In its individual, or what is usually called its '" moral" aspect, the law bore equally the stamp of trausitoriness and insufficiency. It had, as we have seen, declared the authority of truth and goodness over man's will, and taken for granted in man the existence of a spirit which could recognise that authority; but it had done no more. Its presence had therefore detected the existence and the sinfulness of sin, as alien alike to God's will and man's true nature; but it had also brought out with more vehement and desperate antagonism the power of sin dwelling in man as fallen. (Kom. vii, 7-25), It only showed, therefore, the need of a Saviour from sin, and of an indwelling jiower which should enable the spirit of man to conquer the ''law" of evil. Hence it bore testi- mony to its own insufficiency, and led men to Christ. Al- ready the prophets, speaking by a living and indwelling spirit, ever fresh and powerful, had been passuig beyond
LAW OF MOSES
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LAW OF MOSES
the dead letter of the law, and indirectly convicting it of insufficiency. But there was need of "l/ie Prophet" who should not only have tlie fulness of the Spirit dwell- ing in hinlself, but should liave the power to give it to others, and so open the now dispensation already fore- told. When he had come, and by the gift of the Spirit implanted in man a i'ree internal power of action tend- ing to God, the restraints of the law, needful to train the childhood of the world, became unnecessarj' and even injurious to the free development of its manhood.
nie relation of the law to Christ, in its sacrificial and ceremonial aspect, will be more fuUy considered else- where. See SACKincE. It is here only necessary to remark on the evidently typical character of the whole system of sacrifices, upon which alone their virtue de- pended ; and on the imperfect embodiment, in any body of mere men, of the great truth which was represented in the priesthood. By the former declaring the need of atonement, by the latter the possibility of mediation, and yet in itself doing nothing adequately to realize either, the law again led men to him who was at once the only mediator and the true sacrifice.
Thus the law had trained and guided man to the ac- ceptance of the Messiah in his threefold character of king, prophet, and priest ; and then, its work being done, it became, in the minds of those who trusted in it, not only an encumbrance, but a snare. To resist its claim to allegiance was therefore a matter of life and death in the days of St. Paul, and, in a less degree, in after ages of the Church.
3. It remains to consider how far it has any obligation or existence under the dispensation of the Gospel. As a means of justification or salvation, it ought never to have been regarded, even before Christ: it needs no proof to show that still less can this be so since he has come. But yet the question remains whether it is bind- ing on Christians, even when they do not depend on it for salvation.
It seems clear enough, that its formal coercive author- ity as a whole ended with the close of the Jewish dis- pensation. We may indeed distinguish its various ele- ments; yet he who offended "in one point against it was guilty of all" (James ii, 10). It referred throughout to the Jewish covenant, and in many points to the con- stitution, the customs, and even the local circumstances of the people. That covenant was preparatory to the Christian, in which it is now absorbed; those customs and observances have passed awaj'. It follows, by the very nature of the case, that the former obligation to the \dw as such must have ceased with the basis on which it is grounded. This conclusion is stamped most imequivocally with the authority of St. Paul through the whole argument of the Epistles to the Komans and to the Galatians. That we are "not under law" (Kom. vi. 14, 15 ; Gal. v, 18) ; " that we are dead to law" (Rom. vii, 4^G ; (ial. ii, 19), " redeemed from under law" (Gal. iv, 5), etc., is not only stated without any limitation or ex- ception, but in many places is made the prominent feat- ure of the contrast between the earlier and later cove- nants. It is impossible, therefore, to avoid the conclu- sion that the formal code, promulgated by Moses, and sealed with the prediction of the blessing and the curse, cannot, an a law, be binding on the Christian.
But what, then, becomes of the declaration of our Lord, that he came " not to destroy the law, but to per- fect it," and that " not one jot or one tittle of it shall pass away?" what of the fact, consequeut upon it, that the law has been reverenced in all Christian churches, and had an important infiuence on much Christian leg- islation? The explanation of the apparent contradic- tion lies in several considerations.
(1.) The positive obligation of the law, as such, has passed away ; but every revelation of God's will, and of the righteousness and love which are its elements, im- poses a moral obligation, by the very fact of its being linown, even on those to whom it is not primarily ad- dressed. So far as the law of Moses is such a revela-