THE LAW OF GOD ABOLISHED! by R. F. Cottrell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, March 10, 1885.

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 62, No. 10. Whole No. 1605.

THE LAW OF GOD ABOLISHED!

By R. F. Cottrell

THE primary law, the moral code, the ten commandments, gone by the board, superseded, swept out of existence! That law, the transgression of which by men caused the death of the Son of God for their redemption, impiously and blasphemously declared to be nailed to the cross! Such a thought never entered an unsophisticated mind. Men must close the eyes of their understanding, and be blinded by an evil spirit, or the spirit of evil, before they can be led to entertain such a thought. Should a man designedly put out his physical eyes, all would say he was insane. And it must be a moral insanity only that can lead men to charge God with the folly of giving a law with his own voice, and writing it with his own hand, which is a code of moral precepts, as all can see who will look at it, which in after ages would need revision, or to be utterly abolished to make room for a “higher law,” which, by the way, has never yet made its appearance.

No man having the eyes of his understanding open could ever take such a position. Hence when we meet with such we may be sure that they are spiritually blind and morally insane.

To every healthy mind it is self-evident that the law of the only living and true God, a God who knows the end from the beginning, is perpetual in its duration, and unchangeable in its requirements. Nothing but blindness of mind, the fruit of “deceitfulness of sin,” could ever have called in question a truth so obvious to every candid and unfettered mind. That the law of God should be eternal in its duration and unchangeable in its precepts, must be evident to every mind that has any just idea of the character of the all-wise everlasting God.

And when we appeal to the Scriptures, the first impressions of the unperverted mind are confirmed by the most clear and explicit declarations. When the words of an apostle are wrested and perverted to prove that the primary law of God was nailed by his Son to the cross, we have only to hear what Jesus himself says on this very point: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, and the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

The Jews knew what Jesus meant by this. It existed among them written in Hebrew characters. A merely oral law has no jots and tittles. It can refer to no other law before published than the Hebrew but the immortal precepts written by the finger of God. None who would deny it can find a law to which the language can possibly apply; for if applied to that which was nailed to the cross, after three years and a half it would not be true. It is a law that must endure while heaven and earth pass.”

The scribes and Pharisees professed a righteousness in harmony with every precept of the law; but the Christian whose righteousness does not exceed theirs,—which does not bring him nearer to this divine standard by which all are to be judged,—“shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” R. F. COTTRELL.