Post by Admin on Feb 22, 2024 13:25:29 GMT -5
Of the Establishment of the Law by the Gospel
Although in the preceding chapter I have anticipated some of the
thoughts which will be expressed here, yet the subject of this chapter
is of such inexpressible importance that I cannot forbear considering
it by itself. After the Apostle Paul had, in the third chapter of his
epistle to the Romans, asserted and proved that all mankind are
sinners, and that the justification of believing sinners in the sight of
God is utterly unattainable by their own righteousness, and is
entirely founded on the surety-righteousness of Jesus Christ,
imputed by grace and received by faith; he has in the following words
obviated an objection which he foresaw would be made to that
fundamental doctrine: “Do we then make void the law through faith?
God forbid; yea, we establish the law” (Romans 3:31). One of the
objections then made, and still urged, by the enemies of the gospel
against the doctrine of a sinner’s free justification for the
righteousness of Christ received by faith is that it derogates from the
honor and obligation of the law, nay, that it annuls or abrogates the
law. “Do we then,” says he, by asserting that a man is justified by
faith only, and not by the works of the law, “make void,” or nullify
the obligation of the moral law? With deep abhorrence of such an
insinuation, he replies, “God forbid”; far be it from us; on the
contrary, we, by that doctrine, “do establish the law.”
It is as if he had said, “We are so far from making void or annulling
the law through faith that we thereby establish and make it stand in
all its force.” By the law here, the apostle cannot mean the
ceremonial law; for by the word of faith as preached by the apostles
of Christ this was made void, but the moral law, and that both as a
covenant of works and as a rule of life. By faith, in this place, the
apostle seems to mean both the doctrine of faith and the grace of
faith. The doctrine of faith is the gospel strictly taken as
distinguished from the law. The grace of faith is that grace of the
Holy Spirit in the hearts of regenerate persons by the exercise of
which they receive that doctrine, and the righteousness and salvation
exhibited in it.
It will be proper here, in order to prevent mistakes concerning what
is afterwards to be advanced, to remark that to make the law void is
so to abrogate, abolish, or set it aside as to prevent it from being any
longer binding on the conscience. It is to annul the divine authority and obligation of its
precepts and penalties. The moral law, as the law of the infinitely
glorious Jehovah, is enforced by all His sovereign and immutable
authority. His infinite authority enforces every precept of it, and lays
every rational creature under the firmest obligations possible to yield
perfect obedience to it. Now to make this law void is to set aside its
high authority and obligation, or to decline the authority and
dissolve the obligation of its righteous precepts. Not that any man
can do this effectually, but his attempting either directly or indirectly
to do it is as criminal as if he could accomplish his design. To make it
void is also to attempt setting aside the perfection, spirituality, and
great extent of it. A man may be said to make void the law when he
practically declares that the perfection, spirituality, and vast extent of
it are not to be regarded, or when he puts it off as a covenant with
imperfect and even with carnal, selfish, superficial, and partial
obedience. Every sinner is guilty of this who goes about to establish
his own righteousness in order to his justification; or endeavors to
satisfy the law with imperfect instead of perfect obedience; with
carnal instead of spiritual performances, and with partial instead of
universal obedience.
To make the law void is likewise to invalidate the perpetuity of it. Not
that any sinner has it in his power effectually to do this—for the
moral law continues to be of immutable and eternal obligation upon
all who are under it—but he attempts to abolish the perpetuity of it,
with respect to himself, by persuading himself that although it
originally obliged him to perform perfect obedience, yet now, in
consequence of the mediation of Christ, it obliges him to yield such
obedience no longer (Jude 4), and by presuming to satisfy the
requirements of it as a covenant with sincere instead of perfect
obedience, as if it ceased to require perfection of obedience any
longer. Moreover, when sinners under the curse of it labor to
persuade themselves that it cannot now exact from them perfect and
perpetual obedience on pain of its tremendous curse, or when they
stifle their convictions and try to keep their consciences easy under
the condemning sentence of it, they do what they can to make it void.
In few words, they may be said to make the law void when they
deliberately set aside any of the uses of it. Though it cannot, since the
entrance of sin into the world, justify sinners on the ground of their
own obedience to it, yet, as was observed above, it is of standing use
to sinners as well as to saints. Now if sinners set aside any of its uses,
or refuse to “use it lawfully,” they thereby treat it with contempt, as if
it was useless and insignificant. It is in these ways especially that
self-righteous men attempt to make void the law of God.
I shall now endeavor to show that all true believers, through faith,
not only do not make void the moral law, but on the contrary
establish it or make it stand in all its force. To establish the law is, as
was hinted above, to make all the infinite authority and obligation of
it stand firm, or to place them on their original and immovable basis,
and instead of invalidating to confirm or strengthen them. Believers,
then, by faith, that is, by the doctrine and the grace of faith, establish
the law.
In the first place, by the doctrine of faith, they do not make the law
void, but establish it, and that both as a covenant of works and as a
rule of life.
1. By the doctrine of faith, or the gospel strictly taken, all true
believers and faithful ministers of the Word, establish the law as it is
a covenant of works. For, in the first place, it is the doctrine of faith
that shows men how firm and irreversible the law as a covenant is,
and how infinitely concerned the glorious Majesty of heaven is for
the stability and honor of that holy law. According to that doctrine,
He will save no transgressors of it but upon condition of His only
begotten Son’s being their Surety, and of His answering completely
all the demands of it in their stead. He will not save them from the
full execution of its righteous and awful penalty but upon Christ’s
enduring it for them, nor account them righteous and entitled to
eternal life but upon His performing as their substitute the perfect
obedience which it requires as the condition of life. Thus, by the
doctrine of faith, the sovereign authority of the law in its covenant
form is acknowledged and declared; its infinite obligation on sinners
of mankind is confirmed; and its honor is completely secured.
Second, according to the doctrines of grace in general, and to the
doctrine of a sinner’s justification by faith without the works of the
law in particular, the law in that form is, as has been already said, of
standing use to convince sinners of their sin and misery, to discover
to them their need of a better righteousness than their own, and so to
render Christ and His perfect righteousness precious to such as
believe. A sinner must be convinced by the law that justification on
the footing of his own obedience is absolutely impossible before he
will listen to what the gospel says of Christ and His righteousness
(Romans 7:9). Accordingly, the Spirit of God does not lead a man to
Christ by the gospel without first convincing him of sin and of his
want of righteousness by the law.
Third, by that doctrine we are informed that the law received a
complete answer to all its high demands by the unsinning obedience
and satisfactory death of the Lord Jesus, the Surety of elect sinners.
We are thereby instructed that He came into the world “not to
destroy, but to fulfil the law” (Matthew 5:17), and that He “is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth” (Romans
10:4). According to the doctrine of faith, the law as a covenant
receives from our divine Surety all the obedience and satisfaction
which it can demand. He, in the room, and as the representative of
an elect world, fulfilled all the righteousness of it (Matthew 3:15). He
yielded to it perfect holiness of human nature, perfect obedience of
life, and complete satisfaction for sin; and from His divine nature,
united to the human in His infinitely glorious person, His whole
righteousness has derived such infinite value as to be strictly
meritorious of eternal life for His spiritual seed. According to that
doctrine, the law in its federal form is far more honored by the
righteousness of the second Adam than it was dishonored by the
disobedience of the first. It is represented as honored not only by a
perfect righteousness, but by the righteousness of God, the
righteousness of Him who is God as well as man. In proportion to the
stupendous humiliation of the Son of God, who stooped so low as to
become subject to a law which was adapted only to creatures who as
such are infinitely beneath Him, is the honor done to the precept and
penalty of that law by His obeying the one and His enduring the
other. It required only a human righteousness, but it is infinitely
honored with one which is divine (2 Corinthians 5:21; Isaiah 42:21).
Now by this consummate, transcendently-glorious righteousness
which is revealed in the gospel, the sovereign authority and high
obligation of the law are most illustriously displayed and most firmly
established.
2. By the doctrine of faith, the law is also established as rule of life to
believers. According to this doctrine, it is established in the hand of
the Son of God, the glorious Mediator, whom the eternal Father
“hath given for a Commander to the people” (Isaiah 55:4), and has
set as His King and Lawgiver “upon His holy hill of Zion” (Psalm
2:6). In the hand of the adorable Mediator, the sovereign authority of
the law, as the instrument of government in his spiritual kingdom
and as the rule of duty in His holy covenant, is confirmed;
and the high obligation of it is not only confirmed, but increased.
Although believers are, in their justification, delivered from the law
as a covenant of works (Romans 7:4-6), yet according to the gospel
they are represented as “being not without law to God, but under the
law to Christ” (1 Corinthians 9:21; Galatians 6:2). In the doctrine of
faith, the eternal obligation of the law on them is declared; obedience
to it is enforced by the strongest motives, and represented as
performed under the best influences, from the best principles, and
for the best ends. According to that doctrine, all believers are bound
by infinite authority to obey; they are enabled sincerely to obey; they
are constrained by redeeming love to obey; they resolve and delight
in dependance on promised grace, to obey; and they cannot but obey
the law as a rule of duty. The love of Christ, as revealed in the gospel,
urges them; the blood of Christ redeems them; the Spirit of Christ
enables them; and the exceeding great and precious promises of
Christ encourage them to obey and yield spiritual and acceptable
obedience. The holy law as a rule is written on their hearts, and
therefore they consent unto it that it is good, and delight in it after
the inward man. While they do not obey it for life, but from life, they
account obedience to it not only their duty, but their privilege and
their pleasure. Thus, according to the doctrine of faith, they present,
in the hand of faith, perfect righteousness to the law as a covenant of
works; and they perform, as the fruit of faith, sincere obedience to it
as a rule of duty. And so effectually do they, by the doctrine of faith
establish the law as a rule of duty that they never account their
obedience to any of the precepts of it sincere and acceptable but in
proportion as their performance of it flows from the unfeigned faith
of that doctrine. In their view, nothing is obedience to it but what
proceeds from evangelical principles, and is excited by evangelical
motives.
In the last place, by the grace of faith also, believers establish the law,
and that both as a covenant of works and as a rule of life.
1. By the grace of faith, they do not make void the law, but on the
contrary they establish it as it is a covenant of works. Sinners who
are destitute of the grace of faith have such mean, disparaging
notions of the holy law as to offer to it, in answer to its demand of
perfect obedience as the condition of life, with their own partial,
superficial, and polluted works instead of the perfect righteousness
of Jesus Christ. But true believers have such high and honorable
sentiments of the authority and obligation, as well as of the
perfection, spirituality, and vast extent, of the divine law in its
federal form, as to receive and present, in the hand of faith, to it the
consummate and glorious righteousness of their adorable Surety.
Instead of making void the law, they, by the habit and exercise of
their holy faith, consult in the most effectual manner the stability
and honor of its precepts and penalties. Instead of presuming to put
it off as a covenant with their own mean and imperfect
performances, they, by the exercise of their faith, appropriate and
present to it the infinitely perfect and meritorious righteousness of
their divine Redeemer as the only ground of their security from
eternal death, and of their title to eternal life. By faith they receive
and exhibit to it Christ’s holiness of human nature and obedience of
life in answer to its demand of perfect obedience as the condition of
life, and His suffering of death in answer to its demand of infinite
satisfaction for sin. Thus, by the habit and exercise of their faith, they
recognize and assert the sovereign authority and high obligation of it
as a covenant; and so they establish and make it honorable in that
form. By presenting to it the only righteousness which can fully
satisfy its just demands, they practically assert the divine and
immutable authority of it as well as the equity and reasonableness of
its demands. “Surely shall one say, ‘In the Lord have I righteousness
and strength; even to Him shall men come. In the Lord shall all the
seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory’ ” (Isaiah 45:24-25). “I will
make mention of Thy righteousness, even of Thine only” (Psalm
71:16). “Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss, for the
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord ... that I may
win Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine own
righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith
of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Philippians
3:8-9). “The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness’ sake; He will
magnify the law and make it honorable” (Isaiah 42:21).
2. By the grace of faith, believers do not make void the law, but
establish it likewise as a rule of life. Instead of setting it aside as the
rule of duty, faith makes it stand in all its binding force. By the habit
and exercise of their faith, the saints not only believe that the
authority of the law in the hand of the glorious Mediator is infinite,
immutable, and eternal, and that the obligation which it lays on them
even to perfect obedience is firm and unalterable; but they derive
from the fullness of Christ continual supplies of grace to enable them
to perform sincere and increasing obedience to all the commands of
it. By the exercise of faith, they receive from His fullness that
conformity of heart to the holy law, which is perfect in parts, and that
conformity both of heart and of life to it, which will afterwards be
perfect in degrees. And when they shall attain perfect conformity, or
ability to yield perfect obedience to it in the mansions of glory, this
they shall attain as the end of their faith, as the completion of that
eternal salvation which they receive by faith. All acceptable
obedience to the law in the hand of Christ must be the obedience of
faith, obedience springing from vital union with Him by faith as the
principle of it, and performed in consequence of grace derived by
faith from His overflowing fullness. As it is believers, and they only,
who are under the law as a rule in the hand of the Mediator, so it is
they, and they only, who are enabled to perform that sincere, holy
obedience which flows from faith working by love. That faith is
neither a true nor a living faith which is not accompanied with
sincere and universal obedience to the law of Christ; and that
obedience is neither sincere, nor universal nor acceptable to God
which does not proceed from the habit and exercise of a living
faith (Hebrews 11:6).
Till a man has saving faith implanted in his heart by the omnipotent
agency of the Holy Spirit, he can do nothing but transgress the
commandments of God’s holy law (Proverbs 21:4). He can trample
upon the authority and despise the obligation of it, but he cannot,
either in principle or in practice, establish it. It is only they who are
justified and sanctified by the instrumentality of faith who begin and
advance in such holy obedience as honors and establishes the law as
a rule of duty. We may as soon suppose that a living man can be
without vital acts as that a man who is by faith vitally united to Christ
can live without yielding such obedience to His law. When that living
faith which works by love is implanted and increased in his heart,
vital motions and acts of spiritual obedience cannot but follow. Such
a man will not only account it a privilege and a pleasure to yield
sincere obedience to the law as the rule of his duty in time, but will
rejoice in the cheering prospect of being able to honor it with perfect
obedience through eternity. He delights in it after the inward man,
and therefore he rejoices in the hope that, by the grace of his
adorable Redeemer, he shall be eternally bound by it and eternally
conformed to it.
Thus it is evident that true believers and faithful ministers of the
gospel do not, either by the doctrine or the grace of faith, make void
the law of God; but on the contrary they establish it, and that both as
a -Covenant of works and as a rule of life.
From what has been said, we may learn what reason we have highly
to esteem the divine law. The establishment of this holy law, both by
the doctrine and the grace of faith, has entered deeply, into the
wonderful plan of our redemption by Jesus Christ. That amazing
scheme has been so devised as to secure, in the most effectual and
astonishing manner, the stability and honor of the law as well as the
manifested glory of the sovereign Lawgiver. As the ultimate end
which God has proposed to Himself in our redemption is the glory of
His infinite perfections, so His chief subordinate end, as the
righteous Governor of the universe, is the honor of His holy law.
Such is the inestimable value that
Jehovah the Father sets upon His righteous law that, rather than
suffer the honor of it to be in the least obscured, He would expose
His only begotten, His infinitely dear Son, to the deepest abasement,
the most direful anguish, and the most ignominious and tormenting
death. He would have His only Son, in the human nature, to live a
holy and righteous life, under the curse of His law—this was in order
to answer its demand of perfect obedience as the condition of life—
and to endure the infinite execution of that curse, due to His elect for
sin, so as to be brought to the dust of death in order to answer its
demand of infinite satisfaction for sin. The Lord Jesus, according to
the everlasting covenant made with Him, must submit to all this
humiliation, service, and suffering so that the honor of the divine law
might be vindicated, and the sovereign authority of it established.
Ought not we, then, to regard the law of God with the highest esteem
and veneration, and to tremble at the most distant thought of ever
disobeying any of its holy commands?
Is the law established by the gospel? Surely the gospel, then, cannot
have the smallest tendency to licentiousness, either in principle or in
practice. If it tends to establish the sovereign authority of the divine
law it cannot, surely, at the same time, tend to weaken or set aside
that authority. The gospel, when it is accompanied with the
demonstration of the Spirit of God, and is received in the love of it,
not only excites the believer to obey the law as a rule of duty, but it is
the only doctrine that can excite and dispose him to yield to it
voluntary and sincere obedience. It not only establishes the law, but
it is the only doctrine that infinite wisdom employs to establish it, the
only “doctrine, which is according to godliness.” It is true that this
heavenly doctrine which God has made the city of refuge for guilty
sinners is, by many, alas, made a sanctuary for sin, and so is wickedly
abused to licentiousness. But it is one thing to view the gospel in
itself, and in its genuine tendency, and another to consider it as it is
perversely abused by wicked men (Romans 3:8). The immediate
principle of all acceptable obedience to the law as a rule of life is
supreme love to God; but we cannot love God supremely unless we
first know and believe His love to us as it is exhibited in the blessed
gospel. “We love Him,” says the Apostle John, “because He first
loved us” (1 John 4:19). As the sun cannot be without light and heat,
so the faith of Christ and of redeeming love as offered to us in the
gospel, cannot be without that love to Christ and to God in Him
which “is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10).
The second Adam’s perfect holiness of human nature, and obedience
of life to the precept of the law as a covenant, are as necessary to the
justification of sinners as is His suffering of its penalty. The doctrine
of justification by faith establishes the law, the whole law, the honor
of the precept as well as that of the penal sanction. But this it could
not do if it did not represent the righteousness of Jesus Christ as
consisting in His active obedience as well as in His passive.
Active obedience, strictly speaking, cannot be said to satisfy
vindictive justice for sin. And, on the other hand, suffering for
punishment gives right and title unto nothing, it only satisfies for
something; nor does it deserve any reward, as John Owen mentions
in his work on justification. Christ’s satisfaction for sin could not
render His perfect obedience to the precept unnecessary; nor could
His perfect obedience make His satisfaction for sin by suffering the
penalty unnecessary, because it was not of the same kind. The one is
that which answers the law’s demand of perfect obedience as the
ground of title to eternal life; the other is that which answers its
demand of complete satisfaction to divine justice for sin. The
meritorious obedience of Christ to the precept could not satisfy the
penal sanction; and the sufferings and death of Christ, could not
satisfy the precept of the law. The commandment of the law as a
covenant requires doing for life; the curse of that law demands dying
as the punishment of sin. These, though they are never to be
separated as grounds of justification, yet are carefully to be
distinguished. The perfect obedience of Christ is as necessary to
entitle believers to eternal life as His suffering of death is to secure
them from eternal death. His satisfaction for sin, applied by faith,
renders them innocent or guiltless of death; and His obedience
makes them righteous or worthy of life (Romans 5:19). As the latter,
then, is as necessary to complete their justification, according to the
gospel, as the former, so it is as requisite as the former to establish
the honor of the law.
It is evident also from the foregoing particulars that the
righteousness of Christ which is revealed in the gospel, and which is
presented in the hand of faith to the law as a covenant, is not only the
meritorious cause, but the matter of our justification before God, and
in the eye of the law. It is right, indeed, to call it the meritorious
cause of justification; but this is not sufficient: it is also the matter of
it. Many pharisaic professors of religion have admitted that the
righteousness of Christ is the meritorious cause of justification; that
is, as they understand the phrase, that Christ, by His righteousness,
has merited that our own obedience should justify us. It is not
enough, then, to say that His consummate righteousness is the
meritorious cause, but also that it is the matter of our justification;
the very righteousness for which, or on account of which, we are
justified. The righteousness of our divine Surety, received by faith,
and according to the doctrine of faith, imputed to us is that which
justifies, that which is the immediate and the only ground of
justification, and that only in which it can be safe, consistently with
the authority and honor of the law, to stand before the dreadful
tribunal of the omniscient and righteous Judge of the world.
The divine law is established and honored more in the salvation of
one sinner than in the damnation of all the sons of men. In the
justification and salvation of a believing sinner, both the precept and
the penalty of the law are established and honored; but in the
damnation of unbelievers it is the penal sanction only that is
honored. The holy precept will never, in their case, be honored with
obedience, far less with perfect obedience. The convinced and
alarmed sinner who wishes to believe in the Lord Jesus may, for his
encouragement, warrantably and successfully plead that at the
throne of grace.
Is the holy law as a rule of life put into the reader’s mind and written
on his heart? Then it rejoices his heart. “The statues of the Lord are
right, rejoicing the heart” (Psalm 19:8). The Apostle Paul accordingly
says, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man” (Romans
7:22). When a man is justified and, as an evidence of that, is
sanctified, he rejoices to think that the law as a covenant is honored
and established by the righteousness which his faith receives for his
justification, and that the law as a rule is established by the grace
which his faith derives from Christ for his sanctification. He rejoices
to reflect that as the law is established forever, so it is holy, just, and
good. Instead of wishing that it were less extensive or spiritual or
strict, he rejoices that every command, and even every threatening,
are what they are. He meditates on the holy commandments of God
with delight, and takes pleasure in hearing them explained to him
and enforced upon him. Nothing, perhaps, is a surer symptom of
reigning hypocrisy in a man than to take pleasure in hearing the
promises and blessings of the gospel preached to him, but to
disrelish all such discourses as, even by evangelical motives, enforce
the duties of the law upon him. It is only the man who is secretly
resolved not to perform all his duties who commonly is unwilling to
hear of them.
What has been said may serve to suggest to us how deep and
inveterate the depravity of human nature is. Unregenerate men
either suspect that the law is made void if it is asserted that a man is
justified by faith without the works of it, or they suppose that good
works are unnecessary. The spirit which is in them is either that of
the pharisee or that of the libertine. They are ready to conclude that,
if they are not to be justified on the ground of their own obedience to
the law, the authority of the law is annulled (Galatians 3:19), or that,
if their works are to form no part of their righteousness for
justification, they need not perform good works at all. They choose to
be at liberty either to establish their own righteousness in the affair
of justification, or to continue secure in the love and practice of sin;
either to expect justification by the law as a covenant, or to trample
upon the authority of the law as a rule. They either quarrel with the
gospel, as if it made void the law, or dishonor the law, as if it was an
enemy to the gospel. To leave the self-righteous man no works of his
own to boast of is too humbling to be endured. It appears strange to
him that he himself should do nothing to merit his justification.
Whenever he reads or hears that justification is by faith only, without
the deeds of the law, he is disposed to count it a licentious doctrine.
He can see no necessity for his obedience but to merit divine favor
and eternal life by it. And no sooner does a man, under the dominion
of enmity to God and His law, pretend to be justified without his own
works than he neglects good works, as if they were wholly
unnecessary. Thus, unregenerate men reveal their inveterate enmity
both against the law and the gospel of God.
Was it requisite that the Lord Jesus, in order to repair the honor of
the law, should, as the Surety of elect sinners, endure the full
execution of its condemning sentence due to them for sin? We may
hence see what a malignant, detestable, and horrible thing sin is.
How exceeding sinful, how infinitely displeasing to the Lord, and
how injurious to the honor of His righteous law must it be, when
even His own dear Son must suffer infinite punishment, and that
without the smallest abatement, in order to satisfy His justice and
vindicate the honor of His law! How inconceivably detestable must it
be to the holy Lord God, seeing He chose rather that His only
begotten Son should endure all the tremendous punishment of it
than that it should pass unpunished! Should not we, then, learn to
abhor, to repent of, and to forsake all manner of sin?
Is it by the doctrine and the grace of faith that we establish the law?
Then it is plain that they who transform the gospel or doctrine of
faith into a new law requiring faith, repentance, and sincere
obedience as the proper conditions of salvation thereby make void
the law. By substituting sincere faith and sincere obedience in place
of perfect obedience as grounds of title to justification, they make
void the law as a covenant; and by inventing what they call “gospel
precepts,” requiring sincerity only in place of those old and
immutable precepts which require of believers perfect obedience,
they invalidate the authority of the law as a rule. By asserting that
Christ has satisfied for the breach of the old law of works, and has
procured and given a new law, a remedial law, or a law of milder
terms than the old, suited to our fallen state and accepting sincere
obedience instead of that perfect obedience which the old law
required; that Christ has, by His death, obtained that our sincere
obedience to this remedial law should be accepted for a gospel
righteousness, and that we are truly justified before God by gospel
works. The act of faith as the principle of all sincere obedience is our
righteousness, which entitles us to justification and eternal life. And
the act of faith is our justifying righteousness not as it receives the
righteousness of Jesus Christ, but as it is our obedience to that new law.
By these assertions, I say, they set aside the obligation of the moral
law and so make it void. Though such men have usually been called
“legalists,” yet, perhaps, they may, with more propriety, be termed
“antinomians,” or “enemies to the authority and honor of the divine
law (see Charles Simeon’s Helps to Composition). They undermine,
as was already hinted, the whole authority and honor of it, both as a
covenant of works and as a rule of life. Reader, the moment you rely
on your faith and obedience for a title to justification before God, you
thereby rob the law as a covenant, both of its commanding and
condemning power; and no sooner do you satisfy yourself with
yielding merely sincere obedience, instead of pressing on to
perfection, than you invalidate the high obligation of the law as a rule
of duty.
Finally it may hence also be inferred that it is the first duty of every
unregenerate sinner to come to Jesus Christ, and to trust cordially in
Him for deliverance from the law as a covenant, and for ability to
perform acceptable obedience to the law as a rule. Be assured, O
secure sinner, that you cannot otherwise be delivered from the law as
a covenant of works than by union with the second Adam, and
communion with Him in His righteousness; and that without
deliverance from the dominion of the law as a covenant you cannot
be saved from the guilt and dominion of sin. “The strength of sin is
the law” (1 Corinthians 15:56). Now it is absolutely impossible for
you ever to attain union with Christ, and communion with Him in
His righteousness, otherwise than by a true and living faith. “The
righteousness of God,” of Him who is God in our nature, “is by faith
of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe” (Romans
3:22). Believe then in the Lord Jesus, that by means of faith you may
be found in Him and be justified in Him. Trust in Him who is
“Jehovah our Righteousness” for justification and complete
salvation. Receive the gift of His glorious righteousness and, as a
guilty sinner, rely upon it for all your title to justification before God.
Present it in the hand of faith as your justifying righteousness, to the
law as a covenant of works in answer to its just demands of perfect
obedience, and of complete satisfaction for sin. So shall you, by faith,
establish the law as it is a covenant of works.
Trust in Christ also for grace and strength to perform sincere
obedience to the law as a rule of life. Rely on His consummate
righteousness for all your title to sanctification and glorification;
trust in Him with all your heart for sufficient supplies of sanctifying
and comforting grace to enable you to yield acceptable obedience to
the law as a rule, and to press on toward perfection of obedience.
And by this obedience of faith you will establish His law as a rule of
duty. By well doing, you will put to silence the ignorance of such
foolish men as presume to say that the doctrine and faith of the
gospel are unfriendly to the interests of true morality.
This reminds me of what Theodorus long ago replied to Philocles,
who was often hinting that he preached doctrines which tended to
licentiousness because he enlarged diligently and frequently upon
faith in Jesus Christ: “I preach salvation by Jesus Christ,” said
Theodorus; “and give me leave to ask, whether you know what
salvation by Christ means?” Philocles began to blush, and would
have declined an answer.
“No,” said Theodorus, “you must permit me to insist upon a reply.
Because if it is a right one, it will justify me and my conduct; if it is a
wrong one, it will prove that you blame you know not what, and that
you have more reason to inform yourself than to censure others.”
This disconcerted him still more, upon which Theodorus proceeded.
“Salvation by Jesus Christ means not only a deliverance from the
guilt, but also from the power of sin. ‘He gave Himself for us, that He
might redeem us from all iniquity and redeem us from our vain
conversation,’ as well as deliver us from the wrath to come. Go now,
Philocles, and tell the world that, by teaching these doctrines, I
promote the cause of licentiousness. And you will be just as rational,
just as candid, just as true, as if you should affirm that the firemen,
by running the engine and pouring in water, burnt your house to the
ground, and laid your furniture in ashes.”
Indeed, both the doctrine and the grace of faith, are evidently, yea,
and designedly injurious to heathen morality as well as pharisaic
righteousness. But with regard to true morality, which forms a
necessary part of godliness or evangelical holiness, instead of being,
in the smallest degree, injurious to this, they directly tend to it; yea,
and they are the necessary, the fundamental principles of it. Sooner
might fire be without heat, and a solid body be without weight, than
a true faith of the gospel be without evangelical holiness
Although in the preceding chapter I have anticipated some of the
thoughts which will be expressed here, yet the subject of this chapter
is of such inexpressible importance that I cannot forbear considering
it by itself. After the Apostle Paul had, in the third chapter of his
epistle to the Romans, asserted and proved that all mankind are
sinners, and that the justification of believing sinners in the sight of
God is utterly unattainable by their own righteousness, and is
entirely founded on the surety-righteousness of Jesus Christ,
imputed by grace and received by faith; he has in the following words
obviated an objection which he foresaw would be made to that
fundamental doctrine: “Do we then make void the law through faith?
God forbid; yea, we establish the law” (Romans 3:31). One of the
objections then made, and still urged, by the enemies of the gospel
against the doctrine of a sinner’s free justification for the
righteousness of Christ received by faith is that it derogates from the
honor and obligation of the law, nay, that it annuls or abrogates the
law. “Do we then,” says he, by asserting that a man is justified by
faith only, and not by the works of the law, “make void,” or nullify
the obligation of the moral law? With deep abhorrence of such an
insinuation, he replies, “God forbid”; far be it from us; on the
contrary, we, by that doctrine, “do establish the law.”
It is as if he had said, “We are so far from making void or annulling
the law through faith that we thereby establish and make it stand in
all its force.” By the law here, the apostle cannot mean the
ceremonial law; for by the word of faith as preached by the apostles
of Christ this was made void, but the moral law, and that both as a
covenant of works and as a rule of life. By faith, in this place, the
apostle seems to mean both the doctrine of faith and the grace of
faith. The doctrine of faith is the gospel strictly taken as
distinguished from the law. The grace of faith is that grace of the
Holy Spirit in the hearts of regenerate persons by the exercise of
which they receive that doctrine, and the righteousness and salvation
exhibited in it.
It will be proper here, in order to prevent mistakes concerning what
is afterwards to be advanced, to remark that to make the law void is
so to abrogate, abolish, or set it aside as to prevent it from being any
longer binding on the conscience. It is to annul the divine authority and obligation of its
precepts and penalties. The moral law, as the law of the infinitely
glorious Jehovah, is enforced by all His sovereign and immutable
authority. His infinite authority enforces every precept of it, and lays
every rational creature under the firmest obligations possible to yield
perfect obedience to it. Now to make this law void is to set aside its
high authority and obligation, or to decline the authority and
dissolve the obligation of its righteous precepts. Not that any man
can do this effectually, but his attempting either directly or indirectly
to do it is as criminal as if he could accomplish his design. To make it
void is also to attempt setting aside the perfection, spirituality, and
great extent of it. A man may be said to make void the law when he
practically declares that the perfection, spirituality, and vast extent of
it are not to be regarded, or when he puts it off as a covenant with
imperfect and even with carnal, selfish, superficial, and partial
obedience. Every sinner is guilty of this who goes about to establish
his own righteousness in order to his justification; or endeavors to
satisfy the law with imperfect instead of perfect obedience; with
carnal instead of spiritual performances, and with partial instead of
universal obedience.
To make the law void is likewise to invalidate the perpetuity of it. Not
that any sinner has it in his power effectually to do this—for the
moral law continues to be of immutable and eternal obligation upon
all who are under it—but he attempts to abolish the perpetuity of it,
with respect to himself, by persuading himself that although it
originally obliged him to perform perfect obedience, yet now, in
consequence of the mediation of Christ, it obliges him to yield such
obedience no longer (Jude 4), and by presuming to satisfy the
requirements of it as a covenant with sincere instead of perfect
obedience, as if it ceased to require perfection of obedience any
longer. Moreover, when sinners under the curse of it labor to
persuade themselves that it cannot now exact from them perfect and
perpetual obedience on pain of its tremendous curse, or when they
stifle their convictions and try to keep their consciences easy under
the condemning sentence of it, they do what they can to make it void.
In few words, they may be said to make the law void when they
deliberately set aside any of the uses of it. Though it cannot, since the
entrance of sin into the world, justify sinners on the ground of their
own obedience to it, yet, as was observed above, it is of standing use
to sinners as well as to saints. Now if sinners set aside any of its uses,
or refuse to “use it lawfully,” they thereby treat it with contempt, as if
it was useless and insignificant. It is in these ways especially that
self-righteous men attempt to make void the law of God.
I shall now endeavor to show that all true believers, through faith,
not only do not make void the moral law, but on the contrary
establish it or make it stand in all its force. To establish the law is, as
was hinted above, to make all the infinite authority and obligation of
it stand firm, or to place them on their original and immovable basis,
and instead of invalidating to confirm or strengthen them. Believers,
then, by faith, that is, by the doctrine and the grace of faith, establish
the law.
In the first place, by the doctrine of faith, they do not make the law
void, but establish it, and that both as a covenant of works and as a
rule of life.
1. By the doctrine of faith, or the gospel strictly taken, all true
believers and faithful ministers of the Word, establish the law as it is
a covenant of works. For, in the first place, it is the doctrine of faith
that shows men how firm and irreversible the law as a covenant is,
and how infinitely concerned the glorious Majesty of heaven is for
the stability and honor of that holy law. According to that doctrine,
He will save no transgressors of it but upon condition of His only
begotten Son’s being their Surety, and of His answering completely
all the demands of it in their stead. He will not save them from the
full execution of its righteous and awful penalty but upon Christ’s
enduring it for them, nor account them righteous and entitled to
eternal life but upon His performing as their substitute the perfect
obedience which it requires as the condition of life. Thus, by the
doctrine of faith, the sovereign authority of the law in its covenant
form is acknowledged and declared; its infinite obligation on sinners
of mankind is confirmed; and its honor is completely secured.
Second, according to the doctrines of grace in general, and to the
doctrine of a sinner’s justification by faith without the works of the
law in particular, the law in that form is, as has been already said, of
standing use to convince sinners of their sin and misery, to discover
to them their need of a better righteousness than their own, and so to
render Christ and His perfect righteousness precious to such as
believe. A sinner must be convinced by the law that justification on
the footing of his own obedience is absolutely impossible before he
will listen to what the gospel says of Christ and His righteousness
(Romans 7:9). Accordingly, the Spirit of God does not lead a man to
Christ by the gospel without first convincing him of sin and of his
want of righteousness by the law.
Third, by that doctrine we are informed that the law received a
complete answer to all its high demands by the unsinning obedience
and satisfactory death of the Lord Jesus, the Surety of elect sinners.
We are thereby instructed that He came into the world “not to
destroy, but to fulfil the law” (Matthew 5:17), and that He “is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth” (Romans
10:4). According to the doctrine of faith, the law as a covenant
receives from our divine Surety all the obedience and satisfaction
which it can demand. He, in the room, and as the representative of
an elect world, fulfilled all the righteousness of it (Matthew 3:15). He
yielded to it perfect holiness of human nature, perfect obedience of
life, and complete satisfaction for sin; and from His divine nature,
united to the human in His infinitely glorious person, His whole
righteousness has derived such infinite value as to be strictly
meritorious of eternal life for His spiritual seed. According to that
doctrine, the law in its federal form is far more honored by the
righteousness of the second Adam than it was dishonored by the
disobedience of the first. It is represented as honored not only by a
perfect righteousness, but by the righteousness of God, the
righteousness of Him who is God as well as man. In proportion to the
stupendous humiliation of the Son of God, who stooped so low as to
become subject to a law which was adapted only to creatures who as
such are infinitely beneath Him, is the honor done to the precept and
penalty of that law by His obeying the one and His enduring the
other. It required only a human righteousness, but it is infinitely
honored with one which is divine (2 Corinthians 5:21; Isaiah 42:21).
Now by this consummate, transcendently-glorious righteousness
which is revealed in the gospel, the sovereign authority and high
obligation of the law are most illustriously displayed and most firmly
established.
2. By the doctrine of faith, the law is also established as rule of life to
believers. According to this doctrine, it is established in the hand of
the Son of God, the glorious Mediator, whom the eternal Father
“hath given for a Commander to the people” (Isaiah 55:4), and has
set as His King and Lawgiver “upon His holy hill of Zion” (Psalm
2:6). In the hand of the adorable Mediator, the sovereign authority of
the law, as the instrument of government in his spiritual kingdom
and as the rule of duty in His holy covenant, is confirmed;
and the high obligation of it is not only confirmed, but increased.
Although believers are, in their justification, delivered from the law
as a covenant of works (Romans 7:4-6), yet according to the gospel
they are represented as “being not without law to God, but under the
law to Christ” (1 Corinthians 9:21; Galatians 6:2). In the doctrine of
faith, the eternal obligation of the law on them is declared; obedience
to it is enforced by the strongest motives, and represented as
performed under the best influences, from the best principles, and
for the best ends. According to that doctrine, all believers are bound
by infinite authority to obey; they are enabled sincerely to obey; they
are constrained by redeeming love to obey; they resolve and delight
in dependance on promised grace, to obey; and they cannot but obey
the law as a rule of duty. The love of Christ, as revealed in the gospel,
urges them; the blood of Christ redeems them; the Spirit of Christ
enables them; and the exceeding great and precious promises of
Christ encourage them to obey and yield spiritual and acceptable
obedience. The holy law as a rule is written on their hearts, and
therefore they consent unto it that it is good, and delight in it after
the inward man. While they do not obey it for life, but from life, they
account obedience to it not only their duty, but their privilege and
their pleasure. Thus, according to the doctrine of faith, they present,
in the hand of faith, perfect righteousness to the law as a covenant of
works; and they perform, as the fruit of faith, sincere obedience to it
as a rule of duty. And so effectually do they, by the doctrine of faith
establish the law as a rule of duty that they never account their
obedience to any of the precepts of it sincere and acceptable but in
proportion as their performance of it flows from the unfeigned faith
of that doctrine. In their view, nothing is obedience to it but what
proceeds from evangelical principles, and is excited by evangelical
motives.
In the last place, by the grace of faith also, believers establish the law,
and that both as a covenant of works and as a rule of life.
1. By the grace of faith, they do not make void the law, but on the
contrary they establish it as it is a covenant of works. Sinners who
are destitute of the grace of faith have such mean, disparaging
notions of the holy law as to offer to it, in answer to its demand of
perfect obedience as the condition of life, with their own partial,
superficial, and polluted works instead of the perfect righteousness
of Jesus Christ. But true believers have such high and honorable
sentiments of the authority and obligation, as well as of the
perfection, spirituality, and vast extent, of the divine law in its
federal form, as to receive and present, in the hand of faith, to it the
consummate and glorious righteousness of their adorable Surety.
Instead of making void the law, they, by the habit and exercise of
their holy faith, consult in the most effectual manner the stability
and honor of its precepts and penalties. Instead of presuming to put
it off as a covenant with their own mean and imperfect
performances, they, by the exercise of their faith, appropriate and
present to it the infinitely perfect and meritorious righteousness of
their divine Redeemer as the only ground of their security from
eternal death, and of their title to eternal life. By faith they receive
and exhibit to it Christ’s holiness of human nature and obedience of
life in answer to its demand of perfect obedience as the condition of
life, and His suffering of death in answer to its demand of infinite
satisfaction for sin. Thus, by the habit and exercise of their faith, they
recognize and assert the sovereign authority and high obligation of it
as a covenant; and so they establish and make it honorable in that
form. By presenting to it the only righteousness which can fully
satisfy its just demands, they practically assert the divine and
immutable authority of it as well as the equity and reasonableness of
its demands. “Surely shall one say, ‘In the Lord have I righteousness
and strength; even to Him shall men come. In the Lord shall all the
seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory’ ” (Isaiah 45:24-25). “I will
make mention of Thy righteousness, even of Thine only” (Psalm
71:16). “Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss, for the
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord ... that I may
win Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine own
righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith
of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Philippians
3:8-9). “The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness’ sake; He will
magnify the law and make it honorable” (Isaiah 42:21).
2. By the grace of faith, believers do not make void the law, but
establish it likewise as a rule of life. Instead of setting it aside as the
rule of duty, faith makes it stand in all its binding force. By the habit
and exercise of their faith, the saints not only believe that the
authority of the law in the hand of the glorious Mediator is infinite,
immutable, and eternal, and that the obligation which it lays on them
even to perfect obedience is firm and unalterable; but they derive
from the fullness of Christ continual supplies of grace to enable them
to perform sincere and increasing obedience to all the commands of
it. By the exercise of faith, they receive from His fullness that
conformity of heart to the holy law, which is perfect in parts, and that
conformity both of heart and of life to it, which will afterwards be
perfect in degrees. And when they shall attain perfect conformity, or
ability to yield perfect obedience to it in the mansions of glory, this
they shall attain as the end of their faith, as the completion of that
eternal salvation which they receive by faith. All acceptable
obedience to the law in the hand of Christ must be the obedience of
faith, obedience springing from vital union with Him by faith as the
principle of it, and performed in consequence of grace derived by
faith from His overflowing fullness. As it is believers, and they only,
who are under the law as a rule in the hand of the Mediator, so it is
they, and they only, who are enabled to perform that sincere, holy
obedience which flows from faith working by love. That faith is
neither a true nor a living faith which is not accompanied with
sincere and universal obedience to the law of Christ; and that
obedience is neither sincere, nor universal nor acceptable to God
which does not proceed from the habit and exercise of a living
faith (Hebrews 11:6).
Till a man has saving faith implanted in his heart by the omnipotent
agency of the Holy Spirit, he can do nothing but transgress the
commandments of God’s holy law (Proverbs 21:4). He can trample
upon the authority and despise the obligation of it, but he cannot,
either in principle or in practice, establish it. It is only they who are
justified and sanctified by the instrumentality of faith who begin and
advance in such holy obedience as honors and establishes the law as
a rule of duty. We may as soon suppose that a living man can be
without vital acts as that a man who is by faith vitally united to Christ
can live without yielding such obedience to His law. When that living
faith which works by love is implanted and increased in his heart,
vital motions and acts of spiritual obedience cannot but follow. Such
a man will not only account it a privilege and a pleasure to yield
sincere obedience to the law as the rule of his duty in time, but will
rejoice in the cheering prospect of being able to honor it with perfect
obedience through eternity. He delights in it after the inward man,
and therefore he rejoices in the hope that, by the grace of his
adorable Redeemer, he shall be eternally bound by it and eternally
conformed to it.
Thus it is evident that true believers and faithful ministers of the
gospel do not, either by the doctrine or the grace of faith, make void
the law of God; but on the contrary they establish it, and that both as
a -Covenant of works and as a rule of life.
From what has been said, we may learn what reason we have highly
to esteem the divine law. The establishment of this holy law, both by
the doctrine and the grace of faith, has entered deeply, into the
wonderful plan of our redemption by Jesus Christ. That amazing
scheme has been so devised as to secure, in the most effectual and
astonishing manner, the stability and honor of the law as well as the
manifested glory of the sovereign Lawgiver. As the ultimate end
which God has proposed to Himself in our redemption is the glory of
His infinite perfections, so His chief subordinate end, as the
righteous Governor of the universe, is the honor of His holy law.
Such is the inestimable value that
Jehovah the Father sets upon His righteous law that, rather than
suffer the honor of it to be in the least obscured, He would expose
His only begotten, His infinitely dear Son, to the deepest abasement,
the most direful anguish, and the most ignominious and tormenting
death. He would have His only Son, in the human nature, to live a
holy and righteous life, under the curse of His law—this was in order
to answer its demand of perfect obedience as the condition of life—
and to endure the infinite execution of that curse, due to His elect for
sin, so as to be brought to the dust of death in order to answer its
demand of infinite satisfaction for sin. The Lord Jesus, according to
the everlasting covenant made with Him, must submit to all this
humiliation, service, and suffering so that the honor of the divine law
might be vindicated, and the sovereign authority of it established.
Ought not we, then, to regard the law of God with the highest esteem
and veneration, and to tremble at the most distant thought of ever
disobeying any of its holy commands?
Is the law established by the gospel? Surely the gospel, then, cannot
have the smallest tendency to licentiousness, either in principle or in
practice. If it tends to establish the sovereign authority of the divine
law it cannot, surely, at the same time, tend to weaken or set aside
that authority. The gospel, when it is accompanied with the
demonstration of the Spirit of God, and is received in the love of it,
not only excites the believer to obey the law as a rule of duty, but it is
the only doctrine that can excite and dispose him to yield to it
voluntary and sincere obedience. It not only establishes the law, but
it is the only doctrine that infinite wisdom employs to establish it, the
only “doctrine, which is according to godliness.” It is true that this
heavenly doctrine which God has made the city of refuge for guilty
sinners is, by many, alas, made a sanctuary for sin, and so is wickedly
abused to licentiousness. But it is one thing to view the gospel in
itself, and in its genuine tendency, and another to consider it as it is
perversely abused by wicked men (Romans 3:8). The immediate
principle of all acceptable obedience to the law as a rule of life is
supreme love to God; but we cannot love God supremely unless we
first know and believe His love to us as it is exhibited in the blessed
gospel. “We love Him,” says the Apostle John, “because He first
loved us” (1 John 4:19). As the sun cannot be without light and heat,
so the faith of Christ and of redeeming love as offered to us in the
gospel, cannot be without that love to Christ and to God in Him
which “is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10).
The second Adam’s perfect holiness of human nature, and obedience
of life to the precept of the law as a covenant, are as necessary to the
justification of sinners as is His suffering of its penalty. The doctrine
of justification by faith establishes the law, the whole law, the honor
of the precept as well as that of the penal sanction. But this it could
not do if it did not represent the righteousness of Jesus Christ as
consisting in His active obedience as well as in His passive.
Active obedience, strictly speaking, cannot be said to satisfy
vindictive justice for sin. And, on the other hand, suffering for
punishment gives right and title unto nothing, it only satisfies for
something; nor does it deserve any reward, as John Owen mentions
in his work on justification. Christ’s satisfaction for sin could not
render His perfect obedience to the precept unnecessary; nor could
His perfect obedience make His satisfaction for sin by suffering the
penalty unnecessary, because it was not of the same kind. The one is
that which answers the law’s demand of perfect obedience as the
ground of title to eternal life; the other is that which answers its
demand of complete satisfaction to divine justice for sin. The
meritorious obedience of Christ to the precept could not satisfy the
penal sanction; and the sufferings and death of Christ, could not
satisfy the precept of the law. The commandment of the law as a
covenant requires doing for life; the curse of that law demands dying
as the punishment of sin. These, though they are never to be
separated as grounds of justification, yet are carefully to be
distinguished. The perfect obedience of Christ is as necessary to
entitle believers to eternal life as His suffering of death is to secure
them from eternal death. His satisfaction for sin, applied by faith,
renders them innocent or guiltless of death; and His obedience
makes them righteous or worthy of life (Romans 5:19). As the latter,
then, is as necessary to complete their justification, according to the
gospel, as the former, so it is as requisite as the former to establish
the honor of the law.
It is evident also from the foregoing particulars that the
righteousness of Christ which is revealed in the gospel, and which is
presented in the hand of faith to the law as a covenant, is not only the
meritorious cause, but the matter of our justification before God, and
in the eye of the law. It is right, indeed, to call it the meritorious
cause of justification; but this is not sufficient: it is also the matter of
it. Many pharisaic professors of religion have admitted that the
righteousness of Christ is the meritorious cause of justification; that
is, as they understand the phrase, that Christ, by His righteousness,
has merited that our own obedience should justify us. It is not
enough, then, to say that His consummate righteousness is the
meritorious cause, but also that it is the matter of our justification;
the very righteousness for which, or on account of which, we are
justified. The righteousness of our divine Surety, received by faith,
and according to the doctrine of faith, imputed to us is that which
justifies, that which is the immediate and the only ground of
justification, and that only in which it can be safe, consistently with
the authority and honor of the law, to stand before the dreadful
tribunal of the omniscient and righteous Judge of the world.
The divine law is established and honored more in the salvation of
one sinner than in the damnation of all the sons of men. In the
justification and salvation of a believing sinner, both the precept and
the penalty of the law are established and honored; but in the
damnation of unbelievers it is the penal sanction only that is
honored. The holy precept will never, in their case, be honored with
obedience, far less with perfect obedience. The convinced and
alarmed sinner who wishes to believe in the Lord Jesus may, for his
encouragement, warrantably and successfully plead that at the
throne of grace.
Is the holy law as a rule of life put into the reader’s mind and written
on his heart? Then it rejoices his heart. “The statues of the Lord are
right, rejoicing the heart” (Psalm 19:8). The Apostle Paul accordingly
says, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man” (Romans
7:22). When a man is justified and, as an evidence of that, is
sanctified, he rejoices to think that the law as a covenant is honored
and established by the righteousness which his faith receives for his
justification, and that the law as a rule is established by the grace
which his faith derives from Christ for his sanctification. He rejoices
to reflect that as the law is established forever, so it is holy, just, and
good. Instead of wishing that it were less extensive or spiritual or
strict, he rejoices that every command, and even every threatening,
are what they are. He meditates on the holy commandments of God
with delight, and takes pleasure in hearing them explained to him
and enforced upon him. Nothing, perhaps, is a surer symptom of
reigning hypocrisy in a man than to take pleasure in hearing the
promises and blessings of the gospel preached to him, but to
disrelish all such discourses as, even by evangelical motives, enforce
the duties of the law upon him. It is only the man who is secretly
resolved not to perform all his duties who commonly is unwilling to
hear of them.
What has been said may serve to suggest to us how deep and
inveterate the depravity of human nature is. Unregenerate men
either suspect that the law is made void if it is asserted that a man is
justified by faith without the works of it, or they suppose that good
works are unnecessary. The spirit which is in them is either that of
the pharisee or that of the libertine. They are ready to conclude that,
if they are not to be justified on the ground of their own obedience to
the law, the authority of the law is annulled (Galatians 3:19), or that,
if their works are to form no part of their righteousness for
justification, they need not perform good works at all. They choose to
be at liberty either to establish their own righteousness in the affair
of justification, or to continue secure in the love and practice of sin;
either to expect justification by the law as a covenant, or to trample
upon the authority of the law as a rule. They either quarrel with the
gospel, as if it made void the law, or dishonor the law, as if it was an
enemy to the gospel. To leave the self-righteous man no works of his
own to boast of is too humbling to be endured. It appears strange to
him that he himself should do nothing to merit his justification.
Whenever he reads or hears that justification is by faith only, without
the deeds of the law, he is disposed to count it a licentious doctrine.
He can see no necessity for his obedience but to merit divine favor
and eternal life by it. And no sooner does a man, under the dominion
of enmity to God and His law, pretend to be justified without his own
works than he neglects good works, as if they were wholly
unnecessary. Thus, unregenerate men reveal their inveterate enmity
both against the law and the gospel of God.
Was it requisite that the Lord Jesus, in order to repair the honor of
the law, should, as the Surety of elect sinners, endure the full
execution of its condemning sentence due to them for sin? We may
hence see what a malignant, detestable, and horrible thing sin is.
How exceeding sinful, how infinitely displeasing to the Lord, and
how injurious to the honor of His righteous law must it be, when
even His own dear Son must suffer infinite punishment, and that
without the smallest abatement, in order to satisfy His justice and
vindicate the honor of His law! How inconceivably detestable must it
be to the holy Lord God, seeing He chose rather that His only
begotten Son should endure all the tremendous punishment of it
than that it should pass unpunished! Should not we, then, learn to
abhor, to repent of, and to forsake all manner of sin?
Is it by the doctrine and the grace of faith that we establish the law?
Then it is plain that they who transform the gospel or doctrine of
faith into a new law requiring faith, repentance, and sincere
obedience as the proper conditions of salvation thereby make void
the law. By substituting sincere faith and sincere obedience in place
of perfect obedience as grounds of title to justification, they make
void the law as a covenant; and by inventing what they call “gospel
precepts,” requiring sincerity only in place of those old and
immutable precepts which require of believers perfect obedience,
they invalidate the authority of the law as a rule. By asserting that
Christ has satisfied for the breach of the old law of works, and has
procured and given a new law, a remedial law, or a law of milder
terms than the old, suited to our fallen state and accepting sincere
obedience instead of that perfect obedience which the old law
required; that Christ has, by His death, obtained that our sincere
obedience to this remedial law should be accepted for a gospel
righteousness, and that we are truly justified before God by gospel
works. The act of faith as the principle of all sincere obedience is our
righteousness, which entitles us to justification and eternal life. And
the act of faith is our justifying righteousness not as it receives the
righteousness of Jesus Christ, but as it is our obedience to that new law.
By these assertions, I say, they set aside the obligation of the moral
law and so make it void. Though such men have usually been called
“legalists,” yet, perhaps, they may, with more propriety, be termed
“antinomians,” or “enemies to the authority and honor of the divine
law (see Charles Simeon’s Helps to Composition). They undermine,
as was already hinted, the whole authority and honor of it, both as a
covenant of works and as a rule of life. Reader, the moment you rely
on your faith and obedience for a title to justification before God, you
thereby rob the law as a covenant, both of its commanding and
condemning power; and no sooner do you satisfy yourself with
yielding merely sincere obedience, instead of pressing on to
perfection, than you invalidate the high obligation of the law as a rule
of duty.
Finally it may hence also be inferred that it is the first duty of every
unregenerate sinner to come to Jesus Christ, and to trust cordially in
Him for deliverance from the law as a covenant, and for ability to
perform acceptable obedience to the law as a rule. Be assured, O
secure sinner, that you cannot otherwise be delivered from the law as
a covenant of works than by union with the second Adam, and
communion with Him in His righteousness; and that without
deliverance from the dominion of the law as a covenant you cannot
be saved from the guilt and dominion of sin. “The strength of sin is
the law” (1 Corinthians 15:56). Now it is absolutely impossible for
you ever to attain union with Christ, and communion with Him in
His righteousness, otherwise than by a true and living faith. “The
righteousness of God,” of Him who is God in our nature, “is by faith
of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe” (Romans
3:22). Believe then in the Lord Jesus, that by means of faith you may
be found in Him and be justified in Him. Trust in Him who is
“Jehovah our Righteousness” for justification and complete
salvation. Receive the gift of His glorious righteousness and, as a
guilty sinner, rely upon it for all your title to justification before God.
Present it in the hand of faith as your justifying righteousness, to the
law as a covenant of works in answer to its just demands of perfect
obedience, and of complete satisfaction for sin. So shall you, by faith,
establish the law as it is a covenant of works.
Trust in Christ also for grace and strength to perform sincere
obedience to the law as a rule of life. Rely on His consummate
righteousness for all your title to sanctification and glorification;
trust in Him with all your heart for sufficient supplies of sanctifying
and comforting grace to enable you to yield acceptable obedience to
the law as a rule, and to press on toward perfection of obedience.
And by this obedience of faith you will establish His law as a rule of
duty. By well doing, you will put to silence the ignorance of such
foolish men as presume to say that the doctrine and faith of the
gospel are unfriendly to the interests of true morality.
This reminds me of what Theodorus long ago replied to Philocles,
who was often hinting that he preached doctrines which tended to
licentiousness because he enlarged diligently and frequently upon
faith in Jesus Christ: “I preach salvation by Jesus Christ,” said
Theodorus; “and give me leave to ask, whether you know what
salvation by Christ means?” Philocles began to blush, and would
have declined an answer.
“No,” said Theodorus, “you must permit me to insist upon a reply.
Because if it is a right one, it will justify me and my conduct; if it is a
wrong one, it will prove that you blame you know not what, and that
you have more reason to inform yourself than to censure others.”
This disconcerted him still more, upon which Theodorus proceeded.
“Salvation by Jesus Christ means not only a deliverance from the
guilt, but also from the power of sin. ‘He gave Himself for us, that He
might redeem us from all iniquity and redeem us from our vain
conversation,’ as well as deliver us from the wrath to come. Go now,
Philocles, and tell the world that, by teaching these doctrines, I
promote the cause of licentiousness. And you will be just as rational,
just as candid, just as true, as if you should affirm that the firemen,
by running the engine and pouring in water, burnt your house to the
ground, and laid your furniture in ashes.”
Indeed, both the doctrine and the grace of faith, are evidently, yea,
and designedly injurious to heathen morality as well as pharisaic
righteousness. But with regard to true morality, which forms a
necessary part of godliness or evangelical holiness, instead of being,
in the smallest degree, injurious to this, they directly tend to it; yea,
and they are the necessary, the fundamental principles of it. Sooner
might fire be without heat, and a solid body be without weight, than
a true faith of the gospel be without evangelical holiness