SERMON VIII – William Elbert Munsey
THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. — (DISCOURSE III.)
“Do we then make void the law through faith ? God forbid ; yea, we establish the law.” — Rom. 3:31.
IN my first discourse I showed you the origin, nature, and immutability of the moral law. In the second discourse I showed you that law was unpardoning and universal — that Adam, Moses, and us, as well as angels, were all under the same law, that the Gospel did not take law’s place, that it was not made void through faith. I will resume the Scriptural testimony where I left off.
” There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh ; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.” — Rom. viii. 1-4. The doctrine of Paul here is, that the law being weak through the flesh — i. e., the flesh being contrary to the perfection required by the law, in subjecting the sinner to the awful penalties of the law, the law could not pardon, sanctify, and save him. And for this reason Christ came to condemn sin in the flesh, to destroy that through which the law inflicted its penalty. ” That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.” It seems to be the sole purpose of the gospel to establish the law. Does this look like abrogation?
Again, Paul in the third chapter of Romans, after proving that a sinner cannot be justified by the law, for fear that someone might be led by this fact to believe that the gospel supplanted the law, and it seems there are many, he winds # up his mastely argument in this chapter, in the words of the text : ” Do we then make void the law through faith ? God forbid:, yea, we establish the law.” Of what law was he speaking ? The great moral law ; because he says in the preceding chapter that it was given to both Jews and Gentiles ; a peculiar edition of it given to the Jews by revelation adapted to their commonwealth ; and given to the Gentiles by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost ; and furthermore we know it was the great moral law, and not the law given by Moses, for it included both Jews and Gentiles, teaches Paul, under it as sinners. If the law of which he is speak ing extends to both Jews and Gentiles, and condemns them both as sinners, it could not have been the law given by Moses, and if it be not this law, it must be the moral law.
Then the moral law, the law given to Adam, the law of the universe, is not made void through faith, but established — ratified, supported, unalterably and permanently confirmed, as the rule of life and judgment — because faith and not obedience is the condition. Here we have the office of the gospel, by which we mean all the remedial principles and instrumentalities of the system of grace, as distinguished from law — and nothing more — distinctly and relatively con- sidered with reference to law. The moral law, from its nature required holiness, justice, goodness, and truth — all actuated and working in obedience to that which constituted its essence — actuated and working by love. Man transgressed this law and fell under its curse. The law could not forgive him ; God could not forgive him ; the law could not be abrogated — it was still binding ; man could not be released from its claims, for he sustained the same relations to God after the fall as before ; he could not recall his sin ; he could not balance it by future obedience. The gospel steps in as a remedy, meeting all these conditions, and establishing the law.
To suppose man even pardoned, the law required perfect obedience as the ground of continued justification, and man became incapable of rendering that. Every capability and power of man’s being might shine in the meridian glories of intellectual and moral truth, but to attempt obedience with nothing more than the pardon of the past, would be a cold, sad, arduous work, oppressive and slavish in Paul’s highest sense of bondage. Man must have an inspiration, a spontaneous impulse of power — he must have life. He must be free, and act from the will, the point of liberty. The law to him must be il a law of liberty,” not by any change in the law, but by a change in himself, and this is all that the apostle ever meant by a law of liberty, he never meant by the expression a milder law of the gospel.
Man must have the inspiration of love — love the essence of God’s moral nature, the essence of God’s moral law, copied and ingrained into his own nature as the ruling and actuating principle of his obedient life. Men can accom- plish nothing well without an inspiration. The essence of God’s nature and the essence of His law must drive the whole machinery of redemption — love. The law required what constituted its nature, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. It demanded that the principle actuating the con- formity required should be its essence. As love is essential to the holiness, justice, goodness, and truth of God, and to holiness, justice, goodness, and truth of God’s law, so it is essential to the holiness, justice, goodness, and truth of the creature.
Love is the essence of the moral nature of God, the es- sence of His law, hence enmity to Him is the essence of sin, the opposite of His nature, and the transgression of His law. Love being the essence of the moral nature of the Governor, and His law being a transcript of that nature, it required that love should be the essence of the moral nature of all His subjects. Love being the essence of man’s moral nature, preserved there by constant communication with the moral nature of God, through the law His agent and transcript, is the motive power of obedience ; and a cheerful conformity to all the features of that law, copied from the Divine character, is holiness ; hence love is the fulfilling of the law. Love is the essence, and holiness is the development of the character of an unfallen creature, sheltering himself by loving obedience under the protective aegis of a righteous law.
Love is the fulfilment of the law, and holiness its end; but man fell and lost both. Now the gospel as a remedial agent, by conversion removes enmity from man’s heart, and implants love, the principle of obedience, and places him immediately under law that he might be holy, in fact, giving him supernatural powers to keep it, and a sacrifice of sufficient merit to atone for all his delinquencies and errors. This is the whole work and office of the Gospel in miniature. Love is the essence of God, the essence of His law, the essence of the Gospel. Holiness is the totality of God’s moral nature, the end of His law, the end of the Gospel. The law possesses love and holiness, considered relatively with the Gospel, primarily: the gospel possesses them remedially. To make a man obey the law you must make him love it, and Religion is love ; and to make him holy the Gospel converts him and places him entirely under law, sup- plying him with strength, and atoning for his defects all the while, i Do you not see that law — the original law — is not made void by faith, the condition of pardon in the gospel — not made void by the gospel ?
The very existence of the atonement is an evidence of the continued authority of the law. The Gospel being a plan to meet in certain and different senses, the preceptive and penal claims of the law, supposes the law’s continued existence. Indeed, if the law is not in full authority, we have no use for the gospel. The very idea of pardon shows the existing obligation of law. To establish the law the whole machinery of redemption was put in motion. To establish the law as well as to save the offender, Jesus died. The Gospel is not law. The law commands, the law threatens, the law curses ; the gospel invites, the gospel promises, the gospel blesses. Gospel means ” good news,” and it is contrary to the idea of good news that it should be condemnatory. It is a perpetually applying remedy, com- mensurate with all our sins. Every hour in virtue for us the Savior dies :
” Thy offering still continues new ;
Thy vesture keeps its bloody hue.”
” Every moment, Lord, I need the merit of thy blood.”
No necessity for removing the law with such a remedy.
This view sustains the authority and majesty of the law and imparts an infinite grandeur to the gospel. An immutable and eternal law — a commensurate remedy. /The law is as high as heaven — the gospel is as high as heaven. The demands of the law are infinite — the remedy of the gospel is infinite. The law is the transcript of the nature of God —) so is the gospel. Both magnificent pictures, the first of in- exorable holiness, the second of holiness tempered with mercy. The first is the front of the storm with its lightnings, I the second is the rear of the storm with its beautiful rainbow.
I will answer some objections. ” Ye are not under the law, but under grace ” Law and grace are discussed in this chapter, as distinguished from each other and independent of the relations they sustain to each other. The meaning then is, that you are not under inexorable and unforgiving law, without helping and pardoning grace. ” Ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ.” This means not the moral law, but the Levitical law, its rites, ceremonies, and curse. There is a parallel verse in the same chapter, also in Galatians. That it is the Levitical that is meant, is clear from the fact that it is addressed peculiarly to the Jews : ” I speak to them that know the law.” If Paul means more than this, he must mean that Christians cannot sin ; for if sin is the transgression of the law, and the law is dead to them, the commission of sin by them would be impossible. “
Christ is the end of the Jaw, for righteousness to every one that believeth.” Paul does not mean here that the law was abrogated, or that men were released from its claims, but that they were justified as sinners by the law. Read the preceding verse : ” They being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own” righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” Read the whole chapter : Paul teaches we are not under law as a condition of justification, which was a prevalent error in those days. But he nowhere teaches that we are not under law as a standard of duty. The two justifications men have not understood, but confounded, some turning to Antino- mians, some to legalists.
” For I through the law, am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.” Dr. Clarke in his comment on this verse, says, meaning the moral law, that the ” law itself is assigned to death ; and another, the gospel of Christ, is substituted in its stead.” But Paul has no reference to the moral law what- ever. Throughout the argumentative part of this epistle, he is trying to contravene the efforts of Judaizing teachers to fetter the Galatian Christians with the slavish rites of the Jewish ritualistic law. The verse quoted is written in con- nection with a controversy with Peter on this subject, where Paul shows the utter inutility of Jewish ritualistic law as it could not justify a sinner. See several of the preceding verses : also the twenty-first verse : ” If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” In the verse imme- diately preceding, he says, ” If I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.” Build what? The things which he destroyed. Did he destroy the moral law ? Preposterous ! No, but the ritual laws of the Jews, in that he taught that it was no longer binding. ” I through the law am dead to the law.” Was the moral law abrogated through itself? Absurd. Yet this was true of the ritualistic and ceremonial law, for it being typical, Paul through its types was brought to Christ the great antitype, the death of the ritualistic and ceremonial law.
The law about which Paul wrote, throughout the epistle to the Galatians, was one, so he says, which was given four hundred and thirty years after the making of the covenant with Abraham, and as a matter of course could not be the moral law, but the Levitical law. And this is the law which Paul calls a ” schoolmaster,” which with its rites, ceremonies, and sacrifices brought the worshipper co Christ. To call the moral law of God’s universe a schoolmaster is derogative of its character as moral, and giving it a servile work decid- edly improper. The law of God, given to angels, given to Adam, is binding upon us. The perfection, therefore, it re- quires of us, call it Adamic, Christian, or what you will, is the perfection of itself, the perfection of its author — Perfect Holiness, Perfect Justice, Perfect Goodness, Perfect Truth, Perfect Love. God’s perfection is equal to the capabilities of His being. Ours must be equal to the capabilities of our being.’ “Sin not at all” is its language, and we have the power under grace to obey it.
Dr. Peck says : ” The difference between the original law of perfect purity, and the law of love, as incorporated in the gospel, is ‘ one is the expression of the Divine will concern- ing beings perfectly pure, in the full possession of all their original capabilities ; but the other is an expression of the Divine will concerning fallen beings restored to a state of probation by the mediation of Christ. Each alike requires the exercise of the capabilities of the subjects; but the sub- jects being in different circumstances, and differing in the amount of their capabilities, the standard of perfection is, from the necessity of the case, varied.’ ” However plausible this view may appear to the believers in what is termed 11 Christian perfection,” it is incorrect, because it reduces the standard of Christian perfection below law, or makes law descend in the same ratio of the difference between a fallen and unfallen being — supposing there is such a difference. Such a doctrine is preposterous. Either horn of the dilemma leads into insuperable difficulties.
To say that our capabilities for obedience are not as strong as Adam’s were, or that the circumstances surround- ing us are not as favorable as those which surrounded him, is to say that the grace of the gospel is not equal to the exi- gencies of our condition ; it is to deny the infinitude of the merits of Christ, as commensurate with the infinite guilt and awful consequences of man’s transgressions. If his premises are wrong, his conclusion is : that ” the standard of perfection is, from the necessity of the case, varied.” To vary the standard of perfection is a reproach upon law. To vary it when there is a remedy, is a reproach upon that remedy. It is an insult to both law and gospel.
By this law we shall be judged. All we have thought, .. ‘( said, or done, shall be tried in the light of its perfection. ” If the right sous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear ? ” That the heathen are to be judged by the law of conscience, the Jews by the law of Moses, and Christians by the gospel, as distinguished from the one law given to Adam, is without warrant from the Word of God : though this is the doctrine of our text-books. The passage of Scripture in Romans (ii. 12, 14) quoted to prove the first distinction : — ” For as many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law. For when the Gentiles which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law, are law unto themselves,” only teaches that men are judged by the law, so far only as they have means or opportunity for knowing it.
The passage of Scripture in Romans (ii. 12), quoted to prove the second distinction : ” As many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law,” only teaches that men, whether Jews or Gentiles, who had opportunity for know- ing the law are judged strictly by it. The passage of Scrip- ture in James (ii. 12), quoted to prove the third distinc- tion, is this : ” So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.” I have already defined what is meant by ” liberty ” in this connection. David says, u I will walk at liberty, for I seek thy precepts,” and the privilege of searching of the law and keeping it, is here called “liberty.” ” The law of liberty ” as used by James is not the gospel. He explains himself: ” If ye fulfill the royal law according to the Scriptures, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well ; but if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. For whosoever keeps the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery ; said also, Do not kill. Now, if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.” The decalogue itself, lie calls ” the law of liberty.” We will not be judged by the gospel, but by the law — a law which existed before the gospel, and will live when the gospel dispensation is over. The gospel will appear in the judgment for us or against us as we have used or abused it.
There is a great day of judgment coming — not a literal day, but I have nothing now to do with Biblical criticisms and exegesis. The circumstances and events of the day are symbolically and parabolically described in the Bible. I may some day endeavor to arrive at the meaning of those symbols, according to Scriptural rules of interpretation, as far as God is pleased for man to understand them ; but let us accept the symbols and paraboles as literal, and dwell upon them a few moments as such, remembering though we may err therefore in the description, we do not err as to the great fact which is symbolized and parabled.
There is to be a period of General Judgment. Suppose this the time of its announcement. It is Sabbath evening. You are seated here quietly in the church (some are standing near the door). Our little ones are at home. The gas is burning brightly in our parlors, and shortly the servants ex- pect in obedience to the bell to open the doors and let us in. Our houses of business are closed, but few persons are on the streets, and soon the watchman expects to be on his nightly round. The front doors and windows of our liquor saloons are closed — for it is the Sabbath — but a closer inspection will reveal the light gleaming obliquely through the window shutters, and angularly striking the pavement — Why? The back doors are open, or ajar, and now debauchees are passing and repassing stealthily along the alleys.
The sick man across the street is turning himself in the bed from uneasy slumber ; some of our citizens are at home reading the news ; some are in back rooms pouring over their ledgers ; some are asleep ; the mother in Israel, unable to be here to-night, has just dropped upon her knees by the bedside to thank God for another Sabbath, and to say a prayer and drop a tear for her wicked boy — while along the shadow of the walls libertines are creeping to the brothel. Our wharves look lonely to-night, and the river breeze sighs gently around the tapering masts of the anchored schooners, and our boats cabled at their landings rise and fall with the wave which glitters in the cold starlight and murmurs around their hulls. The tombstones of our neighboring cemeteries, the steeples and walls of our churches, the dome of the distant capitol, look cold and gray in the light of the November moon, and the old Potomac paved with silvery sheen rolls on grandly and proudly to the sea.
But hark! what sound is that — so unearthly, supernatural, and strange — so far away — yet so sonorous, clear, and piercing— which makes nature sick, and makes the blood creep cold in our veins, and sends a peculiar shiver along our nerves, and stops the breath for a moment? What makes the earth growl and quake so — and why are the graveyards shaking, the mountains overturning, the graves rending — and why are the aged persons around us suddenly growing youthful? Trembling and horror-stricken let us go to the door and see — But ah! we are spared the trouble: the ground heaving has split the church from foundation to roof, and falling apart the naked sky is above us. Now look up! See that angel coming — bright as a star, his pinions extended and shading the firmament, his beautiful form mirrored in the concave depths of the ethereal blue, or rather pictured in high relief upon a background of deepest azure ; before whose glory the blushing and affrighted moon is running from its orbit, and tumbling down the west to some Hesperian cave to hide itself— coming and sounding the trump of Judgment.
Hear you the sepulchral, uproarious and horrible Howlings of some hideous-throated monster beneath your feet ? It is the ghastly King of the dead, man’s destroyer, being throttled and chained by the Angel of the resurrection in his last fortified den, paved with human bones, japanned with human gore, and fetid with human corruption. Hear you that deep and hollow crashing, which seems to shiver through the globe? It is the noise of Death’s falling temples, and the downfall of his empire. But O, look around you! every street, every alley, every hill, every valley, every mountain, every plain, is crowded — crowded — and still they come. The very dust beneath us is stirring with life. The very plants and trees are dissolving, and their particles are appropriated by human bodies which take their places. The last rose of summer melts away in the lover’s hand, and the dissolved dust is claimed by the rising babe or rising and rejuvenated age — all the dead are rising. Be still, mother, your child is not left behind. Be still, old man, your wife is coming. Be still, sorrow-stricken orphanage, your parents have broken their cerements and are alive again.
But see, the vast crowd is thrown into mighty commotion. Suddenly millions are gazing upwards, while millions more are trying to clamber back into their graves, and pull the cold marble over them again. But why such commotion? Look up ! The sky is parted like a sundered scroll, the edges of both firmamental hemispheres folding over widening the rent, and an awful throne rolling upon fiery wheels down a pavement of sunbeams welded and hammered as solid as the streets of heaven, is coming — coming quicker than an electric flash, ten thousand lightnings careering and burning and playing before it, and flanked by angels, whose extremist wings fan two horizons, and followed by a train of seraphim’s whose rear legions are still tramping over the threshold of heaven. Stars, terrified, darting out of the track of the descending throne, and flying away into the murky void; while the sun on the other side of the world is dazzled by the dis- tant glory and veils his face in sackcloth. Look up ! for every eye shall see Him — see Jesus — ” see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.”
But amazing ! The vast throng is thinning • this congregation is growing less — the elect are leaving us behind. Where are they going ? They are going to meet Him. Hush! what shout is that? All space echoes it. Ah! they have met — God’s entire family — angels descending, and Christians ascending j and their thunder greetings, and earth’s welcome of its coming King, shake the universe. But wonder of wonders ! where is the earth, whose dear sod we have trod from infancy, and from whose maternal bosom we have extracted our lives ? The solid world has rolled from beneath our feet, and left us standing in space ; and yonder it goes along its orbit, every volcano bellowing, every continent blazing, every rock melting, torn with fires and wrapped in flames — having emptied its dead into the lap of the Judgment, and now groaning with the birth-throes of a new epoch. It has gone and left us in the presence of the dread Judge of the quick and the dead, probably as it runs its circuit to pass in sight a thousand times before the Judgment closes.
Calvary’s reign is over, and Sinai is re-enthroned. The Gospel has hung his trumpet upon the horns of heaven’s altar, giving back the seal of pardon to Christ the purchaser and owner, but now the unpardoning ; — and without a savior, mediator, or atonement, we must be judged by the great moral law of the universe — us and all the angels too ; a law lequiring perfect Holiness, Justice, Goodness, and Truth, and if we have failed in the perfection required, though the failure be so small as only to be discernible by the eye of the infinite Judge, and the book of mediation reveals not an actual atonement and actual pardon for the future in ques- tion, we and them are finally and eternally ruined. The pardon in question may be obtained now by faith, but the law is not made void thereby, but is the rule of life, and the rule of the Judgment.