by David Clayton
As we consider the title of this
article, our response may be to think, “well, the sinner has to die
because the law proves him guilty and requires his death.” We see his
death as completely dependent upon his relationship to the law. This
concept is rooted deeply into the thinking of Christians and while in a
way, it is correct, this common understanding does not fully explain the
truth. Let us consider for a moment what a law really is. A law is
basically a principle or a rule which governs behaviour. A law dictates
the way we operate.
But when we speak of law, there are two
kinds of law which we need to consider. There is natural law and there
is judicial law and understanding the difference between the two is
critical to a proper appreciation of the reason why the sinner has to
die.
Natural Laws
In the case of natural laws, all men recognize the importance of always
working in harmony with them. The rules are built into nature and we
cannot change them or adjust them. These laws simply describe the way
nature works and they are called laws because nature compels all things
to behave in conformity to those particular principles. We must work in
harmony with them. One such law is the law of gravity. This law compels
us to behave in a certain way with the sure knowledge that if we change
our behaviour, drastic consequences will follow. For example, I may not
agree with the law of gravity and so may step from the roof of a 50
story building. I will speedily find out that by not acting in harmony
with the law of gravity I have suffered severe consequences. I may not
like natural laws, but if I disregard them, unhappy consequences are
sure to follow. This is true of all natural laws.
Judicial Laws
Judicial laws on the other hand, are laws which are laid down by a
governing authority. They are laws which are considered good or
necessary for the harmonious existence of a particular society and they
are not necessarily the same in every society. The nature of these laws
often depends on the nature of the society and those who govern and make
the laws. With these laws, disobedience does not always bring a
consequence. In many cases these laws are broken and the offender seems
to get away scot-free. The enforcement of these laws is not built into
nature as in the case of natural law. With judicial law, the governing
authority has to do two things. First they have to make the laws and
secondly, they have to enforce these laws. They do this by imposing
penalties for transgressing the laws which they themselves must enforce.
Of course, many judicial laws, established by various
governments are faulty and even unjust. But God is the author of all
natural law. Natural law is always good. He designed the universe in a
perfect way with these natural laws built in to ensure that life would
exist and continue in a pattern of balance and harmony.
The nature of moral law
The moral law has been said to be a “transcript” of God’s character. As
this moral law is outlined in the Ten Commandments it is stated in a
somewhat limited way and does not express the fullness of God’s
character and may better be described as an “expression” of God’s
character, rather than an exact transcript. However, when the moral law
is properly understood in all its deeper implications, it certainly
expresses what God is like in His moral nature and may be appropriately
described as a transcript of His character. This means that The moral
law is what God is. God did not make the moral law, all He did was put
into words what He was and gave it to us as the way of life.
The law is to be presented to its transgressors, not as something apart
from God, but rather as an exponent of his mind and character. As the
sunlight cannot be separated from the sun, so God’s law cannot be
rightly presented to man apart from the divine Author. {E.G. White – RH,
February 3, 1891}
To live in harmony with this law is to be
in harmony with God. Since God is life, then harmony with Him means to
be in harmony with life. However, when a person steps out of harmony
with the moral law, he is out of harmony with God and out of harmony
with life. Death as a consequence is the inevitable result! God does not
have to sentence or kill such a person. He automatically brings death
upon himself by choosing to separate from God, in whom alone there is
life.
God is the fountain of life; and when one chooses the
service of sin, he separates from God, and thus cuts himself off from
life. He is “alienated from the life of God.” Christ says, “All they
that hate Me love death.” Eph. 4:18; Prov. 8:36. {DA 764}
So
we see clearly that the moral law is a natural law. It is a law of
nature. To walk in harmony with it is to have life. To step aside from
it is to embrace death. No one has to sentence you, no one has to
kill you. Sin itself will do the job as a natural consequence of the way
the law operates.
How Death Came
In the garden of Eden God said to Adam, “… in the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Gen. 2:17). Most people have understood
this to mean that God was threatening Adam, that He was saying, “if you
eat of this fruit, I will be forced to kill you.” Was this how it
really was? Was God threatening Adam or was He making a prophecy? Was He
stating what He would do, or was He simply making Adam aware of the
natural sequence of events which would follow if he stepped out of
harmony with God? The apostle Paul says,
Wherefore, as by one
man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed
upon all men, for that all have sinned: (Rom 5:12)
Notice, one
man brought sin into the world. When sin came in, death came with it.
It was not God who brought death or imposed it upon man, it was sin
which brought death. When sin came in, death came riding on its back! In
1 Cor. 15:56 Paul says that, “the sting of death is sin.” When
something stings you, a poison begins to work in your body and
eventually brings about an end result. Somebody who gets stung by a
deadly insect such as a scorpion, for example, has in himself the seed
of death. The poison works in him and eventually brings the end result
of death. So Paul says, “the sting of death is sin.” Sin stings you, it
injects you with a poison which begins a deadly work, killing you by
degrees until inevitably, inescapably, your life departs from you.
So, Paul says, Adam brought sin, which
brought death. This death came upon all men, because all sinned. All
men die only because all men have the disease of sin in them (Rom.
5:12). See how Paul proves this. He says,
(For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. (Rom 5:13)
What time period is he referring to when he says, “until the law?” He
is speaking of the period before the law was given on Mount Sinai, from
the time of the creation of the world until the time of the giving of
the law to Moses. Of course, the law has always existed as a natural
rule of life because the law is an expression of God’s nature and God
was always there, but it was not understood by the people of the world
in general before it was given on Mount Sinai. Paul goes on to say, “but
sin is not imputed when there is no law.” What is the point which he is
making? His point is, sin was here. Men were sinners, but God did not
impute sin to them, that is, God could not charge them with guilt. Why
couldn’t he? Because the law was not yet given. Without the law men did
not have a clear idea of what was right and what was wrong and
therefore, there was no clear way of charging men with wrong doing.
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had
not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the
figure of him that was to come. (Rom 5:14)
In spite of the
fact that the law was not generally known to men before God proclaimed
it (that is from the time of Adam to the time of Moses), yet death
reigned over men. All men suffered death (excepting Enoch). Since sin
was not imputed (charged) to them, then it could not have been God who
was judging them and killing them because they were guilty. They had not
sinned as Adam had sinned, in deliberate disobedience of a specific
command. Without the law, there was no way of charging them with guilt,
yet they were dying. What was killing them? It was sin which was killing
them. Even though they did not have a clear definition of right and
wrong, yet they were in a state of sin, passed on from Adam to all men
and it produced death in all. (Rom. 5:21; 7:24; James 1:15).
Why Judicial law entered
Yet there is no denying the fact that the Bible teaches that men will
be judged on the basis of the law and those found guilty will be
sentenced to die.
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. (Eccl 12:14)
So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. (James 2:12)
These, as well as many other verses make it clear that our individual
actions are significant, that God will consider every deed in the
judgment. How can this be explained? If sin kills those who embrace it
and death is the inescapable consequence of sin, why did God need to
impose a penalty upon those who commit sin? Why was there the need of a
judgment to rehearse and examine the deeds which men have done that each
might be rewarded “according to his works?” Why did God not just leave
the sinner alone in his dying state, knowing that sin would eventually
kill him? Why did God place the issues in a judicial framework, why did
He establish judicial law with penalties, instead of simply leaving it
where nature had put it, leaving sin itself to eventually destroy those
who embraced it?
In Romans 5:20 we are told,
Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: (Rom 5:20)
The law entered for the purpose of making the offence increase, that it
might multiply. That is, that men could become aware of just how great
was the power of the sin which existed in them.
Was then that
which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might
appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the
commandment might become exceeding sinful. (Rom 7:13)
In other
words, when Adam sinned, sin came upon all men. As a result men became
involved in vile and evil deeds and all men eventually died as a result
of sin. But for the most part men had no true concept of how sinful they
really were. Men came to regard death as the normal way of life, they
made no link between the kind of life which they possessed and lived and
the death which came upon them all. God, in love, had to find a way to
make men appreciate what really existed in their natures and to make
them see that there was a connection between that nature and death –
that sin was the cause of death, so that they might learn to fear and
hate sin. He had to set a system in place “that sin by the commandment
might become exceeding sinful.” He expressed the law in a judicial
formula so that man could understand the true nature of sin.
The “Discovery” of The Law
The story goes that Isaac Newton was sitting under an apple tree one
day when an apple fell on his head. To the inquiring mind of this
scientific genius, this simple event became the catalyst of an amazing
“discovery.” Why,” he wondered, “did the apple fall on my head? Why did
the apple fall down instead of up.” In considering this he became aware
of the fact that this was the way things always behaved, every time, in
every circumstance. This led him to formulate what is called the law of
gravity and so he is credited with discovering this law.
Of
course this law was in existence long before Isaac Newton arrived on the
scene, but when he discovered it, for him and for the world, it seemed
an amazing thing. For him it came as a complete surprise. Isaac Newton
expressed this law in words and referred to it as the law of gravity.
But although he expressed it in words, this was only a way of describing
what was always there long before he or anybody else recognized it.
When he expressed this law in words, it did not create or establish the
law, it only made it known and understandable to some degree.
In the same way, the moral law of God always existed. All the angels obeyed it naturally with never a second thought.
Lucifer was the first one who discovered and pointed out to the angels
that their behaviour was always in one direction, always in keeping with
what God wanted. This thought that there was a law by which they were
governed came as a strange idea to the angels because their service had
always been one of natural, joyful obedience. As it were, Lucifer
“discovered” the moral law and determined that he was not going to
submit to it.
In order to enable man to understand the way the
moral law works so that man might be able to discover the power of sin
and to see the connection between it and death, God had to formulate
this law, or in other words to express it in a formula which man could
understand. This is what He did at Mount Sinai.
Let us look at an illustration which may help us to understand this matter better:
An Illustration
Suppose there are a group of people marooned on the top of a mountain.
All around there are precipices with no way off the mountain. On looking
down into these precipices, all one can see is darkness, the bottom is
too far away to be seen. In actual fact, at the bottom there are jagged
rocks waiting to pulverize anyone who falls or is foolish enough to jump
from this mountain.
One day, a strange man appears out of
nowhere and begins to persuade the people that down below, beyond the
darkness there is a land of infinite beauty and plenty – a veritable
paradise. He explains that there is a system in place by which those who
jump from above suddenly slow down as soon as they pass through the
darkness and eventually land as gently as a feather in this paradise.
This strange person even takes a leap or two from the top of this
mountain and returns with his arms laden with exotic fruit. Gradually
the people are persuaded. One after another people start jumping.
However, there is one man who knows exactly what is waiting below.
Frantically he pleads with the people not to jump and warns them of the
horrible fate awaiting them, but all in vain. The people continue to
jump. Finally this man, who is aware of the danger, pulls a gun and
stands off to one side. He says, “I am going to shoot anyone who jumps.”
A couple of people decide to take the risk and jump. To all intents and
purposes, these people are already dead, but regardless of this, this
man immediately shoots them dead.
Now the scenario changes. At
first it was the fall that was killing the people when they jumped, but
now it is this man who is killing them. Instead of the law of action
and consequence working, instead of the law of gravity killing the
people, now it is this man. He has established a system where they must
conform to the rule or face a penalty and this system has taken the
place of the law of action and consequence. Now it is a judicial law
(“you shall not jump or I will shoot you”) instead of a natural law (if
you jump, gravity will kill you). The law of nature, is a higher law and
it always exists, but because of peoples’ ignorance and their actions
of self-destructiveness, this man who understands, has set up this
judicial system within the natural system in order to save those whom he
can. In actual fact he is only killing those who are already certain to
die and in shooting them rather than waiting for them to be crushed on
the rocks he is actually acting in mercy because now, he will achieve
several positive things.
1. He will make those who remain
afraid of jumping. By this means he will give the people an opportunity
of living a little longer with the hope that they will discover for
themselves the true nature of what lies below and the character of the
being who deceived them.
2. He will prevent the suffering of those who are smashed on the rocks but who do not die immediately.
Of course, all the people will become scared of the man with the gun.
They may call him a tyrant and seek for a chance to jump when he is not
looking. They will resent his presence and blame him for depriving them
of happiness although in reality he is only working for their good.
Can you see the parallel? This is why God has put the issues in the
framework of judicial law, along with the necessary penalties. In giving
the law God was saying, “if you jump, I will shoot you.” Although sin
was always killing men, they did not recognize it and did not fear it.
They accepted their corrupt lifestyle and their subsequent death as just
the way life was and saw no reason to be afraid of sin or to change
their ways. This is why God established a judicial system. He set up a
framework in which if you transgressed the stated laws He would require
your death. Now men feared sin, because they associated it with death
and in trying to put it away from them they came to recognize how
totally it was integrated into their nature. They came to recognize that
they needed supernatural help if they were ever to be rid of it and
thus, the law became their schoolmaster to lead them to Christ. (Gal.
3:24).
Unfortunately, with many people, God came to be
regarded as the real problem since He had given these rules and required
that they be obeyed on pain of death. Men would have preferred to be
rid of God rather than to be rid of their sins and they chafed under His
rules and blamed Him for the fact that those who disobeyed had to die.
The fact is that whether or not God had sentenced the transgressor to
death it would not have mattered. Sin would inevitably kill him anyway.
Consider the case of the antediluvians or the Sodomites. God sent a
flood in one case and fire in the other to wipe out their generation. If
God had not done this, what would have happened to these people? Well,
in a few more years that generation would all have been dead anyway!
Sin, working in them would have killed them as it does all men! And they
would have been just as dead as the flood or the fire made them! So why
did God kill them a few years early? What difference did it make? It
was because God wanted to make a statement so that others would learn to
be afraid of sin, and also so that there would be a check put on the
depths to which sin had degraded mankind.
Three levels
In our attitude and relationship to God, men are at basically three levels.
1. At the first and lowest level, men believe, “if I disobey God, He
will kill me.” So they are afraid of God and seek to please Him from
fear of punishment. This is the basis of the pagan religions, but many
times the Israelites also worshipped from this warped motivation and
sadly, many “Christians” today are still at this primitive level of
understanding. These people see the problem as being, God.
2.
At the secondary level, people believe it is not God who is the problem,
it is their actions. God does not want to kill them, but He will have
to if they don’t change their actions. Justice will require that He
destroy them. These have a better concept of God but they still have not
come to grips with the real problem and they see death as God’s
necessary action because He is controlled by justice. They regard the
real problem as the deeds which they do. The effort must be to change
their works so that they can meet the requirements of the law. On this
level, the sinner sees the issue as a question of satisfying justice.
3. But at the third level, finally we understand. There is one problem
and one problem only. It is that separation from God has resulted in a
disease in me called sin and it is eating out my life, it is producing
evil deeds in me and is killing me. This is the true destroyer and it is
not a judicial law that demands the sinner’s death, it is a law of
nature – a law of consequence. Now we recognize that the real problem is
sin in me and what I need is not to change my actions merely, but to
change my nature. I must seek life in the only One who is able to
accomplish this for me. On this level, the believer finally operates on
the basis of righteousness by faith.
We need to understand
this because when our understanding reaches only to the secondary level,
then our relationship to sin and to God is always viewed and
experienced from a legal framework. Sin is related to the details of the
law, salvation is related to obedience to the rules, God’s favour, and
life itself are all related to the rules. In actual fact, this is the
foundation of legalism – salvation and life in terms of a relationship
to rules.
Not my works, my nature
When we come to the third level, when we are no longer children or
servants, but sons (Gal. 4:3,7), then we understand. The real problem is
not what I do. It is not a problem of my works, it is what I am. It is
a problem of my nature. I realize that God’s effort is not to change my
works, but to give me a new heart, a new nature by means of which my
works will change. Now I am not afraid of God, I am not even afraid of
my actions, I am afraid of myself! Now I no longer struggle to change my
works, but I seek with all my heart to find and to submit to Christ by
faith, who alone is capable of changing my nature! It is not God, or
even justice which requires my death. It is my sin cursed nature which
is working death in me, and while the law of God has brought me to that
realization, it is powerless to solve the problem. I must come to Christ
(not the written law but the living law) that I may have life (Gal.
3:24), that I may have a new nature.
God set the controversy
in a judicial framework. He established laws and penalties, but this is
not the whole picture, this is the picture within the picture, the
secondary level. The true issues exist on a higher level, not on the
judicial level, but on the level of natural law where we are involved
with the principles which are built into the very existence of the
universe.
