Ministration of Death and the Ministration of the Spirit — Law and Citizenship — Pardons — Ordained to Life
By T. H. STARBUCK
“Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.” Rom. 3:31. Sin is antinomian in its tendencies; and in our excessively antinomian age, we hear even teachers of the Word contending that the law of God was abolished at the cross. This is especially true when the claims of the fourth commandment are taught as binding under the Christian dispensation. The contention is that Christians are under grace, and not under the exactions of law; but this is certainly an error, as the following will show:
DISESTABLISHED IN THE UNBELIEVER
The scripture previously quoted proves that faith establishes the law. That being true, in the unbeliever the law is disestablished, or is not operating normally. Sin does not take the transgressor from under the dominion of the law, but so changes his relation to it that he is under its ministration of death; “for the wages of sin is death.”
The Scriptures voice this truth: “Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?” Rom. 7:1. The illustration which follows shows that its dominion holds both in a state of sin and in a state of righteousness. There are but two conditions under which a person can stand related to the divine law: first, the relation of obedience; second, that of disobedience. In both states, the law’s dominion holds secure while the individual lives. It is very evident, then, that the believer is under a dominion in which the righteousness of the law is established in his life, while the sinner is under a dominion in which condemnation is established; and the inevitable fiat in the former case is life, while in the latter it is death. From this, we know that the divine law is capable of two ministrations.
THE TWO MINISTRATIONS EMPHASIZED
The third chapter of 2 Corinthians enforces the foregoing conclusion, showing that the two conditions previously mentioned are named the ministration of death, or of condemnation, and the ministration of the spirit, or of righteousness, which is practically the ministration of life. This is all perfectly consistent and natural in regard to law. The same is true of human law. In fact, no law is of any value unless it is capable of two ministrations. This same scripture teaches that the ministration of death is disannulled in the believer through faith in Christ, and that the ministration of the spirit takes the place of that which was disannulled. This argument of the apostle differs verbally from that which he uses in Rom. 7:1, but its meaning is precisely the same,—that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives; hence it is evident that every member of Adam’s race is under one or the other of these two ministrations of divine law.
OBEDIENCE TO THE LAW AND CITIZENSHIP
Here is an illustration which the rational mind can easily comprehend: When a citizen of the state violates the law, he is punished or corrected by the law that he transgressed, not by some other law, or without law. After receiving his punishment, if he is restored to citizenship, his relation to the law is precisely what it was before he violated it; and every intelligent mind knows that he cannot retain that relation and his citizenship without obedience to the laws of the state.
THE LAW OF PARDONS
It is also true that under certain conditions, the governor of the state can legally pardon a criminal, while he is serving his sentence of punishment. In such a case, the pardon disannuls the ministration of punishment, and restores the individual to the ministration of liberty and citizenship that he enjoyed before he violated the law.
The principle of the divine government is similar to that of the human. The subjects of divine government are free and in a condition of endless life by means of the divine law. If, however, they transgress that law, punishment becomes inevitable, and they lose their rights and immunities as citizens, and become alienated under sin and death. The law which was life to them while they were in a state of loyalty, now becomes the means whereby they are punished. In that state of alienation, the gospel offers them pardon on condition that they repent and become obedient to the law. If the sinner accepts the proffered conditions, his faith, in cooperation with the divine pardon, disannuls the ministration of death which he was under, and he passes naturally under the ministration of righteousness and life.
MINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT COMES AT ONCE
It is thus evident that the ministration of death can be done away in Christ; but the ministration of the spirit immediately takes its place. If this transaction could not take place in the divine economy, sinners could not be saved. It is a provision of divine mercy. Acceptance of gospel terms means salvation; but this work can be done for sinners only by a judicious use of the law, which will reveal to them their sins, and also the righteousness of the Author of the law, and the desirability of becoming citizens of His government rather than aliens under its wrath.
When the sinner is thus restored to citizenship in the kingdom of heaven, his relation to the law will be exactly what it would have been had he never fallen into a state of sin; and the law which he had violated, is a chief agent in bringing about that happy change. The aim of the law is righteousness and life; and the purpose of the gospel is exactly the same. There is no conflict between them; and the gospel uses the law as its efficient agency. The law and the gospel are inseparably connected in the plan of salvation. “The law worketh wrath; for where no law is, there is no transgression.” Rom. 4:15. Were there no law, there could be no sin, and there would be no need of the gospel. Hence the existence of the gospel proves that the law also exists, and that there can be no abolition of its claims; and as the gospel is specially designed for the present age, the law still prevails with unabated force.
ORDAINED TO LIFE
The law is essential to life, for righteousness springs from obedience to its claims. “In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.” Prov. 12:28. Sinners have forfeited all claim to endless life, because they have gone outside of the pathway of life by entering upon the way of transgression. The law is ordained to life. Rom. 7:10. Those who place themselves in the way of obedience, thus come into the way of eternal life. There is no way or possibility of placing the sinner in the path ordained to life without making him loyal to the law of life; and no agency aside from the law can do that work.
The law is the right arm of the gospel. The two are so related that there can be no antagonism or separation between them. The word of God is very clear on this point, testifying that “the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” In the New Testament, the apostle, speaking of conversion from sin, affirms that “the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” Gal. 3:24. And again it is asserted that the purpose of the law is the righteousness of Christ. Rom. 10:4.
POWER REPRESENTED BY LAW
Within the jurisdiction of a state, its power is represented by its laws; and this is also true of the kingdom of heaven. The sustaining, governing power of God is inherent in His laws; for they are the agencies by which He is working out His eternal designs. The law ordained to life is the power of a sinless life; and as a repentant sinner553returns to Christ by the act of faith, he is brought under the efficiency of that power. Jesus said: “He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” John 5:24. Paul affirms that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” Here he refers to the abolition of the “ministration of death,” which is accomplished when the sinner comes into Christ by the act of faith and obedience. A return to the primitive state of obedience is the only possible way of salvation.
God cannot change His form of government, nor abate the righteous claims of His law in order to save the sinner. Conversion is a miracle of divine grace, when we realize that God uses the law against which the “carnal mind” is at enmity, to slay that enmity, and establish the soul in harmony with the righteousness of His moral government.
The moral law is a revelation of divine attributes. It is not all stern justice; the attribute of mercy as well is revealed in it. A law with only stern justice in it cannot fitly reveal the character of God. To be perfect, a law must also reveal the attribute of mercy. A truthful representation of divine government teaches that its laws dispense mercy as well as justice to repentant sinners. “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” Rom. 3:20. It reveals the righteousness of Christ. It shows, through the gospel, that God is merciful to such as love Him; and it is the agent in His hand for the destruction of the carnal nature, to bring the soul into harmony with God.
We cannot marvel that the apostle to the gentiles contends that faith establishes the law.
BAPTISM IS A BURIAL
By H. G. Thurston
Fitting Symbol of the Death to Sin — More than a Few Drops Required to Plant and to Bury
By H. G. THURSTON
It seems that many people must have overlooked the real significance of the sacred and important rite of baptism; for there are some modes in use among those desiring to follow Jesus which are not taught in the Scriptures and are entirely foreign to the real meaning of the ordinance. In Rom. 6:1-4, the mode of baptism is illustrated by a sad but most familiar occurrence among all nations.
“BURIED WITH HIM”
We read: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” This language is plain. The burial service is here used to illustrate what baptism is, and what it means.
In burial, the dead are placed under the ground — entirely surrounded by earth. No one would think of placing a few small pinches of dust, or even a handful of earth, upon the head of a corpse, and declaring the burial finished. What funeral director would leave a dead body in the cemetery under such a condition, and report the body buried? And as we all conclude this is not at all proper in things earthly, how do we expect a similar course in things spiritual will please God?
As a fitting burial should be provided the dead, even so God has made known a most appropriate manner of burial to all who, hearing God's voice, and leaving their former service of sin, by faith accept Him as their portion, that they may forever be united with Him in this new life, and be heirs with Him of all His great possessions of wealth, and beauty, and life, and love. God Himself has used the burial service as a symbol of this great change and the proper manner of celebrating it.
For further and conclusive proof that water baptism, as taught in the divine Word, is by immersion only, we examine the records, and find that many people were baptized in the river Jordan (Mark 1:5), and that Christ was Himself baptized in Jordan (verse 9), and that after He was baptized in Jordan, He came up out of the water (verse 10).
WENT DOWN INTO THE WATER
Another plain record is given in Acts 8:38, 39. We are here told that “they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch. . . . And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip,” and the eunuch “went on his way rejoicing.” This was truly a most remarkable occurrence. This Ethiopian eunuch learned of Jesus, accepted Him by faith, and obeyed God by being baptized in water. He arose from his water burial to a new life, and went on his way rejoicing. Philip was caught away by the Spirit, and was carried by divine transportation to another field of loving labor for his Master. Both had obeyed the divine instruction and were truly happy.
Had Philip followed some notion of his own in the method of baptism as “just as good as the right one,” who can believe he would have had that wonderful journey through the air, borne by the eternal Spirit! Philip had obeyed the great commission to teach and baptize (Matt. 28:19), and was blessed. He who was baptized in strict harmony with God's plan was also blessed.
Further testimony is found in John 3:23, where it is written that John was baptizing in a certain place because there was “much water.” Some modes of baptism certainly do not require “much water.”
PLANTED IN HIS LIKENESS
Another figure is used in the book of Romans, chapter six, to illustrate what baptism really is. We read in verse 5, “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death,” etc. It is truly possible to be “planted together” with Him “in the likeness of His death” in a river of water, after experiencing the death agonies when we died to sin; but where is the likeness when but a small glass of water is used?
No intelligent farmer, expecting a profitable crop, would take a basket of dust and proceed to sprinkle but a small pinch upon the kernels of corn in the field in planting time. It would be a hard matter to convince him that there would be much profitable likeness in that to real planting.
In the matter of baptism, strict, childlike obedience always brings a blessing, while substitutes do not always bring the longed for peace.
SUGGESTS CLEANSING
Water suggests cleansing, and is repeatedly used in the Scriptures as an emblem of cleansing from sin; and while no possible amount of water can take away sin, it would hardly be possible to cleanse a man's body with a few drops of water, or by a small amount poured upon his head; but he might be cleansed by having sufficient to surround his entire body. Even so, God has given us, in baptism, the complete submerging of the body in water, to represent most fittingly that every member of the body — the entire being — is involved in the mighty work of God in the man, so that now, soul and body and spirit — the man — are henceforth wholly the Lord's, the body itself being the temple of the Holy Ghost. 1 Cor. 6:19, 20.
WHY SUNDAY LAWS ARE WRONG
By A. G. D.
They Persecute—They Invade Our Rights and Our Consciences—They Are Religious Legislation, and Show Favoritism
SUNDAY legislation is wrong. It can only work injustice to the citizens of the state. It is therefore to be condemned. The following are some of the evils of Sunday legislation:
1. It is religious legislation.
2. It favors one class of citizens above another in matters of religion.
3. It invades the sacred precincts of the conscience.
4. It deprives men of their individual rights.
5. It leads to religious persecution.
This, we know, is a severe indictment against Sunday legislation; but we believe that each count can be sustained by plain, undeniable facts.
RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION
1. Sunday legislation is religious legislation. This is true from the fact that the Sunday institution is a religious institution. And it is on this ground that Sunday laws are made, and enforced on the citizens of the state. Said Joseph Cook, in one of his Boston Monday lectures in 1887, “The experience of centuries shows that you will in vain endeavor to preserve Sunday as a day of rest, unless it is as a day of worship.”
Dr. Everts says of Sunday: “This day is set apart for divine worship and preparation for another life. It is the test of all religion.”
Of the basis on which Sunday legislation rests, the American Sabbath Union says: “A weekly day of rest has never been permanently secured in any land except on the basis of religious obligations. Take the religion out, and you take the rest out.”
Section 1 of the present Sunday law of England and the colonies requires “that all and every person and persons whatsoever shall, on every Lord’s day, apply themselves thereon in the duties of piety and true religion, publicly and privately.”
From these quotations, it is plain that Sunday is a religious institution, that Sunday laws are religious laws, and that Sunday legislation is an attempt to enforce religion by the power of civil government.
IT SHOWS FAVORITISM
2. Sunday legislation favors one class of citizens above another in matters of religion. All religious legislation discriminates in favor of a class. In no state are the citizens all agreed in matters of religion. Some are religious, and some are not religious. And those who are religious do not by any means all hold the same views of religion.
With reference to a day of rest there are at least three classes,—Sabbatarians, Sunday observers, and those who do not believe in nor observe any day as sacred. Sabbatarians observe the seventh day. Sunday observers regard the first day as sacred. Worldlings or non-professors do not regard either day. It is, then, as plain as facts can demonstrate, that Sunday legislation discriminates in favor of a class, namely, Sunday observers.
But all such discrimination is unjust. It is contrary to the principles of good government. Religion is a man’s personal relation of faith and obedience to God. With this relation, civil government should have nothing whatever to do.
AN INVADER OF THE CONSCIENCE
3. Sunday legislation invades the consciences of citizens. This is true of all religious legislation. Religion pertains to the conscience. It is a matter of faith. “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” All true religious service must be voluntary. It must spring from the heart, and be performed in love.
But men cannot love what they do not believe in, nor what they believe to be wrong. To observe outwardly any religious institution in which a man has no faith, or which he believes to be wrong, is hollow mockery. To attempt to compel men against their consciences to render such outward observance is to outrage the conscience. It is to rob men of their dearest and most sacred right.
There is no more reason nor justice in attempting to enforce Sunday or Sabbath observance than in attempting to enforce any other religious dogma. The Sabbatic institution, like baptism, is purely religious. The only authority for either is the word of God. The moment it is conceded to be the state’s duty to enforce the Sabbatic institution, that moment it must be conceded to be the state’s duty to enforce the institution of baptism. Both institutions were established by Christ, both are enjoined in the Scripture, both are religious, and both are a matter of faith with men. Neither can be truly and acceptably observed without faith.
THE POLICEMAN TO ENFORCE BAPTISM
Take, as an illustration, the institution of baptism. Some believe in it; others reject it altogether. Those who believe in it, differ as to what it is. Some hold that it is immersion; others hold that sprinkling answers every purpose. Every one can see that for the legislative branch of civil government to pass a law commanding every one of its citizens to be sprinkled, would be monstrous. What a pitiful spectacle it would be to see the police dragging unbelievers to the police courts to be prosecuted and fined for refusing to be sprinkled! What a travesty on religion! What an outrage on the conscience!
But what is the difference in principle between Sabbath laws and baptismal laws? Both are purely religious, and there is the same difference of opinion among men respecting each. Civil government by right has no more to do with one than with the other. It is no more unjust to compel men to be sprinkled than to compel them to observe Sunday.
The great object of civil government is to protect men in the enjoyment of their rights. Freedom of conscience is one of these rights, and it is one of the dearest to the individual. To enforce any feature of religion by civil law upon the conscience, is not the protection but the invasion of rights. This is a perversion of the power committed to civil government.
DEPRIVES MEN OF THEIR RIGHTS
4. Sunday legislation deprives men of their individual rights. We have already shown that it invades the conscience, and thus robs men of their most sacred rights. But it goes further, and interferes with other rights. For instance, the fourth commandment of the Decalogue says: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work.” Ex. 20: 8-10.555
There are those who conscientiously observe the seventh day of the week according to the reading of this command. Having refrained from labor on the seventh day, they have the right, according to this divine law, to pursue their vocations on the other six days. This is a right given them by the Author of the Sabbatic institution. It is not the design of the Creator that men should spend their time in idleness; hence He commands them to work six days. Now, when the state steps in and prohibits them from doing so, it takes away a right granted by the Lord.
Nor is that all. It interferes with their liberty to obtain the necessaries of life. Six days of labor are necessary to most men in order to provide properly for those who are dependent upon them. God has recognized this, and granted men the right to work six days. But Sunday legislation ignores this right, and seeks to prevent a certain class from doing so. This is clearly unjust.
BRINGS RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
5. Sunday legislation leads to religious persecution. It is an expression, by one class of citizens, that another class should and must be religious, and that they must be religious according to the ideas of those who secure the legislation. On the results of this theory, John Stuart Mill makes the following truthful remark:
“The notion that it is one man’s duty that another should be religious was the foundation of all the religious persecutions ever perpetrated, and if admitted, would fully justify them.”
—Essay on Liberty.
Law means force. The object of Sunday laws is to compel men to keep Sunday. Those who, from conscientious scruples, cannot do so, are treated by their fellows as criminals. They are taken to the courts, prosecuted, and fined. They are deprived of their property or their liberty, simply because they cannot agree with some of their neighbors on matters of religion. This is cruel. It is religious persecution.
Thus we find that on every count, Sunday legislation stands condemned. Sunday laws cannot make men love Sunday.
A. G. D.
THE EARTH AND THE SANCTUARY
By L. A. R.
The word “sanctuary” occurs one hundred and forty-four times in the Bible. Our word “sanctuary” is derived from a similar Latin word, and is directly related to the Latin sanctus, holy. In the Hebrew, it has the same meaning—a holy or a sacred place. This holiness or sacredness is due to its being the dwelling place of God. Ex. 25:8 plainly expresses this thought: “Let them make Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.”
How could this earth answer such a definition? This earth is not the dwelling place of God. It is neither a holy nor a sacred place. God set apart a building in the old dispensation, where He could appear with the Shekinah of His presence of visible glory. This place was holy. It must be treated exactly as God would be treated. All the ceremonies and rites connected with it had direct reference to God’s presence manifested there. Isa. 60:13 is the only text in the Bible, so far as we know, that is put forward as proving that the earth is a sanctuary; but it merely speaks of the place of the sanctuary. Ex. 15:17 and Ps. 78:54, 69 are the texts relied upon to prove that the land of Canaan is the sanctuary; but these texts, carefully read, show that there is no such teaching in the Scriptures.
THE COURT OF THE GENTILES
Rev. 11:1, 2 shows that the court of the sanctuary alone represented this earth. The court was the part given over to the gentiles. The Jewish building called the sanctuary was a shadow or type of realities. It signified actual things and events. We are told in Hebrews that it was a figure of the true.
In thinking for a few moments of the sanctuary, its vessels, its apartments, and its service, we see that it typifies man’s means of access to God. The court is where the sacrifice is offered. Christ died on this earth. The altar of sacrifice was in the court of the typical sanctuary. Outside the court were the sinners—the inhabitants of this world. They came to the court—the place on this earth where sacrifice was offered—and thus came in touch with the ministration of Christ, which includes the ministration of angels, and the linking up of the believer with God.
GOD’S THRONE REPRESENTED
The most holy place, with the Shekinah, in the earthly sanctuary, represents the actual throne of God in heaven; and the first apartment represents man’s acceptance with this holy God, and his communication, through Christ, with God upon the throne. For example, in the first apartment was the altar of incense; and this incense, we are told, represents the righteousness of Christ, and it is offered with the prayers of the saints. The light, according to the book of Revelation and the book of Zechariah, represents the life and Spirit of God ministered through the Word to His children. The shewbread in the first apartment is the link between God and man, and that link is Christ. He is Jacob’s ladder. The angels ascend and descend upon the Son of man; and Christ is in heaven, and His ministration is in heaven. Thus the first apartment cannot in any sense represent this earth.
As we have said, this world is represented by the court where the sacrifice was offered, and in that court are the sinners who are to come and accept the sacrifice, and the spiritual sacrifice of Christ is ours wherever we may be in this world, if we want it. Read Heb. 13:11–13 and you will see that Christ was offered outside the camp, or sanctuary. That is, He was not only outside the walls of Jerusalem, the sacred city, outside of the sanctuary, the sacred building, but He was outside of heaven, so that He conformed in this both to the earthly type and to the heavenly antitype.
Then comes the admonition that like Him we are to go forth without the camp, bearing His reproach. Where we bear reproach is in this world, among sinners. Hence the statement that we are to go without the camp—that is, out of the sanctuary—into the world, is plain enough to show that this world is not the camp, or the sanctuary.
Now, there is a sense in which we are or may be in the sanctuary. It is said that we are made to sit in heavenly places in Christ, but this is because we are represented in heaven by Christ. Our names are there, our lives are there, our Advocate is there. On this point see Col. 3:1–4. This explains a number of scriptures which show that while we are in the world, we are not to be of the world. “Our citizenship is in heaven.” Phil. 3:20. He has “made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places.” Eph. 2:6. God has “delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.” Col. 1:13.
Thus the place of life, the place of communion of the Spirit—the very things signified in the first apartment of the earthly sanctuary—is called, in the New Testament, the heavenly places—heaven itself. And there can be no doubt whatever that the second apartment represents the actual presence of God Himself. So in type we have, outside, the court as the place of sinners, the place where the sinner seeks access to God and offers the sacrifice acceptable to God. And having done this through his priest, who now is Christ, he enters into actual communion with God. This communion is typified by the shewbread, and by the light of the candlestick burning with its continually supplied oil, and by the incense, which represents the prayer as offered to God, mingled with the character of Christ—in other words, His intercession.
Thus viewed, the sanctuary is, as it were, a beautiful object lesson of faith, of Christian experience. But there are those who reject it, in order to carry out a theory and prove a mere dogma. They wish to show that the earth is to be destroyed by fire soon; and they want to use the text, “The sanctuary shall be cleansed,” to carry out that doctrine. But the light is clear and plain. The scriptures already mentioned, make this very apparent.
L. A. R.
Question Corner
By M. C. Wilcox
Conducted by M. C. Wilcox
170 — LOVING AND HATING
It is often said that God hates evil. Can we image God in this thing? To put it in few words, does man image God in love and hate toward man in the degree that man embodies good and evil? W. E. F.
God is love, and love includes all good. What is contrary to that is evil, wicked, sinful. In the very nature of the case, God must repudiate evil. He cannot look upon it with any degree of allowance, because it is contrary to everything in His nature. But God does not hate man. In His great love, He is doing all that He can to save humanity from evil. He looks upon sinful humanity, those who are satiated with evil, so to speak, and sees in them the possibility of eternal glory and goodness if they will but yield it all, that He may work in them His own character; and the child of God in whom that character is transplanted will have the same disposition that God has. He will hate evil. In other words, he will supremely love God, and there will be in his mind no place for evil, but he will love the sinner because God loves him and gave His Son to save him.
Never will the time come that God will hate the sinner, until the sinner fully identifies himself with sin, and then he must be destroyed, with all the evil of the universe.
That hatred of evil and everything unlike perfection, of course, will continue not only in God, but in His children. It will not be in their hearts in the sense of an active hatred. That is not the thought of it. Everything unlike God’s character would be repulsive to them; consequently they will never yield to it, nor will they in the eternal kingdom of God ever see it. It will not come into their thoughts.
171 — IN THE WORLD TO COME
Please explain Isa. 65: 25. It seems to indicate that there will be beasts in the new world, and Isa. 35: 9 seems to indicate there will not be. B. G. B.
We will better comprehend all these promises in the Old Testament if we will recognize that they are connected many times with double prophecies—prophecies of what God would do with His children back there if they would not yield to Him. There would have come transformation not only in man, but in the land itself, through that Jewish people, if they had given themselves to God; and the prophecies of some of the seemingly grosser, material things, which to our minds are not consonant with heaven, would have been fulfilled through them upon this earth. But inasmuch as the people did not do their part, God’s promise still holds.
There will be the new inheritance, and He will have a people that will inhabit it. There will be a new heaven and a new earth; and in that new heaven and new earth, there will be perfect peace. The very animal kingdom itself will not know war nor strife. Wolf and lamb, lion and bullock, will feed together, and the destruction of life for food will be forever past. Doubtless there will be animals in the new earth, because they were in the earth when it came from the hands of God. We know that they will not be there with the natures they now possess. To this Isa. 35: 9 refers. There will be no ravenous beast there. Whatever there is of animal life will be in perfect harmony with God’s will.
We apprehend that the whole difficulty lies in the expression “the end of the law.” “For Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to every one that believeth. For Moses writeth that the man that doeth the righteousness which is of the law shall live thereby.” The whole book of Romans is set before us to show that man’s only hope is in Jesus Christ and in the righteousness of God through Him. All are lost without Him; all are sinners against God. Rom. 3: 23. It is God’s desire to lead men from that sinful condition to a condition of salvation and righteousness, and He does this through the Lord Jesus Christ. But in order that men may be led to Christ, they must see that they are sinners. The object of the law is to show man that he is a sinner, that he is shut up in sin, that there is no hope for him at all in that sinful condition, and to lead him to seek Christ as the only Saviour. Of course, if man could in and of himself keep the righteousness of the law, he would live by it, because the law “was ordained to life.” Rom. 7: 10. But inasmuch as man cannot do that of himself, as the apostle Paul found in his vain struggles, Christ comes in to help every soul, and to bestow the righteousness of God by faith upon the soul who believes.
The word “end” is used in the text, therefore, in the sense of object or purpose. It does not mean that the law there came to an end, but that Christ is the object of the law, the One to whom the law leads, the One to whom the law brings the sinner. “End” is used in the same way in common conversation, as for instance, “To what end do you do this?” See James 5: 11: “Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord.” This does not mean that the Lord there came to an end, but it has reference to the Lord’s object or purpose in afflicting Job.
This end, or object, of the law is shown in Romans 7—a record of how Paul tried to do the law, but found all his efforts utter failure. At last he came to the place where he saw Jesus Christ. The same God who condemned Paul through the law, through that condemnation led him to Jesus, who was able to save him from it. The same thing is taught in Galatians 3. In verse 22, the apostle says that the Scriptures shut up all things under sin. The thought is of men in a prison house. It shuts them up there in order that they may see that in themselves there is no hope, and “that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.” Before faith comes to the soul, he is, so to speak, kept “under ward.” Therefore the law is become to the sinner a tutor, schoolmaster, pedagogue, “to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” See Gal. 3: 22-24.
The object of God’s law is, then, to bring us to Christ. That is what Rom. 10: 4 teaches. When we are brought to Christ, He places upon us the righteousness which the law demands, and the law becomes our witness, to show that that is the same righteousness that is in the law. Therefore the law cannot condemn us. See Rom. 3: 21, 22: “But now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe; for there is no distinction.”
Thus the soul who is in Christ Jesus is not “under the law.” In other words, the law does not condemn him, does not hold over him the sword of punishment. On the other hand, the law is with him. The Spirit of Christ places it in the believer’s heart, and the believer finds the law a blessed witness that he is in harmony with the righteousness of God.
