Samuel Bolton,2 in his The True Bounds of Christian Freedom, wrote: “We read in Matthew 5:17-18: ‘Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy but to fulfil; for verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled’ . . . It is to be noted that in this verse Christ gives a stricter exposition of the law and vindicates it from the corrupt glosses of the Pharisees, which surely speaks of the continuance, not the abrogation, of the law. And agreeable to this is the language of the Apostle in Romans 3:31: ‘Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.’ How? Not for justification, for in this respect faith makes it void, but as a rule of obedience, and in this respect faith establishes it.
“Further, the Apostle tells us that the law is ‘holy and just and good’, and that he delighted ‘in the law of God after the inward man’ and also that ‘with the mind I myself serve the law of God’ (Rom 7:12,22,25). With this agrees James 2:8: ‘If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture . . . ye do well’. What law this was he shows in the eleventh verse to be the moral law. Likewise: ‘He that saith I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar’ (1 Jn 2:4); also: ‘Sin is the transgression of the law’ (1 Jn 3:4).
“Therefore since Christ, who is the best expounder of the law, so largely strengthens and confirms the law . . . since faith does not supplant but strengthens the law, since the Apostle so often presses and urges the duties commanded in the law, since he acknowledges that he served the law of God in his mind and that he was under the law to Christ (1 Cor 9:21), I may rightly conclude that the law, or the substance of it, still remains a rule of life to the people of God.
“But I would add further arguments, beginning with this: if ever the law was a rule of walking, then it is still a rule of walking; this is clear. Either it is still such a rule, or we must show the time when, as such, it was abrogated. But no such time can be showed. If it is said that it was abrogated in the time of the gospel by Christ and His apostles, we reply that no such thing can be proved. It was not so abrogated at that time. If Christ and His apostles commanded the same things which the law required, and forbade and condemned the same things which the law forbade and condemned, then they did not abrogate it but strengthened and confirmed it. And this is what they did: see Matthew 5:19: ‘Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least command-
1The final part of this series of excerpts, from the writings of eminent Christians, complied by Peter Best.
2Bolton (1606-1654) was a Puritan preacher, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University.
ments, 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 [not legal preachers, but] great in the kingdom of heaven.”
J C Ryle,3 commented thus on Matthew 5:17-20: “Let us beware of despising the law of the Ten Commandments. Let us not suppose for a moment that it is set aside by the gospel, or that Christians have nothing to do with it. The coming of Christ did not alter the position of the Ten Commandments one hair’s breadth. If anything, it exalted and raised their authority (Rom 3:31). The law of the Ten Commandments is God’s eternal measure of right and wrong. By it is the knowledge of sin; by it the Spirit shows men their need of Christ and drives them to Him: to it Christ refers His people as their rule and guide for holy living. In its place it is just as important as ‘the glorious gospel’. It cannot save us; we cannot be justified by it; but never, never let us despise it. It is a symptom of an ignorant ministry, and an unhealthy state of religion, when the law is lightly esteemed. The true Christian delights ‘in the law of God’.”
Commenting on Romans 3:31, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law”, Matthew Henry4 wrote: “Paul obviates an objection, as if this doctrine (that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law (v 28) did nullify the law, which they knew came from God: No, says he, though we do say that the law will not justify us, yet we do not therefore say that it was given in vain, or is of no use to us; no, we establish the right use of the law and secure its standing, by fixing it on the right basis. The law is still of use to convince us of what is past and to direct us for the future; though we cannot be saved by it as a covenant, yet we own it and submit to it as a rule in the hand of the Mediator subordinate to the law of grace, and so we are so far from overthrowing that we establish the law. Let those consider this who deny the obligation of the moral law on believers.”
On the same verse, Robert Haldane5 wrote: “That the doctrine of justification, by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, does not release believers from obedience to the law is a most important truth, which Paul fully establishes in the sixth chapter of this Epistle. On the contrary, it lays them under additional obligations to obey it by furnishing additional motives to the love of God. . . . It is evident that this verse is introduced to obviate an objection which might naturally present itself, namely: If man’s obedience, in order to his justification, be set aside, the law, which requires obedience, is made void. But Paul appeals to his doctrine and, according to his usual manner, strongly
3Ryle (1816-1900) was an Evangelical preacher and first Anglican Bishop of Liverpool.
4Henry (1642-1716) was a Presbyterian preacher in England and a Bible commentator.
5Haldane (1764-1842) was a Scottish theologian and preacher.
rejects such an inference. . . . ‘Think not’, said our blessed Lord, ‘that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.’”
Thomas Manton6 commented on James 2:12, “So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty”, as follows:
“1. It is a ‘law’: Christians are ‘under the law to Christ’ (1 Cor 9:21). . . . The acceptable will of God is discovered in the law of ten words, and the moral part of Scripture is but a commentary upon it. And it is also imperative. It is not arbitrary to us whether we will obey or no. Laws are obliging.7 The will of the Creator being significant to us in the law, we are under the commanding power of it. Things moral and just are perpetually obliging: ‘The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good’ (Rom 7:12). It is holy; it shows true strictness. It is . . . good – that is, profitable, or useful, for man. All which things infer a perpetual obligation; and if the law were not obliging, there could be no sin; for where there is no obligation there is no transgression: ‘Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth the law, for sin is the transgression of the law’.
“2. It is a ‘law of liberty’. We are freed from the law as a covenant of works. . . . We ought to aim at exactness of obedience, but not to despair if we cannot reach it. We are so far to eye perfect obedience, as if it were still a matter of our justification, as to be humbled for defects. A gracious heart cannot offend a good God without grief. Sin is still damning in its own nature, still a violation of a righteous law, still an affront to God.
“Nay, there are new arguments of humiliation, as sinning against God’s love and kindness, the forfeiting of our actual fruition of the comforts of the covenant, though not our right in it. As we are to be humbled for our defects, so to be as earnest in our endeavours. You have more reason to be strict, because you have more help. We have more advantages, and therefore we should have more care of duty: I press on, that if ‘by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead’ (Phil 3:11) – that is, the holiness of that state. A Christian’s actions are much below his aims. They have no grace who can be content with a little grace. So that you see we ought to look to the law’s utmost [demands] though we be not judged by the law’s rigour. Failings not allowed are pardoned and weaknesses passed by, the obedience required of us being not that of servants but children: ‘I will spare them, as a man spareth his only son’ (Mal 3:17).”
The following excerpt from Samuel Bolton sums up what should be the
6Manton (1620-1677) was an English Puritan who was ejected for non-conformity in 1662.
7That is, they lay an obligation on us to obey them.
believer’s relationship to the moral law: “Maintain your liberty in Christ by refusing to look any more to the law for justification, and by refusing to fear its words of condemnation. You are to live, in respect of your practice and obedience, as men who can neither be condemned by the law nor justified by it. It is a hard lesson to live above the law and yet to walk according to the law. But this is the lesson a Christian has to learn: to walk in the law in respect of duty, but to live above it in respect of comfort, neither expecting favour from the law in respect of his obedience, nor fearing harsh treatment from the law in respect of his failings. Let the law come in to remind you of sin if you fall into sin, but you are not to suffer it to arrest you and drag you into the court to be tried and judged for your sins. This would be to make void Christ and grace.
“Indeed Christians too much live as though they were to expect life by works and not by grace. We are too big in ourselves when we do well, and too little in Christ in our failings. O that we could learn to be nothing in ourselves in our strength, and to be all in Christ in our weakness! In a word, let us learn to walk in the law as a rule of sanctification, and yet to live upon Christ and the promises in respect of justification.”