Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 4 (1883 - 1886)

Ms 89, 1886

God's Immutable Law

c. 1886

Previously unpublished.

1 Thessalonians 3:12-13. “And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: To the end that he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.” 4LtMs, Ms 89, 1886, par. 1

The only way that we can determine character is by the law of God. What is the law? The detector of sin. The law is not holiness created, but holiness made known. Holiness is perfect happiness. Sin is perfect misery. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself” [Luke 10:27] was not made when the law was given; it was only proclaimed. The proclamation of the law is mercy, the expression of goodness itself, for it testifies to man what the Creator requires of man on his part. What He ever has and ever will require is perfect obedience to His law, and when Adam failed in obedience to that law sin was brought into the world. 4LtMs, Ms 89, 1886, par. 2

The conditions God had made as the price of everlasting life and eternal happiness were violated by man and there was no hope for man. The law itself could not pardon. There is no saving quality in law to pardon the transgressor of law. If man should say, “Never more will I transgress,” the agreement is broken and there is no word of hope in the law to restore the transgressor of law. God Himself cannot extend forgiveness to the sinner and yet maintain His justice—the infinitely holy, infinitely just, infinitely true. There is something that must be done to place man in a right relation to that law. God so loved the world that He gave His only beloved Son to make an atonement for the sins of the whole world, that man shall not perish but have everlasting life. 4LtMs, Ms 89, 1886, par. 3

Through the death of Jesus man may live, but what a costly sacrifice! The whole plan of redemption is devised on the part of God to save man. In carrying out God's plan, the law would be magnified and made honorable before human intelligences, before the worlds God has created, and before the angelic host. The law that was questioned and that Satan claimed was changed and amended, was beyond change, was faultless, perfect, holy, just, and good. Although Satan threw his whole might against it and obtained on his side a large number of the holy angels, yet not one jot or tittle of that law was moved from its foundation. 4LtMs, Ms 89, 1886, par. 4

Had Satan been able to gain his point, then God would have been found not perfect in wisdom because He had made a law—the foundation of government in heaven and in earth—that was of a character that of necessity could not exist, but must be abolished, since no one could render obedience to such a law. Thus the character of a God of justice and mercy would be impeached before the worlds God had created, before all heaven, and before the human family. 4LtMs, Ms 89, 1886, par. 5

But Satan did not succeed, although he had brought not only the world, who know not God, but the Christian world who claim to know God and His Son Jesus Christ, to take his side and array evidence against God in order that He shall not stand before angels and men infallible, supreme, infinite in wisdom. The most glorious tidings that ever fell upon mortal ears are: “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have eternal life.” [John 3:16.] 4LtMs, Ms 89, 1886, par. 6

Is Satan's object then gained? Can man after all be saved in continual transgression of God's law? Christ came not to perpetuate sin but to make an end of sin; “to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and the prophecy, and to anoint the most holy” [Daniel 9:24]. 4LtMs, Ms 89, 1886, par. 7

Notwithstanding that the law condemns the sinner as still unworthy of the gift of eternal life, unworthy of the confidence of God, through our substitute, Jesus Christ, man may be saved. Jesus will demonstrate to the worlds that have not fallen, who are subjects of God's law and have been watching the controversy between Lucifer—one of the angels exalted but fallen—and the Prince of heaven, that He became more than a martyr: He became an atoning sacrifice. He became surety and substitute for the sinner. In Christ it was demonstrated that the Lord will punish the transgressor, for Jesus suffered the penalty which every sinner will suffer if he does not by faith lay hold on the merits of Christ and return his allegiance to God by obeying His law. In Him we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of our sins. 4LtMs, Ms 89, 1886, par. 8

But the position taken by the largest number in the Christian world is that because Christ died the royal law of God is no longer in force. This was true of the law of types and shadows, but His laws are as enduring as His own throne. We cannot say otherwise than the Christian world is in a fatal deception on Satan's side, warring against the government of God just as Satan is doing. Unless they repent of sin, which the Scripture declares is the transgression of the law [1 John 3:4], they will stand no higher in the day of final judgment than the sinners who did not claim to be children of God. 4LtMs, Ms 89, 1886, par. 9

One man, a minister of the gospel, uttered words which he will wish in the judgment that he had never spoken. He called God's holy law which Christ came to exalt and make honorable—that law which Christ proclaimed from Sinai mount in such terrible grandeur—an old, rickety law, dead and buried and not deserving a gravestone; an old thunder and lightning law; an old bloody, Jewish law. And then to conclude his blasphemous attempts to pour contempt upon God's holy law, he said he felt better after releasing his feelings in giving the old law a run now and then. No doubt Satan felt the same and was much pleased to have so influential a man as his ally, to utter his feelings in audible words against the Most High God. These are the great, swelling words of the man of sin. 4LtMs, Ms 89, 1886, par. 10

But let us see in regard to this law that is so terrible and so much against man that it is pronounced a yoke of bondage. Take the first commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” [Exodus 20:3.] Is this a type or shadow? Must this go with the types and the shadows? It is true, it seems to be binding in its character, for it leads man to the one living God and permits him to look to no other gods for help, to reverence and adore. Nevertheless, “Thou shalt” shows that the will of man is interfered with, so it is [perceived as] a yoke. 4LtMs, Ms 89, 1886, par. 11