JSL-22-Chapter Five:

Chapter Five:
The Higher Law The apostle, after saying to Timothy, “As I exhorted thee to tarry at Ephesus, when I was going into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge certain men not teach a different doctrine, neither to give heed to fables and endless genealogies, the which minister questionings, rather than a dispensation of God which is in faith,” immediately adds: “But the end of the charge is love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned; from which things some having swerved have turned aside unto vain talking; desiring to be teachers of the law, though they understand neither what they say, nor whereof they confidently affirm. But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully, as knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and unruly, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane.” The whole of this instructive text is so helpful to us in view of the object we are seeking to gain, that I could not refrain from quoting it, though the immediate purpose with which I turned to the passage was to call attention to “the end of the charge.” It seems that certain men in Ephesus had turned aside to “vain talking,” and were teaching a doctrine essentially different from that taught by the apostle. They were giving undue prominence and ascribing unwarranted influence to the law, considered merely as law; and the evident implication is that they were attributing salutary virtue to it. No doubt they were insisting that good men must come under the law, or they could not be saved, showing thus a radical misapplication of the true meaning and object of the Christian religion. Now in order to enable Timothy to combat this error, the apostle reminds him that the essence of the whole matter of salvation, and which was, therefore, to be the end and object aimed at his “charge,” is “love out of a pure heart, and a good conscience and faith unfeigned.” And this, my beloved readers, is to be our objective point; it is to reach that state and condition of heart and life in which the external law does not apply to us. It is not made for a righteous man. God did not design it for good people, but for bad; “for the lawless and unruly, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane.” These are under it, subject to its control, its restraints, its limitations, its bondage; but the true Christian is free from it, not because the law, which is holy, just and good, is set aside with reference to him, but because he has risen above it and gone beyond it. He has been lifted into the divine region of love, which can not be measured by law. No statutory enactment can prescribe its course or define its action. It overflows all the embankments of mere rule, and moves by the power of its own fullness, and its own spontaneous and living impulses. Or, to use a different image, it is a well of water in the heart, a divine fountain springing up of its own accord unto everlasting life. To one who feels in his soul the stirring and swelling influence of such a principle as this, how cold and dry and dead, how jejune and tasteless is mere law! And how we sympathize with Paul when he says that those who desire to be teachers of the law “understand neither what they say, nor whereof they confidently affirm.”

I trust my considerate readers will pardon me for lingering so long upon the essential principles and characteristics of spiritual life before proceeding, as I hope to do after awhile, to consider the means and processes of growth. For myself I feel that what I am now attempting to do is the most essential part of my work. If we can but be sure of having the living fountain within us, the stream will in a large measure take care of itself. It may need the removal of an obstruction here and there, and perhaps some little leading in order to guide its course through the greenest fields and the richest pastures; but in any case it will be sure to flow towards the great ocean of love from which it came.

I am the more inclined to the course which I am taking, because there seems to be a sort of proclivity in us — at any rate the tendency is widespread, and very hard to overcome—to substitute morality for life and law for love. We wonder sometimes that the members of certain religious communions submit so uncomplainingly to be governed by “rules” and “Disciplines;” but really it is just what men desire. It is a relief to them to have their conduct prescribed; to be told in measured letter what they shall eat, and when they shall fast, and where they shall go, and how they shall worship. Peter exhibited something of this same feeling when he said: “Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? until seven times? Jesus said unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but, Until seventy times seven.”

Peter felt that he would be quite willing to conform to any definitely measured requirement. Only give him the exact rule, and he would be careful to come up to it. He was not the man who would go back upon the letter of a commandment. “Just say how often,” such is the spirit of his question, “and I will forgive him that many times; but after that, let him look out! The next time he sins against me, I will settle up the old score along with the new!” In other words, Peter did not really contemplate the forgiving of his brother; what he meant was simply the refraining from taking vengeance upon him. But how his Master undermines his worthless legalism! Not until seven times, but until seventy times seven—that is, always. The very spirit of forgiveness is to be in you; and you are to act it out as from yourself, without reference to any definite law. And then he utters the parable of the two debtors, which concludes with the lesson that we are from the heart to forgive every one his trespasses. Not some people and some trespasses, but every man and every trespass. Nothing could more forcibly express the difference between “letter” and “spirit;” between a rule imposed from without, and the law of God written in the heart, and obeyed from the heart. Has it ever occurred to the reader to consider what this is called God’s law? We usually understand that it is simply because he reveals and proclaims it, or because it is he who requires us to keep it. But while this is one aspect of the truth, may there not be a deeper meaning in it? I feel strongly inclined to the belief that it is his law, because it is that which he himself observes. I do not mean, of course, that the details of it in its necessary adjustments to our earthly life and human relations are applicable to him, or predicable of him; but the true essence of it; that from which all these details flow as from a fountain; that upon which they all depend, and which alone can secure their proper observance — this law of true and holy life — this principle of love, which, after all, is the one and only law—this is his divine attribute and his eternal characteristic. When we read, therefore, that all the law and the prophets, that is to say, all revelation, hangs upon the law of love; when we read that love is the fulfilling of the law, and that every one who lives is born of God, and knoweth God, for God is love—we begin to realize the blessedness that must spring from the keeping of this law, and keeping it as only it can be kept, from the heart. It makes and marks us the children of God. It fills us with all his fullness. It brings us into sweet communion and fellowship with him. Our hearts respond to his, and beat in sympathy with all that he feels. The importance of conduct is not in itself so much as in what it means. There is no inherent value in our mere doings. They are but signs of what we are. If we do the right things with the right motive, and in the right spirit, well and good. We shall be rewarded not for the things done, but for the heart that prompted the doing of them. It is we who are judged according to our deeds. They declare and show our inward state and character. If we are pure and holy and good, if we are sincere and guileless, if we really and heartily love God and our fellow-men — all this will necessarily express itself in corresponding conduct. But, alas, we may ape this conduct; we may substitute it for those inner traits of which it should be the true exponent; we may simulate a virtue which we do not possess, and impose upon ourselves and our brethren by exhibiting the galvanic contortions of death in place of the spontaneous movements of life. We have listened to many sermons — many excellent sermons — on “What must I do to be saved?” To those who are out of Christ, and seeking to find him, these discourses are appropriate and necessary. But for Christians—for those who have done the things that made them Christians—there is another, a more absorbing and momentous subject: “What must I be to be saved?”