The Ten Commandments

“No man Is justified by the law in the sight of God.’* Gal. iii. ii.

THE Divine purpose in the giving of the law was not salvation, for “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight,” but conviction and condemnation. ‘’ For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse.”

To see this is of the last importance, if we are really to honor the law. So long as we regard the law as fatherly advice, or as a mere anb (letter Snterpretationjs Ideal to be striven toward, trusting meanwhile the vague mercy of God to overlook our short-comings, and to accept our good intentions in the place of perfect obedience, we are steeling our consciences against the very work the law was set to do.

But that is exactly what the Galatianism current in Christendom to-day is doing. The edge is gone from the law. No man feels condemned, undone, and under the curse and wrath of the law, and of God, on account of his sins, for the reason that he keeps on honestly praying, when the commandments are read, ‘’ Have mercy on me, O God, and incline my heart to keep thy law.” The law is never honored by the sinner until he accepts its deathful sentence, and turns in faith to the One who has, in his stead, suffered death.

Gal
19-2
I, 2,

1. 6; ii.
I; iii.
24, 25.

Mo yom in tfie 3nn

Ex. XX.

3-II.

Luke X. 28.

Ezk. xviii.
4,20.

Rom. Hi.
19*23,

The first table requires that God shall reign alone over our lives, the alone object of supreme love, worship and reverence — indeed, the perfect summary of the first table, approved as such by Christ, is in the great formula, ‘’Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength and with all thy mind.” In approving the summary, the Lord added, “this do, and thou shalt live.”

The law is not a creed to be confessed, nor an ideal of human conduct; it is a fiat of God, to which is attached the awful sanction, “the soul that sinneth it shall die,” and there is but one plea possible to the sinner, “guilty.” For the moment any mortal faces honestly that imperative demand that he must love God with all his heart, soul, strength and mind, he sees that never for a fraction of a second.

anb 0ttt interpretations! in all his life, has he kept the law.

The lawyer, in the passage quoted from Luke, under the impact of Christ’s tremendous demand for performance, and not mere effort or desire, should have fallen at His feet with a cry for mercy. He chose rather to ‘* justify himself.” Alas! millions are going the same miserable way, holding the law for a counsel of God instead of a death-sentence. A criminal “establishes” the law, when he comes before the Court and pleads guilty, not when he idly talks about reforming and turning over a new leaf. With all his reformation, he is just a law-breaker seeking to evade the just sentence of the law.

Just as the first table of the law is summarized in the demand that God shall be loved with the whole of every part of man’s complex

Luke X. 28.
Rom. X. 5.

Luke X. 29.

Rom. iii.
31.

Twice
guilty.

Mo 3ioom in tfie inn

Luke X.
29-37.

Christ

saves.

Gal. iii. 23.

being, so the second table is summarized in the demand that our fellowman shall be loved up to the measure of love for self.

The neighbor is any human being to whom we can do good. It is not a sentimental good feeling and benevolent desire toward all men, but an active service toward all, for love’s sake; a service, the only limitation of which is opportunity. When this is seen, the second table becomes as crushingly convictive as the first.

Have we sought as earnestly, toiled as hard, sacrificed as much to do, as we have to get? Have we bestowed as much thought, solicitude and active effort upon others as upon ourselves? Such questions answer themselves to any sincere and honest soul. Here again our only possible plea is ‘’ guilty.”

And then the law has done its work, and we are ‘’ shut up “to anti 0tiytt interpretations the mercy of God In Christ Jesus. We have no hope of life eternal through a law which only shows us our guilt, and pronounces upon us a righteous sentence of death. But Jesus redeems us, not alone from the curse of the law, but from the law itself, that the blessing of Abraham may come to us through Christ and that we may receive the adoption of sons. ‘’ 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 the schoolmaster.”

Does God then, when acting in grace, abandon the righteousness of the law, and leave the believer to sin, that grace may abound’’? God forbid! The believer is not under the law, but that is a half-truth which may be wrested to the doing of great mischief. The other, and inseparable half, is that

Gal. iv. 5.

Gal. iii.
24-25.

Grace gives
victory,

Rom. vi.
I, 2.

iSo Room in tfje 3Jnn

Rom. vi.
14.

I John V.
II, 12.

I Cor. vi.
19.

Rom. viii.
2-4.

Law does
not sanctify.

the believer is under grace. “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace,” and grace, through the impartation of the Divine nature, of the resurrection life of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, fulfils, in the believer, that righteousness of the law, which was never for one fleeting moment fulfilled by him.

There are two ways, then, of thwarting God’s intent in the giving of the law: the sinner thwarts that intent by holding it for an ideal to be approximated, the Christian thwarts it by seeking to use it as a means of sanctification. The analogue of all this is found, for the Christian of to-day, in the contrast between the experiences of the seventh and eighth chapters of Romans. The former is the experience of a Christian in whom rages the conflict between his new and anb ©tftx interpretations spiritual nature received in regeneration, and his old “flesh,” the natural man. “To will is present with him,” because the new man yearns to do the will of God, but how to “perform that which is good he finds not,” for the old man is strong.

Moreover the law is a continual torment to him, for, being born again, he is able to ^’ delight in the law of God after the inward man.” Striving to form a character under law, he but finds “another law” in his members, warring against the law of his mind and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin, which is in his members. It is, alas! the average Christian experience.

But the eighth of Romans is an experience pitched in another key. Where all was wretchedness and defeat in the seventh chapter, now all is triumph and exultation. What

Conscience
tormented.

Rom. vii.

Rom. vii.
23.

Victory
through
the Spirit.

Rom. viii.
2, 31-39.

J^o ioom in tije 3nn

I Cor. vi.
19.

Eph. V. 18.

£ph. i. 3.

Rom. viii.
16, 17.

John xvii.

Phil. i. 29;
iii. 10; I
Pet. ii. II.

Eph. V.
18-20.

The law
fulfilled.

makes the difference? One fact, and but one. The man of the seventh of Romans is a Christian, regenerated, justified, saved, and possessing, also, the Holy Spirit. The man of the eighth of Romans is the same man, but now filled with the Spirit. The believer is “blessed with all spiritual blessings,” but observe where, ‘’ in the heavenly,” in Christ Jesus. *’ The heavenly “Is the sphere of the believer’s present association with Christ in position, service, suffering and world rejection. When he is maintaining in experience his” association with Christ, in these four particulars he is ‘’ in the heavenly in Christ Jesus,” where all his blessings are. But this can be maintained only through the Holy Spirit in His fullness.

The eighth of Romans, like the fourth and fifth of Galatians, opens the secret of victory through the anb 0^tv Mttxpxttationi law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. “Love worketh no ill to his neighbor.” If I love my neighbor, then the law of love, ‘* written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart,” will govern my conduct as the external law never did, and never could. I will not even desire to wrong my neighbor whom I love, for adultery, murder, theft, and false witness will be abhorrent; nor will it be possible for me to covet anything which, if granted to me, would deprive my neighbor. And my love for my neighbor will regulate my habits as well, for the constraint of love will make me question these by the supreme test — will this harm or will it help my neighbor? The love of God Himself is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and ‘^ love is the fulfilling of the law.”

Rom. viii.
3.

Gal. V.
16-18.

2 Cor. iii.

I Cor. vi
10-13.

Rom. V. 5.

Rom. xiii.

i 3iom m tfie Mn

John the
Baptist.

Mai. iii. i.

Luke vii.
26, 27.

John i. 29,
30; iii. 29.

Matt. iii.
7-10.

His testimony.
Matt. iii.
10.