Archives for August 2007

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August 31, 2007 by kevinstilley

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August 30, 2007 by kevinstilley

Only A Branch

ONLY A BRANCH
by Freda Hanbury

“I am the vine, ye are the branches.”–John 15:5

“Tis only a little Branch,
A thing so fragile and weak,
But that little Branch hath a message true
To give, could it only speak.

“I’m only a little Branch,
I live by a life not mine,
For the sap that flows through my tendrils small
Is the life-blood of the Vine.

“No power indeed have I
The fruit of myself to bear,
But since I’m part of the living Vine,
Its fruitfulness I share.

“Dost thou ask how I abide?
How this life I can maintain?–
I am bound to the Vine by life’s strong band,
And I only need remain.

“Where first my life was given,
In the spot where I am set,
Upborne and upheld as the days go by,
By the stem which bears me yet.

“I fear not the days to come,
I dwell not upon the past,
As moment by moment I draw a life,
Which for evermore shall last.

“I bask in the sun’s bright beams,
Which with sweetness fills my fruit,
Yet I own not the clusters hanging there,
For they all come from the root.”

A life which is not my own,
But another’s life in me:
This, this is the message the Branch would speak,
A message to thee and me.

Oh, struggle not to “abide,”
Nor labor to “bring forth fruit,”
But let Jesus unite thee to Himself,
As the Vine Branch to the root.

So simple, so deep, so strong
That union with Him shall be:
His life shall forever replace thine own,
And His love shall flow through thee.

For His Spirit’s fruit is love,
And love shall thy life become,
And for evermore on His heart of love
Thy spirit shall have her home.

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August 29, 2007 by kevinstilley

The Law and The Saint

THE LAW AND THE SAINT
by Arthur W. Pink

1. INTRODUCTION

It has been said that every unregenerate sinner has the heart of a Pharisee. This is true; and it is equally true that every unregenerate sinner has the heart of an Antinomian. This is the character which is expressly given to the carnal mind: it is “enmity against God”; and the proof of this is, that “it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7). Should we be surprised, then, if we find the underlying principles of Phariseeism and Antinomianism uniting in the same mind? Surely not. There is no more real opposition between these apparently opposing principles, than there is between enmity and pride. Many a slothful servant has hated his master and his service, and yet had he pride and presumption enough to demand his wages. Phariseeism and Antinomianism unite, like Herod and Pilate did, against the Truth.

The term Antinomian signifies one who is against the Law, hence, when we declare that ours is an age of lawlessness, it is only another way of saying that it is an age characterized by Antinomianism. There is little need for us to pause and offer proof that this is an age of lawlessness. In every sphere of life the sad fact confronts us. In the well-nigh total absence of any real discipline in the majority of the churches, we see the principle exemplified. Not more than two generations ago, thousands, tens of thousands, of the loose-living members whose names are now retained on the membership rolls, would have been dis-fellowshipped. It is the same in the great majority of our homes. With comparatively rare exceptions, wives are no longer in subjection to their husbands (Eph. 5:22,24); and as for obeying them (1 Pet. 3:1,2,5,6), why, the majority of women demand that such a hateful word be stricken from the marriage ceremony. So it is with the children – how could it be otherwise? Obedience to parents is almost entirely a thing of the past. And what of conditions in the world? The abounding marital unfaithfulness, Sunday trading, banditry, lynchings, strikes, and a dozen other things that might be mentioned, all bear witness to the frightful wave of lawlessness which is flowing over the country.

What, we may well inquire, is the cause of the lawlessness which now so widely obtains? For every effect there is a cause, and the character of the effect usually intimates the nature of the cause. We are assured that the present wide-spread contempt for human law is the inevitable outgrowth of disrespect for Divine Law. Where there is no fear of God, we must not expect there will be much fear of man. And why is it that there is so much disrespect for Divine Law? This, in turn, is but the effect of an antecedent cause. Nor is this hard to find. Do not the utterances of Christian teachers during the last twenty-five years go far to explain the situation which now confronts us?

History has repeated itself. Of old, God complained of Ephraim, “I have written to him the great things of My Law, but they were counted as a strange thing” (Hosea 8:12). Observe how God speaks of His Law: “The great things of My Law”! They are not precepts of little moment, but to be lightly esteemed, and slighted; but are of great authority, importance, and value. But, as then, so during the last few years – they have been “counted as a strange thing”. Christian teachers have vied with each other in denouncing the Law as a “yoke of bondage”, “a grievous burden”, “a remorseless enemy”. They have declared in trumpet tones that Christians should regard the Law as “a strange thing”: that it was never designed for them: that it was given to Israel, and then made an end of at the Cross of Christ. They have warned God’s people to have nothing to do with the Ten Commandments. They have denounced as “Legalists” Christians of the past, who, like Paul, “served the Law” (Rom. 7:25). They have affirmed that Grace rules the Law out of the Christian’s life as absolutely as it did out of his salvation. They have held up to ridicule those who contended for a Christian Sabbath, and have classed them with Seventh-Day Adventists. Having sown the wind, is it any wonder that we are now reaping the whirlwind?

The characters of the cause determinates the character of the effect. Whatsoever a man sowth that (the same in kind) shall he also reap. Unto them who of old regarded the great things of God’s Law as a strange thing, God declared, “Because Ephraim hath made many alters to sin, alters shall be unto him to sin” (Hosea 8:11). And because many of our Christian leaders have publicly repudiated Divine Law, God has visited us with a wave of lawlessness in our churches, homes, and social life. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked”!! Nor have we any hope of stemming the onrushing tide, or of causing Christian leaders to change their position. Having committed themselves publicly, the examples of past history warn us that pride will keep them from making the humbling confession that they have erred. But we have a hope that some who have been under the influence of twentieth century Antinomianism will have sufficient spiritual discernment to recognize the truth when it is presented to their notice; and it is for them we now write.

In the January 1923 issue of a contemporary, appeared the second article from the pen of Dr. McNichol, Principal of Toronto Bible School, under the caption of “Overcoming the Dispensations”. The purpose of these articles is to warn God’s children against the perils which lie “in the way of much of the positive pre-millennial teaching of the day”. Quoting, Dr. McNicol says:

“1. There is danger when the Law is set against Grace. No scheme of prophetic interpretation can be safe which is obliged to represent the dispensations of Law and Grace as opposing systems, each excluding the other and contrary to it. If this were the case, it would mean that God had taken opposing and contradictory attitudes towards men in these two different ages. In the last analysis this representation of the relation of law and grace affects the character of God, as everything which perverts the Scriptures, disturbing thereby the mirror of His mind, ultimately does.

“So far from being opposing systems, law and grace as revealed in Scripture are parts of one harmonious and progressive plan. The present dispensation is spoken of as the age of grace, not because grace belongs to it exclusively, but because in it grace has been fully manifested. When John declared that `the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ’, he was contrasting law and grace, not as two contrary and irreconcilable systems, but as two related parts of one system. The law was the shadow, Christ was the substance. The law was the pattern, Christ was the reality. The grace which had been behind the law came to light through Jesus Christ so that it could be realized. As a matter of fact, grace had been in operation from the beginning. It began in Eden with the first promise of redemption immediately after the fall. All redemption is of grace; there can be no salvation without it, and even the law itself proceeds on the basis of grace.

“The law was given to Israel not that they might be redeemed, but because they had been redeemed. The nation had been brought out of Egypt by the power of God under the blood of the slain lamb, itself the symbol and token of His grace. The law was added at Sinai as the necessary standard of life for a ransomed people, a people who now belonged to the Lord. It began with a declaration of their redemption; “I am the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Ex. 20:2). It rested on the basis of grace, and it embodied the principle that redemption implied a conformity to God’s moral order. In other words, the very grace that redeemed Israel carried with it the necessity of revealing the law to Israel. The law was given that they might walk worthy of the relation in which they now stood to God, worthy of a salvation which was already theirs. The covenant of the law did not supersede the covenant of promise, but set forth the kind of life which those who were redeemed by the covenant of promise were expected to live.

“The law was not a covenant of works in the sense that Israel’s salvation depended upon obedience to it. The devout Israelite was saved by faith in the promise of God, which was now embodied in the tabernacle services. He looked forward through the sacrifices to a salvation which they foreshadowed, and by faith accepted it, as we look back to the Cross and by faith accept the salvation which has been accomplished. The Old Testament saints and the New Testament saints are both saved in the same way, and that is, by the grace of God through Jesus Christ alone.

“Of course the people did not keep the law. It only brought sin to light and proved that righteousness could not come that way, as Paul points out in the Epistle to the Romans. It made all the more evident that there was a need for the work of Christ. But Christ came not to put the law aside and introduce another plan. `I came not to destroy’, He declared, `but to fulfill’; not to dissolve the obligations of the law and release us from them, but to substantiate the law and make good all that it required. In the Sermon on the Mount He expounded and expanded the law, in all its depth and breadth, and in all its searching sweep. This Sermon spoke to His disciples; it was His law for them. It was not intended for another age and another people; it set forth the kind of life He expected His own people to live in the present age.

“Of course we cannot fulfill the law of the Sermon on the Mount as an outward standard of life. Our Lord did not leave it at that. He was Himself going to make it possible for His disciples to fulfill it, but He could not yet tell them how. When He died and rose again and ascended into heaven, and His Holy Spirit – the same Spirit which had fulfilled and exemplified that law completely in His own life – came flowing back into the lives of His disciples, then they had to keep it. The law was written on their hearts. Their lives were conformed to the law, not by slavish obedience to an outward standard, but by the free constraint of an inward spirit. The ordinance of the law was fulfilled in them when they walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.

“It is this very feature of grace which seems to make it an entirely different and separate system from the law, for it did not exist in the Old Testament dispensation. It could not be realized before the redemptive work of Christ was done and the Holy Spirit came. The Israelites occupied a different position toward the law from that occupied by the Christian now. The law demanded an obedience which the natural heart could not give. In its practical working, therefore, the law necessarily came to stand over man as a creditor, with claims of justice which had not been satisfied. These claims Christ met on the Cross and put out of the way. More than that, by virtue of our union with Him in His death and resurrection, He has brought us out of the sphere where the law as an outward authority demands obedience of the natural man, into the sphere where the law is written upon the heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. He has created us `a new man’ whose nature it is to fulfill the law by an inward power and principle. This is what Paul meant when he said, `I through the law died unto the law that I might live unto God’ (Gal. 2:19), and when he wrote to the Romans, `Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law but under grace’ (6:14).

“This new revelation to the law has been created by the grace of God through the work of Jesus Christ. But the law still remains. It is the reflex of His own character and the revelation of His moral order. He cannot set it aside, for then He would deny Himself. The wonder and glory of grace consists in this, that it came in, not to oppose the law and substitute another plan, but to meet and satisfy all its claims and provide a way of fulfilling all its obligations. It has pleased the Lord by His grace to magnify the law and make it honorable.”

With the above remarks we are in hearty accord.[1] It is a superficial and erroneous conclusion that supposes the Old and New Testaments are antagonistic. The Old Testament is full of grace: the New Testament if full of Law. The revelation of the New Testament to the Old is like that of the oak tree to the acorn. It has been often said, and said truly, “The New is in the Old contained, the Old is by the New explained”! And surely this must be so. The Bible as a whole, and in its parts, is not merely for Israel or the Church, but is a written revelation from God to and for the whole human race. It is indeed sad to see how little this elementary truth is grasped today and what confusion prevails.

Even the late Mr. F. W. Grant in his notes on Exodus 19 and 20 was so inconsistent with himself as to say, First, “It is plain that redemption, as bringing the soul to God, sets up His throne within it, and obedience is the only liberty. It is plain too, that there is a `righteousness of the law’ which the law itself gives no power to fulfill, but which `is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit’ (Rom. 8:4). What is merely dispensational passes, but not that which is the expression of God’s character and required by it. Nothing of that can pass .. grace still must affirm this, therefore, not set it (obedience) aside; but it does what law does not – it provides for the accomplishment of the condition. First of all, the obedience of Another, who owed none, has glorified God infinitely with regard to those who owed but did not pay. Secondly, – for this even could not release (nor could there be blessing in release) from the personal obligation, – grace apprehended in the heart brings back the heart to God, and the heart brought back in love serves of necessity” (italics ours).

With the above quoted words from The Numerical Bible we are in entire accord, and only wish they might be echoed by Mr. Grant’s followers. But second, and most inconsistently, and erroneously, Mr. Grant says: “In the wisdom of God, that same law, whose principle was `do and live’, could yet be the type of the obedience of faith in those who are subjects of a spiritual redemption, the principle of which is `live and do’. Let us remember, however, that law in itself retains none the less its character as opposed to grace, and that as a type it does not represent law any longer: we are not, as Christians in any sense under the law, but under grace” (italics his). This is a mistake, the more serious because made by one whose writings now constitute in certain circles the test of orthodoxy in the interpreting of God’s Word.

What has been said above reveals the need for a serious and careful examination of the teaching of Holy Scripture concerning the Law. But to what do we refer when we speak of “The Law”? This is a term which needs to be carefully defined. In the New Testament there are three expressions used, concerning which there has been not a little confusion. First, there is “the Law of God” (Rom. 7:22,25, etc.). Second, there is “the Law of Moses” (John 7:23; Acts 13:39, 15:5, etc.). Third, there is “the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). Now these three expressions are by no means synonymous, and it is not until we learn to distinguish between them, that we can hope to arrive at any clear understanding of our subject.

The “Law of God” expresses the mind of the Creator, and is binding upon all rational creatures. It is God’s unchanging moral standard for regulating the conduct of all men. In some places “the Law of God” may refer to the whole revealed will of God, but in the majority it has reference to the Ten Commandments; and it is in this restricted sense we use the term. This Law was impressed on man’s moral nature from the beginning, and though now fallen, he still shows the work of it written in his heart. This law has never been repealed, and in the very nature of things, cannot be. For God to abrogate the moral Law would be to plunge the whole universe into anarchy. Obedience to the Law of God is man’s first duty. That is why the first complaint that Jehovah made against Israel after they left Egypt was, “How long refuse ye to keep My commandments and My laws” (Ex. 16:27). That is why the first statutes God gave to Israel were the Ten Commandments, i.e. the moral Law. That is why in the first discourse of Christ recorded in the New Testament He declared, “Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Matt 5:17), and then proceeded to expound and enforce the moral Law. And that is why in the first of the Epistles, the Holy Spirit has taught us at length the relation of the Law to sinners and saints, in connection with salvation and the subsequent walk of the saved: the word “law” occurs in Romans no less than seventy-five times, though, of course, not every reference is to the Law of God. And that is why sinners (Rom. 3:19) and saints (Jas. 2:12) shall be judged by this Law.

The “Law of Moses” is the entire system of legislation, judicial and ceremonial, which Jehovah gave to Israel during the time they were in the wilderness. The Law of Moses, as such, is binding upon none but Israelites. This Law has not been repealed. That the Law of Moses is not binding on Gentiles is clear from Acts 15.

The “Law of Christ” is God’s moral Law, but in the hands of the Mediator. It is the Law which Christ Himself was “made under” (Gal. 4:4). It is the Law which was “in His heart” (Psa. 40:8). It is the Law which He came to “fulfill” (Matt. 5:17). The “Law of God” is now termed “the Law of Christ” as it relates to Christians. As creatures we are under bonds to “serve the Law of God” (Rom. 7:25). As redeemed sinners we are ” the bondslaves of Christ” (Eph. 6:6), and as such we are under bonds to “serve the Lord Christ” (Col. 3:24). The relation between these two appellations, “the law of God” and “the Law of Christ” is clearly intimated in 1 Cor. 9:21, where the apostle states, that he was not without Law to God,” for he was “under the Law of Christ”. The meaning of this is very simple. As a human creature, the apostle was still under obligation to obey the moral Law of God his Creator; but as a saved man he now belonged to Christ, the Mediator, by redemption. Christ had purchased him: he was His, therefore, he was “under the Law of Christ”. The “Law of Christ”, then, is just the moral Law of God now in the hands of the Mediator and Redeemer – cf Ex. 34:1 and what follows!

Should any object against our definition of the distinction drawn between God’s moral Law and “the Law of Moses” we request them to attend closely to what follows. God took special pains to show us the clear line of demarcation which He has Himself drawn between the two. The moral Law became incorporated in the Mosaic Law,[2] yet was it sharply distinguished from it. The proof of this is as follows: –

In the first place, let the reader note carefully the words with which Ex. 20 opens: “And God spake all these words.” Observe it is not “The Lord spake all these words”, but “God spake”. This is the more noticeable because in the very next verse He says, “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt”, etc. Now the Divine titles are not used loosely, nor are they employed alternately for the purpose of variation. Each one possesses a definite and distinct signification. “God” is the creatorial title (see Gen. 1:1). “Lord” is God in covenant relationship, that is why it is “Lord God” all through Gen. 2. In Gen. 1 it is God in connection with His creatures. In Gen. 2 it is the Lord God in connection with Adam, with whom He had entered into a covenant – see Hos. 6:7, margin. The fact, then, that Ex. 20 opens with “And God spake all these words”, etc. prove conclusively that the Ten Commandments were not and are not designed solely for Israel (the covenant people), but for all mankind. The use of the title “God” in Ex. 20:1 is the more forceful because in vv. 2,5,7,10,11,12 “the Lord” is named, and named there because Israel is being addressed.

In the second place, the Ten Commandments, and they alone, of all the laws Jehovah gave to Israel, were promulgated by the finger of God, amid the most solemn manifestations and tokens of the Divine presence and majesty.

In the third place, the Ten Commandments, and they alone, of all Jehovah’s statutes to Israel, were written directly by the finger of God, written upon tables of stone; and written thus to denote their lasting and imperishable nature.

In the fourth place, the Ten Commandments were further distinguished from all those laws which had merely a local application to Israel, by the fact that they alone were laid up in the ark. A tabernacle was prepared by the special direction of God, and within it an ark was placed, in which the two tables of the Law were deposited. The ark, formed of the most durable wood, was overlaid with gold, within and without. Over it was placed the mercy-seat, which became the throne of Jehovah in the midst of His people. Not until the tabernacle had been erected, and the Law placed in the ark, did Jehovah take up His abode in Israel’s midst. Thus did the Lord signify to Israel that the moral Law was the basis of all His governmental dealings with them.

Thus it is clear beyond any room for doubt that the Ten Commandments, the moral Law of God, were sharply distinguished from “the Law of Moses.” The “Law of Moses,” excepting the moral Law incorporated therein, was binding on none but Israelites, or Gentile proselytes. But the moral Law of God, unlike the Mosaic, is binding on all men. Once this distinction is perceived, many minor difficulties are cleared up. For example: someone says, If we are to keep the Sabbath day holy, as Israel did, why must we not observe the other Sabbaths – the Sabbatic year, for instance? The answer is, Because the moral Law alone is binding on Gentiles and Christians. Why, it may be asked, does not the death penalty attached to the desecration of the Sabbath day (Ex. 31:14, etc.) still obtain? The answer is, Because though that was a part of the Mosaic Law, it was not a part of the moral Law of God, i.e. it was not inscribed on the tables of stone; therefore it concerned none but Israelites.

In the chapters following this, we propose to offer an exposition of the principal scriptures in the New Testament which refer to the Ten Commandments. First, we will take up the passages which are appealed to by those who deny that the Law is in anywise binding on Christians. Second, we shall treat of some of the many passages which unmistakable prove that all are under lasting obligations to obey the Law of God. Third, a separate booklet[3] will be devoted to the Christian Sabbath. Fourth, in another separate booklet[4] we shall discuss the nature of true Christian liberty. May Divine grace so illumine our understandings and rule our hearts that we shall run in the way of God’s commandments.

2. THE NEGATIVE SIDE.

What is the relation between the Law and the saint? By the Law we refer to the Ten Commandments engraven upon the tables of stone by the finger of God; by the saint we mean, the believer living in the present dispensation. What, then, is the relation between the Christian living today and the Ten Commandments formally proclaimed in the time of Moses? It is indeed sad that such a question needs to be raised, and that the Divine answer requires to be pressed upon the people of God. There was a time when it would not have been easy to find a Christian who was ignorant upon this subject; a time when the first thing committed to memory by the children of Christian parents was the Ten Commandments. But, alas, today it is far otherwise. Now, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find those who can give a clear and scriptural answer to our opening question. And as to finding children who can repeat the Ten Commandments, they are rare indeed.

The Law and the saint. Present-day teachings on this subject, as on almost every other scriptural theme, is conflicting and contradictory. There are indeed few Divine doctrines upon which even Christian teachers are uniform in their testimony. What differences of opinion exist concerning Church-truth and the ordinances! What a variety of interpretations of prophecy now confront us! What a lack of harmony concerning the doctrine of sanctification. The same confusion prevails concerning the relation of the Law to the saint. Just as the Confusion of Tongues (Gen. 11) immediately preceded God’s call to Abraham (the father of us all) to leave his native home and go forth into that land which he was to receive for an inheritance (Gen. 12), so there is a confusion of tongues in the theological world just before the people of God are to be called away from this earth to their heavenly inheritance (1 Peter 1:4). That God has a good reason for permitting the present confusion of tongues, we doubt not – “For there must be factions among you; that they that are approved may be made manifest among you” (1 Cor. 11:19, R.V.).

What is the relation of the Law to the saint? Three answers have been given. First, that sinners become saints by obeying the Law. Second, that the Law is a rule of life for believers. Third, that the Law has nothing whatever to do with believers today. Those who give the first answer teach that the Law defines what God requires from man, and therefore man must keep it in order to be accepted by God. Those who give the second answer teach that the Law exhibits a standard of conduct, and that while this Old Testament standard receives amplification in the New, yet the latter does not set aside the former. Those who give the third answer teach that the Law was a yoke of bondage, grievous to be borne, and that it has been made an end of so far as Christians are concerned. The first answer is Legalism pure and simple: salvation by works; the second, relates to true Christian liberty; the third, is Antinomianism – lawlessness, a repudiation of God’s governmental authority. The first view prevailed generally through the Medieval Ages, when Popery reigned almost supreme. The second view prevailed generally during the time of the Reformers and Puritans. The third view has come into prominence during the last century, and now is the popular belief of our day.

How thankful we should be that it is our happy privilege to return from the theological bedlam that surrounds us, and enter the quiet sanctuary of God’s truth; that we may turn away from the conflicting voices of men, to hear what God says on the subject. We trust that this is the hearty desire of our readers. We cherish the hope that few who have read the above paragraphs are so conceited as to suppose they have no need to examine or re-examine what the Scriptures teach about the relation of the Law to believers. We are persuaded, rather, that the reader shares the conviction of the writer, namely, that this is an imperative necessity. It is so easy to conclude that our views of certain Divine truths have been formed from our own study of what we have (correctly or incorrectly) imbibed from human teachers. Our need is that of the Bereans (Acts 17:11) – to “Search the Scriptures daily” to find out whether or not what we hear and read is in accord with the Word of Truth. Moreover, this is sure, “if any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know” (1 Cor. 8:2). Therefore it behooves every one of us to definitely look to God for light and help, and then reverently turn to His Word for the needed instruction.

Before we present to the reader some of the leading scriptures which set forth the relation of the Law to believers of this dispensation, it will first be necessary to examine the passages which are appealed to by those who affirm that the Law has no relation to the people of God living today. Let us then turn to these passages, and without prejudice (as far as that is possible) seek to ascertain their true meaning.

1. “For as many as have sinned without Law shall also perish without Law…for when the Gentiles which have not the Law, do by nature the things contained in the Law, these, having not the Law, are a Law unto themselves” (Rom. 2:12-14). These verses really have no direct bearing on our present theme, inasmuch as they treat of other than saints. Yet, as this passage does relate to the wider subject of the Law in general, and as it is made use of by those who flatly and hotly deny the Law has any relation to believers today, we give it a brief notice.

It is affirmed by some whom we respect, but from whom on this subject we are obliged to differ, that the Law was given to the nation of Israel and to none else, and therefore, that neither Gentiles nor Christians are under any obligation to keep it. That the Law was formally given to Israel at Sinai is freely granted. But does that prove it was meant for none other than the descendants of Jacob? Surely not. When writing to the saints at Rome (many of whom were Gentiles, see 1:13; 11:13; 15:15, 16, etc.) Paul said, “But now we are delivered from the Law” (7:6). Again, in 8:7 he declares, “The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be”: mark, it is not “the Jewish mind”, but the “carnal mind” to Jew and Gentile alike. Now, there would be no point to this statement if the mind of man, as man, is not obligated to be in subjection to the Law of God. Man’s mind is not subject, and because of its innate depravity “cannot be”; nevertheless, it ought to be. Once more: note how in Eph. 2:2 the wicked are said to be “children of disobedience”; this is meaningless if they are not under obligation to obey the commandments of God. These scriptures, then, are sufficient to establish the fact that Gentiles, as well as Jews, are “under the Law”.

Returning now to Rom. 2:12,13. The simple meaning of these verses is that, the Gentiles never had given to them the two tablets of stone on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed, nor were they in possession of the Scriptures, wherein those Commandments were recorded. But it should be carefully noted that Rom. 2:5 goes on to state these very Gentiles “show the work of the Law written on their hearts”. On these verses Prof. Stifler has well said, “The argument (of v.14) lies in this, that Gentiles have what is tantamount to the moral Law”. The fact that the Gentiles are “a law unto themselves” shows that God gave them the equivalent of what He gave the Jews, namely, a standard of right and wrong. In the case of the former, it was “written in their hearts”, in the case of the latter, it was written on tables of stone, and afterwards in the Scriptures. “From this it is clear that the moral Law given to Israel by Moses was but a transcript, or compendium, of the Law which God, in the creation, had stamped upon the moral nature of man…The moral Law, therefore, was not altogether new in the time of the exodus; nor was it something exclusively for Israel, but was a gift for the whole race, and therefore, must be of perpetual validity” (Mr. Wm. Mead).

2. “For ye are not under the Law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:14). This is the favorite verse with those who take the position that the Law has no relation to believers of this dispensation. “Not under the Law” is explicit, and seems final. What, then, have we to say concerning it? This: that like every other verse in the Bible, it must not be divorced from its setting, but is to be studied and faithfully interpreted in the light of its context. What, then, is the context about? First, what is the remote context concerned with? Second, what is the theme of the immediate context? By the remote context we mean, the Epistle as a whole. This is always the first thing to be weighed in connection with the exposition of any passage. Failure here is responsible for the great majority of misinterpretations and erroneous applications of Scripture. It should be carefully noted that the words “Ye are not under the Law” but “under grace” are found not in Hebrews, but in Romans. This, of itself, should warn us that “not under Law” needs to be understood in a modified sense. If it were true that the Law has been abrogated, then the Epistle to the Hebrews would be the one place of all others where we should expect to find this taught. The theme of Hebrews is, The superiority of Christianity over Judaism.[5] In the expansion of this theme the apostle, again and again, shows how the prominent things in Judaism are not obsolete – see chapter 7 for the changing of the priesthood, from the Aaronic to the Melchizedek order; chapters 8 and 9 for the substitution of the new covenant for the old, etc. And yet, not a word is said in it that the Law is now supplanted by grace.

“Not under the Law, but under grace” is found in Romans, the great theme of which is, The righteousness of God: man’s need of God’s righteousness, how it becomes the believer’s, what are the legal consequences of this, and the effect it should have on our conduct. The prominent feature of the first eight chapters of Romans is that they treat of the judicial side of Gospel truth, rather than with the experimental and practical. Romans 5 and 6, especially, treat of justification and its consequences. In the light of this fact it is not difficult to discover the meaning of 6:14. “Ye are not under the Law, but under grace” signifies, Ye are under a system of gratuitous justification. “The whole previous argument explains this sentence. He refers to our acceptance. He goes back to the justification of the guilty, `without the deeds of the Law’, the act of free grace; and briefly re-states it thus, that he may take up afresh the position that this glorious liberation means not license, but Divine order” (Bishop Moule – 1893).

“Ye are not under the Law but under grace”. The contrast is not between the Law of Moses and the gospel of Christ, as two economies or dispensations, rather is it a contrast between Law and grace as the principles of two methods of justification, the one false, the other true; the one of human devising, the other of Divine provision. “Under Law’ means, ruled by Law as a covenant of works” (Dr. Griffith-Thomas). “Law” and “grace” here are parallel with “the Law of works” and “the Law of faith” in 3:27! Rom. 6:14 was just as true of the Old Testament saints as of New Testament believers. Caleb, Joshua, David, Elijah, Daniel were no more “under Law” in the sense that these words bear in Rom. 6:14, than Christians are today. Instead, they were “under grace” in the matter of their justification, just as truly as we are.

“Not under the Law” does not mean, Not under obligation to obey the precepts of the moral Law; but signifies, Not keeping the Law in order to be saved. The apostle asserts in this verse that Christians are not under the Law, as an actual, effectual adequate means of justification or sanctification, and if they are so, their case is utterly hopeless; for ruin must inevitably ensue. That this is all that he means is apparent from the sequel of his remarks (6:15 – 8:39). What can be plainer, than that the moral Law as `precept’ is altogether approved and recognized by him. See chapter 7:12-14. Nay, so far is the apostle from pleading for oblivion or repeal of moral precepts, that he asserts directly (8:3,4) that the Gospel is designed to secure obedience to these moral precepts; which the Law was unable to do. It is, then, from the Law viewed in this light, and this only, namely, as inadequate to effect the justification and secure the obedience of sinners, that the apostle declares us to be free.

“Let no one, then, abuse this declaration by imagining that it inanywise affords ground to believe that Christians are freed from obligation to obey the precepts of the moral Law. What is the Divine Law but a transcript of the Divine will? And are not Christians to be conformed to this? Is not all the Law summed up in these two declarations: “Thou shalt love the Lord with all thine heart; and thy neighbour as thyself”! And are Christians absolved from loving God and their neighbour? If not, then this part of the subject stands unembarrassed by anything which the apostle has said in our text or context’ (Prof. Moses Stuart).

The force of Rom. 6:14 becomes more apparent if we observe what follows it. In the very next verse we read, “What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the Law, but under grace? God forbid”. This anticipates an objection: If we are not under the Law as the ground of our justification, then are we to be lawless? The inspired answer is, God forbid. Nothing is more self-evidently certain then, that if the moral Law is not a rule of life to believers, they are at liberty to disregard its precepts. But the apostle rejects this error with the utmost abhorrence. We quote here a part of Calvin’s comments on Rom. 6:15: “But we are much deceived if we think, that the righteousness which God approves of in His Law is abolished, when the Law is abrogated; for the abrogation is by no means to be applied to the precepts which teach the right way of living, as Christ confirms and sanctions these, and does not abrogate them; but the right view is, that nothing is taken away but the curse, to which men without grace are subject”.

In what follows, to the end of this chapter, the apostle shows that though the believer is “not under Law” as the ground of his justification, nevertheless, he is under the Law as a rule of his Christian life, that is, he is under obligations to obey its moral precepts. In v. 18 (which contains the positive answer to the question asked in v. 15) the apostle declares, “being then made free from sin, ye became the servants (bond-slaves) of righteousness”. Again in v. 22 he says, “But now being made free from sin, and become servants of God, ye have your fruit unto holiness”. Observe carefully, it is not here said “servants of Christ”, nor “servants of the Father”, which would bring in quite another thought, but “servants of God”, which enforces the believer’s responsibility to the Law-giver. That this is the meaning of Rom 6:18 and 22 is clear from 7:25, where the apostle says, “So then with the mind I myself serve THE LAW OF GOD”.

3. “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the Law…Now we are delivered from the Law” (Rom. 7:4,6). These statements really call for a full exposition of Rom. 7:1-6. but it would occupy too much space to give that here. Perhaps we can arrive at the meaning of these two verses by a shorter route. They occur in a section of the Epistle which treats of the results of Divine righteousness being imputed to the believer. Chapter 4 deals with the imputation of this righteousness; chapters 5 to 8 give the results. The results (summarized) are as follows: 5:1-11 Justification and Reconciliation; 5:12-6:23 Identification with Christ, the last Adam; 7:1-25 Emancipation from the Curse of the Law; 8:1-39 Preservation through time and eternity. Thus it will be seen that these chapters deal mainly with the Divine rather than the human side of things. “Dead to the Law” in 7:4 is parallel with “dead to sin” in 6:2: parallel in this sense, that it is objective “death” not subjective; the judicial and not the practical aspect of truth which is in view. Observe it is said, we “become dead to the Law by the body of Christ”, not by a Divine repeal of the Law. In other words, we died to the Law vicariously, in the person of our blessed Substitute. So, too, we are “delivered from the Law”, or as the R. V. more accurately puts it “We have been discharged from the Law”, because we have “died to that wherein we were held”. In Christ we “died” to the judicial threatenings and ceremonial requirements of the Law.

“Dead to the Law”. “By the term the Law, in this place, is intended that Law which is obligatory on both Jews and Gentiles. It is the Law, the work of which is written in the hearts of all men; and that Law which was given to the Jews in which they rested, 2:17. It is the Law taken in the largest extent of the word, including the whole will of God in any way manifested to all mankind, whether Jew of Gentile. All those whom the apostle is addressing, had been under this Law in their unconverted state…To the moral Law exclusively here and throughout the rest of the chapter, the apostle refers…Dead to the Law means freedom from the power of the Law, as having endured its penalty, and satisfied its demands. It has ceased to have a claim on the obedience of believers in order to life (better, on believers it has ceased to pronounce its curse – A.W.P.), although it still remains their rule of duty” (Robert Haldane). On the words, “Now we are delivered from the Law”, Mr. Haldane says: “Christ hath fulfilled the Law, and suffered its penalty for them, and they in consequence are free from its demands for the purpose of obtaining life, or that, on account of the breach of it, the purpose of obtaining life, or that, on account of the breath of it, they should suffer death”.

One further word needs to be said on Rom. 7:4-6. Some insist that the whole passage treats only of Jewish believers. But this is certainly a mistake. When Paul says in v.1 “I speak to them that know Law” – there is no article in the Greek – he reasons on the basis that his readers were fully cognizant of the principle that “the Law hath dominion over a man so long as he liveth”. If Paul was here confining his address to Jewish believers, he had said, “I speak to those among you who know the Law”. When he says “Know ye not, brethren” (v. 1) and “Wherefore, my brethren” (v. 4) he is addressing his brethren in Christ as the Jews, his brethren by nature, he is careful to so intimate, “My brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (9:3)! Finally, it should be carefully noted how the apostle uses the pronouns “ye” and “we” interchangeably in vv.4 and 5. The emphatic “ye also” in v.4 seems specifically designed to show that his illustration in the previous verses, with its obvious suggestion of Israel’s history, was strictly applicable to all Christians.

“The deliverance from Law in Galatians is that which leads to the son ship of all saints, while the deliverance in Romans leads to the union of all saints with Christ. But in both they are viewed as all alike having been in bondage under Law, and all alike delivered from it. For indeed it is the design of the Holy Spirit ever to lead the saints of all ages to regard themselves as delivered from a common guilt, redeemed from a common curse – “the curse of the Law” – rescued from a common doom; and all this as the result of the curse being fulfilled in the death of Him in whom they all alike died” (Charles Campbell).

4. “For Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth” (Rom. 10:4). Frequently, only the first half of this verse is quoted, “Christ is the end of the Law”. But this is not all that is said here. Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness, that is, before God. The context unequivocally settles the scope and significance of this expression. Paul had just affirmed that Israel, who was ignorant of God’s righteousness, had gone about “to establish their own righteousness”. Once more it is justification which is in view, and not the walk of a believer. Says Dr. Thos. Chalmers: “There is one obvious sense in which Christ is the end of the Law, and that is when the Law is viewed as a schoolmaster brings us to the conclusion, as to its last lesson, that Christ is our only refuge, our only righteousness”. So also Dr. G. Thomas: “With Christ before us legal righteousness is necessarily at an end, and in not submitting to Christ, the Jews were refusing to submit to the God who gave them the Law”.

5. Another passage frequently appealed to by those who insist on the total abrogation of the Law is 2 Cor. 3. Such expressions as “That which is done away” (v. 11), and “that which is abolished” (v. 13) are regarded as alluding to the Ten Commandments “written and engraven in stones” (v. 7). That this is a mistake, is easily proven. For in Rom. 13:9 and Eph. 6:2 several of the Ten Commandments are quoted and enforced. This is quite sufficient to prove that the moral Law is not “done away”. And such scriptures as Isa. 2:2,3; Jer. 31:33, etc., make it plain that the Law is not abolished”.

In 2 Cor. 3 (and again and again throughout the Epistle) Paul is contending against false “apostles” (note 2:17 and see further 6:1; 11:3,4,13,22) who, preaching the Law to the exclusion of Christ, were seducing the people of God from the blessings of the new covenant. Consequently, the apostle is not here treating of the Law as the moral standard of conduct for believers, but as that which condemns sinners. The inspired penman is pointing out the folly of turning back to the Law as the ground of acceptance before God – which was what the false apostles insisted on. The method he follows is to draw a series of contrasts between the old covenant and the new, showing the immeasurable superiority of the latter over the former. He shows that apart from Christ, the old covenant was but a ministration of condemnation and death; that just as the body without the spirit is dead, so the Law without Christ was but a lifeless “letter”. 2 Cor. 3, then contrasts Christianity with Judaism. That which has been “done away” is the old covenant; that which is “abolished” (for the Christian) is the ceremonial law.

6. In the Galatian Epistle there are quite a number of verses which are used by those who affirm the Law has no relation to believers today – e.g. 2:19; 3:13; 3:23-25; 4:5; 5:18. Now it is impossible to understand these verses unless we first see what is the theme and character of the Epistle in which they are found. The theme of Galatians is the Believer’s Emancipation from the Law. The special character of the Epistle is that it was written to confirm the faith of Christians, who had been troubled and shaken by Judaisers. But a careful reading of the Epistle should show the Emancipation here viewed is not from the Law as the standard of moral conduct, but from the curse or penalty of the Law; and the particular heresy of the Judaisers was not that they pressed the Ten Commandments upon the saints as a rule of life, but that they insisted the works of the Law must be fulfilled before a sinner could be saved. (See Acts 15:1). “The trouble at Galatia was legalism and ritualism. Speaking strictly the two are one; for the attempt to secure Divine favor through law observance leads inevitably to ritualism in its worst form. That the Galatians were going over to the ground of law for acceptance with God is evident from the whole tenor of the Epistle” (Prof. W. G. Morehead on “Galatians”). “The object of the Epistle to the Galatians was to restore among them the pure Gospel which they had received, but which they had so mingled with human works and ceremonies and a notion of their own free will and merits, as to have well-nigh lost it” (“Grace in Galatians” by Dr. George S. Bishop).

The central issue raised in Galatians is not what is the standard of conduct for the believer’s life, but what is the ground of a sinner’s salvation. In proof of this assertion note carefully that in Gal. 1:7 Paul expressly says the Judaisistic troublers were they who “would pervert the Gospel of Christ”. Again, “That no man is justified by the Law in the sight of God is evident”, etc. (3:11), shows the trend of the argument. Again; “For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole Law” (5:3 and cf 6:15) indicates wherein the Judaisers erred. So, “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the Law; ye are fallen from grace” (Gal. 5:4) evidences the subject of the Epistle. To “fall from grace” means not for a Christian to obey the Ten Commandments, but to do the works of the Law (moral and ceremonial) in order to be justified. The Law and the Gospel are irreconcilable. Every attempt to combine them strikes equally at the majesty of the Law and the grace of the Gospel.

On Gal. 3:25 Dr. George Bishop has this to say: “We are no longer `under a schoolmaster! i.e., for discipline, for penalty. It does not mean for precept. It does not mean that the Ten Commandments are abolished. It simply says, You are not saved by keeping the Commandments, nor are you lost if you fail. It is Christ who has saved you, and you cannot be lost. Now you will obey from the instinct of the new nature and from gratitude, for these are holiness”. On 5:13, 14 he says, “By love serve one another”. Here the Law is brought in as a service. `I am among you’, Saud Hesysm ;as One that serveth’ – `If ye love Me keep My commandments’. The New Testament repeats and enforces all the Ten Commandments. They were given to be kept, and kept they shall be. Matt. 5:19: `For all the Law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’. The Law is fulfilled’: the Law was given to be fulfilled, not only for us, but in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. There is danger here of a mistake on either side – for if we do not preach faith alone for salvation, no one is saved; but if we preach a faith that does not obey, we preach that which nullifies the faith which saves us.”

On Gal. 5:18 Dr. John Eadie has this to say: “The Galatians were putting themselves in subjection to Law, and ignoring the free government of the Spirit. To be led by the Spirit is incompatible with being under the Law. So the beginning of Gal. 3. To be under the Law is thus to acknowledge its claim and to seek to obey it in hope of meriting eternal life”. To be led by the Spirit is incompatible with being under the Law because the Holy Spirit leads a sinner to trust in Christ alone for salvation.

7. “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross” (Col. 2:14). Here it is assumed that the “handwriting of ordinances” refers to the Ten Commandments, and, that “which was contrary to us”, refers to Christians. Such a distortion is quickly discovered once this interpretation is exposed to the light. Observe, in the first place, that at the beginning of the previous verse the apostle refers to Gentile believers – “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh”, etc. The “us” of v.14 refers, then to Jewish believers. But between the “you” and the “us” is a word which supplies the key to what follows, namely, the word “together”, which here, as in Eph. 2:5, 6, points to the spiritual union of believing Gentiles with believing Jews. Believing Jews and gentiles were “quickened together”. And how could that be? Because they were “quickened together with Him”. Christ acted vicariously, as the Representative of all His people, so that when He died they all died (judicially); when He was quickened they all were; when He rose again they all rose; not merely one part of them did, but all together. But in order for Jew and Gentile to enjoy fellowship, in order for them to be brought “together”, that which had hitherto separated them must be made an end of. And it is this which is in view in Col. 2:14. The handwriting of ordinances was against us,” i.e. against the Jews, for their Divinely-given Law prohibited them for all religious intercourse with the Gentiles. But that which had been against the Jews, was taken out of the way, being nailed to the Cross. Nor does this interpretation stand unsupported: it is indubitably confirmed by a parallel passage.

It is well-known among students of the Word that the Epistles of Ephesians and Colossians are largely complementary and supplementary; and it will frequently be found that the one is absolutely indispensable to the interpretation of the other. Now in Eph. 2 there is a passage which is strictly parallel with this portion of Col. 2. In v. 11 the apostle addresses the Gentile saints, who were of the Uncircumcision – note the reference to “uncircumsision” in Col. 2:13. Then in v. 12 he reminds them of how in their unconverted state they had been “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel”, etc. But in v. 13 he tells them that they had been “made nigh” by the blood of Christ. The result of this is stated in v. 14: “For He is our peace who hath made both one” (i.e. both believing Jews and believing Gentiles): the “made both one” being parallel with the “quickened together” of Col. 2:13. Next the apostle tells how this had been made possible: “And hath broken down the middle wall of partition” (that had separated Jew from Gentile); which is parallel with “and took it out of the way”, etc. Then the apostle declares, “having abolished in His flesh the enmity, the Law of commandments contained in ordinances”, which is parallel with “blotting out the handwriting of ordinances”! Thus has God most graciously made us entirely independent of all human interpretations of Col. 2:13, 14, by interpreting it for us in Eph. 2:11-15. How much we lose by failing to compare scripture with scripture.

8. One other verse we must consider, and that is 1 Tim. 1:9: “Knowing this, that the Law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinner”, etc. The key to this is supplied in the immediate context. In vv. 3 and 4 the apostle bids Timothy to “charge some that they preach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies”, etc. It is clear that he has in mind those who had been infected by Judaisers. In v. 5 the apostle tells his son in the faith what was the “end”, of “the commandments” – i.e. the moral Law, as is clear from what precedes and what follows. The design or aim of that Law which is “holy and just and good” (Rom. 7:12) was to direct and advance love to God and men; but this love (“charity”) can spring only “out of a pure heart and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned”.

Next, in vv. 6 and 7 the apostle taxes the Judaisers and those affected by them, as having “swerved” from love and faith, turning aside to “vain jangling”, and setting themselves up as teachers of the Law, understanding neither what they said nor affirmed. Then, in v. 8, the apostle guards against His readers drawing a false inference from what he had just said in v. 7, and so he declares “But we know that the Law is good, if a man use it lawfully”; thus amplifying what he had affirmed in v. 5. Lest they should think that because he had reflected upon the Judaisers, he had also disparaged the Law itself, he added this safeguard in v. 8. To “use” the Law “lawfully”, is to use it as God intended it to be used: not as a means of salvation, but as a standard of conduct; not as the ground of our justification, but as the director of our obedience to God. The Law is used un-lawfully, not when presented as the rule of the believer’s life, but when it is opposed to Christ!

Finally, in vv. 9 and 10 the apostle contrasts the design of the Law as it respected believers and unbelievers: “The Law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient”, etc. That is to say, the Law as an instrument of terror and condemnation, was not made for the righteous but for the wicked. “The Law, threatening, compelling, condemning, is not made for a righteous man, because he is pushed forward to duty of his own accord, and is no more led by the spirit of bondage and fear of punishment” (Turretin). “By the Law is to be understood, the moral Law, as it is armed with stings and terrors, to restrain rebellious sinners. By the righteous man, is meant, one in whom a principle of Divine grace is planted, and who, for the knowledge and love of God, chooses the things that are pleasing to Him. As the Law has annexed so many severe threatenings to the transgression of it, it is evidently directed to the wicked, who will only be compelled by fear from the outrageous breaking of it” (Poole’s Annotations).

We have now examined every passage of any importance in the New Testament which is used by modern Antinomians. And not one of them has a word to say against believers in this dispensation using the Law as the standard of their moral conduct. In our next article, we shall treat of the positive side of the subject, and show that the children of God are obligated to obey the Ten Commandments, not as a condition of salvation, but as the director of their obedience to God.

In this article we have departed from our usual custom, in that we have quoted from quite a number of the commentators of the past. This has been done, not because we desired to buttress our expositions by an appeal to human authorities – though the interpretations of godly men of the past are not to be scorned and regarded as obsolete, rather should they receive the careful examination which they merit, for it was under such teaching was produced Christian conduct that puts to unutterable shame the laxity of the present-day Christian walk. No, we have appealed to the writings of Christian exegetes of the past that it might be seen we have not given a forced and novel interpretation of those passages which stood in the way of what we deem to be the truth on the subject of the relation of the Law to Christians; but instead, an interpretation which, though the result of personal study, is in full accord with that given by many, who for piety, scholarship, spiritual discernment, and knowledge of the Scriptures, few living today are worthy to be compared.

3. THE POSITIVE SIDE

What is the relation of the Law (the Ten Commandments) to Christians? In our previous chapter we pointed out how that three radically different answers have been returned to this question. The first, that sinners become saints by obeying the Law. This is Legalism pure and simple. It is heresy of the most dangerous kind. All who really believe and act on it as the ground of their acceptance by God, will perish eternally. Second, others say that the Law is not binding on Christians because it has been abolished. This is, we are fully assured, a serious error. It arises from a mistaken interpretation of certain passages in the Epistles. The inevitable tendency of such an error is toward Antinomianism, the “turning of the grace of God into lasciviousness” (Jude 4). Third, others affirm, and the writer is among the number, that the Ten Commandments are an expression of the unchanging character and will of God: that they are a moral standard of conduct which we disregard at our peril: that they are, and will ever be, binding upon every Christian.

In our last chapter we sought to prepare the way for the present one. There, we dealt with the negative side; here, we shall treat of the positive. In the former, we sought to give the true meaning of the principal passages in the New Testament appealed to by those who deny that the Ten Commandments are now binding on Christians. In the present chapter, we shall endeavor to expound some of the many passages in the New Testament which affirm that the Ten Commandments are now binding on Christians. We, therefore, invite the reader’s most diligent and prayerful attention to the scriptures cited and our comments upon them.

1. “Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:17-19). It might appear to the disciples of Christ that their Master intended to set aside Moses and the Prophets, and introduce an entirely new standard of morality. It was true indeed that He would expose the error of depending on the work of the Law for acceptance with God (as Moses and the prophets had done before Him); but it was no part of His design to set aside the Law itself. He was about to correct various corruptions, which obtained among the Jews, hence He is careful to preface what He has to say by cautioning them not to misconstrue His designs. So far from having any intention of repudiating Moses, He most emphatically asserts: first, that He had not come to destroy the Law; second, that He had come to “fulfill” it; third, that the Law is of perpetual obligation; fourth, that whoso breaks one of the least of the Law’s commandments and teaches other so to do, shall suffer loss; fifth, that he who kept the Law and taught men to respect and obey it should be rewarded.

“I am not come to destroy the Law” – the Prophets simply expounded the Law, and rebuked Israel for their failure to keep it, and forwarned them of the consequences of continued disobedience. “I am not come to destroy the Law.” Nothing could be more explicit. The word “destroy” here means “to dissolve or overthrow”. When, then, our Lord said that He had not come to destroy the Law He gave us to understand that it was not the purpose of His mission to repeal or annul the Ten Commandments: that he had not come to free men from their obligations to them. And if He did not “destroy” the Law, then no one had destroyed it; and if no one has destroyed it, then the Law still stands with all its Divine authority; and if the Law still abides as the unchanging expression of God’s character and will, then every human creature is under lasting obligation to obey it; and if every human creature, then the Christian!

Second, the Son of God went on to say “I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill”. The word “fulfill” here means “to fill up, to complete”. Christ “fulfilled” the Law in three ways: first, by rendering personal obedience to its precepts. God’s Law was within His heart (Psa. 40:8), and in thought, word and deed, He perfectly met its requirements; and thus by His obedience He magnified the Law and made it honorable (Isa. 42:21). Second, by suffering (at the Cross) its death-penalty on behalf of His people who had transgressed it. Third, by exhibiting its fulness and spirituality and by amplifying its contents. Thus did Christ, our Exemplar, “fulfill the Law.”

So far from Christ having repealed the Law, He expressly affirmed, “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled.” In these words He announces the perpetuity of the Law. So long as heaven and earth shall last, the Law will endure, and by necessary implication, the lasting obligations of all men to fulfill it.

But this is not all that our Lord here said. With omniscient foresight He anticipated what Mr. Mead has aptly termed “The Modern Outcry against the Law”, and proceeds to solemnly warn against it. He said, “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven”.

2. “Do we then make void the Law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the Law” (Rom. 3:31). In the previous part of the chapter the apostle had proven that “there is none righteous, no not one” (v. 10); second, he had declared “By the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified” (v. 2); then in vv. 21-26 he had set forth the Divine way of salvation – “through faith in Christ’s blood”. In v.28, he sums up his argument by affirming “a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the Law”. In vv. 29,30 he proves that this is true for Jew and Gentile alike. Then, in v.31, he anticipates an objection: What about the Law, then? This was a very pertinent question. Twice had he said that justification was apart from the deeds of the Law. If, then, the Law served no purpose in effecting the salvation of sinners, has it no office at all? If we are saved “through faith” is the Law useless? Are we to understand you to mean (Paul) that the Law has been annulled? Not at all, is the apostle’s answer: “We establish the Law.”

What did the apostle mean when he said “we establish the Law”? He meant that, as saved men, Christians are under additional obligations to obey the Law, for they are now furnished with new and more powerful motives to serve God. Righteousness imputed to the believer produces in the justified one a kind and an extent of obedience which could not otherwise have been obtained. So far from rendering void or nullifying the authority and use of the Law, it sustains and confirms them. Our moral obligation to God and our neighbor has not been weakened, but strengthened. Below we offer one or two brief excerpts from other expositors.

“Does not the doctrine of faith evacuate the Old Testament of its meaning, and does it not make law void, and lead to disregard of it? Does it not open the door to license of living? To this the apostle replies, that it certainly does not; but that, on the contrary, the Gospel puts law on a proper basis and establishes it on its foundation as a revelation of God’s will” (Dr. Griffith-Thomas).

“We cancel law, then, by this faith of ours? We open the door, then, to moral license? We abolish code and precept, then, when we ask not for conduct, but for faith? Away with the thought; nay, we establish law; we go the very way to give a new sacredness to its every command, and to disclose a new power for the fulfillment of them all. But how this is, and is to be, the later argument is to show” (Dr. Handley Moule).

“Objection. If man is justified by faith without works, does not that do away with law entirely, i.e. teach lawlessness? Answer: By no means. It establishes the law. When a man is saved by grace, that does not make him lawless. There is a power within him which does not destroy, but it strengthens the law, and causes him to keep it, not through fear, but through love of God” (H. S. Miller, M.A.).

3. “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man…with the mind I myself serve the Law of God” (Rom 7:22-25). In this chapter the apostle does two things: first, he shows what is not and what is the Law’s relation to the believer – judicially, the believer is emancipated from the curse or penalty of the Law (7:1-6); morally, the believer is under bonds to obey the Law (vv. 22,25). Secondly, he guards against a false inference being drawn from what he had taught in chapter 6. In 6:1-11 he sets forth the believer’s identification with Christ as “dead to sin” (vv. 2,7, etc.). Then, from v. 11 onwards, he shows the effect this truth should have upon the believer’s walk. In chapter 7 he follows the same order of thought. In 7:1-6 he treats of the believer’s identification with Christ as “dead to the law” (see vv. 4 and 6). Then, from v. 7 onwards he describes the experiences of the Christian. Thus the first half of Rom. 6 and the first half of Rom. 7 deal with the believer’s standing, whereas the second half of each chapter treats of the believer’s state; but with this difference: the second half of Rom. 6 reveals what our state ought to be, whereas the second half of Rom. 7 (vv. 13-25) shows what our state actually is.[6]

The controversy which has raged over Rom. 7 is largely the fruitage of the Perfectionism of Wesley and his followers. That brethren, whom we have cause to respect, should have adopted this error in a modified form, only shows how widespread today is the spirit of Laodiceanism. To talk of “getting out of Rom. 7 into Rom. 8” is excuseless folly. Rom. 7 and 8 both apply with undiminished force and pertinence to every believer on earth today. The second half of Rom. 7 describes the conflict of the two natures in the child of God: it simply sets forth in detail what is summarized in Gal. 5:17. Rom. 7:14,15,18,19,21 are far short of the standard set before him – we mean God’s standard, not that of the so-called “victorious life” teachers. If any Christian reader is ready to say that Rom. 7:19 does not describe his life, we say in all kindness, that he is sadly deceived. We do not mean by this that every Christian breaks the laws of men, or that he is an overt transgressor of the laws of God. But we do mean that his life is far, far below the level of the life our Saviour lived here on earth. We do mean that there is much of “the flesh” still evident in every Christian – not the least in those who make such loud boastings of their spiritual attainments. We do mean that every Christian has urgent need to daily pray for the forgiveness of his daily sins (Luke 11:4), for “in many things we all stumble” (James 3:2, R.V.).

The second half of Rom. 7, then, is describing the state of the Christian, i.e. the conflict between the two natures within him. In v. 14 the apostle declares, “We know that the Law is spiritual”. How different is this language from the disparaging way that many now refer to God’s Law! In v. 22 he exclaims, “I delight in the Law of God after the inward man”. How far removed is this from the delusion that the Law has been abolished, and that it no longer serves any purpose for the Christian! The apostle Paul did not ignore the Law, still less did he regard it as an enemy. The new nature within him delighted in it: so, too, did the Psalmist, see Psa. 119:72, 97, 140. But the old nature was still within him too, warring against the new, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin, so that he cried, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death” (v.24) – and we sincerely pity every professing Christian who does not echo this cry. Next the apostle thanks God that he shall be delivered yet “through Jesus Christ our Lord” (v. 25), not “by the power of the Holy Spirit” note! The deliverance is future, at the return of Christ, see Phil. 3:20, etc. Finally, and mark that this comes after he had spoken of the promised “deliverance”, he sums up his dual experience by saying, “So then with the mind I myself serve the Law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin”. Could anything be plainer? Instead of affirming that the Law had nothing to do with him as a Christian, nor he with it, he expressly declared that he served “the Law of God”. This is sufficient for us. Let others refuse to “serve” the Law of God at their peril.

4. “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” (Rom. 8:3,4). This throws light on Rom. 3:31, showing us, in part, how the Law is established”. The reference here is to the new nature. The believer now has a heart that loves God, and therefore does it “delight in the Law of God”. And it is ever at the heart that God looks, though, of course, He takes note of our actions too. But in heart the believer “fulfills” the holy requirements of God’s Law, inasmuch as his innermost desire is to serve, please, and glorify the Law-giver. The righteous requirements of the Law are “fulfilled” in us because we now obey from the heart (Rom. 6:17).

5. “He that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the Law” (Rom. 13:8-10). Here again, the apostle, so far from lending the slightest encouragement to the strange delusion that the Ten Commandments have become obsolete to Christians, actually quotes five of them, and then declares, “Love is the fulfilling of the Law”. Love is not a substitution for Law-obedience, but it is that which prompts the believer to render obedience to it. Note carefully, it is not “love is the abrogating of the Law”, but “love is the fulfilling of the Law”. “The whole Law is grounded on love to God and love to man. This cannot be violated without the breach of Law; and if there is love, it will influence us to the observance of all God’s commandments” (Haldane). Love is the fulfilling of the Law because love is what the Law demands. The prohibitions of the Law are not unreasonable restraints on Christian liberty, but the just and wise requirements of love. We may add that the above is another passage which serves to explain Rom. 3:31, for it supplies a practical exemplification of the way in which the Gospel establishes the Law as the expression of the Divine will, which love alone can fulfill.

6. “For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the Law; as under the Law, that i might gain them that are under the Law; to them that are without Law, as without Law, (being not without Law to God, but under the Law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without Law” (1 Cor. 9:19-22). The central thought of this passage is how the apostle forewent his Christian liberty for the sake of the Gospel. Though “free” from all, he nevertheless, made himself “the servant” of all. To the unconverted Jews he “became a Jew;” Acts 16:3 supplies an illustration. To those who deemed themselves to be yet under the ceremonial law, he acted accordingly: Acts 21:26 supplies an example of this. To them without Law: that is, Gentiles without the ceremonial law, he abstained from the use of all ceremonies as they did: cf. Gal. 2:3. Yet, he did not act as “without Law to God”, but instead, as “under the Law to Christ”; that is, as still under the moral Law of God. He never counted himself free from that, nor would he do anything contrary to the eternal Law of righteousness. To be “under Law to God”, is, without question, to be under the God. Therefore, to be under the Law of Christ, is to be under the Law of God, for the Law was not abrogated but reinforced by Christ. This text, then, gives a plain and decisive answer to the question, How the believer is under the Law of God, namely, as he is “under the Law to Christ”, belonging to Christ, as he does, by redemption.

7. “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the Law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Gal. 5:13,14). Here the apostle first reminds the Galatian saints (and us) that they had been called unto “liberty”, i.e., from the curse of the moral Law (3:13). Second, he defines the bounds of that liberty, and shows that it must not deteriorate to fleshly license, but that it is bounded by the requirements of the unchanging moral Law of God, which requires that we love our neighbor as ourselves. Third, he repeats here, what he had said in Rom. 13:8-10, namely, that love is the fulfilling of the Law. The new commandment of love to our brethren is comprehended in the old commandment of love to our neighbor, hence the former is enforced by an appeal to the latter.

“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Gal. 5:13). We quote here part of the late Dr. George Bishop’s comments on this verse: “The apostle here emphasizes a danger. The believer before believing, relied upon his works to save him. After believing, seeing he is in no way saved by his works, he is in danger of despising good works and minifying their value. At first he was an Arminian living by law; now he is in danger of becoming an Antinomian and flinging away the law altogether.

“But the law is holy and the commandment holy, and just, and good. It is God’s standard – the eternal Norm. Fulfilled by Christ for us, it still remains the swerveless and unerring rule of righteousness. We are without the law for salvation, but not without the law for obedience. Angels are under the law `doing God’s commandments, hearkening to the voice of His word’ (Psa. 103:20). The law then is immutable – its reign universal and without exception. The law! It is the transcript of the Divine perfection: the standard of eternal justice: the joy and rapture of all holy beings. The law! We are above it for salvation, but under it, or rather in it and it in us, as a principle of holiness” (Grace in Galatians).

8. “Children obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth” (Eph. 6:1-3). Once more we have a direct quotation from the tables of stone as the regulator of the Christian conscience. First, the apostle bids children obey their parents in the Lord. Second, he enforces this by an appeal to the fifth commandment in the Decalogue. What a proof this is that the Christian is under the Law (for the apostle is writing to Christians), under it “to Christ”. Third, not only does the apostle here quote the fifth commandment, but he reminds us that there is a promise annexed to it, a promise concerning the prolongation of earthly life. How this refutes those who declare that our blessings are all spiritual and heavenly )Eph. 1:3). Let the ones who are constantly criticizing those who press on the children of God the scriptures which have to do with our earthly walk, and who term this a “coming down from our position in the heavenlies’ weigh carefully Eph. 6:2,3 and also 1 Tim. 4:8 – “For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come”; and let them also study 1 Pet. 3:10. In the administration of His government, God acts upon immutable principles.[7]

9. “But we know that the Law is good, if a man use it lawfully” (1 Tim. 1:8). The Law is used unlawfully, when sinners rest on their imperfect obedience to it as the ground of their acceptance by God. So, too, believers use it unlawfully, when they obey its precepts out of servile fear. But used lawfully, the Law is good. This could never have been said if the Law is an enemy to be shunned. Nor could it have been said if it has been repealed for the Christian. In that case, the apostle would have said, “The Law is not binding upon us”. But he did not so say. Instead, he declared “The Law if good”. He said more than that, he affirmed, “We know that the Law is good”. It is not a debateable point, rather is it one that has been Divinely settled for us. But the Law is only “good” if a man (Greek, any one) use it lawfully. To use the Law lawfully is to regard it as the unchanging expression of the Will of God, and therefore to “delight” in it. To use the Law lawfully is to receive it as the corrector of our conduct. To use the Law lawfully is to “fulfill” it in love.

10. “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah…this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people” (Heb. 8:8,10). Let it be carefully noted that this passage unmistakably demonstrates two things: first, it proves conclusively that the Law has not been “abolished”! Second, it proves that the Law does have a use and value for those that are saved, for it is saved Israel that is here in view! Nor is there any possible room for doubt as to whether or not this applies to Gentile Christians now.

The passage just quoted refers to “the new covenant”. Is the new covenant restricted to Israel? Emphatically no. Did not our Saviour say at the Holy Supper, “This is My blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the remission of sins” (Matt. 26:28, R.V.)? Was Christ’s blood of the new covenant limited to Israel? Certainly not. Note how the apostle quotes our Lord’s words when writing to the Corinthians, see 1 Cor. 11:25. So, too, in 2 Cor. 3:6 the apostle Paul declares that God has made us (not is going to make us) “ministers of the new covenant”. This is proof positive that Christians are under the new covenant. The new covenant is made with all that Christ died for, and therefore Heb. 8:8-10 assures us that God puts His laws into the minds and writes them upon the hearts of every one of His redeemed.

But so anxious are some to grasp at everything which they imagine favors their contention that in no sense are believers under the Law, this passage is sometimes appealed to in support. It is argued that since God has now (by regeneration) written the Law on the believer’s heart, He no longer needs any outward commandments to rule and direct him. Inward principle, it is said, will now move him spontaneously, so that all need for external law is removed. This error was so ably exposed fifty years ago by Dr. Martin, we transcribe a part of his refutation:

“How was it with our first parents? If ever outward law, categorical and imperative, might have been dispensed with, it might in Adam’s case. In all the compass of his nature, there was nothing adverse to the law of God. He was a law unto himself. He was the moral law unto himself; loving God with all his heart, and his neighbour as himself, in all things content, in nothing coveting. Was imperative, authoritative, sovereign commandment therefore utterly unnecessary? Did God see it to be needless to say to him, Thou shalt, or, Thou shalt not? It was the very thing that infinite wisdom saw he needed. And therefore did He give commandment – “Thou shalt not eat of it”.

“How was it with the last Adam? All God’s law was in His heart operating there, an inward principle of grace; He surely, if any, might have dispensed with strict, imperative, authoritative law and commandment. `I delight to do Thy will, O God; Thy law also is within My heart”. Was no commandment, therefore, laid upon – no obedience-statute ordained – unto Him? Or did He complain if there was? Nay; I hear Him specially rejoicing in it. Every word He uttered, every work He did, was by commandment: `My Father which sent me, He gave Me commandment what I should say and what I should do; as He gave me commandment therefore, so I speak’.

“And shall His members, though the regenerating Spirit dwells in them, claim an exemption from what the Son was not exempt? Shall believers, because the Spirit puts the law into their hearts, claim a right to act merely at the dictate of inward gracious principle, untrammeled, uncontrolled by outward peremptory statute? I appeal to Paul in the seventh chapter of the Romans, where he says: “The law is holy’, and adds, as if to show that it was no inward actuating law of the heart, but God’s outward commanding law to the will: `the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and just, and good’. And I appeal to the sweet singer of Israel, as I find him in the 119th Psalm, which is throughout the breathing of a heart in which the law of God is written, owning himself with joy as under peremptory external law: `Thou hast commanded us to keep Thy precepts diligently'”.

11. If ye fulfill the royal Law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well” (James 2:8). The immediate purpose of the apostle was to correct an evil – common in all climes and ages – of which his brethren were guilty. They had paid deference to the wealthy, and shown them greater respect than the poor who attended their assembly (see preceding verses). They had, in fact, “despised the poor” (v.6). The result was that the worthy name of Christ had been “blasphemed” (v.7). Now it is striking to observe the method followed and the ground of appeal made by the apostle James in correcting this evil.

First, he says, “If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: but if ye have respect of persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the Law as transgressors” (vv. 8,9). He shows that in despising the poor they had transgressed the Law, for the Law says, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”. Here then, if proof positive that the Law was binding upon those to whom James wrote, for it is impossible for one who is in every sense “dead to the Law” to be a “transgressor” of it. And here, it is probable that some will raise the quibble that the Epistle of James is Jewish. True, the Epistle is addressed to the twelve tribes scattered abroad. Yet it cannot be gainsaid that the apostle was writing to men of faith (1:3); men who had been regenerated – “begotten” (1:18); men who were called by the worthy name of Christ (2:7), and therefore Christians. And it is to them the apostle here appeals to the Law! – another conclusive proof that the Law has not been abolished.

The apostle here terms the Law, “the royal Law”. This was to empathize its authority, and to remind his regenerated brethren that the slightest deflection from it was rebellion. The royal Law also calls attention to the supreme dignity of its Author. This royal Law, we learn, is transcribed in the Scriptures – the reference here was, of course, to the Old Testament Scriptures.

Next, the apostle says, “For whosoever shall keep the whole Law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For He that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou are become a transgressor of the Law” (vv. 10,11). His purpose is evident. He presses on those to whom he writes that, he who fails to love his neighbour is just as much and just as truly a transgressor of the Law as the man who is guilty of adultery or murder, for he has rebelled against the authority of the One who gave the whole Law. In this quotation of the 6th and 7th commandments all doubt is removed as to what “Law” is in view in this passage.

Finally, the apostle says, “So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the Law of liberty. For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath showed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment” (vv. 12,13). This is solemn and urgently needs pressing upon the Lord’s people today: Christians are going to be “judged by the Law”! The Law is God’s unchanging standard of conduct for all; and all alike, saints and sinners, are going to be weighed in its balances; not of course, in order to determine their eternal destiny, but to settle the apportionment of reward and punishment. It should be obvious to all that the very word “reward” implies obedience to the Law! Let it be repeated, though, that this judgment for Christians has nothing whatever to do with their salvation. Instead, it is to determine the measure of reward which they shall enjoy in Heaven. Should any object against the idea of any future judgment (not punishment but judgment) for Christians, we would ask them to carefully ponder 1 Cor. 11:31, 32: 2 Tim. 4:1; Heb. 10:30 – in each case the Greek word is the same as here in James 2:12.

It should be noted that the apostle here terms the Law by which we shall be judged “the Law of liberty”. It is, of course, the same as “the royal Law” in v. 8. But why term it the Law of liberty? Because such it is to the Christian. He obeys it (or should do) not from fear, but out of love. The only true “liberty” lies in complete subjection to God. There was, too, a peculiar propriety in the apostle James here styling the Law of God “the Law of liberty”. His brethren had been guilty of “respecting persons”, showing undue deference to the rich; and this was indeed servility of the worst kind. But to “love our neighbour” will free us from this.

12. Other passages in the New Testament which show more directly the bearing of the Law on believers might be quoted, but we close, by calling attention to 1 John 2:6: “He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked” (1 John 2:6). This is very simple, and yet deeply important. The believer is here exhorted to regulate his walk by that of the walk of Christ. How did He walk? We answer, in perfect obedience to the Law of God. Gal. 4:4 tells us, “God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law.” Psa. 40:8 declares that God’s Law was in His heart. Everything recorded about the Saviour in the four Gospels evidences His complete subjection to the Law. If, then, the Christian desires to honor and please God, if he would walk as Christ walked, then must he regulate his conduct by and render obedience to the Ten Commandments. Not that we would for a moment insist that the Christian has nothing more than the Ten Commandments by which to regulate his conduct. No; Christ came to “fulfill” the Law, and as we have intimated, one thing this means is that, He has brought out the fulness of its contents, He has brought to light its exceeding spirituality, He has shown us (both directly and through His apostles) its manifold application. But whatever amplification the Law has received in the New Testament, nothing has been given by God which in any wise conflicts with what he first imprinted on man’s moral nature, and afterwards wrote with His own finger at Sinai, nothing that in the slightest modifies its authority or our obligation to render obedience to it.

May the Holy Spirit so enlighten our sin-darkened understandings and so draw out our hearts unto God, that we shall truthfully say, “The Law of Thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver…O how love I Thy law! it is my meditation all the day” (Psa. 119:72-97).
[1]

Except that in the closing paragraphs Dr. McNicol is somewhat confused about the present relation of the Law to the believer.

[2] And this of necessity. As already stated, the Ten Commandments reveal the will of the Creator for every human creature, and as Israelites were first God’s creatures before being brought into the relationship of His covenant people, the moral Law was given to them before the Mosaic Law. This explains why the Ten Commandments are repeated in Deut. 5. In Ex. 20 they are addressed to God’s creatures; in Deut. 5, to Israel as Jehovah’s covenant people Mark the absence in Deut. 5 of “God spake all these words”!

[3] “The Christian Sabbath”. 30 cents.

[4] “Christian Liberty”. 15 cents.

[5] This theme is developed by showing the superiority of Christ – the Center and Life of Christianity – over angels. Adam, Moses, Hoshua, Aaron, and the whole Levitical economy.

[6] Vv. 8-12 are more or less in the nature of a parenthesis.

[7] That some obedient children are short-lived no more belies the Word of God than that some diligent men are poor, yet Prov. 10:4 says, “The hand of the diligent maketh rich:” The truth is, that these promises reveal the general purpose of God, but He always reserves to Himself the sovereign right to make whom He pleases exceptions to the general rule.

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August 28, 2007 by kevinstilley

What Is History?

Those of you in my Early Western Civilization class might want to browse some of the below before class on Wednesday:

Definitions of history on the Web:

* the aggregate of past events; “a critical time in the school’s history”
* the continuum of events occurring in succession leading from the past to the present and even into the future; “all of human history”
* a record or narrative description of past events; “a history of France”; “he gave an inaccurate account of the plot to kill the president”; “the story of exposure to lead”
* the discipline that records and interprets past events involving human beings; “he teaches Medieval history”; “history takes the long view”
* all that is remembered of the past as preserved in writing; a body of knowledge; “the dawn of recorded history”; “from the beginning of history”
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

* History is a term for information about the past. When used as the name of a field of study, history refers to the study and interpretation of the record of human societies. The term history comes from the Greek “ιστορία” historia, “an account of one’s inquiries,” and shares that etymology with the English word story. …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History

* HIStory: Past, Present and Future Book I was a double CD released by pop superstar Michael Jackson. The first disc contained hits from his 4 Epic solo albums, while the second disc contained new songs. Producers included: Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Dallas Austin, David Foster, Bill Bottrell and R Kelly. All the singles released from it were hits in Europe, while only “Scream” (duet with sister Janet Jackson) and “You Are Not Alone” were hits in the USA. …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIStory

* —-Anamnesis (from Greek ana-, up and mimnēskein, to recall), or medical history, is the process in which physician obtains information about patient’s health status by asking specific questions or by asking such questions of other people that know the person and can give suitable information (in this case, it is called heteroanamnesis). This kind of information, told by the patient, is called symptoms, in contrast to clinical signs, which are directly examined by the doctor.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_(medicine)

* (Internet Browser) – Stores the internet addresses (URLs) of the web sites you have visited.
www.ontrack.com/glossary/

* is a folder in Internet Explorer that stores shortcuts of web pages you’ve visited in the order in which they were visited.
www.smallbizonline.co.uk/glossary_of_internet_terms.php

* the branch of knowledge that records and researches past events
collections.ic.gc.ca/peh/teachers/Glossary.html

* A mechanism in ArcStorm to enable the tracking of changes made to a data source. This enables the creation of historical views and supports `rolling back’ the data to a previous period in time.
www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/staff/m.blake/magis/glossary/esriglos.htm

* SM remembers commands as you type them, so that you can repeat them or modify them (which includes correcting mistakes). The set of remembered commands is referred to as the history buffer.
www.phys.unm.edu/~rjr/sm/sm_21.html

* Lenders will investigate your credit record which is a history of your debts. They get a report from a credit reporting agency (TRW, Equifax, TransUnion) which shows if you pay you debts on time and with who you have current debts with.
www.sarasotafloridausa.com/real-estate-terms.html

* In which country did the Industrial Revolution first take place? Which war was also known as the Great War?
www.surpluscdrom.com/enbrqu.html

* The history of a workflow instance contains a list of all versions of the instance. A version contains the state, the event that caused the transition (omitted in the first version), a description of the identity that invoked the event (username and IP address)
lenya.apache.org/1_2_x/components/workflow/terms.html

* Presents the dates of the PRR’s first issuance; dates of any revisions to the PRR; and, any additional history information that may assist in understanding the evolution of the PRR.
www.ncsu.edu/policies/definitions.php

* buildings of historical significance, monuments, battlefields
www.geopassage.com/common/interest_terms.html

* Cats were known in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago where they were worshipped, embalmed at death, and frequently buried in elaborate coffins. They were known in India over 2,000 years ago, and later in China and Japan. They arrived in Britain with the Romans, where they were considered of great value. In the 10th century laws were made for their protection, but in the Middle Ages they came to be feared, being thought to be connected with black magic. …
www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/dictionaries/animals/data/m0007501.html

* Chronology of people and events since humans have kept written records.
www.digonsite.com/glossary/hm.html

* A written reconstruction and interpretation of the past. History is written by historians.
www.lib.unc.edu/instruct/manuscripts/glossary/

* Definition: Free-form description of the history of changes made to the data file. Data Type: Character Possible Values: any ASCII Character in columns 10-80 Default: none Origin: FITS Standard Instrument: ALL THEMIS Source: from data reduction software ?? Rate of change: ?? Comment: BASS2000 This keyword can be repeated more than once in the same header. Link: See also DATE_MOD
bass2000.bagn.obs-mip.fr/New2003/Pages/thesaurus2001.html

* This option lists each significant event that occurred during the processing of the application, as well as the date on which the event occurred. These events could include items such as License Canceled, Application Granted, or Offlined for Fee Determination.
wireless.fcc.gov/uls/about/glossary.html

* “The History of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom” and it is Spirit’s consciousness of its own freedom which is “the final cause of the World at large . . . .” The Philosophy of History 19.
www.class.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/texts/Hegel%20Glossary.htm

* The pages you have traversed in your current browser session. You can return to any of the previous pages listed in the View History window from the Go menu.
www.maptrax.com.au/standardscompliance/glossaryoftermsatoh/

* A browser list of previously visited Web pages, which makes for easy recall.
www.nottinghill.biz/jargon.htm

* The study of the past using written records. History is always biographical and specific to a greater or lesser extent, while prehistory, on the other hand, in California is always anonymous and often general in scope.
www.indiana.edu/~e472/cdf/proginfo/definitions.html

* In bookings, a detailed record of what has been done.
www.hometravelagency.com/dictionary/ltrh.html

* A set of Assignments for a sequence of contiguous Time Steps, beginning at the and ending at the current Time Step. Configuration Parameter: the maximum number of Time Steps to retain (the Zenith minus the Horizon) before Truncating.
ic.arc.nasa.gov/projects/L2/doc/L2_refman/L2Glossary.html

* According to legend, a Chinese philosopher discovered the tea beverage when leaves fell into his campfire pot of boiling water and sent up a delicious aroma. Tea was introduced into Continental Europe by the Dutch in 1610, and into England in 1664. London is the tea capital of the world, and the average Briton drinks five cups a day. Tea was first sold in Boston in 1714 and in New York in 1728. …
www.246.dk/teacol67.html

* An unequivocal process, pointing to the future, which proceeds from images in order to explicate that which is implicated in them. It is a process that explains and narrates the contents of images, and unfolds the possibilities hidden in those contents.
www.equivalence.com/labor/lab_vf_glo_e.shtml

* artifact, diary, government report, interview, letter, map, news report, oral history, organizational records, photograph, speech, work of art
ww2.lafayette.edu/~library/guides/primarysources/definitions.html

* A chronological record of true stories about the past, usually including how and why it happened.
www.albanyinstitute.org/resources/colonial/colonial.glossary.htm

August 28, 2007 by kevinstilley

The Godhood of God

THE GODHOOD OF GOD
A. W. Pink

The Godhood of God! What is meant by this expression? Ah, sad it is that such a question needs to be asked and answered. And yet it does: for a generation has arisen that is well nigh universally ignorant of the important truth which this term connotes. That which is popular today in the colleges, in the pulpits, and in the press, is the dignity, the power, and the attainments of man. But this is only the corrupt fruit that has issued from the Evolutionary teachings of fifty years ago. When Christian theologians (?) accepted the Darwinian hypothesis, which excluded God from the realm of Creation, it was only to be expected that more and more God would be banished from the realm of human affairs. Thus it has proven. To the twentieth-century mind God is little more than an abstraction, an impersonal “First Cause,” or if a Being at all, One far removed from this world and having little or nothing to do with mundane affairs. Man, forsooth, is a “god” unto himself. He is a “free agent” and therefore the regulator of his own life and the determiner of his own destiny. Such was the Devil’s lie at the beginning – “Ye shall be as God” (Gen. 3:5). But from human speculation and Satanic insinuation we turn to Divine revelation.

The Godhood of God! What is meant by the expression? This: the omnipotency of God, the absolute sovereignty of God. When we speak of the Godhood of God we affirm that God is God. We affirm that God is something more than an empty title: that God is something more than a mere figure-head: that God is something more than a far-distant Spectator, looking helplessly on at the suffering which sin has wrought. When we speak of the Godhood of God we affirm that He is “King of kings and Lord of lords.” We affirm that God is something more than a disappointed, dis-satisfied, defeated Being, who is filled with benevolent desires but lacking in power to carry them out. When we speak of the Godhood of God we affirm that He is “the Most High.” We affirm that God is something more than One who has endowed man with the power of choice, and because He has done this is therefore unable to compel man to do His bidding. We affirm that God is something more than One who has waged a protracted war with the Devil and has been worsted. When we speak of the Godhood of God we affirm that He is the Almighty.

To speak of the Godhood of God then, is to say that God is on the Throne, on the Throne as a fact and not as a say so; on a Throne that is high above all. To speak of the Godhood of God is to say that the Helm is in His hand, and that He is steering according to His own good pleasure. To speak of the Godhood of God is to say that He is the Potter, that we are the clay, and that out of the clay He shapes one as a vessel to honor and another as a vessel to dishonor according to His own sovereign rights. To speak of the Divine Despot doing “according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him what doest Thou?” (Dan. 4:35). Therefore, to speak of the Godhood of God is to give the mighty Creator His rightful place; it is to recognize His exalted majesty; it is to own His universal scepter.

The Godhood of God stands at the base of Divine revelation: “in the beginning God” – in solemn majesty, eternal, un-caused, self-sufficient. This is the foundation doctrine, and upon it all other doctrines must be built, and any other doctrine which is not built upon it will inevitably fail and fall in the day of testing. At the beginning of all true theology lies the postulate that God is God – absolute and irresistible. It must be so. Without this we face a closed door: with it we have a key which unlocks every mystery. This is true of Creation; exclude an Almighty God and nothing is left but blind and illogical materialism. This is true of Revelation: the Bible is the solitary miracle in the realm of literature; exclude God from it and you have a miracle and no miracle-Worker to produce it. This is true of Salvation. Salvation is “of the Lord,” entirely so; exclude God from any aspect or part of salvation, and salvation vanishes. This is true of History, for history is His story: it is the outworking in time of His eternal purpose; exclude God from history and all is meaningless and purposeless. The absolute Godhood of God is the only guaranty that in the end it shall be fully and finally demonstrated that God is “All in all” (1 Cor. 15:28).

“In the beginning God.” This is not only the first word of Holy Scripture but it must be the firm axiom of all true philosophy – the philosophy of human history, for example. Instead of beginning with man and his world and attempting to reason back to God, we must begin with God and reason forward to man and his world. It is failure to do this which leaves unsolved the “riddle of the universe.” Begin with the world as it is today and try to reason back to God, and what is the result? If you are honest of heart and logical of mind, this – that God has little or nothing at all to do with the world. But begin with God and reason forward to the world as it is today and much light is cast on the problem. Because God is holy, His anger burns against sin. Because God is righteous, His judgments fall on those who rebel against Him. Because God is faithful, the solemn threatenings of His Word are being fulfilled. Because God is omnipotent, no problem can master Him, no enemy defeat Him, and no purpose of His can be withstood. It is just because God is who He is and what He is that we now behold what we do – the gathering clouds of the storm of Divine wrath which will shortly burst upon the earth.

“For of Him, and through Him and to Him, are all things” (Rom. 11:36). In the beginning – God. In the center – God. At the end – God. But as soon as this is insisted upon men will stand up and tell you what they think about God. They will prate about God working consistently with His own character, as though a worm of the earth was capable of determining what was consistent and what was inconsistent with the Divine perfections. People will say with an air of profound wisdom that God must deal justly with His creatures, which is true, of course, but who is able to define Divine justice, or any other of God’s attributes? The truth is that man is utterly incompetent for forming a proper estimate of God’s character and ways, and it is because of this that God has given us a revelation of His mind, and in that revelation He plainly declares, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher then your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Is. 55:8,9). In view of such a scripture as this it is only to be expected that much of the contents of the Bible conflicts with the sentiments of the carnal mind which is “enmity against God.” And further: in view of such a Scripture as the above we need not be surprised that much of human history is so perplexing to our understandings.

The natural world, to begin with the simplest, presents sufficient problems to humble man, were it not that he was blinded by pride. Why should there be diseases and remedies for them? Why poisons and their antidotes? Why rats and mice, and cats to kill them? Why not have left un-made the evils, and then no necessity for the instruments to remove them! Ah, why are we so slow to learn that God’s ways are different from ours? And when we enter the human realm the mystery deepens. What is man placed here for at all? To learn some lesson or lessons or to undergo some test or experience which he could not learn or undergo elsewhere? If so, then why is such a large proportion of the race removed in infancy, before such lessons can be learned and such experiences be gained? Why indeed! Such questions as these might be multiplied indefinitely, but sufficient has been said to point out the manifest limitations of human wisdom. And if we are confronted with insolvable problems in the domain of nature and of human existence, what of the Divine realm! Who can fathom the ways of the Almighty? Canst thou by searching find out God? No indeed. “Clouds and darkness are round about Him” (Ps. 97:2). If God were not a mystery He would not be God to us.

But why write in this strain? Surely the need of our day is for that which will strengthen faith, not that which paralyzes it. True; but what is faith? we mean faith in the abstract. Faith is, essentially, an attitude rather than an act: it is that which lies behind the act. Faith is an attitude of dependency, of recognized weakness. Faith is a coming to the end of ourselves and looking outside of ourselves – away from ourselves. Faith is that which gives God His proper place. And if we give God His proper place, we must take our proper place, and that is in the dust. And what is there that will bring the haughty, self-sufficient creature into the dust so quickly as a sight of the Godhead of God! Nothing is so humbling to the human heart as a true recognition of the absolute sovereignty of God. So then, instead of seeking to weaken faith, we write to promote and strengthen it. The chief trouble is that so much that passes for faith today is really only maudlin sentimentality. The faith of Christendom in this twentieth century is mere credulity, and the “god” of many of our churches is not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but a mere figment of the imagination. Modern theology has invented a “god” which the infinite mind can understand, whose ways are pleasing to the natural man, a “god” who is altogether “such a one as” (Ps. 50:21) those who profess to worship him, a “god” concerning whom there is little or no mystery. But how different the God which the Holy Scriptures reveal! Of Him it is said, His ways are “past finding out” (Rom. 11:33). To particularize:

1. The “god” of the moderns is altogether lacking in power. The popular idea of today is that deity is filled with amiable intentions but that Satan is preventing the making good of them. It is not God’s will, so we are told, that there should be any wars, for wars are something which men are unable to reconcile with their ideas of Divine mercy. Hence, the conclusion is, that all wars are of the Devil. Plagues and earthquakes, famines and tornadoes, are not sent from God, but are attributed solely to natural causes. To affirm that the Lord God sent the recent Influenza epidemic as a judgment scourge, would be to shock the sensibilities of the modern mind. All such things as this are a cause of grief to “god” for “he” desires nought but the happiness of everybody.

2. The “god” of the moderns is altogether lacking in wisdom. The popular belief is that God loves everybody, and that it is His will that every child of Adam should be saved. But if this be true, He is strongly lacking in wisdom, for He knows quite well that under existing conditions the majority will be lost. If He is really desirous that every creature should have an equal chance to be saved, then why suffer so many to be born into families (of criminal parents, for example) and be brought up under conditions where they will never hear the Gospel – and there are many thousands such in this country. If it should be said in reply God has not created these criminal conditions, the point is readily ceded, but nevertheless God is responsible for sending children into them, for the fruit of the womb is solely in His hands. Why not produce sterility among criminals, if it is contrary to His will for children to be born into such conditions, conditions which frequently preclude all reading of the Scriptures and all hearing the Gospel.

3. The “god” of the moderns is lacking in holiness. That crime deserves punishment is still allowed in part, though more and more the belief is gaining ground that the criminal is really an object of pity rather than censure, and that he stands in need of education and reformation rather than of punishment. But that SIN – sins of thought as well as deed, sins of the heart as well as life, sins of omission as well as commission, the sinful root itself as well as the fruit – should be hated by God, that His body nature burns against it, is a concept that has gone almost entirely out of fashion; and that the sinner himself is hated by God is indignantly denied even among those who boast most loudly of their orthodoxy.

4. The “god” of the moderns is altogether lacking in a sovereign prerogative. Whatever rights the deity of present-day Christendom may be supposed to possess in theory, in fact they must be subordinated to the “rights” of the creature. It is denied, almost universally, that the rights of the Creator over His creatures is that of the Potter over the clay. When it is affirmed that God has the right to make one as a vessel unto honor, and another as a vessel unto dishonor, the cry of injustice is instantly raised. When it is affirmed that salvation is a gift and that this gift is bestowed on whom God pleases, it is said He is partial and unfair. If God has any gifts to impart, He must distribute them evenly, or else bestow them on those that merit them, whoever they may be. And thus God is allowed less freedom than I, who may disburse my charity as I best please, giving to one beggar a quarter, to another a dime, and to a third nothing at all if I think well.

How different is the God of the Bible from the “god” of the moderns!! The God of Scripture is all-mighty. He is one who speaks and it is done, who commands and it stands fast. He is the One with whom “all things are possible” and “who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will” (Eph. 1:11). He is the One “who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance” (Is. 40:12). He is the One with whom “the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance,” with Whom “all nations before Him are as nothing and they are counted to Him less than nothing, and vanity” (Is. 40:15,17). He is One that “sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in; that bringeth the princes to nothing; He maketh the judges of the earth as vanity” (Is. 40:22,23). He is the One who declares, “Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and He that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretched forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by Myself. That frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad; that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish. That confirmeth the word of His servant, and performeth the counsel of His messengers; that saith to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited; and to the cities of Judah, Ye shall be built, and I will raise up the decayed places thereof. That saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers: That saith of Cyrus (a heathen idolater) he is My shepherd, and shall perform all My pleasure” (Is. 44:24-28). Such is the God of the Bible, the God who throws out the challenge, “To whom then will ye liken God, or what likeness will ye compare unto Him?” (Is. 40:18). And as though that were not enough, in the same chapter He asks again, “To whom then will ye liken Me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: He calleth them all by names by the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power, not one faileth…Hast thou not known? has thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?” (Is. 40:25,26,28).

The God of Scripture is infinite in wisdom. No secret can be hidden from Him, no problem can baffle Him, nothing is too hard for Him. God is omniscient – “Great is our Lord, and of great power: His understanding is infinite” (Ps. 147:5). Therefore is it said, “There is no searching of His understanding” (Is. 40:28). Hence it is, that in a revelation from Him we expect to find truths which transcend the reach of the creature’s mind, and therefore the presumptuous folly and wickedness of those who are but “dust and ashes” undertaking to pronounce upon the reasonableness or unreasonableness of doctrines which are above their reason, and of speculating upon things that are a matter of pure revelation. Instead of coming to the Scriptures to be taught thereof, men first fill their minds with objections, and then instead of interpreting the Divine Oracles according to their obvious meaning, they submit and twist them according to the dictates of their own finite reason. Surely if we are unable to comprehend the mode of God’s existence, because it is infinitely above us, then for the same reason we are unable to comprehend the counsels of infinite wisdom. Such is the explicit assertion of Holy Writ itself – “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).

The God of Scripture is infinite in Holiness. The “only true God” is He who hates sin with a perfect abhorrence and whose nature eternally burns against it. He is the One who beheld the wickedness of the antediluvians and who opened the windows of Heaven and poured down the flood of His righteous indignation. He is the One who rained fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah and utterly destroyed these cities of the plain. He is the One who sent the plagues upon Egypt, and destroyed her haughty monarch together with his hosts at the Red Sea. He is the One who caused the earth to open its mouth and swallow alive Korah and his rebellious company. Yes, He is the One who “spared not His own Son” when He was “made sin for us…that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” So holy is God and such is the antagonism of His nature against evil, that for one sin He banished our first parents from Eden; for one sin He cursed the posterity of Ham; for one sin He turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt; for one sin He sent out fire and devoured the sons of Aaron; for one sin Moses died in the wilderness; for one sin Achan and his family were all stoned to death; for one sin the servant of Elisha was smitten with leprosy. Behold therefore, not only the goodness, but also “the severity of God” (Rom. 11:22). And this is the God that every Christ-rejector has yet to meet in judgment!

The God of Scripture has a will that is irresistible. Man talks and boasts of his will, but God also has a will! Men had a will on the plains of Shinar and undertook to build a tower whose top should reach unto heaven; but what came of it? God had a will, too, and their willful effort came to naught. Pharaoh had a will when he hardened his heart and refused to allow Jehovah’s people to go into the wilderness and there worship Him, but what came of it? God had a will, too, and being Almighty His will was performed. Balak had a will when he hired Balaam to come and curse the Hebrews; but of what avail was it? The Canaanites had a will when they determined to prevent Israel occupying the promised land; but how far did they succeed? Saul had a will when he hurled his javelin at David, but instead of slaying the Lord’s anointed, it entered the wall instead. Jonah had a will when he refused to go and preach to the Ninevites; but what came of it? Nebuchadnezzar had a will when he thought to destroy the three Hebrews; but God had a will too, and so the fire did not harm them. Herod had a will when he purposed to slay the Child Jesus, and had there been no living and reigning God, his evil desires had been effected; but in daring to pit his puny will against the irresistible will of the Almighty, his efforts came to naught. Yes, my reader, and you had a will when you formed your plans without first seeking counsel of the Lord, and therefore did He overthrow them. As well might a worm seek to resist the tread of an elephant; as well might a babe step between the railroad tracks and attempt to push back the express train; as well might a child seek to prevent the ocean from rolling, as for a creature to try and resist the outworking of the purpose of the Lord God – “O Lord God of our fathers, art not Thou God in heaven? and rulest not Thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? and in Thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee?” (2 Chron. 20:6).

The God of Scripture is absolute Sovereign. Such is His own claim: “This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the Lord of hosts hast purposed, and who shall disannul it? and His hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?” (Is. 14:26,27). The Sovereignty of God is absolute and irresistible: “All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?” (Dan. 4:35). The Sovereignty of God is true not only hypothetically, but in fact. That is to say, God exercises His sovereignty, exercises it both in the natural realm, and in the spiritual. One is born black, another white. One is born in wealth, another in poverty. One is born with a healthy body, another sickly and crippled. One is cut off in childhood, another lives to old age. One is endowed with five talents, another with but one. And in all these cases it is God the Creator who maketh one to differ from another, and “none can stay His hand.” So also is it in the spiritual realm. One is born in a pious home and is brought up in the fear and abomination of the Lord; another is born of criminal parents and is reared in vice. One is the object of many prayers, the other is not prayed for at all. One hears the Gospel from early childhood, another never hears it. One sits under a Scriptural ministry, another hears nothing but error and heresy. Of those who do hear the Gospel, one has his heart opened by the Lord to receive the truth, while another is left to himself. One is “ordained to eternal life” (Acts 13:48), while another is “ordained to condemnation (Jude 4). To whom He will God shows mercy, and whom he wills He “hardens” (Rom. 9:18). To particularize:

1. THE ABSOLUTE GODHOOD OF GOD IS SEEN IN CREATION

With whom took He counsel in creation? Whom did He consult when He determined the various and manifold arrangements, adjustments, adaptations, relationships, equipments of His myriad creatures? Did He not do everything after the counsel of His own will? Did He not decide that birds should fly in the air, beasts roam the earth, and fishes live in the sea? Did He not decide there should be one vast gradation among the creatures of His hand, instead of making everything equal and uniform? Did He not determine to make a revolving world on the one hand, and a floating atom on the other? Did He not determine to create the exalted seraphim to stand before His throne throughout endless ages, and also to make another creature which dies the same hour it is born?” Was He not undisputed Sovereign in all His creative acts? Yea, verily, for the Three Persons of the Godhead were all alone in their solitary majesty. Why should God take counsel? Could man add to His knowledge, or correct His errors? God sovereignly assigned His myriad creatures their various habitations, members, movements, as it pleased Him. God never consulted man about a single member of His body, or about its size, color, or capacity; instead, “God set the members everyone of them in the body, as it hath pleased Him” (1 Cor. 12:18). Man is as truly the product of Sovereign creation as any other of God’s creatures – sovereign, we say, not arbitrary.

2. THE ABSOLUTE GODHOOD OF GOD IS SEEN IN ADMINISTRATION

God not only created everything, but everything which He created is subject to His immediate control. God rules over the works of His hands. God governs the creatures He has made. God reigns with universal dominion. When He pleased, the sun and moon stood still (Josh. 10:12,13); and at a word from Him the sun went backward ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz (Is. 38:8). At His command the Red Sea ceased to flow, and at His command it resumed its normal course (Ex. 14). In response to the prayer of Elisha, He made iron to float on the top of the water (2 Kings 6:5). Yes, when He pleases, He reverses the order of nature, as when the fires of Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace burnt not, as when the hungry lions touched not Daniel, as when the ravens, which are birds of prey, were made to minister of Elijah. At a word from Him who made it, a fish carried a coin to Peter, a tree withers suddenly (Matt. 21:4), the raging tempest becomes a calm.

So it is also with men; they, too, are ruled by God; ruled by and unseen Hand; often, unknown to themselves. Little did they know it, yet nevertheless, the sons of Jacob were but performing the pleasure of Jehovah when they sold Joseph into the hands of the Ishmaelites who carried him down into Egypt. Little was she aware of it, but when Pharaoh’s daughter went to the Nile to bathe, she was being directed by God, directed there to rescue from the waters the babe Moses. Little did he know it, but in issuing the decree that all the world should be taxed (Luke 2:1) Caesar Augustus was but setting in motion a movement which caused the word and decree of God to be fulfilled. Yes, even “The King’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: He turneth it whithersoever He will” (Pro. 21:1). And so it is with Satan himself. He, too, is the (unwitting and unwilling) servant of God. He could not touch Job without first gaining Divine permission. He could not sift the apostles till he gained consent from Christ. At a word from the Lord Jesus Satan “left” Him (Matt. 4:10,11). Of him, also, God has said, Thus far shalt thou go and no farther.

Even death, the “king of terrors,” that which no arts of man can defy, is absolutely subject to the bidding of the Lord. In his sermon on Ps. 68:20,21 – “unto God the Lord belong the issues from death” – the late C. H. Spurgeon well said, “The prerogative of life or death belongs to God in a wide range of senses. First of all as to natural life, we are all dependent upon His good pleasure. We shall not die until the time which He appoints: for our death-time, like all our time, is in His hands. Our skirts may brush away the portals of the sepulchre, and yet we shall pass the iron gate unharmed if the Lord be our guard. The wolves of disease will hurt us in vain until God shall permit them to overtake us. The most desperate enemies may waylay us, but no bullet shall find its billet in any heart unless the Lord allows it. Our life does not even depend upon the care of angels, nor can our death be compassed by the malice of devils. We are immortal till our work is done, immortal till the immortal King shall call us home to the land where we shall be immortal in a still higher sense. When we are most sick, we need not despair of recovery, since the issues from death are in Almighty hands. “The Lord killeth and maketh alive: He bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up!” When we have passed beyond the skill of the physician we have not passed beyond the succour of our God, to whom belong the issues from death.”

3. THE ABSOLUTE GODHOOD OF GOD IS SEEN IN GIVING OF THE SCRIPTURES

What part or lot did man have in the composition of the Bible? None whatever. Its very words are the words of God. “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” No part of it was of human origination, “for the prophecy came not at any time by the will of man” (2 Pet. 1:21). Did not holy men of God speak “moved by the Holy Spirit”? And how did they then record what the Holy Spirit communicated to them – in words of man’s selecting? Nay verily, “not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth” (1 Cor. 2:13). Balaam longed to speak otherwise than he did; but he could not. Caiaphas prophesied “not of himself” (John 11:51). Pilate was asked to make a change in the one sentence which God moved him to write, but he declared “What I have written I have written” (John 19:22). God acted sovereignly in the writing of the Scriptures as in everything else. The very words were chosen by Him; and did He not sovereignly choose? Did He take counsel with either angels or men as to the words He should select for the communicating of His thoughts? No indeed.

4. THE ABSOLUTE GODHOOD OF GOD IS SEEN IN SALVATION

God’s absolute and irresistible proprietorship has been and is being displayed in the spiritual realm as manifestly as in the natural. Isaac is blessed, but Ishmael is cursed. Jacob is loved, but Esau is hated. Israel becomes God’s favored people, while all other nations are suffered to remain in idolatry. Jesse’s seven sons were all passed by, and David the shepherd-boy was found to be the one after God’s own heart. The Saviour took on Him the “seed of Abraham” (Heb. 2:16), not the seed of Adam. His ministry was not worldward, but confined to the people chosen of God. The proud Pharisees were rejected, while publicans and harlots were sweetly compelled by sovereign grace to sit down at the Gospel feast. The rich young ruler, who from his youth up, had kept the commandments, was allowed to go away from Christ “sorrowing,” even though he had sought Him with real earnestness and humility, while the fallen Samaritan woman (John 4) who sought Him not is made to rejoice in the forgiveness of her sins. Two thieves hung by Christ on the cross; they were equally guilty, equally needy, equally near to Him. One of them is moved to cry: “Lord, remember me” and is taken to Paradise, while the other is suffered to die in his sins and sink down into a hopeless eternity. Many are called, but few are chosen.

Yes, Salvation is God’s sovereign work. “God does not save a man because he is a sinner, for if so He must save all men, for all are sinners. Nor because he comes to Christ, for `no man can come except the Father draw him;’ nor because he repents, for `God gives repentance unto life;’ nor because he believes,’ for no one can believe `except it were given him from above;’ nor yet because he holds out faithful to the end, for `we are kept by the power of God.’ It is not because of baptism, for many are saved without it, and many are lost with it. It is not because of regeneration, for that would make the new birth a practical duty. It is not because of morality, for the moralist is the hardeth to reach, and many of the most immoral are saved – the ground of distinguishing grace is the Sovereignty of God: `Even so Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight'” (J. B. Moody).

But is God partial? We answer, Has He not a right to be? Again we quote from Mr. Spurgeon’s sermon “The Royal Prerogative” -“Spiritually, too, this prerogative is with God. We are by nature under the condemnation of the law on account of our sins, and we are like criminals tried, convicted, sentenced, and left for death. It is for God, as the great Judge, to see the sentence executed, or to issue a free pardon, according as He pleases; and He will have us know that it is upon His supreme pleasure that this matter depends. Over the head of a universe of sinners, I hear this sentence thundering. “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” Shut up for death, as men are by reason of their sins, it rests with God to pardon whom He may reserve: none have any claim to His favour, and it must be exercised upon mere prerogative, because He is the Lord God, merciful and gracious, and delighteth to pass by transgression and sin.” How far away have the present-day admirers of Spurgeon departed from the teaching of this prince of preachers: Mark carefully the next sentences: “Our text, however, puts the prerogative upon the one sole ground of Lordship, and we prefer to come back to that. `Unto God the Lord belong the issues from death.’ It is a doctrine which is very unpalatable in these days (it always has been. – A.W.P.), but one nevertheless which is to be held and taught, that God is an absolute Sovereign, and doeth as He wills. The words of Paul may not be suffered to sleep, – “Nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, why hast Thou made me thus?” The Lord cannot do amiss, His perfect nature is a law unto itself. In his case Rex is Lex, the King is the Law.”

Is God partial? Certainly He is. And has He not the right to be? Shall He not dispense His favours as He wills, and bestow His gifts on whom He pleases? But it is reasonable to suppose that God who is Love has created millions of creatures to be lost? seeing that His elect constitute but a “remnant.” a “few,” in comparison with the great multitudes who die unsaved? We reply, it is not a question of reason but of revelation. There are many things revealed in Scripture which are contrary to reason. Is it reasonable to think that God would give His only begotten Son to die for sinners? Ah, reason is ruled out entirely here. And so in many other things. If it lay within the power of the reader, would you suffer your worst enemy to be eternally tormented? And if you are honest, you will promptly answer, No! But God will deal thus with His enemies, and the sentence will be a righteous one, whether we can now discern its justice or not, for the Judge of all the earth will do right. How far asunder then is carnal reasoning from the teaching of Holy Writ concerning Eternal Punishment! Once more: would the reader “laugh at” and “mock” his worst enemy if that enemy was being severely punished before him and was entirely helpless to deliver himself from that punishment? Yet Scripture explicitly declares that God will “laugh” at the calamity of His enemies and “mock” when their fear cometh (see Ps. 2:4; Prov. 1:26). Can your reason harmonize this with your knowledge of God? And again we say, If you are honest you must reply, No! Then why prate so loudly and blatantly about the unreasonableness of Reprobation and of God’s absolute Sovereignty in salvation? Once more: here is Satan, the age-long enemy of God and many, the one who has wrought incalculable evil, securely imprisoned at last in the bottomless pit. There he remains chained for a thousand years. Now would you, my reader, suggest for a moment that the Devil be released from that prison after the earth had been freed for a thousand years from his vile presence? Certainly you would not, and yet this is precisely what Divine revelation declares shall come to pass. The Scriptures of Truth make known how that God will cause the Serpent to be “loosed” for a little season, that God will suffer this even though He knows beforehand that the consequences will be the most dreadful revolt on the part of men, under Satan, revolt against God, which this earth has ever witnessed. Truly God’s ways are different, very different from ours. Learn then the utter folly of man attempting to pronounce upon the reasonableness or unreasonableness of the doings and dealings of the Most High God. And now a few words by way of exhortation and we must conclude.

One of the most flagrant sins of this age is irreverence. By irreverence I am not now thinking of open blasphemy, or the taking of God’s name in vain. Irreverence is, also, failure to ascribe the glory which is due the great and dreadful majesty of the Almighty. It is the limiting of His power and actions by our degrading conceptions: it is the bringing of the Lord God down to our level. There are multitudes of those who do not profess to be Christians who deny that God is the omnipotent Creator, and there are multitudes of professing Christians who deny that God is absolute Sovereign. Men boast of their free will, prate of their power, and are proud of their achievements. They know not that their lives are at the sovereign disposal of the Divine Despot. They know not that they have no more power to thwart His secret counsel than a worm has to resist the tread of an elephant. They know not that God is the Potter, and they the clay.

Ah, my reader, this is the first great lesson we have to learn: that God is the Creator, we the creature; that He is the Potter, we the clay. This is the harvest of all life’s lessons, and when we think we have learnt them, we soon discover that we have need to re-learn them. God is God and has the right to dispose of me as He sees fit. It is for Him to say where I shall live – whether in America or Africa. It is for Him to say under what circumstances I shall live – whether amid riches or poverty, whether in health or in sickness. It is for Him to say how long I shall live – whether I shall be cut down in youth, like the flower of the field, or whether I shall live unto old age. Yes, and it is for Him to say where I shall spend eternity.

The first sin of man was the refusal to be clay in the Potter’s hand; Adam wanted to be something more – “Ye shall be as God’s was the bait which the Tempter used to hurl him to his destruction.

One of the profoundest mysteries of the Incarnation is that “the mighty God” descended from highest heaven and took upon Him the nature of the creature and came down here to show us how to wear it. That which differentiated the Life of Christ from all other lives, was His absolute and joyous submission to the Father’s will – “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me” struck the keynote of the thirty-three years that He tabernacled among men. Have you profited by the example left us by the Beloved of the Father? Has Divine grace shown you how to wear your creature nature? Only if you live not in self-assertion, but in self-renunciation. Only if in the school of Christ you have been taught to say, “Not my will, but Thine be done.” O may Divine grace so subdue our rebellious hearts that more and more we can say:

“I bow me to Thy will, O God,
And all Thy ways adore!
And every day I live I’d seek
To please Thee more and more.

Thy will, the good, the blessed rule
Of Jesus’ toil and tears:
Thy will the passion of His heart
Those three and thirty years.

I love to kiss each print where Christ
Did set His pilgrim feet:
Nor can I fear that blessed path,
Whose traces are so sweet.

When obstacles and trials seem
Like prison walls to be,
I do the little I can do,
And leave the rest to Thee.

I know not what it is to doubt,
My heart is ever gay;
I run no risk, for, come what will,
Thou always hast Thy way.”

__________

__________

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August 27, 2007 by kevinstilley

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

The following is list of 1001 books selected by more than 100 literary critics. Personally, I do not care much for this list. There are too many great novels left off and some authors who are overrepresented. However, it is a good list to browse.

_2000s
Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
Saturday – Ian McEwan
On Beauty – Zadie Smith
Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee
Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson
The Sea – John Banville
The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble
The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
The Master – Colm Tóibín
Vanishing Point – David Markson
The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd
Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle
The Colour – Rose Tremain
Thursbitch – Alan Garner
The Light of Day – Graham Swift
What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
Islands – Dan Sleigh
Elizabeth Costello – J.M. Coetzee
London Orbital – Iain Sinclair
Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
The Double – José Saramago
Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
Unless – Carol Shields
Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
The Story of Lucy Gault – William Trevor
That They May Face the Rising Sun – John McGahern
In the Forest – Edna O’Brien
Shroud – John Banville
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
Youth – J.M. Coetzee
Dead Air – Iain Banks
Nowhere Man – Aleksandar Hemon
The Book of Illusions – Paul Auster
Gabriel’s Gift – Hanif Kureishi
Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald
Platform – Michael Houellebecq
Schooling – Heather McGowan
Atonement – Ian McEwan
The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
Don’t Move – Margaret Mazzantini
The Body Artist – Don DeLillo
Fury – Salman Rushdie
At Swim, Two Boys – Jamie O’Neill
Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
The Feast of the Goat – Mario Vargos Llosa
An Obedient Father – Akhil Sharma
The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost – Ismail Kadare
White Teeth – Zadie Smith
The Heart of Redness – Zakes Mda
Under the Skin – Michel Faber
Ignorance – Milan Kundera
Nineteen Seventy Seven – David Peace
Celestial Harmonies – Péter Esterházy
City of God – E.L. Doctorow
How the Dead Live – Will Self
The Human Stain – Philip Roth
The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
Small Remedies – Shashi Deshpande
Super-Cannes – J.G. Ballard
House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
Blonde – Joyce Carol Oates
Pastoralia – George Saunders
_
_1900s
Timbuktu – Paul Auster
The Romantics – Pankaj Mishra
Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
As If I Am Not There – Slavenka Drakuli?
Everything You Need – A.L. Kennedy
Fear and Trembling – Amélie Nothomb
The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Salman Rushdie
Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee
Sputnik Sweetheart – Haruki Murakami
Elementary Particles – Michel Houellebecq
Intimacy – Hanif Kureishi
Amsterdam – Ian McEwan
Cloudsplitter – Russell Banks
All Souls Day – Cees Nooteboom
The Talk of the Town – Ardal O’Hanlon
Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters
The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
Glamorama – Bret Easton Ellis
Another World – Pat Barker
The Hours – Michael Cunningham
Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho
Mason & Dixon – Thomas Pynchon
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
Great Apes – Will Self
Enduring Love – Ian McEwan
Underworld – Don DeLillo
Jack Maggs – Peter Carey
The Life of Insects – Victor Pelevin
American Pastoral – Philip Roth
The Untouchable – John Banville
Silk – Alessandro Baricco
Cocaine Nights – J.G. Ballard
Hallucinating Foucault – Patricia Duncker
Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
The Ghost Road – Pat Barker
Forever a Stranger – Hella Haasse
Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
The Clay Machine-Gun – Victor Pelevin
Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro
Morvern Callar – Alan Warner
The Information – Martin Amis
The Moor’s Last Sigh – Salman Rushdie
Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth
The Rings of Saturn – W.G. Sebald
The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
Love’s Work – Gillian Rose
The End of the Story – Lydia Davis
Mr. Vertigo – Paul Auster
The Folding Star – Alan Hollinghurst
Whatever – Michel Houellebecq
Land – Park Kyong-ni
The Master of Petersburg – J.M. Coetzee
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
Pereira Declares: A Testimony – Antonio Tabucchi
City Sister Silver – Jàchym Topol
How Late It Was, How Late – James Kelman
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
Felicia’s Journey – William Trevor
Disappearance – David Dabydeen
The Invention of Curried Sausage – Uwe Timm
The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx
Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
Looking for the Possible Dance – A.L. Kennedy
Operation Shylock – Philip Roth
Complicity – Iain Banks
On Love – Alain de Botton
What a Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe
A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
The House of Doctor Dee – Peter Ackroyd
The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood
The Emigrants – W.G. Sebald
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
Life is a Caravanserai – Emine Özdamar
The Discovery of Heaven – Harry Mulisch
A Heart So White – Javier Marias
Possessing the Secret of Joy – Alice Walker
Indigo – Marina Warner
The Crow Road – Iain Banks
Written on the Body – Jeanette Winterson
Jazz – Toni Morrison
The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
Smilla’s Sense of Snow – Peter Høeg
The Butcher Boy – Patrick McCabe
Black Water – Joyce Carol Oates
The Heather Blazing – Colm Tóibín
Asphodel – H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
Black Dogs – Ian McEwan
Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud
Arcadia – Jim Crace
Wild Swans – Jung Chang
American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
Time’s Arrow – Martin Amis
Mao II – Don DeLillo
Typical – Padgett Powell
Regeneration – Pat Barker
Downriver – Iain Sinclair
Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord – Louis de Bernieres
Wise Children – Angela Carter
Get Shorty – Elmore Leonard
Amongst Women – John McGahern
Vineland – Thomas Pynchon
Vertigo – W.G. Sebald
Stone Junction – Jim Dodge
The Music of Chance – Paul Auster
The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham
Like Life – Lorrie Moore
Possession – A.S. Byatt
The Buddha of Suburbia – Hanif Kureishi
The Midnight Examiner – William Kotzwinkle
A Disaffection – James Kelman
Sexing the Cherry – Jeanette Winterson
Moon Palace – Paul Auster
Billy Bathgate – E.L. Doctorow
Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
The Melancholy of Resistance – László Krasznahorkai
The Temple of My Familiar – Alice Walker
The Trick is to Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway
The History of the Siege of Lisbon – José Saramago
Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
London Fields – Martin Amis
The Book of Evidence – John Banville
Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
The Beautiful Room is Empty – Edmund White
Wittgenstein’s Mistress – David Markson
The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie
The Swimming-Pool Library – Alan Hollinghurst
Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey
Libra – Don DeLillo
The Player of Games – Iain M. Banks
Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga
The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul – Douglas Adams
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams
The Radiant Way – Margaret Drabble
The Afternoon of a Writer – Peter Handke
The Black Dahlia – James Ellroy
The Passion – Jeanette Winterson
The Pigeon – Patrick Süskind
The Child in Time – Ian McEwan
Cigarettes – Harry Mathews
The Bonfire of the Vanities – Tom Wolfe
The New York Trilogy – Paul Auster
World’s End – T. Coraghessan Boyle
Enigma of Arrival – V.S. Naipaul
The Taebek Mountains – Jo Jung-rae
Beloved – Toni Morrison
Anagrams – Lorrie Moore
Matigari – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Marya – Joyce Carol Oates
Watchmen – Alan Moore & David Gibbons
The Old Devils – Kingsley Amis
Lost Language of Cranes – David Leavitt
An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro
Extinction – Thomas Bernhard
Foe – J.M. Coetzee
The Drowned and the Saved – Primo Levi
Reasons to Live – Amy Hempel
The Parable of the Blind – Gert Hofmann
Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson
The Cider House Rules – John Irving
A Maggot – John Fowles
Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis
Contact – Carl Sagan
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Perfume – Patrick Süskind
Old Masters – Thomas Bernhard
White Noise – Don DeLillo
Queer – William Burroughs
Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
Legend – David Gemmell
Dictionary of the Khazars – Milorad Pavi?
The Bus Conductor Hines – James Kelman
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – José Saramago
The Lover – Marguerite Duras
Empire of the Sun – J.G. Ballard
The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
Nights at the Circus – Angela Carter
The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
Blood and Guts in High School – Kathy Acker
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Flaubert’s Parrot – Julian Barnes
Money: A Suicide Note – Martin Amis
Shame – Salman Rushdie
Worstward Ho – Samuel Beckett
Fools of Fortune – William Trevor
La Brava – Elmore Leonard
Waterland – Graham Swift
The Life and Times of Michael K – J.M. Coetzee
The Diary of Jane Somers – Doris Lessing
The Piano Teacher – Elfriede Jelinek
The Sorrow of Belgium – Hugo Claus
If Not Now, When? – Primo Levi
A Boy’s Own Story – Edmund White
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
Wittgenstein’s Nephew – Thomas Bernhard
A Pale View of Hills – Kazuo Ishiguro
Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally
The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
The Newton Letter – John Banville
On the Black Hill – Bruce Chatwin
Concrete – Thomas Bernhard
The Names – Don DeLillo
Rabbit is Rich – John Updike
Lanark: A Life in Four Books – Alasdair Gray
The Comfort of Strangers – Ian McEwan
July’s People – Nadine Gordimer
Summer in Baden-Baden – Leonid Tsypkin
Broken April – Ismail Kadare
Waiting for the Barbarians – J.M. Coetzee
Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
Rites of Passage – William Golding
Rituals – Cees Nooteboom
Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
City Primeval – Elmore Leonard
The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera
Smiley’s People – John Le Carré
Shikasta – Doris Lessing
A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul
Burger’s Daughter – Nadine Gordimer
The Safety Net – Heinrich Böll
If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
The Cement Garden – Ian McEwan
The World According to Garp – John Irving
Life: A User’s Manual – Georges Perec
The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch
The Singapore Grip – J.G. Farrell
Yes – Thomas Bernhard
The Virgin in the Garden – A.S. Byatt
In the Heart of the Country – J.M. Coetzee
The Passion of New Eve – Angela Carter
Delta of Venus – Anaïs Nin
The Shining – Stephen King
Dispatches – Michael Herr
Petals of Blood – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison
The Hour of the Star – Clarice Lispector
The Left-Handed Woman – Peter Handke
Ratner’s Star – Don DeLillo
The Public Burning – Robert Coover
Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice
Cutter and Bone – Newton Thornburg
Amateurs – Donald Barthelme
Patterns of Childhood – Christa Wolf
Autumn of the Patriarch – Gabriel García Márquez
W, or the Memory of Childhood – Georges Perec
A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell
Grimus – Salman Rushdie
The Dead Father – Donald Barthelme
Fateless – Imre Kertész
Willard and His Bowling Trophies – Richard Brautigan
High Rise – J.G. Ballard
Humboldt’s Gift – Saul Bellow
Dead Babies – Martin Amis
Correction – Thomas Bernhard
Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
The Fan Man – William Kotzwinkle
Dusklands – J.M. Coetzee
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum – Heinrich Böll
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John Le Carré
Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Fear of Flying – Erica Jong
A Question of Power – Bessie Head
The Siege of Krishnapur – J.G. Farrell
The Castle of Crossed Destinies – Italo Calvino
Crash – J.G. Ballard
The Honorary Consul – Graham Greene
Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
The Black Prince – Iris Murdoch
Sula – Toni Morrison
Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino
The Breast – Philip Roth
The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
G – John Berger
Surfacing – Margaret Atwood
House Mother Normal – B.S. Johnson
In A Free State – V.S. Naipaul
The Book of Daniel – E.L. Doctorow
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson
Group Portrait With Lady – Heinrich Böll
The Wild Boys – William Burroughs
Rabbit Redux – John Updike
The Sea of Fertility – Yukio Mishima
The Driver’s Seat – Muriel Spark
The Ogre – Michael Tournier
The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick – Peter Handke
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
Mercier et Camier – Samuel Beckett
Troubles – J.G. Farrell
Jahrestage – Uwe Johnson
The Atrocity Exhibition – J.G. Ballard
Tent of Miracles – Jorge Amado
Pricksongs and Descants – Robert Coover
Blind Man With a Pistol – Chester Hines
Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The French Lieutenant’s Woman – John Fowles
The Green Man – Kingsley Amis
Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth
The Godfather – Mario Puzo
Ada – Vladimir Nabokov
Them – Joyce Carol Oates
A Void/Avoid – Georges Perec
Eva Trout – Elizabeth Bowen
Myra Breckinridge – Gore Vidal
The Nice and the Good – Iris Murdoch
Belle du Seigneur – Albert Cohen
Cancer Ward – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
The First Circle – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid – Malcolm Lowry
The German Lesson – Siegfried Lenz
In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan
A Kestrel for a Knave – Barry Hines
The Quest for Christa T. – Christa Wolf
Chocky – John Wyndham
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – Tom Wolfe
The Cubs and Other Stories – Mario Vargas Llosa
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez
The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
Pilgrimage – Dorothy Richardson
The Joke – Milan Kundera
No Laughing Matter – Angus Wilson
The Third Policeman – Flann O’Brien
A Man Asleep – Georges Perec
The Birds Fall Down – Rebecca West
Trawl – B.S. Johnson
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
The Magus – John Fowles
The Vice-Consul – Marguerite Duras
Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
Giles Goat-Boy – John Barth
The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
Things – Georges Perec
The River Between – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
August is a Wicked Month – Edna O’Brien
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater – Kurt Vonnegut
Everything That Rises Must Converge – Flannery O’Connor
The Passion According to G.H. – Clarice Lispector
Sometimes a Great Notion – Ken Kesey
Come Back, Dr. Caligari – Donald Bartholme
Albert Angelo – B.S. Johnson
Arrow of God – Chinua Achebe
The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein – Marguerite Duras
Herzog – Saul Bellow
V. – Thomas Pynchon
Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
The Graduate – Charles Webb
Manon des Sources – Marcel Pagnol
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré
The Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark
Inside Mr. Enderby – Anthony Burgess
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
The Collector – John Fowles
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
The Drowned World – J.G. Ballard
The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
Labyrinths – Jorg Luis Borges
Girl With Green Eyes – Edna O’Brien
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis – Giorgio Bassani
Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
A Severed Head – Iris Murdoch
Faces in the Water – Janet Frame
Solaris – Stanislaw Lem
Cat and Mouse – Günter Grass
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
The Violent Bear it Away – Flannery O’Connor
How It Is – Samuel Beckett
Our Ancestors – Italo Calvino
The Country Girls – Edna O’Brien
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Rabbit, Run – John Updike
Promise at Dawn – Romain Gary
Cider With Rosie – Laurie Lee
Billy Liar – Keith Waterhouse
Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
The Tin Drum – Günter Grass
Absolute Beginners – Colin MacInnes
Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow
Memento Mori – Muriel Spark
Billiards at Half-Past Nine – Heinrich Böll
Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
The Leopard – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring – Kenzaburo Oe
A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
The Bitter Glass – Eilís Dillon
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – Alan Sillitoe
Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris – Paul Gallico
Borstal Boy – Brendan Behan
The End of the Road – John Barth
The Once and Future King – T.H. White
The Bell – Iris Murdoch
Jealousy – Alain Robbe-Grillet
Voss – Patrick White
The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham
Blue Noon – Georges Bataille
Homo Faber – Max Frisch
On the Road – Jack Kerouac
Pnin – Vladimir Nabokov
Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
The Wonderful “O” – James Thurber
Justine – Lawrence Durrell
Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
The Lonely Londoners – Sam Selvon
The Roots of Heaven – Romain Gary
Seize the Day – Saul Bellow
The Floating Opera – John Barth
The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
A World of Love – Elizabeth Bowen
The Trusting and the Maimed – James Plunkett
The Quiet American – Graham Greene
The Last Temptation of Christ – Nikos Kazantzákis
The Recognitions – William Gaddis
The Ragazzi – Pier Paulo Pasolini
Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan
I’m Not Stiller – Max Frisch
Self Condemned – Wyndham Lewis
The Story of O – Pauline Réage
A Ghost at Noon – Alberto Moravia
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
The Go-Between – L.P. Hartley
The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler
The Unnamable – Samuel Beckett
Watt – Samuel Beckett
Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
Junkie – William Burroughs
The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin
Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
The Judge and His Hangman – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor
The Killer Inside Me – Jim Thompson
Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar
Malone Dies – Samuel Beckett
Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham
Foundation – Isaac Asimov
The Opposing Shore – Julien Gracq
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
The Rebel – Albert Camus
Molloy – Samuel Beckett
The End of the Affair – Graham Greene
The Abbot C – Georges Bataille
The Labyrinth of Solitude – Octavio Paz
The Third Man – Graham Greene
The 13 Clocks – James Thurber
Gormenghast – Mervyn Peake
The Grass is Singing – Doris Lessing
I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
The Moon and the Bonfires – Cesare Pavese
The Garden Where the Brass Band Played – Simon Vestdijk
Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford
The Case of Comrade Tulayev – Victor Serge
The Heat of the Day – Elizabeth Bowen
Kingdom of This World – Alejo Carpentier
The Man With the Golden Arm – Nelson Algren
Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
All About H. Hatterr – G.V. Desani
Disobedience – Alberto Moravia
Death Sentence – Maurice Blanchot
The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton
Doctor Faustus – Thomas Mann
The Victim – Saul Bellow
Exercises in Style – Raymond Queneau
If This Is a Man – Primo Levi
Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
The Path to the Nest of Spiders – Italo Calvino
The Plague – Albert Camus
Back – Henry Green
Titus Groan – Mervyn Peake
The Bridge on the Drina – Ivo Andri?
Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
Animal Farm – George Orwell
Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
Loving – Henry Green
Arcanum 17 – André Breton
Christ Stopped at Eboli – Carlo Levi
The Razor’s Edge – William Somerset Maugham
Transit – Anna Seghers
Ficciones – Jorge Luis Borges
Dangling Man – Saul Bellow
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Caught – Henry Green
The Glass Bead Game – Herman Hesse
Embers – Sandor Marai
Go Down, Moses – William Faulkner
The Outsider – Albert Camus
In Sicily – Elio Vittorini
The Poor Mouth – Flann O’Brien
The Living and the Dead – Patrick White
Hangover Square – Patrick Hamilton
Between the Acts – Virginia Woolf
The Hamlet – William Faulkner
Farewell My Lovely – Raymond Chandler
For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
Native Son – Richard Wright
The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene
The Tartar Steppe – Dino Buzzati
Party Going – Henry Green
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Finnegans Wake – James Joyce
At Swim-Two-Birds – Flann O’Brien
Coming Up for Air – George Orwell
Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood
Tropic of Capricorn – Henry Miller
Good Morning, Midnight – Jean Rhys
The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
After the Death of Don Juan – Sylvie Townsend Warner
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson
Nausea – Jean-Paul Sartre
Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
Cause for Alarm – Eric Ambler
Brighton Rock – Graham Greene
U.S.A. – John Dos Passos
Murphy – Samuel Beckett
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Years – Virginia Woolf
In Parenthesis – David Jones
The Revenge for Love – Wyndham Lewis
Out of Africa – Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
To Have and Have Not – Ernest Hemingway
Summer Will Show – Sylvia Townsend Warner
Eyeless in Gaza – Aldous Huxley
The Thinking Reed – Rebecca West
Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
Keep the Aspidistra Flying – George Orwell
Wild Harbour – Ian MacPherson
Absalom, Absalom! – William Faulkner
At the Mountains of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft
Nightwood – Djuna Barnes
Independent People – Halldór Laxness
Auto-da-Fé – Elias Canetti
The Last of Mr. Norris – Christopher Isherwood
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? – Horace McCoy
The House in Paris – Elizabeth Bowen
England Made Me – Graham Greene
Burmese Days – George Orwell
The Nine Tailors – Dorothy L. Sayers
Threepenny Novel – Bertolt Brecht
Novel With Cocaine – M. Ageyev
The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Thank You, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
Call it Sleep – Henry Roth
Miss Lonelyhearts – Nathanael West
Murder Must Advertise – Dorothy L. Sayers
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein
Testament of Youth – Vera Brittain
A Day Off – Storm Jameson
The Man Without Qualities – Robert Musil
A Scots Quair (Sunset Song) – Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Journey to the End of the Night – Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
To the North – Elizabeth Bowen
The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett
The Radetzky March – Joseph Roth
The Waves – Virginia Woolf
The Glass Key – Dashiell Hammett
Cakes and Ale – W. Somerset Maugham
The Apes of God – Wyndham Lewis
Her Privates We – Frederic Manning
Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh
The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
Hebdomeros – Giorgio de Chirico
Passing – Nella Larsen
A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
Red Harvest – Dashiell Hammett
Living – Henry Green
The Time of Indifference – Alberto Moravia
All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque
Berlin Alexanderplatz – Alfred Döblin
The Last September – Elizabeth Bowen
Harriet Hume – Rebecca West
The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
Les Enfants Terribles – Jean Cocteau
Look Homeward, Angel – Thomas Wolfe
Story of the Eye – Georges Bataille
Orlando – Virginia Woolf
Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence
The Well of Loneliness – Radclyffe Hall
The Childermass – Wyndham Lewis
Quartet – Jean Rhys
Decline and Fall – Evelyn Waugh
Quicksand – Nella Larsen
Parade’s End – Ford Madox Ford
Nadja – André Breton
Steppenwolf – Herman Hesse
Remembrance of Things Past – Marcel Proust
To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
Tarka the Otter – Henry Williamson
Amerika – Franz Kafka
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
Blindness – Henry Green
The Castle – Franz Kafka
The Good Soldier Švejk – Jaroslav Hašek
The Plumed Serpent – D.H. Lawrence
One, None and a Hundred Thousand – Luigi Pirandello
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
The Making of Americans – Gertrude Stein
Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos
Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Counterfeiters – André Gide
The Trial – Franz Kafka
The Artamonov Business – Maxim Gorky
The Professor’s House – Willa Cather
Billy Budd, Foretopman – Herman Melville
The Green Hat – Michael Arlen
The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
We – Yevgeny Zamyatin
A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
The Devil in the Flesh – Raymond Radiguet
Zeno’s Conscience – Italo Svevo
Cane – Jean Toomer
Antic Hay – Aldous Huxley
Amok – Stefan Zweig
The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield
The Enormous Room – E.E. Cummings
Jacob’s Room – Virginia Woolf
Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
The Glimpses of the Moon – Edith Wharton
Life and Death of Harriett Frean – May Sinclair
The Last Days of Humanity – Karl Kraus
Aaron’s Rod – D.H. Lawrence
Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
Ulysses – James Joyce
The Fox – D.H. Lawrence
Crome Yellow – Aldous Huxley
The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence
Night and Day – Virginia Woolf
Tarr – Wyndham Lewis
The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West
The Shadow Line – Joseph Conrad
Summer – Edith Wharton
Growth of the Soil – Knut Hamsen
Bunner Sisters – Edith Wharton
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
Under Fire – Henri Barbusse
Rashomon – Akutagawa Ryunosuke
The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
The Voyage Out – Virginia Woolf
Of Human Bondage – William Somerset Maugham
The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence
The Thirty-Nine Steps – John Buchan
Kokoro – Natsume Soseki
Locus Solus – Raymond Roussel
Rosshalde – Herman Hesse
Tarzan of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – Robert Tressell
Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence
Death in Venice – Thomas Mann
The Charwoman’s Daughter – James Stephens
Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
Fantômas – Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
Howards End – E.M. Forster
Impressions of Africa – Raymond Roussel
Three Lives – Gertrude Stein
Martin Eden – Jack London
Strait is the Gate – André Gide
Tono-Bungay – H.G. Wells
The Inferno – Henri Barbusse
A Room With a View – E.M. Forster
The Iron Heel – Jack London
The Old Wives’ Tale – Arnold Bennett
The House on the Borderland – William Hope Hodgson
Mother – Maxim Gorky
The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad
The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
Young Törless – Robert Musil
The Forsyte Sage – John Galsworthy
The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
Professor Unrat – Heinrich Mann
Where Angels Fear to Tread – E.M. Forster
Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
Hadrian the Seventh – Frederick Rolfe
The Golden Bowl – Henry James
The Ambassadors – Henry James
The Riddle of the Sands – Erskine Childers
The Immoralist – André Gide
The Wings of the Dove – Henry James
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Buddenbrooks – Thomas Mann
Kim – Rudyard Kipling
Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
_
_1800s
Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. – Somerville and Ross
The Stechlin – Theodore Fontane
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells
What Maisie Knew – Henry James
Fruits of the Earth – André Gide
Dracula – Bram Stoker
Quo Vadis – Henryk Sienkiewicz
The Island of Dr. Moreau – H.G. Wells
The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
Effi Briest – Theodore Fontane
Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
The Real Charlotte – Somerville and Ross
The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Born in Exile – George Gissing
Diary of a Nobody – George & Weedon Grossmith
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
News from Nowhere – William Morris
New Grub Street – George Gissing
Gösta Berling’s Saga – Selma Lagerlöf
Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
The Kreutzer Sonata – Leo Tolstoy
La Bête Humaine – Émile Zola
By the Open Sea – August Strindberg
Hunger – Knut Hamsun
The Master of Ballantrae – Robert Louis Stevenson
Pierre and Jean – Guy de Maupassant
Fortunata and Jacinta – Benito Pérez Galdés
The People of Hemsö – August Strindberg
The Woodlanders – Thomas Hardy
She – H. Rider Haggard
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson
King Solomon’s Mines – H. Rider Haggard
Germinal – Émile Zola
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
Bel-Ami – Guy de Maupassant
Marius the Epicurean – Walter Pater
Against the Grain – Joris-Karl Huysmans
The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
A Woman’s Life – Guy de Maupassant
Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
The House by the Medlar Tree – Giovanni Verga
The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James
Bouvard and Pécuchet – Gustave Flaubert
Ben-Hur – Lew Wallace
Nana – Émile Zola
The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Red Room – August Strindberg
Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
Drunkard – Émile Zola
Virgin Soil – Ivan Turgenev
Daniel Deronda – George Eliot
The Hand of Ethelberta – Thomas Hardy
The Temptation of Saint Anthony – Gustave Flaubert
Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
The Enchanted Wanderer – Nicolai Leskov
Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
In a Glass Darkly – Sheridan Le Fanu
The Devils – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Erewhon – Samuel Butler
Spring Torrents – Ivan Turgenev
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There – Lewis Carroll
King Lear of the Steppes – Ivan Turgenev
He Knew He Was Right – Anthony Trollope
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert
Phineas Finn – Anthony Trollope
Maldoror – Comte de Lautréaumont
The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
Thérèse Raquin – Émile Zola
The Last Chronicle of Barset – Anthony Trollope
Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Jules Verne
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens
Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu
Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Water-Babies – Charles Kingsley
Les Misérables – Victor Hugo
Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev
Silas Marner – George Eliot
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
On the Eve – Ivan Turgenev
Castle Richmond – Anthony Trollope
The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot
The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
The Marble Faun – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Max Havelaar – Multatuli
A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
Oblomovka – Ivan Goncharov
Adam Bede – George Eliot
Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
Hard Times – Charles Dickens
Walden – Henry David Thoreau
Bleak House – Charles Dickens
Villette – Charlotte Brontë
Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lonely – Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Blithedale Romance – Nathaniel Hawthorne
The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
Shirley – Charlotte Brontë
Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
The Count of Monte-Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
La Reine Margot – Alexandre Dumas
The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
The Purloined Letter – Edgar Allan Poe
Martin Chuzzlewit – Charles Dickens
The Pit and the Pendulum – Edgar Allan Poe
Lost Illusions – Honoré de Balzac
A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
Dead Souls – Nikolay Gogol
The Charterhouse of Parma – Stendhal
The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
The Nose – Nikolay Gogol
Le Père Goriot – Honoré de Balzac
Eugénie Grandet – Honoré de Balzac
The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo
The Red and the Black – Stendhal
The Betrothed – Alessandro Manzoni
Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – James Hogg
The Albigenses – Charles Robert Maturin
Melmoth the Wanderer – Charles Robert Maturin
The Monastery – Sir Walter Scott
Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
Persuasion – Jane Austen
Ormond – Maria Edgeworth
Rob Roy – Sir Walter Scott
Emma – Jane Austen
Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
The Absentee – Maria Edgeworth
Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
Elective Affinities – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth
_
_1700s
Hyperion – Friedrich Hölderlin
The Nun – Denis Diderot
Camilla – Fanny Burney
The Monk – M.G. Lewis
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe
The Interesting Narrative – Olaudah Equiano
The Adventures of Caleb Williams – William Godwin
Justine – Marquis de Sade
Vathek – William Beckford
The 120 Days of Sodom – Marquis de Sade
Cecilia – Fanny Burney
Confessions – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Reveries of a Solitary Walker – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Evelina – Fanny Burney
The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Humphrey Clinker – Tobias George Smollett
The Man of Feeling – Henry Mackenzie
A Sentimental Journey – Laurence Sterne
Tristram Shandy – Laurence Sterne
The Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith
The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole
Émile; or, On Education – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rameau’s Nephew – Denis Diderot
Julie; or, the New Eloise – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rasselas – Samuel Johnson
Candide – Voltaire
The Female Quixote – Charlotte Lennox
Amelia – Henry Fielding
Peregrine Pickle – Tobias George Smollett
Fanny Hill – John Cleland
Tom Jones – Henry Fielding
Roderick Random – Tobias George Smollett
Clarissa – Samuel Richardson
Pamela – Samuel Richardson
Jacques the Fatalist – Denis Diderot
Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus – J. Arbuthnot, J. Gay, T. Parnell, A. Pope, J. Swift
Joseph Andrews – Henry Fielding
A Modest Proposal – Jonathan Swift
Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
Roxana – Daniel Defoe
Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
Love in Excess – Eliza Haywood
Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
A Tale of a Tub – Jonathan Swift
_
_Pre-1700
Oroonoko – Aphra Behn
The Princess of Clèves – Marie-Madelaine Pioche de Lavergne, Comtesse de La Fayette
The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan
Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
The Unfortunate Traveller – Thomas Nashe
Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit – John Lyly
Gargantua and Pantagruel – Françoise Rabelais
The Thousand and One Nights – Anonymous
The Golden Ass – Lucius Apuleius
Aithiopika – Heliodorus
Chaireas and Kallirhoe – Chariton
Metamorphoses – Ovid
Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus

August 27, 2007 by kevinstilley

Precious Death

Precious Death
by A.W. Pink

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (PSALM 116:15).

This is one of the many comforting and blessed statements in Holy Scripture concerning that great event from which the flesh so much shrinks. If the Lord’s people would more frequently make a prayerful and believing study of what the Word says upon their departure out of this world, death would lose much, if not all, of its terrors for them. But alas, instead of doing so, they let their imagination run riot, they give way to carnal fears, they walk by sight instead of by faith. Looking to the Holy Spirit for guidance, let us endeavor to dispel, by the light of Divine revelation, some of the gloom which unbelief casts around even the death of a Christian. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” These words intimate that a dying saint is an object of special notice unto the Lord, for mark the words “in the sight of.” It is true that the eyes of the Lord are ever upon us, for He never slumbers nor sleeps. It is true that we may say at all times “Thou God seest me.” But it appears from Scripture that there are occasions when He notices and cares for us in a special manner. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1). “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee” (Isaiah 43:2). “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” This brings before us an aspect of death which is rarely considered by believers. It gives us what may be termed the Godward side of the subject. Only too often, we contemplate death, like most other things, from our side. The text tells us that from the viewpoint of Heaven the death of a saint is neither hideous nor horrible, tragic or terrible, but “precious.” This raises the question, Why is the death of His people precious in the sight of the Lord? What is there in the last great crisis which is so dear unto Him? Without attempting an exhaustive reply, let us suggest one or two possible answers: – First, Their persons are precious to the Lord. First, Their persons are precious to the Lord. They ever were and always will be dear to Him. His saints! They were the ones on whom His love was set before the earth was formed or the heavens made. These are they for whose sakes He left His Home on high and whom He bought with His precious blood, cheerfully laying down His life for them. These are they whose names are borne on our great High Priest’s breast and engraven on the palms of His hands. They are His Father’s love-gift to Him, His children, members of His body; therefore, everything that concerns them is precious in His sight. The Lord loves His people so intensely that the very hairs of their heads are numbered: the angels are sent forth to minister unto them; and because their persons are precious unto the Lord so also are their deaths.

Second, Because death terminates the saint’s sorrows and Second, Because death terminates the saint’s sorrows and sufferings. sufferings. There is a needs-be for our sufferings, for through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22). Nevertheless, the Lord does not “afflict willingly” (Lamentations 3:33). God is neither unmindful of nor indifferent to our trials and troubles. Concerning His people of old it is written, “In all their affliction he was afflicted” (Isaiah 63:9). “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him” (Psalm 103:13). So also are we told that our great High Priest is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Heb. 4:15). Here, then, may be another reason why the death of a saint is precious in the sight of the Lord-because it marks the termination of his sorrows and sufferings.

Third, Because death affords the Lord an opportunity to Third, Because death affords the Lord an opportunity to display His sufficiency. display His sufficiency. Love is never so happy as when ministering to the needs of its cherished object, and never is the Christian so needy and so helpless as in the hour of death. But man’s extremity is God’s opportunity. It is then that the Father says to His trembling child, “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed, for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness” (Isaiah 41:10). It is because of this that the believer may confidently reply, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.” Our very weakness appeals to His strength, our emergency to His sufficiency. Most blessedly is this principle illustrated in the well-known words “He shall gather the lambs (the helpless ones) with his arm, and carry them in his bosom” (Isaiah 40:11). Yes, His strength is made perfect in our weakness. Therefore is the death of the saints “precious” in His sight because it affords the Lord a blessed occasion for His love, grace and power to minister unto and undertake for His helpless people.

Fourth, Because at death the saint goes direct to the Lord. Fourth, Because at death the saint goes direct to the Lord. The Lord delights in having His people with Himself. Blessedly was this evidenced all through His earthly ministry. Wherever He went, the Lord took His disciples along with Him. Whether it was to the marriage at Cana, to the holy feasts in Jerusalem, to the house of Jairus when his daughter lay dead, or to the Mount of Transfiguration, they ever accompanied Him. How blessed is that word in Mark 3:14, “He ordained twelve, that they should be with him.” And He is “the same yesterday and today and for ever.” Therefore has He assured us, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:3). Precious then is the death of the saints in His sight, because absent from the body we are “present with the Lord” (II Cor. 5:8). While we are sorrowing over the removal of a saint, Christ is rejoicing. His prayer was “Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory” (John 17:24), and in the entrance into Heaven of each one of His own people, He sees an answer to that prayer and is glad. He beholds in each one that is freed from “this body of death” another portion of the reward for His travail of soul, and He is satisfied with it. Therefore the death of His saints is precious to the Lord, for it occasions Him ground for rejoicing. It is most interesting and instructive to trace out the fullness of the Hebrew word here translated “precious.” it is also rendered “excellent.” “How excellent is Thy loving kindness, 0 God!” (Psa. 36:7). “A man of understanding is of an excellent spirit” (Prov. 17:27). However worthily or unworthily he may live, the death of a saint is excellent in the sight of the Lord. The same Hebrew word is also rendered “honourable.” “Kings’ daughters were among thy honourable women” (Psa. 45:9). So Ahasuerus asked of Haman “What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour?” (Esther 6:6). Yes, the exchange of heaven for earth is truly honourable, and “This honour have all his saints. Praise ye the Lord.” This Hebrew word is also rendered “brightness.” “If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness” (Job 31:26). Dark and gloomy though death may be unto those whom the Christian leaves behind, it is brightness “in the sight of the Lord”: “at evening time it shall be light” (Zech. 14:7). Precious, excellent, honourable, brightness in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. May the Lord make this little meditation precious unto His saints.

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August 26, 2007 by kevinstilley

Contentment

Contentment
by A.W. Pink

“I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content” (PHILIPPIANS 4:11).

Discontent! Was there ever a time when there was so much restlessness in the world as there is today? We very much doubt it. Despite our boasted progress, the vast increase of wealth, the time and money expended daily in pleasure, discontent is everywhere. No class is exempt. Everything is in a state of flux, and almost everybody is dissatisfied. Many even among God’s own people are affected with the evil spirit of this age. Contentment! Is such a thing realizable, or is it nothing more than a beautiful ideal, a mere dream of the poet? Is it attainable on earth or is it restricted to the inhabitants of heaven? If practicable here and now, may it be retained, or are a few brief moments or hours of contentment the most that we may expect in this life? Such questions as these find answer, an answer at least, in the words of the apostle Paul: “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content” (Phil. 4:11). The force of the apostle’s statement will be better appreciated if his condition and circumstances at the time he made it be kept in mind. When the apostle wrote (or most probably dictated) the words, he was not luxuriating in a special suite in the Emperor’s palace, nor was he being entertained in some exceptional Christian household, the members of which were marked by unusual piety. Instead, he was “in bonds” (cf. Phil. 1:13, 14); “a prisoner” (Eph. 4:1), as he says in another Epistle. And yet, notwithstanding, he declared he was content! Now, there is a vast difference between precept and practice, between the ideal and the realization. But in the case of the apostle Paul contentment was an actual experience, and one that must have been continuous, for he says, “in whatsoever state I am.” How then did Paul enter into this experience, and of what did the experience consist? The reply to the first question is to be found in the word, “I have learned . . . to be content.” The apostle did not say, “I have received the baptism of the Spirit, and therefore contentment is mine.” Nor did he attribute this blessing to his perfect “consecration.” Equally plain is it that it was not the outcome of natural disposition or temperament. It is something he had learned in the school of Christian experience. It should be noted, too, that this statement is found in an Epistle which the apostle wrote near the close of his earthly career! From what has been pointed out it should be apparent that the contentment which Paul enjoyed was not the result of congenial and comfortable surroundings. And this at once dissipates a vulgar conception. Most people suppose that contentment is impossible unless one can have gratified the desires of the carnal heart. A prison is the last place to which they would go if they were seeking a contented man. This much, then, is clear: contentment comes from within not without; it must be sought from God, not in creature comforts. But let us endeavor to go a little deeper. What is “contentment”? It is the being satisfied with the sovereign dispensations of God’s providence. It is the opposite of murmuring, which is the spirit of rebellion-the clay saying to the Potter, “Why hast Thou made me thus?” Instead of complaining at his lot, a contented man is thankful that his condition and circumstances are no worse than they are. Instead of greedily desiring something more than the supply of his present need, he rejoices that God still cares for him. Such an one is is “content” with such as he has (Heb. 13:5). One of the fatal hindrances to contentment is covetousness, which is a canker eating into and destroying present satisfaction. It was not, therefore, without good reason, that our Lord gave the solemn commandment to His followers-Take heed, and beware of covetousness” (Luke 12:15). Few things are more insidious. Often it poses under the fair name of thrift, or the wise safeguarding of the future-present economy so as to lay up for a “rainy day.” The Scripture says, covetousness which is idolatry” (Col. 3:5)-the affection of the heart being set upon material things rather than upon God. The language of a covetous heart is that of the horseleach’s daughter, Give! Give! The covetous man is always desirous of more, whether he has little or much. How vastly different the words of the apostle-“And having food and raiment let us be therewith content” (I Tim. 6:8). A much needed word is that of Luke 3:14: “Be content with your wages”! “Godliness with contentment is great gain” (I Tim. 6:6). Negatively, it delivers from worry and fretfulness, from avarice and selfishness. Positively, it leaves us free to enjoy what God has given us. What a contrast is found in the word which follows-“But they that will be (desire to be) rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (I Tim. 6:9,10). May the Lord in His grace deliver us from the spirit of this world, and make us to be “content with such things as we have.” Contentment, then, is the product of a heart resting in God. It is the soul’s enjoyment of that peace which passeth all understanding. It is the outcome of my will being brought into subjection to the Divine will. It is the blessed assurance that God doeth all things well, and is, even now, making all things work together for my ultimate good. This experience has to be “learned” by “proving what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Rom. 12:2). Contentment is possible only as we cultivate and maintain that attitude of accepting everything which enters our lives as coming from the Hand of Him who is too wise to err, and too loving to cause one of His children a needless tear. Let our final word be this: real contentment is only possible by being much in the presence of the Lord Jesus. This comes out clearly in the verses which follow our opening text; “I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me” (Phil. 4:12, 13). It is only by cultivating intimacy with that One who was never discontent that we shall be delivered from the sin of complaining. It is only by daily fellowship with Him who ever delighted in the Father’s will that we shall learn the secret of contentment. May both writer and reader so behold in the mirror of the Word the glory of the Lord that we shall be “changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18).

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August 25, 2007 by kevinstilley

Affliction & Glory

Affliction and Glory
by A.W. Pink

“For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 CORINTHIANS 4:17).

These words supply us with a reason why we should not faint under trials nor be overwhelmed by misfortunes. They teach us to look at the trials of time in the light of eternity. They affirm that the present buffetings of the Christian exercise a beneficent effect on the inner man. If these truths were firmly grasped by faith they would mitigate much of the bitterness of our sorrows. “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” This verse sets forth a striking and glorious antithesis, as it contrasts our future state with our present. Here there is “affliction,” there “glory.” Here there is a “light affliction,” there a “might of glory.” In our affliction there is both levity and brevity; it is a light affliction, and it is but for a moment; in our future glory there is solidity and eternity! To discover the preciousness of this contrast let us consider, separately, each member, but in the inverse order of mention. 1. “A far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” It is a significant thing that the Hebrew word for “glory”-kabod-also means “weight.” When weight is added to the value of gold or precious stones this increases their worth. Heaven’s happiness cannot be told out in the words of earth; figurative expressions are best calculated to convey some imperfect views to us. Here in our text one term is piled up on top of another. That which awaits the believer is “glory,” and when we say that a thing is glorious we have reached the limits of human language to express that which is excellent and perfect. But the “glory” awaiting us is weighted, yea it is “far more exceeding” weighty than anything terrestrial and temporal; its value defies computation; its transcendent excellency is beyond verbal description. Moreover, this wondrous glory awaiting us is not evanescent and temporal, but Divine and eternal; for “eternal” it could not be unless it were Divine. The great and blessed God is going to give us that which is worthy of Himself, yea that which is like Himself-infinite and everlasting. 2. “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment.” (1) “Affliction” is the common lot of human existence; “Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). This is part of the entail of sin. It is not meet that a fallen creature should be perfectly happy in his sins. Nor are the children of God exempted; “Through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). By a hard and rugged road does God lead us to glory and immortality. (2) Our affliction is “light.” Afflictions are not light in themselves for ofttimes they are heavy and grievous; but they are light comparatively! They are light when compared with what we really deserve. They are light when compared with the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. But perhaps their real lightness is best seen by comparing them with the weight of glory which is awaiting us. As said the same apostle in another place, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). (3) “Which is but for a moment. Should our afflictions continue throughout a whole lifetime, and that life be equal in duration to Methuselah’s, yet is it momentary if compared with the eternity which is before us. At most our affliction is but for this present life, which is as a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 0 that God would enable us to examine our trials in their true perspective. 3. Note now the connection between the two. Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, “worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” The present is influencing the future. It is not for us to reason and philosophize about this, but to take God at His Word and believe it. Experience, feelings, observation of others, may seem to deny this fact. Ofttimes afflictions appear only to sour us and make us more rebellious and discontented. But let it be remembered that afflictions are not sent by God for the purpose of purifying the flesh: they are designed for the benefit of the “new man.” Moreover, afflictions help to prepare us for the glory hereafter. Affliction draws away our heart from the love of the world; it makes us long more for the time when we shall be translated from this scene of sin and sorrow; it will enable us to appreciate (by way of contrast) the things which God had prepared for them that love Him. Here then is what faith is invited to do: to place in one scale the present affliction, in the other, the eternal glory. Are they worthy to be compared? No, indeed. One second of glory will more than counterbalance a whole lifetime of suffering. What are years of toil, of sickness, of battling against poverty, of persecution, yea, of a martyr’s death, when weighed over against the pleasures at God’s right hand, which are for evermore! One breath of Paradise will extinguish all the adverse winds of earth. One day in the Father’s House will more than counterbalance the years we have spent in this dreary wilderness. May God grant unto us that faith which will enable us to anticipatively lay hold of the future and live in the present enjoyment of it.

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