which is the heart and soul of all fulfilment. The hosts of deluded Papists stand out in history as so many ghastly examples of what the expectation of meriting God’s favour by legal performance can beget. So far from being the holiest of men, they have let down the pale of duty, made sin easy, published tariffs of transgression, made traffic of indulgences, dispensed solemn obligations, and in the very proportion of their prevalence and power, in all countries, established a looseness of morals which is a proverb, so that where they are least restrained by Protestantism they are most unholy, and their most sacred ministers are the worst of men. Such is the fact as to the doctrine of merit in its grosser varieties. Lesser instances, among degraded Protestant churches, exhibit the same tendency of legal teaching to make void the very law which it vaunts. Thus we trace the legal motive, both in principle and fact. Its great opposite remains. 2. The evangelical motives act warmly on the affections and the will, tending to a universal obedience and thus establishing the law. The principle here is just that which the whole preceding discussion has set forth. It is no faith which does not prove influential in obedience, just as on examination you pronounce that to be no heat whch does not cause expansion. Such faith is nominal and dead. “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”

The fact is not less apparent, and we appeal to it with the confidence of triumph. Whether we survey the individual soul, or entire communities, stretching through many generations, we discern that where the doctrine of justification without works has been most freely and fully preached, believed, and experienced, there the standard of morals has been highest. Not only are there warmer feelings, there is also stricter observance. Our arrogant opponent charges us with relaxing the bonds of morals, and an apostate Calvinist in this city, once an orthodox preacher, has calumniously stated that the doctrine of justification by faith tended to looseness of morals. This opprobrium is cast upon us by those maligners who in the next breath accuse

US of sourness, puritanic scruj)le, ascetic observance, Sabbatarian harshness, and pharisaic sternness of rule. The fact is one of history. For wide-spread and deeply-rooted morality of life, the world can show no such examj)les as those of the lands of the Reformation; I mean those in which the doctrines of Calvin, Knox, Cranmer, Fox, and Jewell prevailed; the lands of the Huguenots, the Covenanters, and the Non-Conformists; the lands, thank God, of our forefathers. As diversity of opinion has come in, as we have refined upon the tenets which lifted the souls and nerved the arms of our forefathers; as the doctrines of our immortal Confession have become less those of the people, I call you to witness that public morals have become degraded. Let us praise the Lord that there are still in our national counsels men whose tongue is not “set on fire of hell,” and who do not “smite with the fist of wickedness.” Our hope of salvation is in the j)ure Gospel. Believe it, love it, act on it, and you do so much to bless the country, while you fulfil a higher law. Convinced of your sin, you need a Saviour who stands before the tribunal all sinless — “Jesus Christ the righteous.” When you believe in him who thus fulfilled the law you begin yourself to fulfil it. Tarry not a moment in the legal plain. Look not back to the ruins of your own insufficient righteousness. Approach at once, as you are, but believing, to the open arms of the inviting Saviour. The faith you thus attempt will not embolden you in sin, but will make sin your abhorrence. And, despairing of justification from the law, you will nevertheless establish the law.