The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1901, Page 38

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

38

The Lutheran Pioneer.

S===?:30=€—eeCee—e0eé—"”"€—6—nmmswesosoOSsSOwow_o0»=«ao>«———oosS<~ oO__V<O808L ee

(For the LUTHERAN PIONEER.)

Of the Fulfillment of the Law.

Can we keep God’s Commandments as He
would have us keep them? We have been
studying the Holy Ten Commandments to
very little purpose indeed if we be unable to
answer this question. And what is the an-
swer we must give? Alas, a most emphatic,
“No.”

The Law of God, as we read it in the Ten
Commandments, seems at first sight very
simple; but when we take a closer look at it,
we must see that it is quite impossible for us
Tully to keep it. We find that each command-
ment as we study it becomes broader and
deeper in meaning; we see that it has a spir-
itual meaning, a depth of purpose which at
first we did not notice.

The commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’’
means, as we have learned, more than the
mere act of murder—it also includes the an-
gry word and the malice and hatred of the
heart. As our Saviour says, ‘‘Whosoever is
angry with his brother without a cause shall
be in danger of the judgment.’”’” The angry
thought is murder before God.

And so it is with every commandment. The
Law deals with the sins of thought, with the
evil imagination of the heart. The sinful
thought is a transgression of the Law. And
this Law of God extends to our every deed.
The Law follows us wherever we go—to our
work, to our homes, to our very bedchambers,
and it condemns the least digression from the
path of righteousness. It requires of us divine
perfection; not only a comparative goodness,
so to say, but absolute perfection, absolute
goodness and holiness.

Therefore David, that man after the heart
of God, beseeches the Lord, ‘‘Enter not into
judgment with Thy servant: for in Thy sight
shall no man living be justified,’’ Ps. 143, 2.
David was a regenerate man, a child of God;
his was a heart desirous of walking in the way
of God’s commandments. He calls himself
a servant of God, one who passed his days
in serving God; and yet he prays not to be
judged according to his works, since he knows
full well that his best deeds were but very im-
perfect and would not be able to justify him
in the sight of the holy God.

Hear also what St. Paul says on this same
point, Phil. 3, 12: ‘‘Not as though I had al-
ready attained, either were already perfect:
but I follow after, if that I may apprehend
that for which also I am apprehended of Christ
Jesus.”” Here is a man who could truthfully
say that he had labored more abundantly than
others, who had sacrificed his whole life, as it
were, to the Lord and His service, and yet he
deplores his imperfection and can only say that
his trust lies solely in Christ Jesus.

_ Yes; these servants of God, impelled as they
y the love of God to follow after holi-
wing spiritual strength from Christ as

do branches from the vine, nevertheless join
all true believers in confessing:

By grace! our works are all rejected,

All claims for merit pass for naught;

The mighty Saviour, long expected,

To us this blissful truth has brought,

That He by death redeems our race,

And we are saved alone by grace.

In this connection let us also consider the
words of James 2, 10: ‘‘ Whosoever shall keep
the whole Law, and yet offend in one point,
he is guilty of all.’ James here supposes the
ease of a man having fulfilled all of God’s
commandments perfectly, with one single ex-
ception, and declares of such a man that he
would be guilty of all. The commandments
are linked together like the links of a chain.
To break one link is to break the whole chain.—
Suppose a man hanging down a deep well at
the end of a chain. One link breaks. What
happens? The man falls. The breaking of
one link has brought about the disaster.

Here is another illustration: Take a number
of dominoes and set them up on end one inch
distant from one another. Now touch the dom-
ino at the end nearest to you. Will only the
domino you have touched fall over? No, but
in falling it will strike the one next to it, cause
it to fall against the next, and so on down the
whole row. The fall of the first domino has
caused the fall of all the others. So it is with
God’s commandments: sin against one and
you have sinned against all.

A thief sins not only against the Seventh
Commandment, but against all. He sins
against the first, for how can he fear and love
God above all things, if he does that which
God forbids? Butif he does not fear and love
God above all things, he transgresses all the
commandments in his heart, since the fear and
love of God is the source from which flows the
fulfillment of every commandment. Though
outwardly he may conform to the other com-
mandments, yet in his heart he has sinned
against all. As one single bubble in a bell
spoils the whole bell, as the slightest flaw
spoils the whole lens of a telescope, so the
least transgression puts the stamp of imper-
fection upon our whole life. —

But if the regenerate can keep the Law but
imperfectly, the natural man cannot keep it
at all. On this point the Word of God is
most explicit. It declares in most unequivocal
terms: ‘‘The imagination of man’s heart is
evil from his youth,” Gen. 8, 21.

‘*Who can bring a clean thing out of an
unclean? not one,” Job 14,4. The heart of
the natural man is evil, utterly evil, and noth-
ing good can come out of it. As a bitter spring
can only send forth bitter water, so the nat-
ural heart can only bring forth that which is
evil. It is impossible to bring a clean thing
out of an unclean. Every drop of water in a
dirty ditch is dirty, and though you take out
bucketful after bucketful you will find it all
dirty and filthy.

It is true that some of the works of the un-
regenerate seem to be good, but they only
seem so. Take a drop of water out of a dirty
ditch and it may appear quite clear, so clear,
that you would not think it to be out of the
ditch if you did not know it, but it is just as
filthy as the drops still remaining in the ditch,
despite its appearance. Put it under a mi-
croscope, and you will see how it is teeming
with impurities. So also the apparently good
work of the natural man is filthy through and
through in the eyes of God. Every deed,
every word, and every thought of the natural
man is a transgression of God’s Law. His
downsitting and uprising, all he thinks, says,
and does, is unclean before God and calls forth
the wrath of a holy God. Verily, wretched is
the state of the natural man!

But as for us who by the grace of God have
taken our refuge from the Law to Christ the
Saviour, blessed are we, since we may sing:

Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress,
Midst flaming worlds in these arrayed,
With joy may I lift up my head.

F. J. L.

The Two Natures.

The following illustration, which I heard
given by a servant of Christ, on the two na-
tures, has been very helpful to many; and as
there may be others who are not clear on that
important truth, it may prove helpful to them.

‘“‘A gardener has in his garden a crab-tree.
By careful cultivation each year that tree will
produce larger and finer fruit; but what kind
of fruit will it be?”

‘‘Why,’’ you answer, ‘‘crabs.’’

‘Certainly ; and no amount of labor in dig-
ging and fertilizing can bring from it aught
but crabs.

‘The gardener wants to raise choice apples
from that tree. What must he do? The prun-
ing-knife must be brought, and the proud,
wide-spreading branches cut off. ‘Then, with
care, the new apple is grafted on the old trunk.

‘Now, what will be the result of that new
nature which has been put into the old trunk?’”

‘*Apples.’’

“Yes; and the gardener no longer desig-
nates that tree as a crab-, but as an apple-tree.

‘But one day, as he passes, he notices some
shoots springing up from the old root. Now,
what must be done? The knife must be used
unsparingly, or the shoots from the old root
will grow, and take from the vitality which be-
longs to the grafts.

‘Now, dear fellow believers, you can easily
apply this, and when the ‘shoots’ from the old
roots manifest themselves, don’t say to your-
selves, ‘I don’t believe I am a Christian after
all;’ but remember that old nature, which was
inherited from your parents, and which is ir-
Tetrievably bad, is still in you, and will be,
until this mortal shall put on immortality.’”

MF. 8.