The Law of God
By Mrs. E. G. White.
May 6, 1875 Review and
Herald
The fact that
the holy pair in disregarding the prohibition of God in one particular, thus
transgressed his law, and as the result suffered the consequences of the fall,
should impress all with a just sense of the sacred character of the law of God.
If the experience of our first parents in the transgression of what many who
profess to fear God would call the lesser requirements of the law of God, was
attended with such fearful consequences, what will be the punishment of those
who not only break its most important precepts, as clearly defined as is the
fourth commandment, but also teach others to transgress? {RH, May 6, 1875 par. 1}
All will yet
understand, as did Adam and Eve, that God means what he says. Men who pass on
indifferently in regard to the especial claims of God's holy law, and who turn
from and reject the light given upon the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, and
seek to ease their consciences by following traditions and customs, will be
held responsible by God, and in a greater degree, than if Christ had not come
to the earth, and suffered on Calvary. The fact that the redemption of man from
the penalty of the transgression, required this wonderful sacrifice on the part
of Christ, gives unmistakable proof of the unchanging nature of the law of
God. {RH, May 6, 1875 par. 2}
God gave a clear
and definite knowledge of his will to
God's people, whom he calls his peculiar treasure, were privileged with a two-fold system of law; the moral and the ceremonial. The one, pointing back to creation to keep in remembrance the living God who made the world, whose claims are binding upon all men in every dispensation, and which will exist through all time and eternity. The other, given because of man's transgression of the moral law, the obedience to which consisted in sacrifices and offerings pointing to the future redemption. Each is clear and distinct from the other. From the creation the moral law was an essential part of God's divine plan, and was as unchangeable as himself. The ceremonial law was to answer a particular purpose of Christ plan for the salvation of the race. The typical system of sacrifices and offerings was established that through these services the sinner might discern the great offering, Christ. But the Jews were so blinded by pride and sin that but few of them could see farther than the death of beasts as an atonement for sin; and when Christ, whom these offerings prefigured, came, they could not discern him. The ceremonial law was glorious; it was the provision made by Jesus Christ in counsel with his Father, to aid in the salvation of the race. The whole arrangement of the typical system was founded on Christ. Adam saw Christ prefigured in the innocent beast suffering the penalty of his transgression of Jehovah's law. {RH, May 6, 1875 par. 4}
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The law of
types reached forward to Christ. All hope and faith centered in Christ until
type reached its antitype in his death. The statutes and judgments specifying
the duty of man to his fellow-men, were full of
important instruction, defining and simplifying the principles of the moral law,
for the purpose of increasing religious knowledge, and of preserving God's
chosen people distinct and separate from idolatrous nations. {RH, May 6, 1875 par. 5}
The statutes
concerning marriage, inheritance, and strict justice in deal with one another,
were peculiar and contrary to the customs and manners of other nations, and
were designed of God to keep his people separate from other nations. The
necessity of this to preserve the people of God from becoming like the nations
who had not the love and fear of God, is the same in this corrupt age, when the
transgression of God's law prevails and idolatry exists to a fearful extent. If
ancient Israel needed such security, we need it more, to keep us from being
utterly confounded with the transgressors of God's law. The hearts of men are
so prone to depart from God that there is a necessity for restraint and
discipline. {RH, May 6, 1875 par. 6}
The love that God
bore to man whom he had created in his own image, led him to give his Son to
die for man's transgression, and lest the increase of sin should lead him to
forget God and the promised redemption, the system of sacrificial offerings was
established to typify the perfect offering of the Son of God. {RH, May 6, 1875 par. 7}
Christ was the
angel appointed of God to go before Moses in the wilderness, conducting the
Israelites in their travels to the land of Canaan. Christ gave Moses his
special directions to be given to Israel. "Moreover, brethren, I would not
that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and
all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and
in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same
spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them; and
that Rock was Christ." {RH, May 6, 1875 par. 8}
"In the last
day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man
thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." These words were called out by
witnessing a representation by the Jews of water flowing from the flinty rock.
This commemoration of bringing water from the rock in the wilderness moves the
heart of the Son of God to tenderest compassion and
pity for their darkened understanding; for they will not see the light which he
has brought to them. Christ tells them that he is that rock. I am that living
water. Your fathers drank of that spiritual rock that followed them. That rock
was myself. It was through Christ alone that the Hebrews were favored with the
especial blessings which they were continually receiving, notwithstanding their
sinful murmurings and rebellion. {RH, May 6, 1875 par. 9}
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In consequence of continual transgression, the moral law was
repeated in awful grandeur from Sinai. Christ gave to Moses religious precepts
which were to govern the everyday life. These statutes were explicitly given to
guard the ten commandments. They were not shadowy types to pass away with the
death of Christ. They were to be binding upon man in every age as long as time
should last. These commands were enforced by the power of the moral law, and
they clearly and definitely explained that law.
{RH, May 6, 1875
par. 10}
Christ became sin for the fallen race, in taking upon himself the condemnation resting upon the sinner for his transgression of the law of God. Christ stood at the head of the human family as their representative. He had taken upon himself the sins of the world. In the likeness of sinful flesh he condemned sin in the flesh. He recognized the claims of the Jewish law until his death, when type met antitype. In the miracle he performed for the leper, he bade him go to the priests with an offering in accordance with the law of Moses. Thus he sanctioned the law requiring offerings. {RH, May 6, 1875 par. 11
Christians who
profess to be Bible students can appreciate more fully than ancient Israel did
the full signification of the ceremonial ordinances that they were required to
observe. If they are indeed Christians, they are prepared to acknowledge the
sacredness and importance of the shadowy types, as they see the accomplishment
of the events which they represent. The death of Christ gives the Christian a
correct knowledge of the system of ceremonies and explains prophecies which
still remain obscure to the Jews. Moses of himself framed no law. Christ, the
angel whom God had appointed to go before his chosen people, gave to Moses
statutes and requirements necessary to a living religion and to govern the
people of God. Christians commit a terrible mistake in calling this law severe
and arbitrary, and then contrasting it with the gospel and mission of Christ in
his ministry on earth, as though he were in opposition to the just precepts
which they call the law of Moses. {RH, May 6, 1875 par. 12}
The law of Jehovah, dating back to creation, was comprised in the two great principles, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these." These two great principles embrace the first four commandments, showing the duty of man to God, and the last six, showing the duty of man to his fellow-man. The principles were more explicitly stated to man after the fall, and worded to meet the case of fallen intelligences. This was necessary in consequence of the minds of men being blinded by transgression. {RH, May 6, 1875 par. 13}
God graciously
spoke his law and wrote it with his own finger on stone, making a solemn
covenant with his people at Sinai. God acknowledged them as his peculiar
treasure above all people upon the earth. Christ, who went before Moses in the
wilderness, made the principles of morality and religion more clear by
particular precepts, specifying the duty of man to God and his fellow-men, for
the purpose of protecting life, and guarding the sacred law of God, that it
should not be entirely forgotten in the midst of an apostate world. {RH, May 6, 1875 par. 14}
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Professed
Christians now cry, Christ! Christ is our righteousness, but away with the law.
They talk and act as though Christ's mission to a fallen world was for the
express purpose of nullifying his Father's law. Could not that work have been
just as well executed without the only beloved of the Father coming to this
world and enduring grief, privation, and the shameful death of the cross?
Ministers preach that the atonement gave men liberty to break the law of God,
and to commit sin, and then praise the free grace and mercy revealed through
Christ under the gospel, while they despise the law of God. {RH, May 6, 1875 par. 15}
They cast aside
the restraint of the law, and give loose rein to the corrupt passions and the
promptings of the natural heart, and then triumph in the mercy and grace of the
gospel. Christ speaks to such: "Not every one that saith
unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth
the will of my Father which is in Heaven." What is the will of the Father?
That we keep his commandments. Christ, to enforce the will of his Father,
became the author of the statutes and precepts given through Moses to the
people of God. Christians who extol Christ, but array themselves against the
law governing the Jewish church, array Christ against Christ. {RH, May 6, 1875 par. 16}
The death of Jesus Christ for the redemption of man, lifts the veil and reflects a flood of light back hundreds of years, upon the whole institution of the Jewish system of religion. Without the death of Christ all this system was meaningless. The Jews reject Christ, and therefore their whole system of religion is to them indefinite, unexplainable, and uncertain. They attach as much importance to shadowy ceremonies of types which have met their antitype, as they do to the law of the ten commandments, which was not a shadow, but a reality as enduring as the throne of Jehovah. The death of Christ elevates the Jewish system of types and ordinances, showing that they were of divine appointment, and for the purpose of keeping faith alive in the hearts of his people.
{RH, May 6, 1875 par. 17}
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