May 1, 1862.

THE DOMINION OF THE LAW.

"The law hath dominion over a man so long as he liveth."-Rom. vii. 1. HERE is a very common mistake prevalent in the present day amongst many Christian people, as to the non-obligatory character of the law of God. It is often asserted, and continually taken for granted as an axiom which no well-taught Christian should dispute, that the Gentiles never were, nor ever are, "under the law."

Now, what is really intended very often by this assertion is no more than what any one instructed in the Word would readily admit that the Gentiles were not, and are not, under the Sinai covenant to keep the law.

But be it remembered that the Sinai stipulation did not, for the first time, put Israel under the obligation of keeping God's law; that previously existed, as well in the case of Israel as of all mankind. The Sinai compact was a promise and undertaking on Israel's part to discharge that obligation; whereupon God made known, with ominous. accompaniments of terror, what his claims upon man as a sinner were, which claims Israel stipulated to meet. Now, from this covenant stipulation to discharge the obligations under which all by nature are, the Gentiles doubtless are exempt, but surely not from the obligation otherwise,

what is sin?

The mistake of supposing that because the Gentiles are not under the Sinai covenant, they are, therefore, not by nature under the law, is very similar to that of a debtor who, on speaking to others who are in debt to the same creditor, should find that some of them had undertaken to pay off their debts, and thereupon had been furnished by their creditor with an account of the same. Now, what would be thought of the mistake of this debtor if he should

conclude that, because he was not furnished with his bill, he was not, therefore, in debt? The cases are exactly parallel. Israel, ignorant of their powerlessness to meet God's demands, undertake to discharge their obligations. God furnishes them with an account of what his claims upon man are. Israel undertakes to pay off the debt, and soon miserably fails; but are the Gentiles thenceforth to conclude that they are under no similar obligations to God? "Is God the God of the Jews only? Is He not also of the Gentiles? yea, of the Gentiles also" (Rom. iii.).

But a better proof than any illustration can afford is to be found in the New Testament statements-especially in the Epistles-concerning the nature of sin. We do not find one definition for the Jews and another for the Gentiles; as to both, the word declares, "Sin is the transgression of the law" (avoua-literally, "contrariety to law").

To deny that the Gentiles are under obligation to keep the law, and that wholly independent of the Sinai covenant, is tantamount to a denial of their being chargeable with sin. It was not to Jews but to Gentiles that the apostle Paul wrote "the strength of sin is the law" (1 Cor. xv. 56). But clearer still is the proof afforded by the apostle's method in Rom. ii. of bringing in the Gentile world, as well as the Jewish world, guilty before God. This he does by means of the law, not, it is true, the Sinai covenant, but the same law as originally written on man's heart. "For when the Gentiles which have not the law (i. e., the Sinai revelation of it) do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law are a law unto themselves;" (or, as Alford renders it," are the law to themselves,” accounting for the absence of the article; perhaps are law to themselves" would be nearest to the original): "which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another."

It is plain, therefore, that the assertion in ver. 12, "As

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many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law," does not deny the responsibility to law of the Gentiles, but only contrasts the state of the heathen ignorant of the full demands of God's law, as made known on Sinai, with the more responsible because more enlightened state of the Jew; indeed, the following verses (above quoted) go on to show the reason why the heathen shall perish without law. It is because they originally had the law written on their hearts, that they are responsible for such light as to the demands of the law as they at present possess.

Let it also be borne in mind that the position of the Gentiles (those purely heathen excepted) is now materially altered by the mere fact of their knowing the letter of the law as given on Sinai. If the partial knowledge which conscience afforded was sufficient to bring them in as sinners before God then, how much more now, when the law as given to Israel is made known to all; remembering that the fact of our not having been concerned in the Sinai engagement, to keep it lessens in no degree our obligation. as creatures to observe God's commands.

This change in the position of things, even as regards the Gentiles, owing to superior light as to God's requirements, is very clearly indicated in what St. Paul said to the Athenians, "The times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness."

Another line of proof that legal responsibility is common to all, even those who are not under the peculiar engagement of Sinai to discharge what they owe, arises from the fact that the apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Romans, in setting forth the glorious truth of the believer's deliverance from the law through the death of Christ, treats it as a matter in which believers of the Gentiles as well as of

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MAY 1, 1862

the Jews have a common interest. The principle set forth in chap. vii. is, “The law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth." It does not except the Gentile. Nor would the apostle say, "Wherefore, my brethren (writing to Gentiles) ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ," if they had never been subject to it.

Indeed, it would appear that the fact above referred to, that knowledge of law involves responsibility to law, is the ground on which the apostle brings in all to whom he was writing at Rome as subject to the dominion of law until delivered therefrom by Christ; for the opening words of chap. vii. are, "Know ye not, brethren (for I speak to them that know the law) that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth," as though the dominion of the law might possibly be denied by those who knew it not (although Rom. ii. shows that even such a denial would not be valid); but the fact that those to whom he was writing knew it, is sufficient to establish its dominion over them.

Another, and a totally different question, by no means to be confounded-as is often done-with the dominion of the law over all, is the continuance of that dominion over all who do not fly for refuge to Jesus, and the emancipation therefrom of all who do. The believer is "not under the law, but under grace (Rom. vi.). Blessed truth! Glorious freedom! But surely not in consequence of no Gentile being under the law; but because, though once under it, he has been through Christ delivered from it.

We shall hope to resume this subject, God willing, in a future paper, and to point out how the believer is delivered from the law through the death of Christ, and how new obligations are thereby incurred, not of a kind which he cannot meet (as must be the case while under the law), but such as, with the grace of God enabling him, he may, and in the midst of much imperfection, does discharge; being "married to him who is raised from the dead, that he should bring forth fruit unto God."

In the meanwhile, we would earnestly and affectionately urge upon any of our readers who have been misled by the prevailing mistake, the error of which we have endeavoured to expose, that they should search for themselves and see what God's Word says on this momentous subject. It must very materially affect the ministry of the gospel, if the law, which in Scripture is set forth as that by by which is "the knowledge of sin," is treated as something with which mankind generally have nothing to do. Abolish the dominion of the law over man as such, and you abolish not only the means of producing, with the Spirit's power, a sense of sin; but also you efface from any applicability to the believer some of the most precious portions of God's Word descriptive of the deliverance of the believer from condemnation. Thus Christ is robbed of the glory which belongs to Him as "the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth," and the sinner is left in careless unconcern, ignorant of sin and of its damning nature, apathetic as to death and its fearful consequences, because he is not warned that "the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law." The law," the apostle says, writing to Timothy (1 Tim. i. 8), "is good if a man use it lawfully." But, surely, it is not using it lawfully to deny what the following verses assert, that though it is not made for a righteous man, it is “for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane," &c.

To impose the Sinai covenant upon those in Christ is that against which Paul ever indignantly protested; but that is a very different thing from denying the dominion of the law, which had been to him the means of awakening conscience to a sense of sin-" I had not known sin but by the law" (Rom. vii. 7), and which he appears to have urged upon others in this light, if we may take Acts xxiv. 25 as indicative of his method of appealing to the conscience of his hearers. H. E. B.