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Post by Admin on Aug 30, 2023 9:18:29 GMT -5
The Law of God, or the Moral Law in General
The term “law” in Scripture is to be understood either in an extended or in a restricted sense.
In its extended or large acceptance, it is used sometimes to signify the five books of Moses (Luke 24:44),
at other times all the books of the Old Testament (John 10:34),
sometimes the whole Word of God in the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament (Psalm 19:7),
in some places the Old Testament dispensation as distinguished from the New (John 1:17),
in others the Old Testament dispensation, as including prophecies, promises, and types of Messiah (Luke 16:16; Hebrews 10:1)
and in several the doctrine of the gospel (Isaiah 2:3 and 42:4).
In its restricted or limited sense, it is employed to express the rule which God has prescribed to His rational creatures in order to direct and oblige them to the right performance of all their duties to Him.
In other words, it is used to signify the declared will of God, directing and obliging mankind to do that which pleases Him, and to abstain
from that which displeases Him.
This, in the strict and proper sense of the word, is the law of God; and it is divided into the natural law and the positive law. The natural law of God, or the law of nature, is that necessary and unchangeable rule of duty which is founded in the infinitely holy and righteous nature of God. All men, as the reasonable creatures of God, are, and cannot but be, indispensably bound to it. The positive law of God comprises those institutions which depend merely upon His sovereign will, and which He might never have prescribed and yet His nature always continued the same; such as the command not to eat of the forbidden fruit; the command during the period of the Old Testament dispensation to keep holy the Sabbath of Jehovah, the seventh day of the week, which under the New Testament is altered to the first day; the ceremonial law given to the Israelites which
prescribed the rites of God’s worship, together with many of the precepts of their judicial law; and the positive precepts concerning the worship of God under the gospel.
The dictates of God’s natural law are delivered with authority because they are just and reasonable in their own nature previous to any divine precept concerning them, inasmuch as they are all founded in the infinite holiness, righteousness, and wisdom of His nature (Psalm 3:7-8). On the contrary, the dictates of His positive law become just and reasonable because they are delivered with authority. The former are “holy, just, and good,” and therefore they are commanded; the latter are commanded, and therefore they are “holy, just, and good.” Those commandments of God which are founded in the holiness and righteousness of His nature are unalterable and perpetually the same; whereas these which are founded on the sovereignty of His will are in themselves alterable, and He may, by His own express appointment, alter them whenever He pleases. But till He Himself alters them, they continue to be of immutable obligation (Matthew 5:18).
Although the positive precepts of God are capable of being changed by Him, yet our obedience to them is built upon a moral foundation.
It is a moral duty, a duty of perpetual obligation, to obey in all things the revealed will of God. It was upon a moral ground that Christ as
Mediator proceeded when He changed the seals of the covenant of grace, altered the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week, and instituted new ordinances of worship and government for His Church. And it is upon the same ground that we are bound to obey the positive commands of Christ respecting those ordinances.
The law of God strictly taken in the aspects which it bears on mankind is to be considered in a threefold point of view: first, as written on the heart of man in his creation; second, as given under the form of a covenant of works to him; and third as a rule of life in the hand of Christ the Mediator to all true believers.
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Post by Admin on Aug 30, 2023 9:20:00 GMT -5
Section 1. The law as inscribed on the heart of man in his
creation
God, in creating the first man, made him after His own moral image
(Genesis 1:27). This image, as the Apostle Paul informs us, consists
of knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness (Colossians 3:10;
Ephesians 4:24). God, then, created man in His own moral image by
inscribing His law, the transcript of His own righteousness and
holiness, on man’s mind and heart. The law of God is to be taken
either materially, as merely directing and obliging the rational
creature to perfect obedience, or formally, as having received the
form of a covenant of works. Now it is the law not formally, but
materially considered, that was inscribed on the heart of man in his
creation. Man, therefore, as the creature of God, would have been
obliged to perform perfect obedience to the law in this view of it,
though a covenant of works had never been made with him. This law,
and sufficient power to obey it, were included in the image of God,
according to which He created man (Ecclesiastes 7:29). Although the
law, in this view of it, contained no positive precepts, yet it required
man to believe everything which God should reveal, and to do
everything which He should command (Deuteronomy 12:32).
Since the first man, on whose heart his Creator had inscribed this
law, was not confirmed in rectitude of nature and life, and so was
fallible; it implied a sanction of eternal punishment to him, as the
just recompense of his disobedience, if he should at any time
transgress it (Romans 1:32 and 6:23). I say, it implied this sanction,
for as it was never designed by God to be in that simple form either a
rule of duty to man or of judgment to himself, and as Adam was not
permitted to transgress till after the covenant of works was made
with him, there does not seem to have been any express threatening
of eternal punishment annexed to it. But though it implied a penal
sanction, and though disobedience to it would deserve even eternal
death, yet there is no ground from the Scripture to conclude that a
penal sanction or a threatening of eternal wrath is inseparable from
it. For glorified saints and confirmed angels in heaven are all
naturally, necessarily, and eternally bound to perform perfect
obedience to it as the law of creation; but to affirm that they have a
threatening of eternal punishment annexed to it would be rash and
unscriptural. The truth is, there is no place for a penal sanction
where there cannot be a possibility of sinning. Besides, if a
threatening of eternal punishment was inseparable from the law of
creation, true believers, who are and always must be under this law,
should inevitably remain under that threatening. Although their
justification for the righteousness of Jesus Christ, received by faith
and imputed by God, is perfect and irrevocable, yet if, even in that
state, they committed but a single sin, it would lay them afresh under
condemnation to eternal wrath. And that would be contrary to these
consoling passages of Scripture: “He that heareth My Word, and
believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not
come into condemnation” (John 5:24). “There is therefore now no
condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after
the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Romans 8;1). Indeed, if a penal
sanction were inseparable from the law of creation, believers would
at once be both justified and condemned. For as all men, considered
as creatures of God, are subject to the law of creation (Romans 2:15),
so this law cannot but forbid the smallest degree of sin, and cannot
but require perfection of obedience from all believers as well as all
unbelievers. It may be proper here to remark that no mere man, even
by perfect obedience to the law in that simple form, could ever have
merited from God eternal life. It therefore implied no promise of
eternal life, even no promise that mankind should ever be confirmed
under it as a rule of life. It was only when it received the form of the
covenant of works that a promise of life eternal and, consequently, of
confirmation in holiness and happiness, was annexed to it.
The law, as written on the heart of the first man, is often called the
law of creation, because it was the will of the sovereign Creator,
revealed to the reasonable creature, by impressing or engraving it on
his mind and heart. To this law, so inlaid in the mind and heart in
creation, as to the natural instinct and moral rectitude of the rational
creature, every person, as a reasonable creature, is indispensably
bound. It obliges to perfect and perpetual obedience in all possible
states of the creature, whether he be on earth, in heaven, or even in
hell. Since man is the creature of God, and since, in his creation, he
was made in the image of God, he owes all possible subjection and
obedience to God, considered as his benign Creator.
The same law is also called the law of nature because it was founded
in the holy and righteous nature of God, and was interwoven with the
nature of the first man; because it corresponds both to the nature of
God who is the author of it, and to that of man who is subjected to it;
because to act according to this law is the same as to act naturally
and reasonably; because writing it on the heart of Adam was so
distinct, and the impression of it on his nature was so deep, that they
were equal to an express revelation of it; because the dictates of this
law are the very same that the dictates of natural conscience in the
first man were; and, because the obligation to perform perfect
obedience to it proceeds from the nature of God and lies on the
nature of man. The knowledge which man in innocence had of this
law was cemented with his nature.
It is sometimes called the moral law, and is so called because it was a
revelation of the will of God as his moral governor to the first man,
and was the standard and rule of all the man’s moral qualities and
actions; because, while it was manifested to his reason, it
represented to him the moral fitness of all his holy inclinations,
thoughts, words, and actions; because while it regulates the manners
or morals of all men, it is of perpetual obligation; and because it is
summarily comprehended in the ten commandments, which are
usually called the moral law. The Ten Commandments are the sum
and substance of it. There is, however, this difference between it and
them: in it there is nothing but what is moral, but in them there is
something that is positive.
The obligation of the law of nature results both from the nature of
God and the nature of man; and from the relation between God the
Creator, Proprietor, Preserver, Benefactor, and Governor of man,
and man the creature, the property, and the subject of God. The
immediate ground of the obligation of the natural law upon man is
the sovereign authority of God, or His absolute right to command the
perfect obedience of man. This sovereign authority of the Lord flows
from the infinite supereminence or supreme excellence of His nature
above the nature of man; from His being the Creator of man and
man’s being His creature; from His being the Preserver and
Benefactor of man, and man’s being dependent upon Him for life
and all the comforts of life; and from His being, therefore, the sole
Proprietor and sovereign Ruler of man, and man’s being His
property and in absolute subjection to Him.
The obligation of the natural law upon mankind, then, as resulting
from the nature of God and from the relations between God and
man, is such that even God Himself cannot dispense with it. It
cannot cease to bind so long as God continues to be God and man to
be man—God to be the sovereign Creator and man to be His
dependent creature. Since the authority of that law is divine, the
obligation flowing from it is eternal and immutable. It must continue
forever without the smallest diminution, and that upon all men,
whether saints or sinners; at all times, from the moment of man’s
creation before the covenant of works, under the covenant of works,
under the covenant of grace, and even through all eternity. Man has
no being, no life, no activity without God. So long, therefore, as man
continues in existence, he is bound to have no being but God, and no
activity but such as is according to His will.
That fair copy of the natural law which had been transcribed into the
nature of the first man in his creation was, by the fall, much
obliterated; and it continues still to be, in a great degree, defaced and
even obliterated in the minds of all His unregenerate offspring. And,
indeed, if it was not in a great measure obliterated, what need could
there be of inscribing it anew on the hearts of the elect? What
occasion would there be for such a promise as this: “I will put My
laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts” (Hebrews
8:10)? What necessity could there be of writing it in the Sacred
Volume in order to make it known to men in all generations? Indeed,
so obliterated was it that the Lord saw it necessary to make it known
to His people by both external and internal revelation. But although
this natural law inscribed on the heart of Adam was much defaced by
the Fall, yet it was not wholly obliterated. Some faint impressions or
small relics of it remain still in the minds of all men. Indeed, with
respect to its general principles and the immediate conclusions
obviously deducible from them, it is not and cannot be totally
effaced; but with regard to such conclusions as are more or less
remote, it is, by the darkness of the mind and the depravity of the
heart of man, wholly perverted (Romans 1:21, 32). The general
principles which, in some measure, are still inscribed on the minds of
men, even where they have not the benefit of the written law, are
such as these: there is a God; that God is to be worshipped; that none
are to be injured; that parents ought to be honored; that we should
do to others what we would reasonably wish that they would do to
us; that such general principles as these are, still in some degree,
engraven on the minds of all men, is evident from these words of an
apostle: “The Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the
things contained in the law.” This shows the work of the law written
in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their
thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another
(Romans 2: 14—15). The same is also manifest from the laws which,
in countries destitute of the light of revelation, are commonly
enacted for encouraging virtue and discouraging vice, and for
preserving the rights of civil society. Men in heathen countries can
have no standard for those laws but the relics of natural law, which
all the descendants of Adam bring with them into the world.
The remains of the law of nature in the minds of men are commonly
called the light of nature, sometimes the light of reason. They are the
dictates of natural conscience, and they contain those moral
principles respecting good and evil which have essential equity in
them. The law of nature, as engraven on the heart of Adam in his
creation, should always be distinguished from the light of nature as
now enjoyed. The former is uniform and stable, of universal extent,
and of perpetual obligation; the latter, being that knowledge of the
nature of God, and of their own nature, as well as of the duties
resulting from the relations between them which men since the fall
actually possess, is greatly diversified in its extent and degree,
according to their different opportunities, capacities, and
dispositions. In some parts of the world, where the light of nature is
not assisted by the light of revelation, it does not appear superior to
the sagacity of some of the inferior creatures. How far, then, must it
be from being sufficient to guide men to true virtue and happiness;
or to afford them in their present depraved state proper views of the
wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy of God !
So much for the law of nature, which is the law of God in its
primitive, simple, and absolute form
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Post by Admin on Aug 30, 2023 9:24:42 GMT -5
Section 2. The law as given under the form of the covenant
of works to Adam
The law of creation, or the Ten Commandments, was, in the form of a
covenant of works, given to the first Adam after he had been put into
the garden of Eden. It was given him as the first parent and the
federal representative of all his posterity by ordinary gene ration. An
express threatening of death, and a gracious promise of life, annexed
to the law of creation, made it to Adam a covenant of works
proposed; and his consent, which he as a sinless creature could not
refuse, made it a covenant of works accepted. As formed into a
covenant of works, it is called by the Apostle Paul “the law of works”
(Romans 3:27), that is, the law as a covenant of works. It requires
works or perfect obedience on pain of death, spiritual, temporal, and
eternal; and it promises to the man who performs perfect and
personal obedience life, spiritual, temporal, and eternal. In the law,
under the form of a covenant of works, then, three things are
presented to our consideration: a precept, a promise, and a penal
sanction.
1. A precept requiring perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience as
the condition of eternal life. The law of creation requires man to
perform perfect obedience, and says, “Do.' But the law as a covenant
of works requires him to “do and live”—to do, as the condition of life;
to do, in order to acquire by his obedience a title to life eternal. The
command to perform perfect obedience merely is not the covenant of
works; for man was and is immutably and eternally bound to yield
perfect obedience to the law of creation, though a covenant of works
had never been made with him. But the form of the command in the
covenant of works is perfect obedience as the condition of life. The
law in this form comprised not only all the commandments peculiar
to it as the law of nature, but also a positive precept which depended
entirely on the will of God. “The Lord God commanded the man,
saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in
the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:16-
17). This positive precept was, in effect, a summary of all the
commands of the natural or moral law: obedience to it included
obedience to them all, and disobedience to it was a transgression of
them all at once. The covenant of works, accordingly, could not have
been broken otherwise than by transgressing that positive precept.
The command requiring perfect obedience as the condition of life
bound Adam, and all his natural posterity in him, not only by the
authority of God his sovereign Lord and Creator, but by his own
voluntary consent, to perform that obedience.
The natural law, given in the form of a covenant of works, to Adam
and all his natural descendants, required them to believe whatever
the Lord should reveal or promise, and to do whatever He should
command. All divine precepts, therefore, are virtually and really
comprehended in it. “The law of the Lord is perfect” (Psalm 19:7).
But if any instance of duty owed by man to God, in any age of the
church, were not either directly or indirectly commanded in it, it
would not be a perfect law. But since it is perfect, all duties and,
among others, the duties of believing and repenting of sin are
virtually commanded in it; they are required in its first
commandment (see the Westminster Larger Catechism, Question
104). Adam, it is true, was not actually obliged by it to believe in a
Redeemer till, after he had sinned, a Redeemer was revealed to him.
But the same command that required him to believe and trust the
promise of God his Creator required him also to believe in God his
Redeemer as soon as He should be revealed and offered to him. Nor
was Adam required to repent of sin before sin was committed. But
the same law that obliged him to abhor, watch against, and abstain
from all appearance of evil bound him also to bewail and forsake sin
whenever he found that he was guilty of it. Since the holy law is a
perfect rule of all internal as well as external obedience, it cannot but
require faith and repentance as well as all other duties. Without
them, no other performances can please God (Hebrews 11:6). Our
blessed Lord informs us that faith is one of “the weightier matters of
the law” (Matthew 23:23), and the Apostle Paul says that
“whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). Unbelief, which is
a departing from the living God, is evidently forbidden in the first
commandment of the law. Faith, then, as I said already, is required
in the same command (Isaiah 26:4 and 1 John 3:23). And with
regard to repentance, though neither the covenant of works nor of
grace admits of it as any atonement for sin or any ground of title to
life, yet on the supposition that sin has been committed it is a duty
enjoined in the first and, indeed, in every other precept of the moral
law.
Although the law in its covenant form requires of all who are under it
since the fall perfect obedience as the condition of life, and full
satisfaction for sin in their own persons; and at the same time, upon
the revelation and offer of Christ in the gospel as Jehovah our
Righteousness, commands them to believe in Him as such; yet, as is
the case in various other instances of duty, it requires the one of
these only on supposition that the other is not performed. The law as
a covenant of works requires that all who are under it present to it, as
the conditions of eternal life, perfect obedience and complete
satisfaction for sin, either in their own persons or in that of a
responsible surety. So long then as a sinner, unwilling to be
convinced of his sin and his want of righteousness, cleaves to the law
as a covenant, and refuses to accept and present in the hand of faith
the spotless righteousness of the adorable Surety, that sinner
continues “a debtor to do the whole law” (Galatians 5:3). He keeps
himself under an obligation to do, in his own person, all that the law
in that form requires, and also to suffer all that it threatens. The
righteous law, accordingly, goes on to use him as he deserves. It
continues to proceed against him without the smallest abatement of
its high demands, requiring of him the complete payment of his debt
both of perfect obedience and of infinite satisfaction for his
disobedience. As it accepts no obedience but that which is absolutely
perfect or fully answerable to all its demands (Galatians 3:10-11), so
the acceptance of a man’s person as righteous according to it will
depend on the acceptance of his obedience (Matthew 5:18; Romans
10:5).
In consequence of God’s having proposed the law in its covenant
form to Adam, and of Adam’s having, as the representative of all his
natural descendants, consented to it, all the children of men, while
they continue in their natural state, remain firmly, in the sight of
God, under the whole original obligation of it— even those who, as
members of the visible church, are under an external dispensation of
the covenant of grace remain under all its obligation (Romans 9:31-
32). For though the law in its covenant form is broken, yet it is far
from being repealed or set aside. The obligation of this covenant
continues in all its force, in time and through eternity, upon every
sinner who is not released from it by God, the other party. The awful
consequence is that every unregenerate sinner is bound at once to
perform perfect obedience, and also to endure the full execution of
the penal sanction. The preceptive part of that divine contract
continues to bind, both by its original authority and by man’s
consent to it; which consent is no more his to recall, unless he is
freed from his obligation by the other contracting party. And now
that the curse of the covenant has, in consequence of transgression,
become absolute, it binds as strongly as even the precept.
The law, then, as a covenant of works, demands in the most
authoritative manner, from every descendant of Adam who is under
it, perfect holiness of nature, perfect righteousness of life, and
complete satisfaction for sin. And none of the race of fallen Adam
can ever enter heaven unless he either answers these three demands
perfectly in his own person, or accepts by faith the consummate
righteousness of the second Adam, who “is the end of the law for
righteousness to everyone that believeth” (Romans 10:4).
2. In the law as a covenant of works there is also a promise, a
gracious promise of the continuance of spiritual and temporal life
and, in due time, of eternal life. This promise, which flowed solely
from infinite benignity and condescension in God, was made, and
was to have been fulfilled, to Adam and all his natural posterity, on
condition that he as their representative perfectly obeyed the
precept. That a promise of life was made to the first Adam, and to all
his natural descendants in him, on condition of his perfect obedience
during the time of his probation is evident; for the Lord Jesus said,
“If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matthew
19:17). Again, “This do and thou shalt live” (Luke 10:28). The Apostle
Paul also says, “Moses describeth the righteousness Which is of the
law, that the man which doeth those things shall live by them”
(Romans 10:5). The promise of life to Adam as the representative of
his posterity was implied in the threatening of death. When the Lord
said to him, “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely
die” (Genesis 2:17), it implied, “If thou eat not of it, thou shalt surely
live.” Besides, the tree of life, which was one of the seals of that
covenant, serves to evince the same thing. It sealed the promise of
life to Adam as long as he continued to perform perfect obedience.
It is evident that the infinitely great and sovereign Creator could be
under no obligations to man, the creature of His power, but such as
arose from the wisdom, goodness, and faithfulness of His own
nature. It was therefore free to Him whether He would still, by
absolute authority, command man to obey Him, or enter into a
covenant with man for that purpose; whether after perfect obedience
to His law He would give man eternal life or annihilate him; and
whether, if it should please Him to give it, He would bestow it on
condition of man’s obedience, or make a free grant of it to him, and
confirm him in the eternal enjoyment of it, as He has done elect
angels. It depended solely upon the will of God whether there would
be a covenant at all containing a promise of eternal life to man, and,
if a promise of it, whether that promise would be absolute or
conditional. The promise of eternal life upon man’s perfect
obedience, then, flowed entirely from the good pleasure and free
grace of God. Had Adam fulfilled the condition of life in the first
covenant, the Lord, instead of having been a debtor to him for his
obedience, would have been a debtor only to His own grace and
faithfulness in the promise. It is manifest, then, that there could have
been no real merit in the perfect obedience of man, nor so much as
the smallest proportion between it and the promised reward. If
Adam had performed the condition of that covenant, he could not
have expected eternal life upon any ground except this: that God had
graciously promised it on that condition.
The peculiar form of the covenant of works, or that which
distinguishes it from every other contract, does not consist in the
connection between the precept and the promise; but, in the manner
of that connection. Obedience to the precept is made to give a
contractual title to the life promised. Eternal life is made so to
depend on personal and perfect obedience, that without this
obedience, that life cannot be obtained; it cannot be claimed on any
other ground. But if the obedience be performed, the life promised
becomes due, in virtue of the covenant. This being the manner of the
connection, between the precept and the promise, of the first
covenant; when this covenant was broken, that connection was as far
as ever, from being dissolved. Eternal life, according to the covenant,
will still follow upon perfect, personal, and continual obedience. It
still continues true, “That the man who doeth those things shall live
by them.” But since no such thing as perfect obedience, is to be found
now, among any of the sons of men; no man can have a title to life,
according to the promise of that covenant. Thus, the law has become
weak, not by any change in itself; but because men have not yielded
perfect obedience to it. The reason why it cannot now justify a man
in the sight of God or satisfy him with eternal life is because he
cannot satisfy it with personal and perfect obedience.
Although eternal life was, in the covenant of works, promised to
Adam and his posterity on condition of his perfect obedience, and
that only, yet a man is to be counted a legalist or self-righteous if,
while he does not pretend that his obedience is perfect, he yet relies
on it for a title to life. Self-righteous men have, in all ages, set aside
as impossible to be fulfilled by them that condition of the covenant of
works which God had imposed on Adam, and have framed for
themselves various models of that covenant which, though they are
far from being institutions of God, and stand upon terms lower than
perfect obedience, yet are of the nature of the covenant of works. The
unbelieving Jews who sought righteousness by the works of the law
were not so very ignorant or presumptuous as to pretend to perfect
obedience. Neither did those professed Christians in Galatia who
desired to be under the law, and to be justified by the law, of whom
the apostle therefore testified that they had “fallen from
grace”(Galatians 5:4), presume to plead that they could yield perfect
obedience. On the contrary, their public profession of Christianity
showed that they had some sense of their need of Christ’s
righteousness. But their great error was that they did not believe that
the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone was sufficient to entitle them
to the justification of life; and therefore they depended for
justification partly on their own obedience to the moral and
ceremonial law. It was this, and not their pretensions to perfect
obedience, that the apostle had in view when he blamed them for
cleaving to the law of works, and for expecting justification by the
works of the law. By relying for justification partly on their own
works of obedience to the moral and ceremonial laws, they, as the
apostle informed them, were fallen from grace; Christ had become of
no effect to them. And they were “debtors to do the whole law”
(Galatians 5:3-4). By depending for justification partly on their
imperfect obedience to the law, they framed the law into a covenant
of works, and such a covenant of works as would allow for imperfect
instead of perfect works; and by relying partly on the righteousness
of Christ, they mingled the law with the gospel and works with faith
in the affair of justification. Thus they perverted both the law and the
gospel, and formed them for themselves into a motley covenant of
works.
The great design of our apostle, then, was to draw them off from
their false views of the law; to direct them to right conceptions of it in
its covenant form in which it can admit of no personal obedience as a
condition of life, but such as is perfect—and so to destroy their legal
hope as well as to confute their wrong notions. By the reasonings of
the apostle upon this subject, it is manifest that every evangelical, as
well as every legal, work of ours is excluded from forming even the
smallest part of a man’s righteousness for justification in the sight of
God. It is evident that even faith itself as a man’s act or work, and so
comprised in the works of the law, is thereby excluded from being
any part of his justifying righteousness (see the Confession of Faith
XI:I). It is one thing to be justified by faith merely as an instrument
by which a man receives the righteousness of Christ, and another to
be justified for faith as an act or work of the law. If a sinner, then,
relies on his actings of faith or works of obedience to any of the
commands of the law for a title to eternal life, he seeks to be justified
by the works of the law as much as if his works were perfect. If he
depends, either in whole or in part, on his faith and repentance for a
right to any promised blessing, he thereby so annexes that promise
to the commands to believe and repent as to form them for himself
into a covenant of works. Building his confidence before God upon
his faith, repentance, and other acts of obedience to the law, he
places them in Christ’s stead as his grounds of right to the promise;
and so he demonstrates himself to be of the works of the law, and so
to be under the curse (Galatians 3:10).
3. Last, in the law as a covenant of works, there is moreover a penal
sanction, an express threatening of death: spiritual, temporal and
eternal. This dreadful threatening was annexed to the positive
precept not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, as
comprehending all the precepts of the natural or moral law. “Of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of that: for
in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die” (Genesis
2:17). “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4). Seeing the
natural law was promulgated to Adam— who though a holy creature
was yet a mutable creature, and liable to fall away from God—not
only was a promise of eternal life in case of obedience, but a
threatening of eternal death in case of disobedience, added to it.
Thus it was turned into a covenant or law of works, of which the law
of the ten commandments was, and is still, the matter. Accordingly,
in its covenant form, it not only says to every man who is under it,
“Do thin and live,” but, “Do this or die; do this on pain of death in all
its dreadful extent.” This law of works has a twofold power: a power
to justify persons if they yield perfect obedience, and a power to
condemn them if in the smallest instance they disobey. It said to
Adam, and it says to every descendant of Adam, “If you offend but in
one instance, dying you shall die.” It is to every sinner the
ministration of condemnation and of death. That awful sanction is
founded in the justice of God, and is as much according to His mind
and will as the precept of the law itself. His mind and will are
unchangeable; consequently, no sooner did man become a sinner
than he became subject to the first and the second death which
divine justice and faithfulness were bound to see inflicted upon him.
One single transgression has forever cut him off from all possibility
of attaining life by the law. And since all have sinned, consequently,
“by the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified.” The law of
works has pronounced all the race of Adam guilty, has condemned
them to eternal punishment, and has not made the smallest
provision for their deliverance.
That penal sanction annexed to the law of the covenant was most
reasonable. There were indeed many other motives which might
have induced Adam to continue obedient, but as he was naturally a
mutable creature, and as yet was only in a state of probation, his
Creator had sufficient reason to be jealous of him. The Lord,
therefore, in order to guard His grace and condescension from being
despised and trampled on, annexed such a penalty to His righteous
law as, if duly considered, should serve to terrify man from violating
His gracious covenant. Death, especially spiritual and eternal death,
could not but appear to Adam, whose knowledge and holiness were
perfect, to be of all objects the most horrible. Nothing could appear
better calculated to deter him from transgressing the covenant than
the awful consideration that, as he was already bound by the precept
to perform perfect obedience, so he should, if he disobeyed, be as
firmly bound by the curse to suffer endless punishment. Besides, the
punishment of death in all its dreadful extent and duration is no
more than the smallest sin against the infinite Majesty of heaven
justly deserves. It is due to the sinner; and immutable justice
requires that every man should have all that is due to him. “The
wages of sin is death ” (Romans 6:23).
It is evident, then, that the promise of life in case of obedience, and
the denunciation of death in the event of disobedience, annexed to
the law of creation, made it to Adam a covenant of works proposed.
Nothing further was necessary to complete this covenant with him,
as the head and representative of his natural posterity, than his
consent to each of those articles. Since he was created in the image of
God, he could not but discern clearly the equity and advantage of
that divine covenant, and so approve and consent to it. His
consenting to it, accordingly, is hinted in these words of Eve to the
serpent: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the
fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said,
‘Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die’ ” (Genesis
3:2-3). Adam then consented to the precept, promise, and
threatening of the first covenant. And in his consent to it, as well as
in God’s approbation of the tenor of it, the formal obligation of it
consisted; so far as that was added to the previous obligations under
which he lay, by the law of creation. In consenting to the precept, he
bound himself to perfect obedience as the condition of eternal life to
himself and his posterity, as well as to believe whatever God should
afterwards reveal, and to do whatever He should command. By
consenting to the promise, he agreed that he would have eternal life
on no other condition than that of personal and perfect obedience;
and that he would never have eternal life unless he performed and
persevered in such obedience. In consenting to the threatening in
case of disobedience, he bound himself to renounce, in that event, all
his pretensions to life by that covenant; and he obliged himself to
suffer the full execution of the penalty denounced. By thus approving
of and consenting to that proposed contract, the form of it was
completed; and the obligations of it became so firm that the one
contracting party could not retract without the consent of the other.
Since Adam, in consenting to the penal sanction of the first covenant,
bound himself and his natural posterity never to have eternal life but
on condition of his perfect obedience; and since he failed in this
obedience, and so fell with all his natural descendants under the
begun execution of the penalty, no sinner under that broken
covenant is bound by it to seek eternal life by his own performances.
The penalty of the covenant to which Adam, as the representative of
his posterity, consented is by his transgression now become absolute;
the penalty binds the unregenerate sinner as firmly as does the
precept itself. Instead, then, of obliging him to seek eternal life for
his obedience, it binds him to suffer eternal death for his
disobedience. His consent in the first Adam to the penalty, he is not
at liberty to recall unless he is released by God, the other contracting
party. He is therefore as firmly bound, according to the constitution
of the covenant, to endure the full execution of the penalty, unless
God Himself delivers him from it, as to yield perfect obedience to the
command. The curse of the law is so bound upon him that it would
be a second breach of the covenant, to seek to elude the execution of
it, so long as he desires to continue under that covenant. But to seek
eternal life by his own righteousness is to try to elude that execution.
No obligation therefore lies on a sinner under the covenant of works
to seek eternal life for his own obedience: on the contrary, it is utterly
unlawful for him to attempt this. That very contract which afforded
man, while innocent, a prospect of life, now that he is guilty debars
him from all expectation of it. The covenant of works left innocent
man at liberty to expect life upon his perfect obedience, but did not
oblige him to seek it on that ground, but only on the ground of the
faithfulness of God in the promise in which He graciously annexed
eternal life to perfect obedience (Matthew 19:16-17). And if it did not
oblige innocent man to seek life on the ground even of perfect
obedience, how can it bind guilty man to seek it on the account of
imperfect obedience? The law as a covenant, indeed, leaves the
sinner at liberty, nay, it commands him to receive the righteousness
of the second Adam offered to him in the gospel, and to seek as well
as to expect eternal life on the ground of this consummate
righteousness. But so long as he continues to reject this
righteousness the law continues its obligation on him, both to
perform perfect obedience and to suffer the Infinite execution of the
curse. The connection established by the covenant between perfect
obedience and life, and between the smallest instance of
disobedience and death, is immutable and eternal. And therefore no
sinner can otherwise be delivered from the bond of that covenant
than by receiving and presenting to the law of it the perfect and
glorious righteousness of the second Adam, which answers fully all
its high demands (Romans 10:4 and 7:6). If he labors to escape the
death threatened, and to procure the life promised in it, by his own
righteousness, his labor is to no purpose but to increase his guilt and
aggravate his condemnation (Romans 9:30-32).
Before I conclude this section, it may be proper to remark that the
moral law, in the revelation which is given of it in Scripture, is almost
constantly set forth to us in its covenant form as proposed to the first
Adam. And it appears that the infinitely wise and holy Lord God has
left it on record in that form in order that sinners of mankind might
be convinced by it not only of their sinfulness and misery under the
dominion of it, but of the utter impossibility of their ever obtaining
justification and eternal life by any righteousness of their own
(Romans 3:20).
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Post by Admin on Aug 30, 2023 9:27:11 GMT -5
Section 3. The law in the hand of Christ the blessed Mediator as a rule of life to all true believers
The authority and obligation of the law of nature, which is the same as the law of the Ten Commandments, being founded in the nature of
God, the Almighty Creator and sovereign Ruler of men, are necessary, immutable, and eternal. They were the same before the law received the form of a covenant of works; that they are, after it has received this form; and that they are, and will continue to be, after it has dropped this form. It is divested of its covenant form to all who are vitally united to the last Adam, who have communion with Him in His righteousness, and who are instated in the covenant of grace.
But though it is to them wholly denuded of its covenant form, yet it has lost nothing of its original authority and obligation. Now that it is
taken in under the covenant of grace, and made the instrument of government in the spiritual kingdom of Christ, it retains all the authority over believers that, as a covenant of works, it has over unregenerate sinners. It is given to believers as a rule to direct them to holy obedience. It has the sovereign and infinite authority of Jehovah as a Creator as well as a Redeemer to afford it binding force. His nature is infinitely, eternally, and unchangeably holy; and therefore His law, which is a transcript of His holiness, must retain invariably and eternally all its original authority (Leviticus 11:44; 1 Peter 1:15-16). The law as a rule, then, is not a new preceptive law, but the old law, which was from the beginning, issued to believers under a new form.
This law issues to true Christians from Christ, the glorious Mediator of the New Covenant, and from God as their Creator, Proprietor,Benefactor, and covenant God. It proceeds immediately from Jesus Christ, the blessed Mediator between God and men. It is taken in under the covenant of grace, and, in the hand of Christ, the Mediator of that covenant, it is given to all who believe in Him, and who are justified by faith, as the only rule of their obedience. The Apostle Paul accordingly calls it “the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). It is a law which Christ has clearly explained, and which He has vindicated from the false glosses of the scribes and Pharisees; His new commandment which He has given and enforced by His own
example, and whose obligation on the subjects of His spiritual kingdom He has increased by His redemption of them from their bondage to sin and Satan. It is a law which He, according to the promise of His gracious covenant inscribes by His Holy Spirit on their hearts; a law too which He calls His yoke, and which, in comparison to the law of works, is a light and easy yoke (Matthew 11:29-30).
While the law as a rule of life to believers is issued forth immediately from Christ to them, it proceeds at the same time from God as their
sovereign Lord, their Creator, Proprietor, and covenant God. God the Father said concerning Messiah, “Behold I have given Him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people' (Isaiah 55:4). All the sovereign authority of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is, according to the everlasting covenant, vested in Him as God-man, Mediator, and King of Zion.
In Exodus 23: 21, Jehovah gives this solemn charge to the Israelites, in reference to Messiah, the uncreated Angel of the covenant: “Beware of Him and obey His voice, provoke Him not; for My name is in Him.” It is as if He had said, “My essence, My sovereignty, My authority, My law, are in Him, yea, all the fullness of the Godhead is in Him; and in Him only will obedience to My law be acceptable to Me.” The name of the Father is
so in Him that His voice in the law is the Father’s voice, for it follows in verse 22, “But if thou shalt indeed obey His voice, and do all that I
speak.” To the same purpose the Apostle Paul said of himself that he was “not without law to God, but under the law to Christ” (1Corinthians 9:21).
To be “not without law to God” can mean no less than to be under the law of God. Therefore, to be under the law of Christ is the same as to be under the law of God. Believers, by being under the law as a rule in the hand of Christ, or, which is the same thing, by being under the law to Christ are under the law of God.
When they are under the law of the Ten Commandments as the law of Christ, they are under it as enforced by all the sovereign authority of God. The original authority of the moral law is not in the smallest degree lessened by the believer’s reception of it not as the law or covenant of works, but as the law of Christ standing in the covenant of grace. Its original obligation proceeding from the infinite authority of the adorable Trinity is inseparable from it, and cannot possibly be in the least impaired, by its being conveyed to believers by and from the Lord Jesus.
For He, equally with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is, in His divine nature, the eternal Jehovah, “the Most High over all the earth.” He is God over all, and the Creator of “all things . . . that are in heaven, and that are on earth, visible and invisible” (Colossians 1:16). He is also in the Father, and the Father is in Him (John 14:11). As God’s authority to judge is not lessened by His having committed all judgment to the Son, so His authority to command is not, and cannot be, in the least diminished by His having given Christ for a commander to the people.
That the holy law of God should be given to believers in and through the Mediator, and not immediately by God Himself, is necessary.
When the divine law was at first given to man, he was the friend of God, and so he could receive the law immediately from Him in a manner consistent both with the honor of God and the safety of his own soul. But now that man has sinned against the Lord and has become an object of His infinite wrath, and that God has assumed the character of an offended Sovereign and an avenging Judge; now that the law as a covenant of works has become the dreadful instrument of divine indignation on account of sin, the guilty sinner cannot regard either God or His righteous law but as an object of the greatest terror to him. It was requisite, then, that a Mediator should interpose both between the offended Lawgiver and the sinner, and also between the violated law and the sinner who, by satisfying the justice of the one, and by answering the demands of the other, might
obtain free access for the guilty criminal to both.
Outside of Christ the blessed Mediator, a holy God cannot, with the safety of His honor, have any dealing with a sinful creature; but in and by Christ He can, consistent with His own infinite honor, and that of His holy law, issue forth His commandments to believers and receive their sincere obedience. Accordingly, the great Mediator, having admitted believers to communion with Himself in His suretyrighteousness, writes by His Spirit the law on their hearts, and in His Father’s name makes it the instrument of His government of them and the rule of their duty to Him. And as the same law is called “the law of nature,” because in His creation it was inlaid in the nature of the first man, so it may be called “the law of renewed nature” because in the hand of Christ, and as standing under the covenant of grace, it is interwoven with the new nature of all who are “created again in Him to good works.” Since it is only in Christ, then, that the offended Majesty of heaven can give His holy law to a sinner, and since it is only in Christ that a sinner can with safety receive and obey such a law, it may well be called “the law of Christ.” Considered as the law of Christ’s justified, sanctified, and peculiar people, it is not the law of an absolute God, or of God out of Christ, but the law of God in Christ.
Were believers to keep the moral law only as the law of nature, and without any relation to the Mediator, their obedience would be but natural religion; were they to obey it merely as a covenant of works their obedience would be but legal righteousness; but when they obey it in its relation to Christ and the covenant of grace, their conformity of heart and life to it is true holiness, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:5)The precepts of the law as a rule of life to true Christians are the same with those of the law as a covenant of works, and they require
the same perfection of obedience.
The Ten Commandments are the precepts of the divine law, both as a covenant of works to the unregenerate and as a rule of duty to the saints. But while they are issued to believers with all the sovereign authority that originally belonged to them, the obligations under which believers lie to yield obedience to them are greatly increased by the grace of the Redeemer and the mercies of redemption. If the saints are obliged as creatures, they are still more firmly bound as new creatures to keep those commandments. If they were formerly under firm obligations
to obey them in their covenant form as the precepts of God out of Christ, they are now under additional obligations to yield obedience
to them as the commands of God as their own God and Father in Christ. Does the grace displayed in the first covenant oblige all who are under that covenant to perform perfect obedience?
The exceeding riches of grace in the second covenant lay all who are instated in it under additional ties to give perfect obedience. If sinners under the covenant of works are bound to yield perfect obedience for life; believers within the bond of the covenant of grace are under still higher obligations to perform perfect obedience from life, and for the glory of Him who, by fulfilling all the righteousness of the law in its covenant form, has merited eternal life for them. The law as a rule, then, enforced by all the sovereign authority of God, both as Creator and Redeemer, requires believers to perform not sincere obedience only, but perfect and perpetual obedience.
The great Redeemer gives this high command to all His redeemed: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”
(Matthew 5:48). Accordingly, real believers, instead of resting satisfied with sincere obedience to that law, consider their want of absolute perfection in obedience as their sin, and bewail it as such.
True Christians, and none else, are under the law as a rule in the hand of Christ. The Apostle Paul exhorted the brethren in the churches of Galatia thus: “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). The endearing relations in which believers stand to Christ, and to God in Him, as well as the inestimable blessings of salvation conferred on them, and the exceeding great and precious promises given them, all require and enforce their obligation to abound in holy obedience to the law as a rule ( 1 Peter 2:4 and 5:9; Titus 2:11-14; 2 Corinthians 7:1).
Believers, before the incarnation of Christ, were as much under the binding force of it as believers now are (Luke 1:73-75).
The great design of God in giving this law in the hand of Christ to His people is not that by their obedience to it they may procure for
themselves a right to eternal life, but that it may direct and oblige them to walk worthy of their union with Christ, of their justification
in Him, of their legal title to and begun possession of life eternal, and of God Himself as their God in Him. Their conformity of heart and
life to its commands, instead of procuring their title to salvation, is a principal part of their salvation already begun, and a necessary
preparative for the consummation of it through eternity (Hebrews 12:28; 1 Peter 2:9).
The law as a rule of life to believers, especially in this view of it, is very different from the law as a covenant of works. The precept of the
law as a covenant is “Do and live,” but the command of the law as a rule is “live and do”; the law of works says, “Do or you shall be condemned to die,” but the law in the hand of Christ says, “You are delivered from condemnation; therefore do.” The command of the former is “Do perfectly that you may have a right to eternal life,” but that of the latter is, “You already have begun possession of eternal life, as well as the promise of the complete possession of it, therefore do in such a manner as to advance daily toward perfection.” By the former, a man is commanded to do in his own strength; but by the latter he is required to do in the strength that is in Christ Jesus. The Lord Jesus says to every believer, “My grace is sufficient for you; My strength is made perfect in weakness; therefore do.” The commandments of the law, both as a covenant and as a rule, are
materially, but are not formally, the same.
Although the law as a rule of duty to believers requires perfect obedience from them; yet it admits of God’s accepting their sincere
obedience performed in faith, though it is imperfect. It admits of His accepting this obedience, not indeed as any part of their justifying
righteousness, not as the foundation of His acceptance of their persons as righteous, but as the fruit and evidence of their being vitally united to His beloved Son as Jehova, their Righteousness, and of their being already accepted in Him (Ephesians 1:6; Hebrews13:16).
Since true believers are already irrevocably interested in the covenant of grace, in the righteousness of Christ, and in the favor of God; and since they have in Christ, and on the ground of His righteousness imputed to them, a complete security against eternal death and a full title to eternal life; the law as the law of Christ has no sanction of judicial rewards or punishments. It has no promise of eternal life or threatening of eternal death annexed to it. The form of the covenant of works, indeed, is eternally binding on all who live and die under that violated covenant, but because Christ, as last Adam, has answered all the demands of it for believers, they are delivered from the law in that form (Romans 7:4-6).
The law which believers are under is the law of Christ, and of God in Christ, which has no promise of eternal life to them for their obedience to it. The promise of eternal life to the saints is the promise of the covenant of grace or the gospel, and not of the law, as a rule of duty. Eternal life is promised to them not in consideration of their sincere obedience to the law as a rule of life, but on account of Christ’s perfect obedience to it as a covenant of works received by faith and imputed by God. It is promised to them not as a reward of debt for their sincere obedience, but as “the gift of God through Jesus Christ .our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
The righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to them gives them a perfect title to life; they are already heirs of it, “and joint heirs with Christ.” They have begun possession of it, and have the gracious promise of the gospel that they shall, in due time, attain the perfect and everlasting possession. There is therefore no need that a promise of eternal life should be annexed to the law as a rule of duty, to be fulfilled to believers on the ground of their obedience to that law. And, indeed, it cannot be annexed to it; for since the law as a rule cannot require less than
perfect obedience, and since believers cannot in this life yield perfect obedience to its precepts, it cannot justify them or promise life to
them for their obedience. Neither can they begin to perform even sincere obedience to it until, in union with Christ, they are already justified and fully entitled to life eternal. Accordingly, we are informed in Scripture that believers are justified by grace, and by no law or work of a law, whether it is of the law as a covenant or the law as a rule. “That no man is justified by a law in the sight of God, it is evident” (Galatians 3:11), and “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by a law” (Galatians 5:4). “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of a law” (Romans 3:28—the original word used for “law” in these passages, I have taken liberty to translate literally so that the apostle’s meaning may appear more clearly). No promise of life, then, is made to the sincere obedience of believers to the law of Christ; otherwise their title to life would be founded not entirely on the righteousness of Christ imputed to them, but partly, if not
wholly, on works done by themselves.
As no promise of eternal life belongs to the law as a rule of duty to believers, so no threatening of eternal death belongs to it. Not that the law considered as a covenant of works is stripped of its sanction; the penal sanction of it in that form, is eternal and must be eternally endured by all who die under it. But because the whole penal sanction of it was wholly endured by Christ—the Surety of those who believe on Him, and because His infinite satisfaction for all their sinsis placed to their account—that law, being satisfied, cannot now
condemn them. And as the law in its covenant form cannot condemn them, or require from them a double payment for the same debt; neither can the law, in the hand of Christ, as a rule. No divine law can condemn them. “There is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Believers are perfectly and irreversibly justified; and therefore, though their iniquities deserve eternal wrath, yet they can no more make them actually liable to that wrath.
It is the peculiar privilege of believers only, who are already justified, and so set forever beyond the reach of condemnation, to be under the
law in the hand of Christ. But were a threatening of eternal death annexed to the law as a rule in His hand, every time that the believer
transgressed this law it would lay him anew under condemnation; and as he every moment falls short of perfection in his obedience, he must inevitably be every moment under condemnation to eternal wrath. But, instead of this, he always continues in a state of justification and “never comes into condemnation.” “Whom God did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified. . . .
Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth?” (Romans 8:29-30, 34).
“Their sins and their iniquities, will I remember no more” (Hebrews 8:12). Though the law as a rule of duty, then, standing under the
covenant of grace as the instrument by which the Lord Jesus rules the subjects of His spiritual kingdom, has lost nothing of its original
authority to direct and bind them, even to perfect obedience, yet it has no promise of eternal life to them for their obedience, and no
threatening of eternal death for their disobedience. Therefore, as the law in its covenant form can neither justify nor condemn believers,
so neither can the law as a rule of life (Larger Catechism, Question 97).
But though the law as a rule of duty to believers has no sanction of judicial rewards and punishments, yet it has a sanction of gracious
rewards and paternal chastisements. A promise of gracious rewards, or rewards of grace, to believers in the way of their obedience is annexed to the law in the hand of Christ. In order to dispose and encourage them to obedience, God promises, on Christ’s account,
gracious rewards to them, such as the light of His gracious countenance, sensible and comfortable communion with Him, peace
and joy in the Holy Ghost, the assurance of their personal interest in Christ, freedom from trouble of mind, hope in their death, and degrees of glory in eternity, corresponding probably to the degree of their holy activity in time (Psalms 19:11; 2 Corinthians 1:12; 2Timothy 4: 7-8).
To the law as a rule in the hand of Christ belongs also a threatening of paternal chastisements. In order to deter believers from disobedience, as well as to promote in them the mortification of sin, the Lord threatens that, although He will not cast them into hell for their sins, yet He will permit hell, as it were, to enter their consciences; that He will visit them with a series of outward afflictions; that He will deprive them of that sensible communion with Him which they sometime enjoyed; and that He will afflict them with bitterness instead of sweetness, and with terror instead of comfort (Psalms 89:30-33; 1 Corinthians 11:30-32; Hebrews 12:6—11). These chastisements are, to a believer, no less awful, and much
more forcible restraints from sin than even the prospect of vindictive wrath would be. A filial fear of them will do more to influence him to
the practice of holiness than all the slavish fears of hell can do. A fear, lest he should be deprived of that sweetness of communion with God with which he is favored, will constrain him to say to his lusts, as the fig-tree in Jotham’s parable, “Should 1 forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over you? Shall I leave the spiritual delight which I have had in communion with my God and Savior, and have fellowship with you?” Or if, for his iniquities, he is already under the dreadful frowns of his heavenly Father, his recollection of the comfort which he formerly enjoyed, and of which he is now deprived, will make him say, “I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now” (Hosea 2:7).
It is plain that no sanction but this is suitable to the happy state of believers. They, in union and communion with the blessed Redeemer, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and instated in the covenant of grace, in which they “shall never perish, but have everlasting life.” So long, indeed, as they are imperfect in holiness,and their temper and practice subject in change, such promises and threatenings are necessary. But it is manifest that their necessity is occasioned by the remainders of sin in the saints, who require to be treated as children under age. It is necessary in their state of imperfection that they be influenced to obedience by the promises and threatenings of the law of Christ; for though their being excited to obedience by these promises and threatenings is neither servile nor slavish, yet it is childish. It is not suitable to the state of one who has “come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
When believers become perfect, they will perform obedience as freely as the angels in heaven do, without being in the least influenced to it by promises or threatenings. And the nearer they come to perfection in holiness, the more free and disinterested will their obedience be.
But as long as they are in a state of imperfection, it is their duty, in order to advance in holiness, to have respect in their obedience to
what the law of Christ promises and threatens to them. Promises of gracious rewards, and threats of paternal chastisements, properly belong to the covenant of grace, which has no proper penalty rather than to the law as a rule. They are implied in the blessings promised in that covenant, or at least are means of accomplishing the promises of it. But, seeing the law as a rule is received into the covenant of grace as the instrument of Christ’s government of His spiritual subjects, those promises and threats may be said, though not with strict propriety, to belong or be annexed to the law in that form.
It appears evident from what has been said that though the Ten Commandments are the substance of the law of nature, yet they do not contain the whole of this law. The law of nature, inscribed on the heart of man in his creation, had a penal sanction. Although a penal sanction, as is evident from the case of glorified saints and confirmed angels, who are and who will remain eternally under the law of nature, is not inseparable from that law, yet such a sanction belongs to it.
The devout and attentive reader may hence discern the difference between heathen morality, pharisaic righteousness, and true holiness. Heathen morality is external obedience to the law of nature, and may be termed “natural religion.” Pharisaic righteousness is hypocritical obedience to the law as a covenant of works, and is usually called “legal righteousness,” or “the works of the law.” True holiness is spiritual and sincere obedience to the law as a rule of life in the hand of the blessed Mediator, and is commonly called “evangelical holiness,” or “true godliness.” True believers are the only persons who obey the law in its relation to Christ and to the covenant of grace; and their acts of obedience are the only spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:5). The holy Lord God does not account Himself glorified by any obedience from the sons of men unless that which they perform to Him is in Christ. For it is the will of the Father, the Almighty Creator and sovereign Ruler of the world, that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor Himself; and that “every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
It may be justly inferred from the preceding doctrine that the distinction of the divine law, especially into the law as a covenant of works and as a rule of life, is a very important distinction. It is, as the attentive reader has seen, a scriptural distinction; and it is necessary in the hand of the Spirit to qualify believers for understanding clearly the grace and glory of the gospel, as well as the acceptable manner of performing every duty required in the law. To distinguish truly and clearly between the law as a covenant and the law as a rule is, as Luther expressed it, “the key which opens the hidden treasure of the gospel.” No sooner had the Spirit of truth given Luther a glimpse of that distinction than he declared that he seemed to be admitted into Paradise, and that the whole face of the Scripture was changed for him. Indeed, without a spiritual and true knowledge of that distinction, a man can neither discern, nor love, nor obey acceptably the truth as it is in Jesus. Nay, if the law as a covenant were not to be distinguished from the law as a rule in the hand of the Mediator, it would inevitably follow that believers are still under the law as a covenant of works; that they ought still to regard God not as their gracious God and Father, but as their angry and avenging Judge; and that their sins are still to be considered as transgressions only of the covenant of works, and as rendering them, notwithstanding their
justification, actually subject to the curse and revenging wrath of God
—contrary to Scripture (Romans 6:14, 7:1-6, and 8:1-2) and to our Confession of Faith (XIX: 1,6).
As an evidence that all unregenerate persons are under the dominion of the law as a covenant of works, the natural bent of their hearts in
all their views respecting the means of salvation is to the way of that covenant. They all desire to be under the law of works. All who have
embraced either one or another of the false religions that are in the world agree at least in this principle: It is by doing that men are to live.
Hence, when the Lord opens the eyes of a man to see that horrible gulf of sin and misery into which the first Adam plunged him, he is strongly inclined to exert himself for deliverance in the way of the covenant of works. He struggles hard to forsake his sins and to perform his duties, hoping that by his own performances he will become so righteous as to pacify the wrath of God and to procure for himself eternal life. Ah, ignorant, proud, vain attempt! This, however, he resolutely persists in doing until he is made to despair of ever being able to procure salvation for himself in the way of that covenant. Indeed, this natural bent of the depraved heart toward the way of the law as a covenant, together with deep ignorance of the high demands of the law in that form, is the source of all the self righteousness that is in the world. To take sinners off from this to a cordial reliance only on the righteousness of the second Adam for all their title to salvation, is a special part of the Holy Spirit’s work in conviction and conversion; and to do it requires a greater exertion of His almighty power than even to create a world.
From what has been said, we may also see that there are two sorts of sinners who offend more especially against the law in its covenant form, namely legalists and antinomians. Legalists, on the one hand, transgress against it by seeking to be justified by their own pretended
obedience to it. Antinomians, on the other hand, offend against it by despising the divine authority and obligation of it. The former
transgress against the form of the law as a covenant by depending on their own obedience for justification; the latter offend against the matter of it, or the Ten Commandments, as vested with all the infinite authority which belongs to it, by disregarding that high authority. Legalists contend that believers are under the law even as it is the covenant of works; antinomians, on the contrary, assert that believers are not only not under it as a covenant, but not under it even as a rule of duty. These two assertions are not more contrary to one another than they both are to the truth as it is in Jesus. In the Scriptures, we are informed that, believers are delivered from the law as a covenant of works, but that they are under it, and delight to be under it, as a rule of life. Indeed, to affirm that they are freed from it in its covenant form implies that they are under it in another form.
Does the law in its covenant form command every sinner under it who hears the gospel to believe and repent? Then it is of inexpressible importance to every sinner to believe that it does. If the law as a covenant of works does not require of every sinner under it who hears the gospel faith and repentance, it will follow that faith and repentance, as acts or works, cannot be excluded from being grounds of a sinner’s justification in the sight of God, since on that supposition they cannot be denominated works of the law. Under this character, all the sinner’s works of obedience are, in Scripture, excluded from being causes of his justification before God (Galatians 2:16). Doubtless, if the moral law, or law as a covenant, taken into the administration of the covenant of grace, does not require faith and repentance, then there must be a new law to command them.
Besides, if faith and repentance, which, as some have said, contain all that is necessary to salvation, are commanded only by a new and gospel law, then the moral law is unnecessary—and so a wide door will be opened to gross antinomianism. Sinners, then, are commanded by the moral law as a covenant, and by no other law, to believe and repent; and saints are commanded by the moral law as a rule of life, and by no other, to advance in the exercise of faith and repentance.
To conclude, is it so that the moral law has lost nothing of its original authority and obligation by being, to believers, divested of its covenant form? Then the supposition that the sovereign authority of God in it is laid aside, or that the original obligation of it is, in the least degree, weakened by its being issued to believers as the law of Christ is utterly groundless. Such a supposition reflects great dishonor on the glorious Mediator; for is not our Lord Jesus, equally with the Father and the Holy Spirit, “Jehovah, the Most High over all the earth?” Does not all the fullness of the Godhead dwell in Him bodily? Is not the name or infinite authority of God in Him? Is it not by Him that all things were created, and that they all consist? How then is it possible that the original and infinite authority of the divine law can, in the smallest degree, be lessened by its issuing to true believers from Him who is God over all, the great God our Savior
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