Hebrews 7:14-24 For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda; of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood.… Man is naturally a legalist. He desires to be justified by his own character and his own works, and dislikes the thought of being accepted upon the ground of another's merits. All confidence in personal virtue, all appeals to civil integrity, all attendance upon the ordinance of the Christian religion without the exercise of the Christian's penitence and faith, is, in reality, an exhibition of that same legal unevangelic spirit which in its extreme form inflated the Pharisee, and led him to tithe mist, anise, and cummin. Still, think ,rid act as men may, the method of God in the gospel is the only method. God knows that, however anxiously a transgressor may strive to pacify his conscience and prepare it for the judgment day, its deep remorse can be removed only by the brood of incarnate Deity; that, however sedulously be may attempt to obey the law, he will utterly fail, unless he us inwardly renewed and strengthened by the Holy Ghost. He knows that mere bare law can make no sinner perfect again, but that only the bringing in of a "better hope" can, a hope by the which we draw nigh to God. The text leads us to inquire, Why cannot the moral law make fallen man perfect? Or, in other words, "Why cannot the ten commandments save a sinner?" That we may answer this question, we must first understand what is meant by a perfect man. It. is one in whom there is no defect or fault of any kind — one, therefore, who has no perturbation in his conscience, and no sin in his heart; who is entirely at peace with himself and with God, and whose affections are in perfect comformity with the Divine law. But fallen man, man as we find him universally, is characterised by both a remorseful conscience and an evil heart. He lacks perfection, therefore, in two particulars: first, in respect to acquittal at the bar of justice; and secondly, in respect to inward purity. That, therefore, which proposes to make him p-fleet again must quiet the sense of guilt upon valid grounds, and must produce a holy character. If the method fails in either of these two respects, it fails altogether in making a perfect man. But how can the moral law, or the ceremonial law, or both united, produce within the human soul the cheerful, liberating sense of acquittal and reconciliation with God's justice? Why, the very function and work of law, in all its forms, is to condemn and terrify the transgressor; how, then, can it calm and soothe him? Or, is there anything in the performance of duty, in the act of obeying law, that is adapted to produce this result by taking away guilt? Plainly not. For there is nothing compensatory, nothing cancelling, nothing of the nature of a satisfaction of justice, in the best obedience that was ever rendered to moral law by saint, angel, or seraph. Because the creature owes the whole. Whoever attempts the discharge of duties for the purpose of atoning for his sins takes a direct method of increasing the pains and perturbations which he seeks to remove. The more he thinks of law, and the more he endeavours to obey it for the purpose of purchasing the pardon of past transgression, the more wretched does he become. Shall the ten commandments of Sinai, in any of their forms or uses, send a cooling and calming virtue through the hot conscience? With these kindling flashes in his guilt-stricken spirit, shall he run into the very identical fire that kindled them? Let us fix it, then. as a fact, that the feeling of culpability and unreconciliation can never be removed so long as we do not look entirely away from our own character and works to the mere pure mercy of God in the blood of Christ. The other requisite, in order that fallen man may become perfect again, is a holy heart and will. Can the moral law originate this? That we may rightly answer the question, let us remember that a holy will is one that keeps the law of God spontaneously, and that a perfect heart is one that sends forth holy affections and pure thoughts as naturally as the sinful heart sends forth unholy affections and impure thoughts. And now we ask, Can the law generate all this excellence within the human soul? In order to answer this question we must consider the nature of law and the manner of its operation. The law as antithetic to the gospel, and as the word is employed in the text, is in its nature mandatory and minatory. It commands, and it threatens. This is the style of its operation. Can a perfect heart be originated in a sinner by these two methods? Is he moulded by it? Does it congenially sway and incline him? On the contrary, is he not excited to opposition by it? When the commandment "comes," loaded down with menace and damnation, does not sin "revive," as the apostle affirms? (Romans 7:9-12). Arrest the transgressor in the very act of disobedience, and ring in his ears the "Thou shalt not" of the Decalogue. and does he find that the law has the power to alter his inclination, to overcome his carnal mind, and make him perfect in holiness? On the contrary, the more you ply him with the stern command, and the more you emphasise the awful threatening, the more do you make him conscious of inward sin and awaken his depravity. There is no more touching poem in all literature than that one in which the pensive and moral Schiller portrays the struggle of an ingenious youth who would find the source of moral purification in the moral law; who would seek the power that can transform him in the mere imperatives of his conscience and the mere strugglings and spasms of his own will. He represents him as endeavouring earnestly and long to feel the force of obligation, and as toiling sedulously to school himself into virtue by the bare power, by the dead lift, of duty. But the longer he tries, the more he loathes the restraints of law. Virtue, instead of growing lovely to him, becomes more and more severe, austere, and repellent. His life, as the Scripture phrases it, is "under law," and not under love. There is nothing spontaneous, nothing willing, nothing genial in his religion. He does not enjoy religion, but he endures religion. Conscience does not, in the least, renovate his will, but merely cheeks it, or goads it. He becomes wearied and worn, and conscious that after all his self-schooling he is the same creature at heart, in his disposition and affections, that he was at the commencement of the effort, he cries out, "Oh! Virtue, take back thy crown and let me sin." The tired and disgusted soul would once more do a spontaneous thing. Was, then, that which is good made death unto this youth by a Divine arrangement? Is this the original and necessary relation which law sustains to the will and affections of an accountable creature? Must the pure and holy law of God, from the very nature of things, be a weariness and a curse? God forbid! But sin that it might appear sin, working death in the sinner by that which is good — that sin by the commandment might become, might be seen to be, exceeding sinful. The law is like a chemical test. It eats into sin enough to show what sin is, and there it steps. Of what use, then, is the law to a fallen man? some one will ask. Why is the commandment enunciated in the Scriptures, and why is the Christian ministry perpetually preaching it to men dead in trespasses and sins? If the law can subdue no man's obstinate will, and can renovate no man's corrupt heart — if it can make nothing perfect in human character — then, "wherefore serveth the law? .... It was added because of transgressions" (Galatians 3:19). It is preached and forced home in order to detect sin, but not to remove it; to bring men to a consciousness of the evil of their hearts, but not to change their hearts. It is easy to see, by a moment's reflection, that, from the nature of the case, the moral law cannot be a source of spiritual life and sanctification to a soul that has lost these. For law primarily supposes life, supposes an obedient inclination, and therefore does not produce it. God made man upright, and in this state be could and did keep the commands of Go a perfectly. If, therefore, by any subsequent action upon their part, mankind have gone out of the primary relationship in which they stood to law. and have by their apostasy lost all holy sympathy with it, and all affectionate disposition to obey it, it only remains for the law, not. to change along with them, but to continue immutably the same pure and righteous thing, and to say, "Obey perfectly, and thou shalt live; disobey in a single instance, and thou shalt die.'" But the text teaches us that, although the law can make no sinful man perfect, either upon the side of justification or of sanctification, "the bringing in of a better hope" can. This hope is the evangelic hope — the yearning desire, and the humble trust to be forgiven through the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to be sanctified by the indwelling power of the Holy Ghost. A simple, but a most powerful thing! Do as the law, in its abrupt and terrible operation in my conscience, start out the feeling of guiltiness until I throb with anguish and moral fear? I hope, I trust, I ask, to be pardoned through the blood of the Eternal Son of God, my Redeemer. I will answer all these accusation of law and conscience by pleading what my Lord has done. Again, does the law search me, and probe me, and elicit me, and reveal me, until I would shrink out of the sight of God and of myself? I hope, I trust I ask, to be made pure as the angels, spotless as the seraphim, by the transforming grace of the Holy Spirit. 1. The unfolding of this text of Scripture shows, in the first place, the importance of having a distinct and discriminating conception of law, and especially, f its proper function in reference to a sinful being. 2. In the second place, the unfolding of this text shows the importance of using the law faithfully and fearlessly within its own limits, and in accordance with its proper function. It is frequently asked what the sinner shall do in the work of salvation. The answer is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart. Be continually applying the law of God to your personal character and conduct. Keep as active and a searching conscience within your sinful soul. Use the high, broad, and strict commandment, if God as an instrumentality by which all ease and all indifference in shall be banished from the breast. Employ all this apparatus of torture, as perhaps it may seem to you in some sorrowful hours, and break up that moral lethargy which is ruining so many souls. And then cease this work the instant you have experimentally found out that the law reaches a limit beyond which it cannot go — that it forgives none of the sins which it detects, produces no change in the heart whose vileness it reveals, and makes no lost sinner perfect again. Having used the law legitimately for purposes of illumination and conviction merely, leave it for ever as a source of justification and sanctification, and seek these in Christ's atonement and the Holy Spirit's gracious operation in the heart. Then sin shall not have dominion over you, for you shall not be under law, but under grace. (W. G. T. Shedd, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood. |
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