Chapter XXI: Section I: The Law Of God (2)

Robert Browning, in The Ring and the Book, represents Caponsacchi
as comparing himself at his best with the new ideal of “perfect as
Father in heaven is perfect” suggested by Pompilia’s purity, and
as breaking out into the cry: “O great, just, good God! Miserable
me!” In the Interpreter’s House of Pilgrim’s Progress, Law only
stirred up the dust in the foul room,—the Gospel had to sprinkle
water on the floor before it could be cleansed. E. G. Robinson:
“It is necessary to smoke a man out, before you can bring a higher
motive to bear upon him.” Barnabas said that Christ was the answer
to the riddle of the law. _Rom. 10:4_—“_Christ is the end of the
law unto righteousness to every one that believeth._” The railroad
track opposite Detroit on the St. Clair River runs to the edge of
the dock and seems intended to plunge the train into the abyss.
But when the ferry boat comes up, rails are seen upon its deck,
and the boat is the end of the track, to carry passengers over to
Detroit. So the law, which by itself would bring only destruction,
finds its end in Christ who ensures our passage to the celestial
city.

Law, then, with its picture of spotless innocence, simply reminds
man of the heights from which he has fallen. “It is a mirror which
reveals derangement, but does not create or remove it.” With its
demand of absolute perfection, up to the measure of man’s original
endowments and possibilities, it drives us, in despair of
ourselves, to Christ as our only righteousness and our only Savior
(_Rom. 8:3, 4_—“_For what the law could not do, in that it was
weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness
of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the
ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after
the flesh, but after the Spirit_”; _Phil. 3:8, 9_—“_that I may
gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of
mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through
faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith_”).
Thus law must prepare the way for grace, and John the Baptist must
precede Christ.

When Sarah Bernhardt was solicited to add an eleventh commandment,
she declined upon the ground there were already ten too many. It
was an expression of pagan contempt of law. In heathendom, sin and
insensibility to sin increased together. In Judaism and
Christianity, on the contrary, there has been a growing sense of
sin’s guilt and condemnableness. McLaren, in S. S. Times, Sept.
23, 1893:600—“Among the Jews there was a far profounder sense of
sin than in any other ancient nation. The law written on men’s
hearts evoked a lower consciousness of sin, and there are prayers
on the Assyrian and Babylonian tablets which may almost stand
beside the 51st Psalm. But, on the whole, the deep sense of sin
was the product of the revealed law.” See Fairbairn, Revelation of
Law and Scripture; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 187-242; Hovey, God
with Us, 187-210; Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 1:45-50; Murphy,
Scientific Bases of Faith, 53-71; Martineau, Types, 2:120-125.

2. _Positive Enactment_, or the expression of the will of God in published ordinances. This is also two-fold:

A. General moral precepts.—These are written summaries of the elemental law (Mat. 5:48; 22:37-40), or authorized applications of it to special human conditions (Ex. 20:1-17; Mat. chap. 5-8).

_Mat. 5:48_—“_Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly
Father is perfect_”; _22:37-40_—“_Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God.... Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two
commandments the whole law hangeth and the prophets_”; _Ex.
20:1-17_—the Ten Commandments; _Mat., chap. 5-8_—the Sermon on the
Mount. _Cf._ Augustine, on _Ps. 57:1_.

Solly, On the Will, 162, gives two illustrations of the fact that
positive precepts are merely applications of elemental law or the
law of nature: “ ‘_Thou shalt not steal_,’ is a moral law which
may be stated thus: _thou shalt not take that for thy own
property, which is the property of another_. The contradictory of
this proposition would be: _thou mayest take that for thy own
property which is the property of another_. But this is a
contradiction in terms; for it is the very conception of property,
that the owner stands in a peculiar relation to its subject
matter; and what is every man’s property is no man’s property, as
it is _proper_ to no man. Hence the contradictory of the
commandment contains a simple contradiction directly it is made a
rule universal; and the commandment itself is established as one
of the principles for the harmony of individual wills.

“ ‘_Thou shalt not tell a lie_,’ as a rule of morality, may be
expressed generally: _thou shall not by thy outward act make
another to believe thy thought to be other than it is_. The
contradictory made universal is: _every man may by his outward act
make another to believe his thought to be other than it is_. Now
this maxim also contains a contradiction, and is self-destructive.
It conveys a permission to do that which is rendered impossible by
the permission itself. Absolute and universal indifference to
truth, or the entire mutual independence of the thought and
symbol, makes the symbol cease to be a symbol, and the conveyance
of thought by its means, an impossibility.”

Kant, Metaphysic of Ethics, 48, 90—“Fundamental law of reason: So
act, that thy maxims of will might become laws in a system of
universal moral legislation.” This is Kant’s categorical
imperative. He expresses it in yet another form: “Act from maxims
fit to be regarded as universal laws of nature.” For expositions
of the Decalogue which bring out its spiritual meaning, see Kurtz,
Religionslehre, 9-72; Dick, Theology, 2:513-554; Dwight, Theology,
3:163-560; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 3:259-465.

B. Ceremonial or special injunctions.—These are illustrations of the elemental law, or approximate revelations of it, suited to lower degrees of capacity and to earlier stages of spiritual training (Ez. 20:25; Mat. 19:8; Mark 10:5). Though temporary, only God can say when they cease to be binding upon us in their outward form.

All positive enactments, therefore, whether they be moral or ceremonial, are republications of elemental law. Their forms may change, but the substance is eternal. Certain modes of expression, like the Mosaic system, may be abolished, but the essential demands are unchanging (Mat. 5:17, 18; cf. Eph. 2:15). From the imperfection of human language, no positive enactments are able to express in themselves the whole content and meaning of the elemental law. “It is not the purpose of revelation to disclose the whole of our duties.” Scripture is not a complete code of rules for practical action, but an enunciation of principles, with occasional precepts by way of illustration. Hence we must supplement the positive enactment by the law of being—the moral ideal found in the nature of God.

_Ez. 20:25_—“_Moreover also I gave them statutes that were not
good, and ordinances wherein they should not live_”; _Mat.
19:8_—“_Moses for your hardness of heart suffered you to put away
your wives_”; _Mark 10:5_—“_For your hardness of heart he wrote
you this commandment_”; _Mat. 5:17, 18_—“_Think not that I came to
destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to
fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass
away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the
law, till all things be accomplished_”; _cf._ _Eph. 2:15_—“_having
abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments
contained in ordinances_”; _Heb. 8:7_—“_if that first covenant had
been faultless, then would no place have been sought for a
second._” Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, 90—“After the
coming of the new covenant, the keeping up of the old was as
needless a burden as winter garments in the mild air of summer, or
as the attempt of an adult to wear the clothes of a child.”

Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:5-35—“Jesus repudiates for himself and
for his disciples absolute subjection to O. T. Sabbath law (_Mark
2:27_ _sq._); to O. T. law as to external defilements (_Mark
7:15_); to O. T. divorce law (_Mark 10:2_ _sq._). He would
‘_fulfil_’ law and prophets by complete practical performance of
the revealed will of God. He would bring out their inner meaning,
not by literal and slavish obedience to every minute requirement
of the Mosaic law, but by revealing in himself the perfect life
and work toward which they tended. He would perfect the O. T.
conceptions of God—not keep them intact in their literal form, but
in their essential spirit. Not by quantitative extension, but by
qualitative renewal, he would fulfil the law and the prophets. He
would bring the imperfect expression in the O. T. to perfection,
not by servile letter-worship or allegorizing, but through grasp
of the divine idea.”

Scripture is not a series of minute injunctions and prohibitions
such as the Pharisees and the Jesuits laid down. The Koran showed
its immeasurable inferiority to the Bible by establishing the
letter instead of the spirit, by giving permanent, definite, and
specific rules of conduct, instead of leaving room for the growth
of the free spirit and for the education of conscience. This is
not true either of O. T. or of N. T. law. In Miss Fowler’s novel
The Farringdons, Mrs. Herbert wishes “that the Bible had been
written on the principle of that dreadful little book called
‘Don’t,’ which gives a list of the solecisms you should avoid; she
would have understood it so much better than the present system.”
Our Savior’s words about giving to him that asketh, and turning
the cheek to the smiter (_Mat 5:39-42_) must be interpreted by the
principle of love that lies at the foundation of the law. Giving
to every tramp and yielding to every marauder is not pleasing our
neighbor “_for that which is good unto edifying_” (_Rom. 15:2_).
Only by confounding the divine law with Scripture prohibition
could one write as in N. Amer. Rev., Feb. 1890:275—“Sin is the
transgression of a divine law; but there is no divine law against
suicide; therefore suicide is not sin.”

The written law was imperfect because God could, at the time, give
no higher to an unenlightened people. “But to say that the _scope_
and _design_ were imperfectly moral, is contradicted by the whole
course of the history. We must ask what is the moral standard in
which this course of education issues.” And this we find in the
life and precepts of Christ. Even the law of repentance and faith
does not take the place of the old law of being, but applies the
latter to the special conditions of sin. Under the Levitical law,
the prohibition of the touching of the dry bone (_Num. 19:16_),
equally with the purifications and sacrifices, the separations and
penalties of the Mosaic code, expressed God’s holiness and his
repelling from him all that savored of sin or death. The laws with
regard to leprosy were symbolic, as well as sanitary. So church
polity and the ordinances are not arbitrary requirements, but they
publish to dull sense-environed consciences, better than abstract
propositions could have done, the fundamental truths of the
Christian scheme. Hence they are not to be abrogated “_till he
come_” (_1 Cor. 11:26_).

The Puritans, however, in reënacting the Mosaic code, made the
mistake of confounding the eternal law of God with a partial,
temporary, and obsolete expression of it. So we are not to rest in
external precepts respecting woman’s hair and dress and speech,
but to find the underlying principle of modesty and subordination
which alone is of universal and eternal validity. Robert Browning,
The Ring and the Book, 1:255—“God breathes, not speaks, his
verdicts, felt not heard—Passed on successively to each court, I
call Man’s conscience, custom, manners, all that make More and
more effort to promulgate, mark God’s verdict in determinable
words, Till last come human jurists—solidify Fluid results,—what’s
fixable lies forged, Statute,—the residue escapes in fume, Yet
hangs aloft a cloud, as palpable To the finer sense as word the
legist welds. Justinian’s Pandects only make precise What simply
sparkled in men’s eyes before, Twitched in their brow or quivered
on their lip, Waited the speech they called, but would not come.”
See Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, 104; Tulloch, Doctrine of
Sin, 141-144; Finney, Syst. Theol., 1-40, 135-319; Mansel,
Metaphysics, 378, 379; H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 191-195.

Paul’s injunction to women to keep silence in the churches (_1
Cor. 14:35_; _1 Tim. 2:11,12_) is to be interpreted by the larger
law of gospel equality and privilege (_Col. 3:11_). Modesty and
subordination once required a seclusion of the female sex which is
no longer obligatory. Christianity has emancipated woman and has
restored her to the dignity which belonged to her at the
beginning. “In the old dispensation Miriam and Deborah and Huldah
were recognized as leaders of God’s people, and Anna was a notable
prophetess in the temple courts at the time of the coming of
Christ. Elizabeth and Mary spoke songs of praise for all
generations. A prophecy of _Joel 2:28_ was that the daughters of
the Lord’s people should prophesy, under the guidance of the
Spirit, in the new dispensation. Philip the evangelist had ‘_four
virgin daughters, who prophesied_’ (_Acts 21:9_), and Paul
cautioned Christian women to have their heads covered when they
prayed or prophesied in public (_1 Cor. 11:5_), but had no words
against the work of such women. He brought Priscilla with him to
Ephesus, where she aided in training Apollos into better preaching
power (_Acts 18:26_). He welcomed and was grateful for the work of
those women who labored with him in the gospel at Philippi (_Phil.
4:3_). And it is certainly an inference from the spirit and
teachings of Paul that we should rejoice in the efficient service
and sound words of Christian women to-day in the Sunday School and
in the missionary field.” The command “_And he that heareth let
him say, Come_” (_Rev. 22:17_) is addressed to women also. See
Ellen Batelle Dietrick, Women in the Early Christian Ministry;
_per contra_, see G. F. Wilkin, Prophesying of Women, 183-193.

III. Relation of the Law to the Grace of God.

In human government, while law is an expression of the will of the governing power, and so of the nature lying behind the will, it is by no means an exhaustive expression of that will and nature, since it consists only of general ordinances, and leaves room for particular acts of command through the executive, as well as for “the institution of equity, the faculty of discretionary punishment, and the prerogative of pardon.”

Amos, Science of Law, 29-46, shows how “the institution of equity,
the faculty of discretionary punishment, and the prerogative of
pardon” all involve expressions of will above and beyond what is
contained in mere statute. Century Dictionary, on Equity: “English
law had once to do only with property in goods, houses and lands.
A man who had none of these might have an interest in a salary, a
patent, a contract, a copyright, a security, but a creditor could
not at common law levy upon these. When the creditor applied to
the crown for redress, a chancellor or keeper of the king’s
conscience was appointed, who determined what and how the debtor
should pay. Often the debtor was required to put his intangible
property into the hands of a receiver and could regain possession
of it only when the claim against it was satisfied. These
chancellors’ courts were called courts of equity, and redressed
wrongs which the common law did not provide for. In later times
law and equity are administered for the most part by the same
courts. The same court sits at one time as a court of law, and at
another time as a court of equity.” “Summa lex, summa injuria,” is
sometimes true.

Applying now to the divine law this illustration drawn from human law, we remark:

(_a_) The law of God is a _general_ expression of God’s will, applicable to all moral beings. It therefore does not include the possibility of special injunctions to individuals, and special acts of wisdom and power in creation and providence. The very specialty of these latter expressions of will prevents us from classing them under the category of law.

Lord Bacon, Confession of Faith: “The soul of man was not produced
by heaven or earth, but was breathed immediately from God; so the
ways and dealings of God with spirits are not included in nature,
that is, in the laws of heaven and earth, but are reserved to the
law of his secret will and grace.”

(_b_) The law of God, accordingly, is a _partial_, not an exhaustive, expression of God’s nature. It constitutes, indeed, a manifestation of that attribute of holiness which is fundamental in God, and which man must possess in order to be in harmony with God. But it does not fully express God’s nature in its aspects of personality, sovereignty, helpfulness, mercy.

The chief error of all pantheistic theology is the assumption that
law is an exhaustive expression of God: Strauss, Glaubenslehre,
1:31—“If nature, as the self-realization of the divine essence, is
equal to this divine essence, then it is infinite, and there can
be nothing above and beyond it.” This is a denial of the
transcendence of God (see notes on Pantheism, pages 100-105). Mere
law is illustrated by the Buddhist proverb: “As the cartwheel
follows the tread of the ox, so punishment follows sin.” Denovan:
“Apart from Christ, even if we have never yet broken the law, it
is only by steady and perfect obedience for the entire future that
we can remain justified. If we have sinned, we can be justified
[without Christ] only by suffering and exhausting the whole
penalty of the law.”

(_c_) Mere law, therefore, leaves God’s nature in these aspects of personality, sovereignty, helpfulness, mercy, to be expressed toward sinners in another way, namely, through the atoning, regenerating, pardoning, sanctifying work of the gospel of Christ. As creation does not exclude miracles, so law does not exclude grace (Rom. 8:3—“what the law could not do ... God” did).

Murphy, Scientific Bases, 303-327, esp. 315—“To impersonal law, it
is indifferent whether its subjects obey or not. But God desires,
not the punishment, but the destruction, of sin.” Campbell,
Atonement, Introd., 28—“There are two regions of the divine
self-manifestation, one the reign of law, the other the kingdom of
God.” C. H. M.: “Law is the transcript of the mind of God as to
what man ought to be. But God is not merely law, but love. There
is more in his heart than could be wrapped up in the ‘ten words.’
Not the law, but only Christ, is the perfect image of God” (_John
1:17_—“_For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came
through Jesus Christ_”). So there is more in man’s heart toward
God than exact fulfilment of requirement. The mother who
sacrifices herself for her sick child does it, not because she
must, but because she loves. To say that we are saved by grace, is
to say that we are saved both without merit on our own part, and
without necessity on the part of God. Grace is made known in
proclamation, offer, command; but in all these it is gospel, or
glad-tidings.

(_d_) Grace is to be regarded, however, not as abrogating law, but as republishing and enforcing it (Rom. 3:31—“we establish the law”). By removing obstacles to pardon in the mind of God, and by enabling man to obey, grace secures the perfect fulfilment of law (Rom. 8:4—“that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us”). Even grace has its law (Rom. 8:2—“the law of the Spirit of life”); another higher law of grace, the operation of individualizing mercy, overbears the “law of sin and of death,”—this last, as in the case of the miracle, not being suspended, annulled, or violated, but being merged in, while it is transcended by, the exertion of personal divine will.

Hooker, Eccl. Polity, 1:155, 185, 194—“Man, having utterly
disabled his nature unto those [natural] means, hath had other
revealed by God, and hath received from heaven a law to teach him
how that which is desired naturally, must now be supernaturally
attained. Finally, we see that, because those latter exclude not
the former as unnecessary, therefore the law of grace teaches and
includes natural duties also, such as are hard to ascertain by the
law of nature.” The truth is midway between the Pelagian view,
that there is no obstacle to the forgiveness of sins, and the
modern rationalistic view, that since law fully expresses God,
there can be no forgiveness of sins at all. Greg, Creed of
Christendom, 2:217-228—“God is the only being who cannot forgive
sins.... Punishment is not the execution of a sentence, but the
occurrence of an effect.” Robertson, Lect. on Genesis, 100—“Deeds
are irrevocable,—their consequences are knit up with them
irrevocably.” So Baden Powell, Law and Gospel, in Noyes’
Theological Essays, 27. All this is true if God be regarded as
merely the source of law. But there is such a thing as grace, and
grace is more than law. There is no forgiveness in nature, but
grace is above and beyond nature.

Bradford, Heredity, 233, quotes from Huxley the terrible
utterance: “Nature always checkmates, without haste and without
remorse, never overlooking a mistake, or making the slightest
allowance for ignorance.” Bradford then remarks: “This is
Calvinism with God left out. Christianity does not deny or
minimize the law of retribution, but it discloses a Person who is
able to deliver in spite of it. There is grace, but grace brings
salvation to those who accept the terms of salvation—terms
strictly in accord with the laws revealed by science.” God
revealed himself, we add, not only in law but in life; see _Deut.
1:6, 7_—“_Ye have dwelt long enough in this mountain_”—the
mountain of the law; “_turn you and take your journey_”—_i. e._,
see how God’s law is to be applied to life.

(_e_) Thus the revelation of grace, while it takes up and includes in itself the revelation of law, adds something different in kind, namely, the manifestation of the personal love of the Lawgiver. Without grace, law has only a demanding aspect. Only in connection with grace does it become “the perfect law, the law of liberty” (James 1:25). In fine, grace is that larger and completer manifestation of the divine nature, of which law constitutes the necessary but preparatory stage.

Law reveals God’s love and mercy, but only in their mandatory
aspect; it requires in men conformity to the love and mercy of
God; and as love and mercy in God are conditioned by holiness, so
law requires that love and mercy should be conditioned by holiness
in men. Law is therefore chiefly a revelation of holiness: it is
in grace that we find the chief revelation of love; though even
love does not save by ignoring holiness, but rather by vicariously
satisfying its demands. Robert Browning, Saul: “I spoke as I saw.
I report as man may of God’s work—All’s Love, yet all’s Law.”

Dorner, Person of Christ, 1:64, 78—“The law was a word (λόγος),
but it was not a λόγος τέλειος, a plastic word, like the words of
God that brought forth the world, for it was only imperative, and
there was no reality nor willing corresponding to the command
(_dem Sollen fehlte das Seyn, das Wollen_). The Christian λόγος is
λόγος ἀληθειας—νόμος τέλειος τῆς ἐλευθερίας—an operative and
effective word, as that of creation.” Chaucer, The Persones Tale:
“For sothly the lawe of God is the love of God.” S. S. Times,
Sept. 14, 1901:595—“Until a man ceases to be an outsider to the
kingdom and knows the liberty of the sons of God, he is apt to
think of God as the great Exacter, the great Forbidder, who reaps
where he has not sown and gathers where he has not strewn.”
Burton, in Bap. Rev., July, 1879:261-273, art.: Law and Divine
Intervention; Farrar, Science and Theology, 184; Salmon, Reign of
Law; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 1:31.