+I. It is a standard to measure our defects.+
+II. It is a sword to pierce our conscience.+
+III. It is a seal to certify that we are in the way of
grace.+--_Tholuck._
_No Trust in Legal Prescriptions._--St. Paul, with the sledge-hammer
force of his direct and impassioned dialectics, shattered all
possibility of trusting in legal prescriptions, and demonstrated that
the law was no longer obligatory on Gentiles. He had shown that the
distinction between clean and unclean meats was to the enlightened
conscience a matter of indifference, that circumcision was nothing
better than a physical mutilation, that ceremonialism was a yoke with
which the free, converted Gentile had nothing to do, that we are
saved by faith and not by works, that the law was a dispensation of
wrath and menace introduced for the sake of transgressions, that so
far from being, as all the Rabbis asserted, the one thing on account
of which the universe had been created, the Mosaic code only
possessed a transitory, subordinate, and intermediate character,
coming in, as it were in a secondary way, between the promise of
Abraham and the fulfilment of that promise in the Gospel of
Christ.--_Dean Farrar._
_The Use of the Law under the Gospel._
+I. The law never was intended to supersede the Gospel as a means of
life.+
+II. The most perfect edition of the Gospel, so far from having
abolished the least tittle of the moral law, has established it.+
+III. The use of the law.+--1. To constitute probation. 2. The law is
our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. 3. The law serves to give
beauty and symmetry to the hidden man of the heart. 4. To vindicate
the conduct of our Judge in dooming the impenitent to eternal death.
+Lessons.+--1. _Since the law as a covenant has been superseded by a
covenant better adapted to our guilty and helpless circumstances, let
us make a proper use of the mercy, acquaint ourselves with its
demands, and abound in the holiness it enjoins._ 2. _Mark those who
set aside the law, shun their company, and pray for their
repentance._--_Iota._
Ver. 20. _The Unity of God and His Purpose regarding Man._--1. The
covenant with Adam in his innocency was immediate, no mediator
intervening to make them one; there was no disagreement betwixt them
because of sin. 2. No man can attain heaven, or reap any advantage,
except he be perfectly holy. God made no covenant of works with men
on Mount Sinai, nor could they have reaped benefit from such a
covenant as they were a sinful people, standing in need of a midsman
betwixt God and them. 3. The Lord in all His dispensations is always
one and like to Himself without shadow of turning. If any plead a
right to heaven by the merit of their works, God will abate nothing
of what He did once prescribe and require of man in the covenant of
works.--_Fergusson._
_An Effectual Mediator._--Edward III., after defeating Philip of
France at Creçy, laid siege to Calais, which, after an obstinate
resistance of a year, was taken. He offered to spare the lives of the
inhabitants on the condition that six of their principal citizens
should be delivered up to him, with halters around their necks, to be
immediately executed. When these terms were announced the rulers of
the town came together, and the question was proposed, "Who will
offer himself as an atonement for the city? Who will imitate Christ
who gave Himself for the salvation of men?" The number was soon made
up. On reaching the English camp they were received by the soldiers
of Edward with every mark of commiseration. They appeared before the
king. "Are these the principal inhabitants of Calais?" he inquired
sternly. "Of France, my lord," they replied. "Lead them to
execution." At this moment the queen arrived. She was informed of the
punishment about to be inflicted on the six victims. She hastened to
the king and pleaded for their pardon. At first he sternly refused,
but her earnestness conquered, and the king yielded. When we submit
our hearts as captives to the Father, and feel that we are condemned
and lost, we have an effectual Mediator who stays the hand of justice.
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 21-25.
_The True Use of the Law_--
+I. Was not intended to bestow spiritual life.+--"If there had been a
law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should
have been by the law" (ver. 21). The law was not against the
promises. It was a Divine method in dealing with man, and one Divine
method never conflicts with another. It was intended to mediate
between the promise and its fulfilment. It is not the enemy but the
minister of grace. It did not profess to bestow spiritual life; but
in its sacrifices and oblations pointed to the coming Christ who is
"the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth"
(Rom. x. 4).
+II. Was to reveal the universal domination of sin.+--"The Scripture
hath concluded all under sin" (ver. 22). The Bible from the beginning
and throughout its course, in its unvarying teaching, makes the world
one vast prison-house with the law for gaoler, and mankind held fast
in chains of sin, condemned and waiting for the punishment of death.
Its perpetual refrain is, "All have sinned and come short of the
glory of God." Its impeachment covers the whole realm of human life,
thought, and desire. "Every human life," says Martensen, "that has
not yet become a partaker of redemption is a life under the law, in
opposition to the life under grace. The law hovers over his life as
an unfulfilled requirement; and, in the depth of his own being,
remains as an indismissible but unsatisfied and unexpiated claim on
him, which characterises such a human existence as sinful and
guilt-laden."
+III. Was to teach the absolute necessity of faith in order to escape
its condemnation.+--"But before faith came, we were kept under the
law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed"
(ver. 23). The law was all the while standing guard over its
subjects, watching and checking every attempt to escape, but
intending to hand them over in due time to the charge of faith. The
law posts its ordinances, like so many sentinels, round the
prisoner's cell. The cordon is complete. He tries again and again to
break out; the iron circle will not yield. But deliverance will yet
be his. The day of faith approaches. It dawned long ago in Abraham's
promise. Even now its light shines into his dungeon, and he hears the
word of Jesus, "Thy sins are forgiven thee; go in peace." Law, the
stern gaoler, has after all been a good friend if it has reserved him
for this. It prevents the sinner escaping to a futile and illusive
freedom (_Findlay_).
+IV. Was to act as a moral tutor to train us to the maturity and
higher freedom of a personal faith in Christ.+--"Wherefore the law
was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ," etc. (vers. 24, 25).
The schoolmaster, or pedagogue, among the Greeks meant a faithful
servant entrusted with the care of the boy from childhood, to keep
him from evil, physical and moral, and accompany him to his
amusements and studies. "If then the law is a pedagogue," says
Chrysostom, "it is not hostile to grace, but its fellow-worker; but
should it continue to hold us fast when grace has come, then it would
be hostile." Judaism was an education for Christianity. It trained
the childhood of the race. It humbled and distressed the soul with
the consciousness of sin. It revealed the utter inadequacy of all its
provisions to justify. It brought the despairing soul to Christ and
showed that the true way to righteousness was by personal faith in
Him.
+Lessons.+--1. _Law is the revealer of sin._ 2. _Law demands
universal righteousness._ 3. _Law is a training for faith._
_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._
Vers. 21, 22. _The Law not contrary to
the Divine Promise._--1. It is the way of some to make one Scripture
contradict another, yet their bold allegations will be found always
false, and truth to be every most consonant and never contrary to
itself. 2. So exact and full is the righteousness required in order
to life, and so far short do all mankind come of it, that no works of
our own, done in obedience to the law, can amount to that
righteousness. 3. Though all men by nature be under sin, it is a
matter of no small difficulty to convince any man of it. The work of
the law, accusing, convincing, or condemning the sinner, is compared
to the work of a judge detaining a malefactor in prison which is not
effectuated but with force and violence. 4. The law by its
threatenings prepares and necessitates the soul to embrace salvation
by faith in the Christ revealed in the promise.--_Fergusson._
Ver. 22. _The Great Prison; or, All concluded under Sin._--1. Satan
does indeed draw and drive men into sin--this is the accursed work of
his restless, Sabbath-less life; and when he has got them there he
binds them fast and will not let them flee from his toils. He builds
a high wall of sin all round them so that they shall not look over it
into the goodly land beyond, and here he shuts them up together,
sinner with sinner, a never-ending ghastly multitude, that they may
encourage and pamper each other in wickedness, and that no example,
no voice of holiness, may ever reach and startle them. But God never
drove, never drew, any man into sin. He is calling us to come out
from the deadly land, from the loathsome, plague-breathing dungeon.
So, when the Scripture concludes, or shuts all men up together under
sin, it is not by driving them into sin, but for the sake of calling
them out of it. 2. With all the light of the Scripture shining around
us, with the law of God ever sounding in our ears, and the life of
Christ set continually before us, how prone are we to forget our
sinfulness, to turn away from the thought of it, to fancy we are as
good as we need be, and that, though we might certainly be better,
yet it does not matter much! How apt are we still to forget that we
are concluded under sin, to forget that we are shut up in a prison!
Although the souls of so many millions are lying around us, bloated
with the poison of sin, how tardily do we acknowledge that the poison
by which they perished must also be deadly to us! 3. Suppose you were
to be carried before an earthly court of justice, and that one
sweeping accusation were to be brought against you; suppose you were
found guilty, and the excuse you set up were the complete proof of
your guilt,--what would follow? The judge would straightway pass
sentence upon you, and you would be condemned to suffer punishment
according to the measure of your offence. And must we not expect that
the course of things should be the very same when you are carried
before a heavenly court of justice? 4. When a man's eyes are opened
to see the prison in which he is shut up, to see and feel the chains
that are fast bound round his soul and have eaten into it; when he
has learnt to see and know that the pleasures, whatever they may, of
sin are only, like the flesh-pots of Egypt, intoxicating drugs, given
to him to deprive him of all sense of his captivity,--then will he
long for a deliverer, rejoice on hearing of his approach, hail him
when he comes in view, and follow him whithersoever he may lead. As
unbelief is the one great universal sin, in which all mankind are
concluded, as it is only from having let slip our faith in God that
we have yielded our hearts to the temptations of the world and given
ourselves up to its idolatries, so it is only through faith that we
can be brought back to God--that we can receive the promise given to
those who believe.--_J. C. Hare._
Ver. 23. _"Shut up unto the faith." The Reasonableness of
Faith._--The mode of conception is military. The law is made to act
the part of a sentry, guarding every avenue but one, and that one
leads those, who are compelled to take it, to the faith of the
Gospel. Out of the leading varieties of taste and sentiment which
obtain in the present age we may collect something which may be
turned into an instrument of conviction for reclaiming men from their
delusions and shutting them up to the faith.
+I. There is the school of natural religion.+--It is founded on the
competency of the human mind to know God by the exercise of its own
faculties, to clothe Him in the attributes of its own demonstration,
to serve Him by a worship and a law of its own discovery, and to
assign to Him a mode of procedure in the administration of this vast
universe upon the strength and plausibility of its own theories. They
recognise the judicial government of God over moral and accountable
creatures. They hold there is a law. One step more, and they are
fairly shut up to the faith. That law has been violated.
+II. There is the school of classical morality.+--It differs from the
former school in one leading particular. It does not carry in its
speculations so distinct and positive a reference to the Supreme
Being. Our duties to God are viewed as a species of moral
accomplishment, the effect of which is to exalt and embellish the
individual. We ask them to look at man as he is and compare him with
man as they would have him to be. If they find that he falls
miserably short of their ideal standard of excellence, what is this
but making a principle of their own the instrument of shutting them
up unto the faith of the Gospel, or at least shutting them up into
one of the most peculiar of its doctrines, the depravity of our
nature, or the dismal ravage which the power of sin has made upon the
moral constitution of the species? This depravity the Gospel proposes
to do away.
+III. There is the school of fine feeling and poetical
sentiment.+--It differs from the school of morality in this--the one
makes virtue its idol because of its rectitude, the other makes
virtue its idol because of its beauty, and the process of reasoning
by which they are shut up unto the faith is the same in both. However
much we may love perfection and aspire after it, yet there is some
want, some disease, in the constitution of man which prevents his
attainment of it, that there is a feebleness of principle about him,
that the energy of his practice does not correspond to the fair
promises of his fancy, and however much he may delight in an ideal
scene of virtue and moral excellence, there is some lurking malignity
in his constitution which, without the operation of that mighty power
revealed to us in the Gospel, makes it vain to wish and hopeless to
aspire after it.--_Dr. Thomas Chalmers._
Vers. 24, 25. _The Law our Schoolmaster._--There was a time when God
put His world under a schoolmaster; then it would have been
preposterous to apply faith. There is a time when a larger spirit has
come, and then it would be going back to use law.
+I. The uses of restraint in the heart's education.+--1. _The first
use of law is to restrain from open violence._ It is necessary for
those who feel the inclination to evil, and so long as the
inclination remains so far must a man be under law. Imagine a
governor amidst a population of convicts trusting to high principle.
Imagine a parent having no fixed hours, no law in his household, no
punishment for evil. There is a morbid feeling against punishment;
but it is God's method.
2. _The second use of restraint is to show the inward force of
evil._--A steam-engine at work in a manufactory is so quiet and
gentle that a child might put it back. But interpose a bar of iron
many inches thick, and it cuts through as if it were so much leather.
Introduce a human limb--it whirls round, and the form of man is in
one moment a bleeding, mangled, shapeless mass. It is restraint that
manifests this unsuspected power. In the same way law discovers the
strength of evil in our hearts.
3. _The third use is to form habits of obedience._--In that
profession which is specially one of obedience--the military
profession--you cannot mistake the imparted type of character.
Immediate, prompt obedience, no questioning "why?" Hence comes their
decision of character. Hence, too, their happiness. Would you have
your child, happy, decided, manly? Teach him to obey. It is an error
to teach a child to act on reason, or to expect reasons why a command
is given. Better it is that he should obey a mistaken order than be
taught to see that it is mistaken. A parent must be the master in his
own house.
4. _The fourth use is to form habits of faith._--As Judaism was a
system calculated to nurture habits of obedience, so was it one which
nourished the temper of faith. All education begins with faith. The
child does not know the use of the alphabet, but he trusts. The boy
beginning mathematics takes on trust what he sees no use in. The
child has to take parental wisdom for granted. Happy the child that
goes on believing that nothing is wiser, better, greater, than his
father! Blessed spirit of confiding trust which is to be transferred
to God.
+II. The time when restraint may be laid aside.+--1. _When
self-command is obtained._ Some of us surely there are who have got
beyond childish meanness: we could not be mean; restraint is no
longer needed; we are beyond the schoolmaster. Some of us there are
who have no inclination to intemperance; childish excess in eating
and drinking exists no longer. Some of us there are who no longer
love indolence. We have advanced beyond it. The law may be taken
away, for we are free from law. True Christian liberty is
this--self-command, to have been brought to Christ, to do right and
love right, without a law of compulsion to school into doing it.
2. _When the state of justification by faith has been
attained._--There are two states of justification--by the law and by
faith. Justification by the law implies a scrupulous and accurate
performance of minute acts of obedience in every particular;
justification by faith is acceptance with God, not because a man is
perfect, but because he does all in a trusting, large, generous
spirit, actuated by a desire to please God. In Christianity there are
few or no definite laws--all men are left to themselves.
3. _Restraint must be laid aside when the time of faith has come,
whether faith itself have come or not._--It is so in academical
education. We may have attained the full intellectual comprehension
of the Gospel, but religious goodness has not kept pace with it, and
the man wakes to conviction that the Gospel is a name and the powers
of the world to come are not in him. You cannot put him to school
again. Fear will not produce goodness. Forms will not give reverence.
System will not confer freedom. Therefore the work of childhood and
youth must be done while we are young, when the education is not too
late.--_F. W. Robertson._