The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, vol. 79
August 12, 1902
“The Law Unchangeable” The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 79, 32.
E. J. Waggoner
The breaking of the tables of the law by Moses had not the slightest effect on the law itself, and would not have even if the Lord had not written the law again on other tables. “For until the law sin was in the world; and sin is not imputed when there is no law.” Romans 5:13. The law of God existed in full force before it was spoken from Mount Sinai, just as much as it did afterward. God did not at that time tell the people anything new, but only “that which was from the beginning.” ARSH August 12, 1902, page 9.1
God is not making, and has never made, new laws for His people. Nay, more. He has never made a law at all. The law that He has commanded-for there is really but one,-is only the declaration of His own eternal, unchangeable life. “God is love;” that is His life; and His law is love; consequently His law is His life. Now God is; His name is I AM; and therefore His law is from everlasting to everlasting. He does not arbitrarily impose laws on men. It is not with God’s government as with earthly governments. Earthly law-makers get together and devise and plan, and with much discussion make and issue laws, which never do and never can work equal and exact justice to all, and which afterwards must needs be revised and amended, or even abolished. But God is not a law-maker. He is the law-giver. He does not devise laws, but simply commands that which is, and gives it to men, putting it into their hearts. He does not require His subjects to conform their lives to a law which He has arbitrarily fixed; but He makes known to them the conditions on which life depends; in short, He tells them what life is, setting before them life itself, that they may take it. ARSH August 12, 1902, page 9.2
Thus there can be no talk about changing or abolishing God’s law. “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail” said Christ. Luke 16:17. Men have thought to stamp God’s Word out of existence, by burning all the Bibles; but their efforts have been as effective as if they had tried to blot the sun out of existence by putting blinds before their windows, or to abolish the weather by breaking all the thermometers and barometers. The weather does not depend on those instruments, which simply make its state known; and God’s Word does not depend on any written statement of it. It existed before there was any Bible, and it will remain, for ever exalted in heaven, when all the books on earth, including the Bibles, shall have been burned up in the fires of the last day. ARSH August 12, 1902, page 9.3
Christ is the living Stone, and in His heart is the law of God. Only a shadow of the law appears in books or on tables; the real law is alive. The two tables of law-the heart of Christ-were also broken; but even that did not put an end to the law, for He died only to live again. His heart on which the law is written, was broken, in order that the law might issue forth to us in a stream of light. This is the real law-giving. Thus by His stripes we are healed from all sin,-transgression of the law,-because the Sun of righteousness never sets. But arises with healing in His wings. His life, as we accept it and yield to it, works in us the righteousness of law; and because the law of life is eternal we also have life eternal. ARSH August 12, 1902, page 9.4