11.03 God as law

III. GOD AS LAW

If this be so, then plainly what we need for recovery of the sense of sin is the recovery of a truer conception of God in His relation to human life. First of all, we must learn to look upon God as Law, The law of which our conscience, in its strangely imperative voice, bears witness is the expression of the holiness and will of a Personal Being. This moral law is not something which God Himself can set aside with a sort of large-hearted generosity. It is part of Himself. It is related and I would ask you to remember and think upon the phrase of the great Bishop Butler, that he said in his last moments, “It is an awful thing to appear before the Moral Governor of the World.” “The Moral Governor of the World.” We must recover this sense of the awful source and sanctity of the voice of conscience. To neglect or defy its warnings, to refuse its calls, must involve some real and inevitable retribution, because it is part of the inviolable law of the Universe. We know the consequence of trifling with the law of gravitation. Can we imagine the consequences not only for time, but for eternity, of trifling with the moral law, of those excuses, evasions, and silencings of conscience of which you and I are guilty every day?

TAGS: [Parables]