Dwelling Place of the Father's Seal by Pete Kovacs

 

Appendix G

Confessions on the Law of God
by various denominations

 

Perfection of the Law

"'The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.' Psalms 19:7. Is there such a thing as a perfect law? Everything that comes from God is perfect. The law of which we are thinking came from Him. It becomes sullied in our hands. We take from it and try to add to it, and in that way it becomes less than perfect. In a very real sense the law of God is the manifestation of the nature of the Lord. It could no more be imperfect than He is." - The Augsburg Sunday School Teacher (Lutheran), August 1937, vol. 63, no. 8, p.483

"Its perfection is a proof of its divinity. No human lawgiver could have given forth such a law as that which we find in the Decalogue. It is a perfect law; for all human laws that are right are to be found in that brief compendium and epitome of all that is good and excellent toward God, or between man and man." - C. H. Spurgeon, Sermons, series 2 (1857), p. 280.

Comprehensiveness of God's Law

"The ten commandments are not ten different laws; they are one law. If I am being held up in the air by a chain with ten links and I break one of them, down I come, just a surely as if I break the whole ten. If  I am forbidden to go out of an enclosure, it makes no difference at what point I break through." - D. L. Moody, Weighed and Wanting (1898), p.119.

"'The ten words of Sinai were not ten separate commandments,' said G. Campbell Morgan, 'but ten sides of the one law of God.'" - The Ten Commandments (Revell, 1901 ed.), p.11.

"As he [a Methodist] loves God, so he keeps his commandments; not only some, or most of them, but all, from the least to the greatest. He is not content to 'keep the whole law, and offend in one point;' but has, in all points, 'a conscience void of offence towards God and towards man.'" - John Wesley, The Character of a Methodist, in Works, vol. 8 (1830 ed.), p.344.

"The Ten Commandments constitute a summary of the duties God requires of men. These commandments are the foundation which lies beneath the ethical life of humanity. They are as binding upon Christians today as they were upon the Hebrews who first received them." - The Snowden-Douglass Sunday School Lessons for 1946, p.17. Copyright, 1945, by The Macmillan Company.

"Added to Divine majesty and intimacy, there is Divine mercy, which not only completes God's right and title to impose His will upon His creatures, and to frame His laws for their observance, but makes conformity to Divine will, and obedience to divine commands, if sometimes difficult, at least at all times delightful, and engraves on the living tablets of humans hearts now, the Law written long ago by the finger of God on tablets of stone." - John Burr, Studies on the Ten Commandments (1935 ed.), pp. 8,9.

Perpetuity of the Law

"As the word 'law' is used in various senses in the Bible we may well begin our study with a brief examination of its meaning... The word torah is there (in the Old Testament) used for the laws revealed through Moses, but these were of a threefold character.

"(a) The civil law was strictly applicable only to the chosen people, and was adapted to their peculiar circumstances both in the wilderness and Canaan, but it has ever since formed a pattern for the legislation of all civilized countries.

"(b) The ceremonial law was also only for Israel and proselytes from heathendom, and it was preparatory and temporary (Gal. 4:3,9; Col. 2:16,17,20,21; Heb. 7:18,19; 9:10; 10:1); yet it not only typified the gospel dispensation, but illustrated the perpetual principles of acceptable worship.

"(c) The moral law (Ten Commandments) was given to Israel in trust for all mankind. It contains the elementary rules of moral and religious duty, and embodies the eternal principles of right and wrong. It has never been abrogated but is as unchangeable as its author, being based on our essential relationships to Him and our fellow men, and it is of perpetual and universal obligation (Matt. 5:17-20). Hence the Seventh Article of the Church of England states: 'Although the law given from God by Moses as touching ceremonies and rites. does not bind Christian men, nor the civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth, yet, not withstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from obedience of the commandments which are called moral.'....

"Confining our attention now to the moral law, let us consider its essential character and its original proclamation.

"1) It may be regarded as the expression of divine mind and will, universal in its scope, but individual in its application, for it addresses us in the singular number.

"2) It is strikingly compact, but singularly complete; covering every relationship in which we stand both to God and man, and embracing alike our religious and social duties.

"It deals not only with our open words and actions, but with our hidden thoughts and motives; the first, second, and tenth commandments regulating our desires, the third and ninth our words, and the remainder our deeds. The commands imply a prohibition of the opposite conduct, and the negative involves the contrary positive duties as we see from the summary of both 'tables' in Leviticus 19:18; Deuteronomy 6:5; 10:12." - William C. Procter in Moody Bible Institute Monthly (Copyrighted), October, 1933, p. 49.

"These laws are what we might call universal....These Ten Commandments are only the codification of what man's own moral nature approves as right; and they are right, and true, and abiding in every age for every race." - Peloubet's Select Notes (on the International Sunday School lesson for Jan. 20, 1946), p. 35. Edited by Wilbur M. Smith and published by W. A. Wilde Company, Boston.

"The moral law, contained in the Ten Commandments, and enforced by the Prophets, he did not take away. It was not the design of His coming to revoke any part of this...Every part of the law must remain in force upon all mankind, and in all ages; as not depending either on time or place, or any other circumstances liable to change, but on the nature of God, and the nature of man, and their unchangeable relationship to each other." - John Wesley, Upon Our Lord's Sermon on the Mount, Discourse 5, in Works, vol. 5 (1829 ed.), pp. 311,312.

"In the moral government of the universe God acts in harmony with a rule...Not only is it unchangeable with respect to places and races, to days and seasons, to conditions and circumstances, but also to ages. It has been unchangeable. It will be unchangeable.

"We cannot conceive of an age when the moral government of the universe shall be changed, because we cannot conceive of God becoming different morally from what He now and ever has been....This Law of God is holy as He Himself is holy....It is a universal law....The Law of God is just and cannot be unjust - its justice is universal....It is more than just; it is gracious....It results in welfare, in happiness, in blessedness. It is more than negative, prohibiting wrong-doing. It is more than positive, requiring right-doing. It is linked with all the outgoing of God's life towards man; and this means that it is linked with His great compassionate love. The Law of God is full of the love of God." - O. C. S. Wallace, What Baptists Believe, pp. 80-83.

"We have already seen that, unlike the ceremonial and civil codes which were given to Israel as the chosen people and holy nation, the moral law is intended for all mankind, and it has never ben abrogated nor repealed." - William C. Procter, Moody Bible Institute Monthly (Copy righted), December, 1933, p. 160.

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