SERMON VII – William Elbert Munsey
THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL (DISCOURSE II.)
” Do we then make void the law through faith ? God forbid : yea, we establish the law.”— Rom. 3:31.
III. God’s law cannot pardon.
NO law*can ; call it law of the Gospel, law of Christ, law of faith, or what you will, if it is law it cannot pardon. Organization is necessary to the existence, identity, stability, and harmony of God’s moral government. Law is the essen- tial basis to all organization. In fact, there is no government without organization, and there is no organization without law. The conclusion is, law is a necessity. If law is essen- tial to organization, and organization is essential to govern- ment, then the violation of law produces disorganization, and is destructive of government. This disorganization and de- struction constitutes a penalty of law, and follows the viola- tion of law with the certainty of cause and effect. The law which preserves and protects the obedient subject, destroys him when disobedient. Any man can see from the nature of the penalty of law, that as law is a necessity to organiza- tion, so penalty is necessary to God’s law — both are necessi- ties. This being true, pardon, which implies to set aside the penalty, is impossible in a system of law.
Again, God’s whole system, including things, powers, and principles, is a unity. The law governing them is a unity. A rebellious subject, therefore, extends the fibres of his in- fluence throughout the entire system of God, unbalancing and disorganizing the whole. To save the entire system of God the rebel must be destroyed, and everything affected by the rebellion must be destroyed, and the system of God re- stored and balanced. Again, pardon is impossible. The rebellious subject must suffer the penalty, or if he is pardoned the law cannot do it. Some one must meet the demands of law — compensate the system — and that one must be connected with man. Absolute pardon cannot be ad- mitted.
If law can pardon, it can destroy itself. If it does pardon it does destroy itself; it renders itself null; it is to lower its demands; it is to violate every relation upon which it is founded; it is to make God encourage sin. In dkorable and unbending, it demands satisfaction commensurate with the criminality of the guilt. Its holiness, justice, goodness, truth, and essence, make it unpardoning. Each quality does it ; united they do it. Paul recognizes so much when he says, ” If there had been a law which could have given life, verily, righteousness should have been by the law.” Law cannot pardon. Mr. Fletcher, the author of the celebrated ” Checks to Antinomians,” says that ” Gospel law,” as distinguished from ” Adamic law,” can — that we are under a law adapted to our present state and circumstances, which he terms a “milder Law.” He speaks of an “evangelical, mediatorial, remedying law of our Redeemer ” as distinguished from what he terms the “anti-evangelical, Christless, remediless law of our Creator,” by which he means the great moral law given to Adam.
The phrases, “Gospel law ” and “Adamic law,” are a perplexing misapplication of terms. There is no such thing as Gospel law, unless is meant by it the mode of gospel action, as Paul frequently uses the phrase, and you may as well say ” Abrahamic law,” u Davidic law,” ” Calvin claw,” and ” Wesleyan law,” because such persons as Abraham, David, Calvin, and Wesley were subject to it, as to say “Adamic law ” be- cause Adam was subject to it. The distinction itself is ab- surd. If any part of the Gospel be law as distinguished from the Great Moral Law of God, it must be something more or less than that law ; it must add something to it or take some- thing from it, or there is no distinction; and the very idea? of its perfection forbids either. If it does superinduce something upon the law, it only makes the law more condemnatory; hence, if possible, less disposed to pardon. If it takes something from it, and be- comes indeed a “milder law,” it involves the absurdity of God compromising with sin, of compromising with man, be- cause man had willfully transgressed His law, which being created holy, he could have kept — and that man was placed under a law which required imperfect obedience and an im- perfect holiness. That God would even bend His law to the contracted capabilities of the creature for obedience, in place of strengthening those capabilities to the full measure of the law’s requirements, is an animadversion upon His holiness — much less that He would stoop to a compromise so utterly contradictory to His nature.
As to ” the Evangelical, mediatorial, remedying law of our Redeemer,” there is no authority for its existence in the Bible. A law essentially possessing such elements, the very elements qualified to rob it of its Sanctions, to neutralize and destroy the force of its penalty forever, is surely law bent upon self-destruction. But cannot God pardon from mere prerogative? He cannot. Is not this a reflection upon His Omnipotence? It is not. Omnipotence is only power in the sense of mere “executive force.” He can make worlds — He can do anything which force can accomplish — nothing else. He has no prerogative above what is essentially right.
IV. This great moral law is universal. Its origin, nature, principles, and requirements, indicate its universality. It is the law governing angels, and archangels. It is the law governing every intelligent creature on all worlds, and I be- lieve there are millions of worlds crowded with intelligent beings. It is the law under which Adam was placed. The commandment visible upon the surface was not the whole of that law — Adam’s nature and relation to God forbid it. Yet the commandment given him to test his obedience, as the representative of his race, involved at once the great principle underlying the construction of moral law, the right of God to govern, and the duty of man to obey.
It brought man at once under the law of love, under its protection if he obeyed, and under its awful curse if he transgressed. It was nothing distinct from the great moral law, but a peculiar manifestation of it, perceived by Infinite wisdom to be adapted to such a state of trial as Adam occupied, both as a person and as the representative of his children. The result is seen in the tragical history of the race, with its thrilling records of sin, misery and woe. Man fell under the curse of God’s law, and remaining of himself under the curse, is evidence of the continued authority of the law.
It is the law under which the Jews were placed. All the commandments save that which had reference to the keeping of the Sabbath, are but peculiar manifestations of law adapted to the Jewish people, in the peculiar relation which they sustained to God and the world. The Sabbath, though obligatory, because a law of love enjoins all that God com- mends, is not strictly a moral commandment, because it arises out of no relation. (Col. ii. 16, 17.)
It is the law under which we are placed — call it Adamic, Angelic, or what we will. — If the law under which intelligent beings are placed must necessarily be a transcript of the Divine perfections, it can no more change than God’s perfections can change. If it cannot change it is perfect, hence could not under any circumstances be abrogated or substituted. If it is perfect it must require perfect obedience — God’s nature would not let Him accept anything lesshence it is perpetually binding. If we place it aside, we have an immutable abstraction, an unbending, useless, encumbrance in the consistent government of God. It is charging God with consummate folly. We feel that the requirements of such a law must be binding upon us now. We feel safe when we obey, unsafe when we disobey.
If the law under which intelligent beings are placed must necessarily arise out of their relations to God and one another, it could not change unless these relations changed. Did the fall change man’s relations to God out of which law arises ? To release man from the claims of the moral law, the law under which Adam was placed, is to say that man no longer sustains the relation of the created to the creator ; it is to say that God did not make man ; that He does not preserve man ; that man is not a beneficiary of His bounty ; that man is no longer a subject of His government.
The difficulty is not removed by the assumption, that though man is released from the claims of the moral law, that he is under another called the law of Christ, or the law of the Gospel. If he is under another, God’s character and man’s relations require it must be precisely like the first, and if like the first it must require perfect obedience, and have the same penalty. This is precisely like tradition says the legislature of Virginia once did. In order to retain a mem- ber of its body who had fought a duel, it repealed the law against duelling, admitted the transgressing member to his seat, then, for the good of the old commonwealth, immedi- ately re-enacted the law. Take your seat, sir, and assume the privileges of a peer in this legislative body ; the law you violated we abrogated, the law you are under now you have not broken.
That Christ met the claims of the moral law and thereby released us from them, placing us under the Gospel law, is happily answered by Dr. Fisk in this short sentence : u Sins atoned for ” then ” need no pardon, and sins pardoned need no atonement. That is, pardon and atonement do not meet, in reference to the claims of the same law.” i. Adam broke the moral law. 2. The atonement was made with reference to the violated claims of that law. 3. If the law cannot pardon, we have pardon only through the virtue of that atonement. 4. The sins pardoned must be offences of the Great Moral Law of God, with reference to which the atonement was instituted. 5. And if they be offences against that law, that law must be in force. Pardon and atonement must meet with reference to the claims of the same law.
That we are under the law given to Adam is clear from the federal representative character of Christ. We were placed upon probation in Adam, and fell. For our restoration we were placed upon probation a second time in Christ our representative, who is called the second Adam. If in our representative we broke the great moral law of God, which is true in a certain sense, Jesus Christ our second represen- tative, in order to redeem, must come under the same law, obey it, and suffer its curse. He must obey the law violated at first, in order to redeem us from under the penalty of that law. For certainly we were under the penalty of no law save the law violated. Indeed if the law had been abrogated there would have been no necessity for a Savior.
Hear the Scripture : “As by one man’s disobedience, many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” It is clear, the disobedience of one, and the obedience of the other, must be with reterence to the same law. It is also clear that the sinners and righteous here spoken of, were sinful and righteous with reference to the same law. Again, the obligation of Christ’s example of obedience is enforced by Peter and himself upon us. If He kept the moral law, its obligation rests upon us. He and Adam were equally our representatives ; and all admit if Adam had kept the law that its obligation would have rested upon us — the other follows.
I will notice two reasons assigned to support the opposite argument : i. Dr. Clarke says, in his notes on Romans, more than once, that this law was abrogated. He says with reference to the fall, ” The moral law was broken, and did not require obedience, it required this before it was broken ; but after it was broken it required death.” Because the law was broken it required death, is not disputed ; but it does not follow that because it was broken it no longer required obedience. Disobedience in one instance never releases from duty. I appeal to common life. Does one offence against the laws of the land, release the offender from the obligation to future obedience ? Or, did you ever hear of a legislative power abrogating a just and righteous law, because it was transgressed ? Never. How much more preposterous is it, that God should repeal or annul His law to save man from the penalty.
This is not God’s method of saving sinners. He gave His Son, not to redeem us from under the claims of the law, thereby releasing us from the obligation to obey it, but as Paul expressly states, to redeem us from under its penalty ; not to redeem us from the obligation of holiness, but from the law’s dreadful curse — giving us another opportunity to obey it, by converting us and making us holy, as it is only adapted to holy creatures, and giving us grace to keep it. Hence, having broken it, and utterly disqualified to keep it, therefore cannot be justified as sinners by it, we are first justified by faith in order to conversion, as Abraham was in Mesopotamia ; and afterwards justified in order to judgment by our works, as Abraham was justified when he offered up his son Isaac upon the altar. Such are the relations of the Gospel and the law— the one not substituting the other.
2. Mr. Fletcher says, the law, which he styles throughout his writings as ” Adamic law,” cannot be violated without certainly bringing the violator under its curse, therefore we are not under it, but under the law of Christ, the evangelical law of liberty, by which he says in another place we will be judged. But what is fatal to his assigned reason is that the law cannot be violated now without bringing the violator under its curse, as surely and in the same degree it brought Adam, and that though Adam did violate it he was not brought under its final curse, and away goes his conclusion. That the law given to Adam it still binding, requiring holiness of heart and life, and threatening sinners because they are wicked, is clear from its origin, nature, immutability, requirements, unpardoning character, universality, and also from the Holy Scriptures.
Read Romans, that profound disquisition upon law, and exposition of the gospel, where they are presented in their distinct yet relative properties and offices. ” For until the law, sin was in the world ; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.” Dr. Taylor in his comment on the last verse, which is quoted and endorsed by Dr. Clarke, says : ist. ” Sin was in the world from Adam to Moses. 2d. Law was not in the world from Adam to Moses, during the space of about two thousand five hundred years ; for after Adam’s transgression that law was abrogated.”
The comment is self-contradictory : ” Ist. Sin was in the world from Adam to Moses. 2d. Law was not in the world from Adam to Moses.” How sin can exist for two thousand five hundred years from Adam to Moses, without law I can- not divine ; for Paul says expressly, ” For where no law is, there is no transgression.” And again he says, ” I had not known sin but by the law,” and he enters into a long argument to prove that sin owes its existence to the law. The conclusion is the precise converse of Mr. Taylor’s proposition ; law was in the world between Adam and Moses and law after man’s transgression was not abrogated. The comment contradicts the preceding verse, yea one o( the verses of which it professes to be the exposition, ” P’oi until the law (i. e.. the law given through Moses) sin was in the world ; but sin is not imputed when there is no law.” The conclusion is irresistible : if sin was in the world before the law that was given through Moses, and cannot be imputed without law, there was a law existing as obligatory, prior to the one given on Mount Sinai.
The very fact that the Bible makes distinctions in moral character before the days of Moses, pronouncing threatening’s upon the wicked, and offering rewards to the good, is demonstrative that in those days men were under law. for the moral character of all actions is determined by law. If they were under a law we must be under the same law. Their circumstances and ours were similar, they were fallen, so are we ; indeed, if they were not fallen, and we were, it would make no difference ; there can be no possible reason discovered why they should be under one law, and we under another. If the pre-mosaic and the post-mosaic worlds were under different laws, everything being the same between them, one law must have something that the other has not, or there is no distinction. If one has something the other has not, one of them is imperfect, — and an imperfect law in a perfect government, ruled by a perfect Governor, a perfect Law-giver, is too absurd to be entertained for a moment. What was the law of the pre-mosaic ages ? The moral law given to Adam or none. What then would be the law under which we are placed ? The moral law given to Adam or none. Before Moses men’s bodies died, and the death of man’s body is a philosophic consequence of the penalty of moral law — the law given to Adam. Our bodies die — the same penalty. The infliction of bodily death upon us is a stand- ing monument that the moral law, the law given to Adam, is not abrogated, or that we are not released from its claims.
God made man physically immortal. How immortality of the body was maintained, I do not know. His body would not have died had he not sinned ; his probation would have ended, and ended finally — a repetition, or succession of probations, cannot be admitted ; man would, therefore, have ended his probation without his body dying. What then would have become of him, I do not know. Probably his body would have been changed, translated, and glorified, like Enoch’s body, and Elijah’s body. But man having sinned, death entered the world. Death is an effect, not a thing or being. But it is personified by Paul and. John, and I but follow their example when I say Death is a king. He is a king — a grim and savage king — and he has more subjects than all other kings, and of all kings he is king, and of all kingdoms the king. .
Death is of hellish origin — sired by Satan and his mother sin, and born in hell. Scarcely was he born, with the im- perishable birthright of hell’s first-born, till he sprang and grew into a redoubtable giant — the perfect shade of every evil concreted, black as the scowl of perdition — of dire shape ever altering into more hideous and monstrous forms, arid boned, fleshless, cadaverous, robed in horror, wearing a dreadful diadem upon his ghastly brow, and wielding a fear- ful dart in his dry and rattling fingers — a dart ever striking wherever aimed, and ever fatal wherever it struck.
The gate of Eden has scarcely closed upon the recreant pair, till there he stood among the fiery guards, outside the gate, roaring with anticipated and brutal joy, like a colossal ogre anthropophagous, with jaws distended and whetted teeth to devour the race, and cram all earth’s millions into his capacious and hungry maw, and send their souls, disem bodied, to rove over other worlds.
With him he had a numerous retinue — executors of hi? will. The redwinged lightning stood with fiery shafts and sulphurous bolts, ready to stretch the plow-boy cold and dead in the half-plowed furrow, drenched and muddy with the descending rain ; or to splinter church steeples, and tumbling let them bury congregations in their ruins. Mala- rias from a thousand bogs, tangled brushwoods, humid plains, and river banks, wafted with poison on their wings, and stood ready at his bidding to depopulate Emporiums. Hurricanes charioted, held in their boisterous steeds, and offered to drive over the traveler, and bury him beneath fragmentary limbs and uprooted trees — levelling cities to the ground and crushing their inhabitants with the rubbish. Simoons perched upon his hand, and unfolding their pinions, promised to go and smother caravans with their torrid breath, and entomb them under mountains of sand, or scatter their parched bones over the face of the desert, unrated and ensepulchered.
Earthquakes growled below, and promised to crack the sides of the mighty globe, and shake walls, towers, and steeples upon crowded streets, to upheave the mountains and plant their rocky bottoms upon populous plains, and open wide their horrid mouths toothed with granite, and swallow millions, grinding them in its jaws to dust. Incen- diary fire declared its readiness to creep upon the sleeper, and ere he awake consume him, and lay the calcined bones at the feet of his hell-born master. A misty cloud declared that its mother ocean had a thousand rocks, ready sharpened to split the keels of navies, and her beds of Algae, carpeting all her watery caves, were ready for the repose of the drowned mariner. War drew his sword and took an awful oath that he would crimson every river and redden every land with human gore, and that he would pile his mutilated thousands upon Death’s black altars as a daily offering, and that nations should not be born, live, or die, without him rioting in horrid butchery — and declared his willingness to begin whenever two were born.
Lean faced, villainous famine stood ready to steal her children’s bread, and stack their withered corpses upon domestic altars in sight of starving parentage. Intemperance with his car freighted with savory dishes and sparkling viands, standing close by him, proposed to stop at life’s stations and take on the drunkard, the glutton, the feaster, taking more from each household than the Angel of Death spared in his flight over Egypt ; then drive his crowded train down the cursed throat of the infernal cannibal — like trains now dashing into the tunnelled mountain sides, but unlike them to emerge no more from the darkness. Around him stood diseases, Protean-shaped, and numberless in name — endemics, epidemics, pandemics, pestilences — all, too anxious to begin their dreadful work. Time standing with drawn scythe, ready to glean after lest one poor wretch escape.
Commanding such resources Death has commenced his carnage, and roaring in high carnival down the stream of human generations, from Abel till now, he has devoured all mankind, save two, and has hollowed out the globe and crammed it with the fragments of his ghastly feast. And still wide wasting, none he spares. Where are the antediluvians ? Where are the patriarchs ? Where are the builders of Babel’s presumptuous tower ? Where are the prophets ? Where are Rome’s Caesars, and Rome’s legions? Egypt’s thousands, and Babylon’s millions ? Where are the apos- tles ? O, behold him ! rushing over hill and vale, over islands and continents, over land and sea, from pole to pole, girdling the world with monuments, his enormous wings of laminated darkness roaring in the affrighted air like ten thousand hurricanes, and raining pestilence from their quiv- ering plumes, his deadly breath withering the flowers of hope and blasting the glory of manhood, his projecting sting and flaming darts emptying cradles, thrones and pulpits — the whole earth ringing below him with the din of hammers, the clank of spades, the rattling of funeral trains — earth burying her dead. O, behold him ! as he cleaves the firma- ment and strides the world, his horrid train of ghastly myrmi- dons hovering in his track, his harbingers running before — the earth wet with tears and sabled grief weeping at our fire- sides. Rachel crying for her children because they were not. But thank God his reign will soon be over, and that he has a conqueror. But O, his harbingers are here and we are going. The existence of death and tombs while under the gospel is evidence that the law is not made void by faith.