Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “The Law as Teacher”. I love the picture on the first page of this week’s lesson. The artist each week is challenged to convey in one picture the essence of the lesson. And this picture for this week is no exception. The Law as a mirror. But like any definition when it comes to God, we must be careful to refrain from confining God to a single-sided facet. God and his Law has many facets. And the beauty of His Law and our Father-God who would use Law for our benefit must never be limited… or misapplied. Because we are such sinners, we tend to misunderstand the true nature of true love (the reason for the “Law”). And misunderstand God’s use of Law, too. As Paul says, “… the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24). It is truly our “schoolmaster” or “tutor. But Paul goes on to say, “But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor” (Galatians 3:25) or no longer under the Law. No wonder our fellow Christians claim that the “10 Commandments” have been abolished for those who believe in Christ. We Adventists have sometimes stated that it was the Ceremonial Law that was abolished by Christ. True. But so was the 10 Commandments “abolished” by faith in Christ, too. Before you stop reading here, let me explain. Explain how all Law is “abolished” by a faith relationship with our God.
At the Minneapolis General Conference session of 1888, a controversy roiled over which law was “added because of transgression” (Galatians 3:19). The rank and file “brethren” of the church maintained that this referred to the Ceremonial Law. Our 2 stalwart reformers (Jones and Waggoner) maintained it referred to the moral law… the Ten Commandments. Both opposite opinions have continued down the years to our day, despite EGW’s plain determination given at that time and repeated in print in 1958 in “Selected Messages, Book One”. The issue seems to whirl-around the word “until” found in Galatians 3:19, quoted here: “What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, until the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator”. Some, believing that the word “until” in verse 19 indicates that this law was only temporary, have thought the passage must refer to the Ceremonial Law, because the purpose of that law was fulfilled at the cross and thus came to an end. However, while both the Ceremonial and Moral law of 10 Commandments were ‘added’ at Sinai because of transgression, the 10 Commandments were given, Paul says, “to increase the trespass” (Romans 5:20); that is, to show us more clearly the sin in our lives (Romans 7:13). The Ceremonial law can show us this only partially, not more clearly. It therefore must refer to the moral law, the Ten Commandments.
In the wake of the 1888 general conference, the debate over which “law” was added intensified; which “law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ that we may be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24)? EGW was finally consulted. “I am asked concerning the law in Galatians. What law is the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ? I answer: Both the ceremonial and the moral code of Ten Commandments” (Selected Messages Book One pg. 233). And if this is not plain enough, she repeats it because it is so important.
“In this scripture, the Holy Spirit through the apostle is speaking especially of the moral law. The law reveals sin to us, and causes us to feel our need of Christ and to flee unto Him for pardon and peace by exercising repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. An unwillingness to yield up preconceived opinions, and to accept this truth, lay at the foundation of a large share of the opposition manifested at Minneapolis against the Lord's message through Brethren [E.J.] Waggoner and [A.T.] Jones. By exciting that opposition Satan succeeded in shutting away from our people, in a great measure, the special power of the Holy Spirit that God longed to impart to them. The enemy prevented them from obtaining that efficiency which might have been theirs in carrying the truth to the world, as the apostles proclaimed it after the day of Pentecost. The light that is to lighten the whole earth with its glory was resisted, and by the action of our own brethren has been in a great degree kept away from the world” (Selected Messages, Book One pg. 234-5).
No mincing of words here by EGW! If we maintain that the moral law, the Ten Commandments, is NOT what is intended by Paul in this Epistle to the Galatians (and to us), we are resisting “light” she says. “Light that is to lighten the whole earth”, she says. We are “shutting away from our people, in a great measure, the special power of the Holy Spirit that God longed to impart to them”, she says. How so? Is this a mere “splitting of theological hairs”? Why is this so important?
As Paul rhetorically asks in Galatians 3:2, “Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith”? And this underscores why it is important to understand that Paul is talking about the Ten Commandments in the Book of Galatians. If we think that Paul is merely referring to the ceremonial law, then we can be guilty of believing that obeying the moral law can bring to us the “Spirit” and “the fruit of the Spirit (which) is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control… (only the Spirit can bring us this fruit, because) against such there is no law” (Galatians 5: 22-23). {PLEASE CATCH THIS. PAUL USES A DOUBLE NEGATIVE HERE. HE IS SAYING THAT THE LAW DOES NOT BRING US THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT}. The Pharisees proved to the world that obeying the Ten Commandments in order to achieve righteousness by merely obeying that law does not work. “But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets...” (Romans 3:21). The righteousness described by the law is not achieved by the works of the law. But is witnessed by that very Law. The Law that convicts you of sin has no power to relieve you of that sin.
The claim by almost all of the Christian world that the moral law was done away with at the cross, is one way of resolving the moral law problem. As sinners who have violated that law, abolishing that law is one very appealing way of solving the problem. As a speeder on the highway that violates the speed laws and has to pay the fines for it, abolishing the speed laws is one way of resolving the speeding problem. Such is the spiritual reasoning of the Christian world. Along with this is the fallacious idea from the Christian world that any penalties for sin are paid for by Christ who forgives all sinning. Again, using the speeding analogy, the speeding laws are abolished and even if you speed, Christ pays your fine and forgives you for the speeding. This very popular notion is one that preserves your self-centeredness and your self focused autonomy. We Americans love this idea. No personal responsibility and no laws to live by. Woo- hoo!
But this is not the understanding that Paul is promoting in the books of Galatians and Romans. The righteousness that the Spirit inspires is witnessed by the Law and the Prophets. So instead of abolishing the law to remove the offense, we become law-abiders in the true sense. Thus through the Spirit the law is fulfilled in us and we are no longer “under” the Law. There is no offense because we are “in” the law. “If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law” (Galatians 5:18), but are fully “in” the law, conformed to the very essence and principle of the law, which is love. God does not abolish the moral law, but makes you a law-abider by creating in you the very loving motivation that is the law. The law itself is powerless to do this. It is the work of God Himself, received intimately, finding a home in you. In this way, the 10 Commandments and all law are “abolished” as law. Because they are no longer laws imposed from outside of you but principles enshrined within you. ONCE AGAIN, THE LAW CEASES TO BE LAW. THE LAW IS TRANSFORMED INTO THE LOVE PRINCIPLE IN YOUR HEART, ESTABLISHED BY A FAITH RELATIONSHIOP WITH GOD.
As Paul asserts, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Galatians 3:10). The curse, then, is not the moral law. The “curse” is being unable to do the moral law, unable to continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. Unable to love. Not having the Law within you which “is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (quoted above). And any of us who have not His Spirit know first-hand how accursed you really feel when you are not motivated by the Holy Spirit of love. What a cursed life it is without the re-creation found only by faith in God to do this in you. Let us pray with David, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalms 51:10). It is the only way to be out from under the moral law, as law… to have its principles enshrined in your heart… to be in the Law. Says our Lord and Savior, “For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled” (Matthew 5:18). And it can only be fulfilled in you when you by faith trust God to do in you what that law is powerless to do… witnessed by that very law.
With brotherly love,
Jim