THE PERPETUITY OF THE LAW OF GOD – Charles Spurgeon
THE PERPETUITY OF THE LAW OF GOD
“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 is fulfilled.” Matthew 5:18.
It has been said that he who understands the two covenants is a theologian, and this is, no doubt, true. I may also say that the man who knows the relative positions of the law and of the gospel has the keys of the situation in the matter of doctrine. The relationship of the law to myself, and how it condemns me, the relationship of the gospel to myself, and how, if I am a believer, it justifies me—these are two points which every Christian man should clearly understand. He should not “see men as trees walking” in this department, or else he may cause himself great sorrow, and fall into errors which will be grievous to his heart and injurious to his life. To form a mingle-mangle of law and gospel is to teach that which is neither law nor gospel, but the opposite of both. May the Spirit of God be our teacher, and may the Word of God be our lesson book, and then we shall not err.
Very great mistakes have been made about the law. Not long ago, there were those about us who affirmed that the law is utterly abrogated and abolished, and they openly taught that believers were not bound to make the moral law the rule of their lives. What would have been sin in other men, they counted not to be sin in themselves. From such Antinomianism as that, may God deliver us. We are not under the law as the method of salvation, but we delight to see the law in the hand of Christ, and desire to obey the Lord in all things.
Others have been met with who have taught that Jesus mitigated and softened down the law, and they have in effect said that the perfect law of God was too hard for imperfect beings, and therefore God has given us a milder and easier rule. These tread dangerously upon the verge of terrible error, although we believe that they are little aware of it. Alas, we have met with authors who have gone much further than this and have railed at the law. Oh, the hard words that I have sometimes read against the holy law of God! How very unlike those which the apostle used when he said, “The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” How different from the reverent spirit which made him say— “I delight in the law of God after the inward man.” You know how David loved the law of God and sang its praises all through the longest of the Psalms. The heart of every real Christian is most reverent towards the law of the Lord. It is perfect, no, it is perfection itself. We believe that we shall never have reached perfection till we are perfectly conformed to it. A sanctification which stops short of perfect conformity to the law cannot truthfully be called perfect sanctification, for every lack of exact conformity to the perfect law is sin.
May the Spirit of God help us while, in imitation of our Lord Jesus, we endeavor to magnify the law. I gather from our text two things upon which I shall speak at this time. The first is that the law of God is perpetual, “Till Heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law.” The meaning is that even in the least point it must abide till it is all fulfilled. Secondly, we perceive that the law must be fulfilled. Not “one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law, till all is fulfilled.” He who came to bring in the gospel dispensation here asserts that He has not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it.
I. THE LAW OF GOD MUST BE PERPETUAL
There is no abrogation of it, nor amendment of it. It is not to be toned down or adjusted to our fallen condition, but every one of the Lord’s righteous judgments abides forever. I would urge three reasons which will establish this teaching. In the first place, our Lord Jesus declares that He did not come to abolish it. His words are most exact, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” And Paul tells us with regard to the gospel, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yes, we establish the law” (Rom 3:31). The gospel is the means of the firm establishment and vindication of the law of God. Jesus did not come to change the law, but He came to explain it, and that very fact shows that it remains, for there is no need to explain that which is abrogated.
Upon one particular point in which there happened to be a little ceremonialism involved, namely, the keeping of the Sabbath, our Lord enlarged, and showed that the Jewish idea was not the true one. The Pharisees forbade even the doing of works of necessity and mercy, such as rubbing ears of corn to satisfy hunger, and healing the sick. Our Lord Jesus showed that it was not at all according to the mind of God to forbid these things. In straining over the letter and carrying an outward observance to excess, they had missed the spirit of the Sabbath law, which suggested works of piety such as truly hallow the day. He showed that Sabbatic rest was not mere inaction, and He said, “My Father works hitherto, and I work.” He pointed to the priests who labored hard at offering sacrifices, and said of them, “The priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless.” They were doing divine service, and were within the law.
To meet the popular error, He took care to do some of His grandest miracles upon the Sabbath, and though this excited great wrath against Him, as though He were a law-breaker, yet He did it on purpose that they might see that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath, and that it is meant to be a day for doing that which honors God and blesses men. O, that, men knew how to keep the spiritual Sabbath by a ceasing from all servile work, and from all work done for self. The rest of faith is the true Sabbath, and the service of God is the most acceptable hallowing of the day. Oh that the day were wholly spent in serving God and doing good! The sum of our Lord’s teaching was that works of necessity, works of mercy, and works of piety are lawful on the Sabbath. He did explain the law in that point and in others, yet that explanation did not alter the command, but only removed the rust of tradition which had settled upon it. By thus explaining the law He confirmed it, He could not have meant to abolish it or He would not have needed to expound it.
In addition to explaining it, the Master went further; He pointed out its spiritual character. This the Jews had not observed. They thought, for instance, that the command “You shall not kill” simply forbade murder and manslaughter. But the Savior showed that anger without cause violates the law, and that hard words and cursing, and all other displays of enmity and malice, are forbidden by the commandment. They knew that they might not commit adultery, but it did not enter into their minds that a lascivious desire would be an offense against the precept till the Savior said, “He that looks upon a woman to lust after her commits adultery with her already in his heart.” He showed that the thought of evil is sin, that an unclean imagination pollutes the heart, and that a wanton wish is guilt in the eyes of the Most High.
Assuredly this was no abrogation of the law of God; it was a wonderful exhibition of its far-reaching sovereignty and of its searching character. The Pharisees fancied that if they kept their hands, their feet, and their tongues, all was done, but Jesus showed that thought, imagination, desire, memory, everything, must be brought into subjection to the will of God or else the law was not fulfilled. What a searching and humbling doctrine is this! If the law of the Lord reaches to the inward parts, who among us can by nature abide its judgment? Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. The ten commandments are full of meaning—meaning which many seem to ignore.
For instance, many a man will allow in and around his house inattention to the rules of health and sanitary precaution, but it does not occur to him that he is trampling on the command—“You shall not kill.” Yet this rule forbids our doing anything which may cause injury to our neighbor’s health, and so deprive him of life. Many a deadly manufactured article, many an ill-ventilated shop, many a business with hours of excessive length, is a standing breach of this command. Shall I say less of drinks, which lead so speedily to disease and death, and crowd our cemeteries with untimely graves?
So, too, in reference to another precept, some persons will repeat songs and stories which are suggestive of uncleanness—I wish that this were not as common as it is. Do they not know that an unchaste word, a double meaning, a sly hint of lust, all comes under the command, “You shall not commit adultery”? It is so according to the teaching of our Lord Jesus. Oh, talk not to me about our Lord’s having brought in a milder law because man could not keep the Decalogue, for He has done nothing of the kind. “His fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor.” “Who may abide the day of His coming? for He is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap.”
Let us not dare to dream that God had given us a perfect law which we poor creatures could not keep, and that therefore He has corrected His legislature, and sent His Son to put us under a relaxed discipline. Nothing of the sort; the Lord Jesus Christ has, on the contrary, shown how intimately the law surrounds and enters into our inward parts, so as to convict us of sin within even if we seem clean on the outside. Ah me, this law is high, I cannot attain to it. It surrounds me everywhere, it tracks me to my bed and my board, and it follows my steps and marks my ways wherever I may be. No moment does it cease to govern and demand obedience. O God, I am everywhere condemned, for everywhere Your law reveals to me my serious deviations from the way of righteousness and shows me how far short I come of Your glory. Have pity on Your servant, for I fly to the gospel which has done for me what the law could never do—
“To see the law by Christ fulfilled, And hear His pardoning voice, Changes a slave into a child, And duty into choice.”
Our Lord Jesus Christ, in addition to explaining the law and pointing out its spiritual character, also unveiled its living essence, for when one asked Him “Which is the great commandment in the law?” He said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it; You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” In other words, He has told us, “All the law is fulfilled in this, you shall love.” There is the pith and marrow of it.
Does any man say to me, “You see, then, instead of the ten commandments, we have received the two commandments, and these are much easier”? I answer that this reading of the law is not in the least easier. Such a remark implies a lack of thought and experience. Those two precepts comprehend the ten at their fullest extent, and cannot be regarded as the erasure of a jot or tittle of them. Whatever difficulties surround the ten commands, are equally found in the two, which are their sum and substance. If you love God with all your heart you must keep the first table, and if you love your neighbor as yourself you must keep the second table.
If any suppose that the law of love is an adaptation of the moral law to man’s fallen condition, they greatly err. I can only say that the supposed adaptation is no more adapted to us than the original law. If there could be conceived to be any difference in difficulty, it might be easier to keep the ten than the two, for if we go no deeper than the letter, the two are the more exacting, since they deal with the heart, and soul, and mind. The ten commands mean all that the two express.
But if we forget this, and only look at the wording of them, I say, it is harder for a man to love God with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his mind, and with all his strength, and his neighbor as himself than it would be merely to abstain from killing, stealing and false witness. Christ has not, therefore, abrogated or at all moderated the law to meet our helplessness. He has left it in all its sublime perfection, as it always must be left, and He has pointed out how deep are its foundations, how elevated are its heights, how measureless are its length and breadth. Like the laws of the Medes and Persians, God’s commands cannot be altered; we are saved by another method.
To show that He never meant to abrogate the law, our Lord Jesus has embodied all its commands in His own life. In His own person, there was a nature which was perfectly conformed to the law of God, and as was His nature, such was His life. He could say, “Which of you convicts Me of sin?” And again, “I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” I may not say that He was scrupulously careful to keep the law. I will not put it so, for there was no tendency in Him to do otherwise. He was so perfect and pure; so infinitely good, and so complete in His agreement and communion with the Father, that He in all things carried out the Father’s will. The Father said of Him, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; hear you Him.” Point out, if you possibly can, any way in which Christ has violated the law or left it unfulfilled. There was never an unclean thought or rebellious desire in His soul. He had nothing to regret or to retract; it could not be that He should err. He was thrice tempted in the wilderness, and the enemy had the impertinence even to suggest idolatry, but He instantly overthrew the adversary. The prince of this world came to Him, but he found nothing in Him—
“My dear Redeemer and my Lord, I read my duty in Your Word. But in Your life, the law appears Drawn out in living characters.”
Now, if that law had been too high and too hard, Christ would not have exhibited it in His life. But as our exemplar, He would have set forth that milder form of law which is supposed by some theologians He came to introduce. Inasmuch as our Leader and Exemplar has exhibited to us in His life a perfect obedience to the sacred commands in their undiminished grandeur, I gather that He means it to be the model of our conversation.
Our Lord has not taken off a single point or pinnacle from that up-towering alp of perfection. He said at the first, “Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Your will, O My God; yes, Your law is within My heart,” and well has He justified the writing of the volume of the book. “God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law,” and being for our sakes under the law, He obeyed it to the fullest, so that now, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes.”
Once more, that the Master did not come to alter the law is clear, because after having embodied it in His life, He willingly gave Himself up to bear its penalty, though He had never broken it, bearing the penalty for us, even as it is written, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
If the law had demanded more of us than it ought to have done, would the Lord Jesus have rendered to it the penalty which resulted from its too severe demands? I am sure He would not. But because the law asked only what it ought to ask—namely perfect obedience, and exacted of the transgressor only what it ought to exact, namely, death, as the penalty for sin—death under divine wrath, therefore the Savior went to the cross, and there bore our sins and purged them once and for all. He was crushed beneath the load of our guilt, and cried, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death,” and at last when He had borne—
“All that incarnate God could bear, With strength enough, but none to spare,”
He bowed His head and said, “It is finished.” Our Lord Jesus Christ gave a greater vindication to the law by dying, because it had been broken, than all the lost in hell can ever give by their miseries, for their suffering is never complete, their debt is never paid. But He has borne all that was due from His people and the law is defrauded of nothing. By His death, He has vindicated the honor of God’s moral government, and made it just for Him to be merciful. When the lawgiver Himself submits to the law, when the sovereign Himself bears the extreme penalty of that law, then is the justice of God set upon such a glorious high throne that all admiring worlds must wonder at it. If, therefore, it is clearly proven, that Jesus was obedient to the law, even to the extent of death, He certainly did not come to abolish or abrogate it, and if He did not remove it, who can do so? If He declares that He came to establish it, who shall overthrow it?
II. THE LAW MUST BE FULFILLED
I hope there are some in this place who are saying, “We cannot fulfill it.” That is exactly where I want to bring you. Salvation by the works of the law must be felt to be impossible by every man who would be saved. We must learn that salvation is of grace through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord, and not by our own doings or feelings. But this is a doctrine no one will receive till he has learned the previous truth that salvation by the works of the law can never come to any man born of woman. Yet the law must be fulfilled. Many will say with Nicodemus, “How can these things be?” I answer, the law is fulfilled in Christ, and by faith we receive the fruit thereof. First, as I have already said, the law is fulfilled in the matchless sacrifice of Jesus Christ. If a man has broken a law, what does the law do with him? It says, “I must be honored. You have broken my command which was sanctioned by the penalty of death. Inasmuch as you did not honor me by obedience, but dishonored me by transgression, you must die.” Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the great covenant representative of His people, their second Adam, stood forward on the behalf of all who are in Him, and presented Himself as a victim to divine justice. Since His people were guilty of death, He, as their covenant head, came under death in their place. It was a glorious thing that such representative death was possible, and it was only so because of the original constitution of the race as springing from a common father, and placed under a single head. Inasmuch as our fall was by one Adam, it was possible for us to be raised by another Adam. “As in Adam all died, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”
It became possible for God, upon the principle of representation, to allow substitution. Our first fall was not by our personal fault, but through the failure of our representative, and now in comes our second and grander representative, the Son of God, and He sets us free, not by our honoring the law, but by His doing so. He came under the law by His birth, and being found as a man loaded with the guilt of all His people, He was visited with its penalty. The law lifts its bloody axe, and it smites our glorious Head that we may go free. It is the Son of God that keeps the law by dying, the just for the unjust. “The soul that sins, it shall die”—there is death demanded, and in Christ death is presented. Life for life is rendered, an infinitely precious life instead of the poor lives of men. Jesus has died, and so the law has been fulfilled by the endurance of its penalty, and being fulfilled, its power to condemn and punish the believer has passed away.
Secondly, the law has been fulfilled again for us by Christ in His life. I have already gone over this, but I want to establish you in it. Jesus Christ as our head and representative, came into the world for the double purpose of bearing the penalty and at the same time keeping the law. One of His main designs in coming to earth was “to bring in perfect righteousness.”
“As by the disobedience of one many were made sinners, so by the righteousness of one shall many be made righteous.” The law requires a perfect life, and he that believes in Jesus Christ presents to the law a perfect life, which he has made his own by faith. It is not his own life, but Christ is made of God unto us righteousness, even to us who are one with Him. “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes.” That which Jesus did is counted as though we did it, and because He was righteous God sees us in Him and counts us righteous upon the principle of substitution and representation. Oh, how blessed it is to put on this robe and to wear it, and so to stand before the Most High in a better righteousness than His law demanded, for that demanded the perfect righteousness of a creature, but we put on the absolute righteousness of the Creator Himself. And what can the law ask more? It is written, “In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely, and this is the name with which He shall be called—The Lord our righteousness.” “The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness’ sake: He will magnify the law and make it honorable.”
Yes, but that is not all. The law has to be fulfilled in us personally in a spiritual and gospel sense. “Well,” you say, “but how can that be?” I reply in the words of our apostle, “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh,” Christ has done and is doing by the Holy Spirit, “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.” Regeneration is a work by which the law is fulfilled, for when a man is born again there is placed in him a new nature, which loves the law of God and is perfectly conformed to it. The new nature which God implants in every believer at the time he is born again is incapable of sin; it cannot sin, for it is born of God. That new nature is the offspring of the eternal Father, and the Spirit of God dwells in it, and with it, and strengthens it. It is light, it is purity, it is according to the Scripture the “living and incorruptible seed which lives and abides forever.” If incorruptible, it is sinless, for sin is corruption, and corrupts everything that it touches. The apostle Paul, when describing his inward conflicts, showed that he himself, his real and best self, did keep the law, for he says, “So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God” (Rom 7:25). He consented to the law that it was good, which showed that he was on the side of the law. And though sin that dwelt in his members led him into transgression, yet his new nature did not allow it, but hated and loathed it, and cried out against it as one in bondage.
The newborn soul delights in the law of the Lord, and there is within it a quenchless life which aspires after absolute perfection, and will never rest till it pays to God perfect obedience and comes to be like God Himself. This which is begun in regeneration is continued and grows till it ultimately arrives at absolute perfection. That will be seen in the world to come, and oh, what a fulfillment of the law will be there! The law will admit no man to heaven till he is perfectly conformed to it, but every believer shall be in that perfect condition. Our nature shall be refined from all its dross and be as pure gold. It will be our delight in heaven to be holy. There will be nothing about us then to kick against a single commandment. We shall there know in our own hearts the glory and excellence of the divine will, and our will shall run in the same channel. We shall not imagine that the precepts are rigorous; they will be our own will as truly as they are God’s will. Nothing which God has commanded however much of self-denial it requires now will require any self-denial from us then. Holiness will be our element, our delight. Our nature will be entirely conformed to the nature and mind of God as to holiness and goodness, and then the law will be fulfilled in us, and we shall stand before God, having washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. And at the same time being ourselves without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Then shall the law of the Lord have eternal honor from our immortal being. Oh, how we shall rejoice in it! We delight in it after the inward man now, but then we shall delight in it as to our risen bodies which shall be charmed to be instruments of righteousness unto God forever and ever. No appetite of those risen bodies, no want and no necessity of them shall then lead the soul astray, but our whole body, soul, and spirit shall be perfectly conformed unto the divine mind. Let us long and pant for this. We shall never attain it except by believing in Jesus. Perfect holiness will never be reached by the works of the law, for works cannot change the nature. But by faith in Jesus, and the blessed work of His Holy Spirit, we shall have it, and then I believe it will be among our songs of glory that heaven and earth pass away, but the word of God and the law of God shall stand fast forever and ever. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Amen.