(Excerpt)
This is the universal lesson: that no man can serve God, that no man can keep a single one of the Ten Commandments, except he is first delivered, by the power of God, from the darkness of Egypt, from the darkness of the shadow of death, from the realm and bondage of sin.
This is the lesson of the whole Bible. Look, for instance, at Ephesians 2:1-10: how men are dead in trespasses and sins, in the darkness of this world; walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the ruler of the darkness of this world (Ephesians 6:12), the spirit that works in the children of disobedience. But God, who is rich in mercy, has quickened us together with Christ, and has raised us up together with Him, to live and walk with Him. And this He did, not by our works, nor because of our works, but of His own mercy and grace: “for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Thus is the lesson taught, that no man can do good works except he is created unto it by the power of God.
How strongly this lesson is emphasized in the book of Galatians, which is just now the subject of the Sabbath-school studies. What are generally regarded as the practical things of the Christian life are not mentioned until the end of the book—brotherly kindness; bearing one another’s burdens; communicating in all good things; the sowing and the reaping, whether to the flesh or to the Spirit; doing good to all men, especially to the household of faith. These things come only in the few verses of the very last chapter. After men have been delivered from this present evil world, into the glorious liberty of the children of God, and are standing fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,—the liberty by love to serve one another,—filled with the Spirit, so that all the fruits of the Spirit are shining in the life, reflecting the sunshine of righteousness,—only THEN it is that the generally considered practical things of the Christian life are enjoined.
Why is this? It is the same universal, divine lesson, that no man can do good works, no man can possibly do the “practical things of the Christian life,” who has not first the Christian life as a practical thing. And, therefore, it is made perfectly plain that deliverance from the darkness and bondage of sin; the finding of the sonship of God; the ability to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free; the receiving of the fullness of the Spirit of God in the life,—these things are the practical things of Christianity, equally with the others. Indeed, in a sense these are the more practical things; because so certainly must these precede the others that, without these, the other practical things of the Christian life can never be seen at all.
Therefore when, from Mount Sinai, God would speak, with a voice that shook the earth, the practical things of the life of man, He spoke first of all this original practical thing of the life of man—deliverance from the realm and bondage of sin:—
“I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” Exodus 20:2.
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
Yet this is not the preamble of only the first commandment, but of the whole law, as if it were as follows:—
“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.”
“I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
“I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.
“I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
“Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
“I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
“Thou shalt not kill.”
“I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
“Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
“I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
“Thou shalt not steal.”
“I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
“I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.” Exodus 20.
And since, when He sent His only begotten Son to redeem us indeed, He renewed and emphasized this preliminary thought, in the words, “Out of Egypt have I called my Son,” it is as if this were the preamble and the whole law—is expressed in the great of the whole law of God. And all of it—the preamble and the whole law—is expressed in the great thought of the Third Angel’s Message: “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”
February 5, 1901
“The Keeping of the Commandments” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 78, 6, p. 88
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