The Third Angel's Message

IN the matter of the duty of keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, it is not to be understood that the two can for a moment be separated. The commandments can not be kept acceptably to God except by faith in Jesus Christ; and faith in Christ amounts to nothing—is dead—unless it is manifested, made perfect, in good works: and these good works consist in keeping the commandments of God.

Christ kept the commandments of God: “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love” (John 15:10). By his obedience it is that many must be made righteous. “For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19). But these are made righteous only by faith in him, thus having “the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:22, 23).

All have sinned; and “sin is the transgression of the law.” As all have thus transgressed the law, none can attain to righteousness by the law. There is righteousness in the law of God; in fact, the Word says, “All thy commandments are righteousness;” but there is no righteousness there for the transgressor. If righteousness ever comes to one who has transgressed the law, it must come from some source besides the law. And as all, in all the world, have transgressed the law, to whomsoever, in all the world, righteousness shall come, it must be from another source than from the law, and that source is Christ Jesus the Lord.

This is the great argument of Romans 3:19-21: “Now we know that what things soever the law says, it says to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.”

Then the question comes in, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law.” Notice, he had already said that although this righteousness of God is “without the law,” and by faith of Christ, yet it is “witnessed by the law and the prophets.” It is a righteousness that accords with the law; it is a righteousness to which the law can bear witness, it is a righteousness with which the law in its perfect righteousness can find no fault: it is indeed the very righteousness of the law itself; for it is the righteousness of God, and the law is only the law of God. It is the righteousness of God, which in Christ is wrought out for us by his perfect obedience to the commandments of God, and of which we become partakers by faith in him; for “by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous.” Thus we become the children of God by faith in Christ. By faith in him the righteousness of the law is met in us. And we do not make void, but we establish, the law of God, by faith in Christ. In other words, in Christ is found the keeping of the law of God.

This is shown again in Galatians 2:17: “But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.” To be found sinners, is to be found transgressors of the law; for “sin is the transgression of the law.” Then since the Lord has set his everlasting “God forbid” against any suggestion that Christ is the minister of the transgression of the law, it follows as certainly that Christ ministers the keeping of the law. The believer in Jesus finds in Christ the keeping of the commandments of God—the law of God. Whosoever therefore professes to be justified by faith in Christ, and yet claims the “liberty” to disregard the law of God in a single point, is deceived. He is only claiming that Christ is the minister of sin, against which the Lord has set his everlasting “God forbid.” Thus faith, justification by faith, establishes the law of God; because faith, the faith of Jesus Christ, is the only means there is by which the keeping of the commandments of God can ever be manifested in the life of anybody in the world.

This is yet further shown in Romans 8:3-10: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” What was it that the law could not do?

1. The law was ordained to life (Rom. 7:10), but it could not minister life, because “all had sinned”—transgressed the law, —and “the wages of sin is death.” And this being so, all that the law can possibly minister is death.

2. The law was ordained to justification (Rom. 2:13), but it will justify only the doers of the law: but of all the children of Adam there have been no doers of the law: “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”

3. The law was ordained to righteousness (Rom. 10:5), but it can count as righteous only the obedient: and all the world is guilty of disobedience before God.

Therefore, because of man’s failure, because of his wrong doings, the law could not minister to him life, it could not justify him, it could not accept him as righteous. So far as man was concerned, the purpose of the law was entirely frustrated.

But mark, “What the law could not do in that it was weak through the sinful flesh,” God sent his Son to do, in the likeness of sinful flesh. What the law could not do, Christ does. The law could not minister life, because by transgression all had incurred its penalty of death; the law could not give justification, because by failure to do it, all had brought themselves under its condemnation; the law could not give righteousness, because all had sinned. But instead of this death, Christ gives life; instead of this condemnation, Christ gives justification; instead of this sin, Christ gives righteousness.

And for what? —That henceforth the law might be despised by us? —Nay, verily! But “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill,” said the holy Son of God. And so “Christ is the end [the object, the aim, the purpose] of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth” (Rom. 10:4). For of God, Christ Jesus “is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, He that glories, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Cor. 1:30, 31).

In Christ, by faith of Christ, the believer in Jesus finds the keeping of the commandments of God, which is the righteousness of God. Thus the keeping of the commandments of God is the gift of God: it is the “free gift” of the righteousness of God “which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe.” And this is the Third Angel’s Message: “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:12).