"Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law." Romans iii:31.

HE meanings of the three terms, law, faith and grace, as used by Paul, are not especially difficult to understand. Wrong conceptions of their use, however, have given rise to false teaching on the subject of salvation from sin. Paul writes in Romans iii:20--"Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight." Also, in Romans vi:14--"For ye are not under the law but under grace." Some conclude from these assertions that, because the Jewish law as such was abolished, nothing contained in it, not even its moral element, is of any force. Others conclude that grace is opposed to all law, and that a Christian is wholly released from all law of every kind; that he must be entirely controlled by spirit impulses, which he is to woo for himself by means of prayer alone; that, if he does anything else, he is in danger of legalism; that confession and baptism cannot enter into a man's justification because they are works, and that, if he in any way depends on them, he relies on his own works. This is all wrong, and Paul is careful to tell us that he does not make law void by faith but establishes it more, firmly. Let us look at our condition somewhat broadly and see how true this declaration is found to be.

      1. Physical law must be observed by us, or we suffer the penalty of every transgression. To walk by faith releases no man from the consequences of transgressions in the physical kingdom. A few cases might be introduced where in the days of miracles the introduction of a new force changed the direction of physical laws and brought out a different result, but those times are gone, and we do not expect them more. (a) One's ignorance does not save him. One walks in the dark to the edge of a precipice and falls over. One takes what he supposes to be quinine but which is arsenic. No honesty will prevent the fatal results. (b) One's negligence will not fail to make him suffer. A man lives in a house with defective flues. He prays at night and in a spiritual sense God hears his prayers, and yet he himself and his family may be homeless before sunrise. One leaves a cistern full of water with a few loose boards over it. Will faith keep children from falling in? (c) God will not save men by His providence from the common accidents of life. One starts by railroad. [552] Will faith keep him when the train at fifty miles an hour strikes another, or bounds from a bridge, or strikes a broken rail? He has not faith at all unless he complies with all the laws of safety.

      2. Faith does not release anyone from the requirements of moral law. It is most preeminently of the great law of right and wrong that Paul wrote in our text (Romans iii:31). The ten commandments were not exhaustive of moral duties. They sufficed for a nation in state of pupilage; but under Christ we have the code not only spread out in ample form, but applied even to the thoughts of men. Faith demands a perfect conformity to all its requirements. Let anyone attempt before a Bible-reading community, and see if he can make right wrong and wrong right. Let him engage in whisky-selling or set up a gambling shop and see if he can escape the consequences. Let a man commit theft or murder and see if the crime does not come up sooner or later for retribution. What we call a seared conscience is nothing more than a faculty suppressed till it ceases activity. But, like dethroned reason or memory worn out by old age, it will surely spring into renewed activity in the eternal world. The Gospel does not release us from a single moral duty enjoined by the law of Moses, but makes these known far more fully and enjoins them more imperatively than the Mosaic law ever did.

      3. Faith releases no one from political law. It was no doubt the construction put on grace and [553] justification by faith that caused Peter and Paul to speak in terms so plain on this subject. False teachers claimed that, being under the influence of the spirit, wicked rulers had no right to prescribe duties to them, and that they could set all such at defiance. See what Paul said in Romans xiii:1-6; what Peter said in I Peter ii:13, 14. (a) For a plain infraction of such law let a man come before a court of justice and plead ignorance of the law. Every citizen in this land can know the law, and it is his duty to learn its provisions. (b) Let one commit a real crime and come before a court of proper jurisdiction and see if he will be acquitted. Crime is crime, and intentions cannot make it otherwise. If the deed be done by accident, then it is not the deed of the person at all. If it be done in a frenzy of passion, this more or less takes from it the nature of crime as not the deed of the man.

      4. We are strictly under the reign of financial or commercial law. Let men in this hemisphere plant their corn in September or sow their wheat in June and see what kind of crops they would raise. When the supply is always too great, let men increase it tenfold and see if the necessary result can be avoided. Let a merchant start his ships across the ocean just at the season of hurricanes and see if his goods and ships do not go to the bottom. Let him neglect ocean and air currents and see if he does not suffer in his financial interests. Let one make debts and live extravagantly with no income and see if he does not [554] soon come to bankruptcy. Faith releases us from no law under which we naturally come by our birth into this world. We were never under the law of Moses. It was abolished nearly two thousand years before we were born. The Jews of Paul's day had been under the Mosaic Law, and faith or the Gospel released them from it. This is all the law, under which God ever placed men, that faith ever released them from; and the reason is this really accomplishes what the Law of Moses only shadowed forth.

      5. The Gospel, or faith, or law of faith (Romans iii:27) is the last and highest exhibition of law God ever gave to men. No man can now be released from its demands. 1st. Why does it take precedence over Moses's law? It does in fact what Moses's law only served to type out. The Jews sinned as we do. For these sins they were to bring victims and offer them as expiations for sins. These were below men and could not take away sin, but the Gospel sacrifice can. 2nd. Why is the Gospel called grace? Because it is all given without man's agency. Priest, altar, victim the most costly--all these were of God in the Gospel. Under the old dispensation man made his altar, reared his victim, slew it and offered it himself. If it could have taken away sin, all was not man's deeds. This system is called faith because it demands confidence in what God has prepared and assures us an efficacious sacrifice. Law was the very proper title of the old system, because it had no mercy but was typical, and to enjoy that those who [555] offered must furnish their own altar, furnish their own victim, and offer themselves. No one can fail to see the reason for that title at this point. 3d. The law of faith is God's direction by which He admits us to, and helps us within, touch of that glorious sacrifice which alone can release us from the stains we incur in the violations of these laws which have no mercy. Faith is the first great direction and without which nothing would be of any avail, and hence the law is called that of faith. Repentance, confession, baptism complete the process of bringing us to Christ. The remainder is made up of the few religious activities and a holy life. 4th. Consider the danger of neglecting this law of faith. The sacrifice of Christ is the only remedy for sinning mortals, to raise them above the realm of sin, and this law of faith is the only way of getting to him. If ignorance, honesty, and good intentions were all insufficient to save men from the ruin that resulted from violating other laws, will any of them save us from the ruin of neglecting this? They will not. Listen to this: "Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For, if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" Hebrews ii:1-3. And to this: "For if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more [556] sacrifice for sins." Hebrews x:26. It is God's ultimate word to mortals. It is the proclamation of his remedy for the infraction of all other law. This law offers us a panacea for all ills. If we accept it, salvation eternal will be ours, and if we reject or even neglect it, ruin eternal will follow. Come now, while its rich provisions are offered you, and do not dream that grace means neglect or disobedience. This is the most stern demand God ever made on mortals. You perish at the threshold if you slight it. In other realms you may live for a time in defiance of law; but in this you die at the outset. [557]

[NTC3 551-557]