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Post by Admin on Aug 3, 2024 22:15:35 GMT -5
Introduction
The subject of this treatise is, in the highest degree, important and interesting to both saints and to sinners. To know it experimentally is to be wise unto salvation, and to live habitually under the influence of it is to be at once holy and happy. To have spiritual and distinct
views of it is the way to be kept from verging towards self righteousness on the one hand and licentiousness on the other; it is to be enabled to assert the absolute freeness of sovereign grace, and, at the same time, the sacred interests of true holiness.
Without an experimental knowledge of and an unfeigned faith in the law and the gospel, a man can neither venerate the authority of the one nor esteem the grace of the other.
The law and the gospel are the principal parts of divine revelation; or rather they are the center, sum, and substance of all the other parts of it. Every passage of sacred Scripture is either law or gospel, or is capable of being referred either to the one or to the other. Even the
histories of the Old and New Testaments, as far as the agency of man is introduced, are but narratives of facts done in conformity or in opposition to the moral law, and done in the belief or disbelief of the gospel. The ordinances of the ceremonial law, given to the ancient
Israelites, were, for the most part, grafted on the second and fourth commandments of the moral law; and in their typical reference they were an obscure revelation of the gospel. The precepts of the judicial law are all reducible to commandments of the moral law, and especially to those of the second table. All threatening's, whether in the Old or New Testament, are threatening's either of the law or the gospel; and every promise is a promise either of the one or the other.
Every prophecy of Scripture is a declaration of things obscure or future, connected either with the law or the gospel, or with both. And there is not in the Sacred Volume one admonition, reproof, or exhortation but what refers either to the law or the gospel or both. If then a man cannot distinguish aright between the law and the gospel, he cannot rightly understand so much as a single article of divine truth. If he does not have spiritual and just apprehensions of the holy
law, he cannot have spiritual and transforming discoveries of the glorious gospel; and, on the other hand, if his view of the gospel is erroneous, his notions of the law cannot be right.
Besides, if the speculative knowledge which true believers themselves have of the law and the gospel is superficial and indistinct, they will often be in danger of mingling the one with the
other. And this, as Luther in his commentary on Galatians well observes, “doth more mischief than man’s reason can conceive.” If they blend the law with the gospel or, which is the same thing, works with faith, especially in the affair of justification, they will thereby obscure the glory of redeeming grace and prevent themselves from attaining “joy and peace in believing.”
They will, in a greater degree than can be conceived, retard their progress in holiness as well 21s in peace and comfort. But on the contrary, if they can distinguish well between the law and the gospel, they will thereby, under the illuminating influences of the Holy Spirit, be able to discern the glory of the whole scheme of redemption, to reconcile all passages of Scripture which appear contrary to each other, to try whether doctrines are of God, to calm their own consciences in seasons of mental trouble, and to advance resolutely in evangelical holiness and spiritual consolation. In order, then, to assist the humble and devout reader in studying the law and the gospel, and in learning to distinguish so between them as to attain those inexpressibly
important objects, I shall, in humble dependence on the Spirit,
consider:
First, the law of God in general;
Second, the law of God as promulgated to the Israelites from Mount Sinai.
Third, the properties of the moral law;
Fourth, the rules for understanding rightly the Ten Commandments;
Fifth, I shall endeavor to explain the gospel;
Sixth, I shall point out the uses of the gospel, and also of the law in its subservience to the gospel;
Seventh, it will be proper to consider the difference between the law and the gospel;
Eighth, the agreement between them;
Ninth, the establishment of the law by the gospel, or the subservience of the gospel to the authority and honor of the law;
Tenth, the believer’s privilege of being dead to the law as a covenant of works, with a necessary consequence of it;
Eleventh, I shall consider the great obligations under which every believer lies to perform even perfect obedience to the law as a rule of life.
Twelfth, and last, the nature, necessity, and reward of good works
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The immediate design of the following treatise is to promote conviction of sin and misery in the consciences of sinners, and true holiness in the hearts and lives of saints.
There can be no evangelical holiness, either of heart or of life, unless it proceeds from faith working by love; and no true faith either of the law or of the gospel unless the leading distinctions between the one and the other are spiritually discerned. Though in the external
dispensation of the covenant of grace the law and the gospel are set before us as one undivided system, yet an immutable line of distinction is drawn between them so that the works of the law
cannot pass over to the gospel as a proper condition of the blessings promised in it, nor can the grace of the gospel pass over to the law as a recompense for the works of men therein prescribed.
To blend or confound them has been a fatal source of error in the Christian Church, and has embarrassed many believers not a little in their exercise of faith and practice of holiness. Troubled consciences cannot ordinarily be quieted unless the doctrine of the gospel is
rightly distinguished from that of the law.
Though to some readers there may appear in several passages of the following work a redundance of words and too frequent a recurrence of the leading sentiments, and even of the same modes of expression; yet the author cannot but hope that to others these will, in some degree, serve to make my meaning more obvious and determinate.
As it has been my constant endeavor to render my subject easy and intelligible to candid and devout readers even of the lowest capacity, so it is my unfeigned desire that this feeble attempt to promote the faith and holiness of believers may obtain the gracious approbation of the Divine Redeemer and, by His blessing, be made subservient to the glorious cause of evangelical truth and vital godliness.
John Colquhoun September 11, 1815
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Post by Admin on Aug 3, 2024 22:37:52 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.
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 3, 2024 22:40:05 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 aright 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 this 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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