Law And Grace
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Love is the Harmony between Law and Grace.
Love is the Harmony between Law and Grace.
What does the Savior do to save us from the curse of the law? Does He abolish the law that He may save its transgressors? "The idea that the law is our school-master to bring us to the Savior, that we may be justified by faith, is often urged as proof that the law is abolished. How is the law our school-master to bring us to the Savior? We answer. It shows our guilt and just condemnation, and that we are lost without a Savior. Here the apostle Paul, who was converted since the time when it is said the law was abolished, 'had not known sin but by the law' Roman 7: 7. 'By the law is the knowledge of sin.' Romans 3: 20. Read a full account of Paul's experience in this school, also his deliverance from the carnal mind, which 'is not subject to the law of the Creator' Romans 7: 25; 8: 1-7. The instruction of the law is absolutely necessary, for without it we can never know our guilt in the sight of the Lord. It shows our just condemnation, its penalty hangs over our heads; we find ourselves lost, and fly to the Savior. What does He do to save us from the curse of the law? Does he abolish the law that he may save its transgressors? He assures us that He did 'not come to destroy' it; and we know that the law being 'holy, just, and good, can not be taken back, without destroying the government of Him who gave it. Does the Savior modify its character, and lessen its demands? FAR FROM IT. He testifies that 'one jot or one title shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.' Matthew 5: 18; Luke 16: 17; James 2: 10. And he shows that those who in heart commit any act of iniquity, are transgressors of the law. Matthew 5: 22, 27, 28; 1 John 3: 15. If the Saviour did not abolish or relax the law, How can those who have fled to him 'for refuge' hope for Salvation? What does He do to save the transgressors from the sentence of the Law? He gives up himself to die in their stead. He lays down his own life 'a ransom for many' Matthew 20: 28. "The Creator so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life" John 3: 16. Man though justly condemned, can now be pardoned without dishonoring the Creator, or making void His law. The Lord can be just, and yet the justifier of him which believe in the Saviour YAHU-shua. Romans 3: 25, 26. Had the law been abolished at the death of the Saviour, it could not have been a school-master many years afterward to bring the Galatians to the Saviour. Paul testifies that he 'had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.' But an abolished law could never have convinced him of sin as a transgressor. James 2: 8, 9, Romans 4: 15. We cannot know sin 'but by the law' but if the law was abolished by the death of the Saviour, the world has never known its sinful state, or realized its need of a Saviour. We may state on the highest authority, that the law brings us to faith for justification, and that faith does not make void the law, but establishes it. Galatians 3: 23; Romans 3: 31. The Fact that the law is our school-master to show us the claims of the Creator, and our own just condemnation, is direct evidence that it has not been abolished, hence, though we have been pardoned through the death of the Saviour, and thus rescued from its righteous sentence, we can never violate its precepts without being convinced by it as transgressors"
The argument against the moral law being "added (In the original Greek, Postilemi = ratified) because of transgressions" will apply with equal force against the moral law having "entered that the offense might abound." If we claim that Galatians 3: 19 can not apply to the moral law, then we must claim also that Romans 5: 20 does not apply to that law.
Let's continue. "It would be absurd to suppose that this law was 'added' to itself. It does apply reasonably to another law, brought in because the one previously existing had been 'violated.' A law cannot be transgressed unless it exists; for where no law is, there is not transgression.' " The moral law never led a man to the Saviour and left him. It always stays with him. WE MAY BE DELIVERED FROM ITS CONDEMNATION; BUT ITS SUPREME AUTHORITY MUST BE REGARDED THEN, AS BEFORE. ITS CLAIMS NEVER LEAVE US. The law does not leave the man when he comes to the Saviour, but the man's relation to it is changed.
"There is nothing in that law about the Saviour, not a hint. All the law does, is to condemn those who break it, and justify those who keep it. It is the sense of guilt in the man's conscience, which is acted upon the spirit of the Creator, which makes him to go to the Saviour; not anything in the moral law itself" The great system of justification by faith' was known as soon as sin entered into the world. We read that "by faith Abel offered unto the Creator a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous" Hebrews 11: 4 ; Psalms 32: 1-2; 68: 6, 13; Isaiah 1: 18; 53: 10-11; 55: 6-7; Habakkuk 2: 4. "Two Books On Galatians" E.J.Waggoner 1886.
The Real Problem behind the Controversy is:
As the protestant churches reject the clear, Scriptural argument in defense of the Creator's law, They will long to silence those whose faith they cannot overthrow by the Bible. Though they blind their own eyes to the fact, They are NOW adopting a course which will lead to the persecution of those who conscientiously refuse to do what the rest of the Christian world are doing, and ACKNOWLEDGE THE CLAIMS OF THE PAPAL SABBATH. (Sunday).
"But the Lord will have a people upon the earth to maintain the Bible, and the Bible only, as the standard of all doctrines and the basis of all reforms.
"The Great Controversy" Ellen G. White
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