Archibald Hall
2. Some Conclusions
Hall (1736-78) belonged to one of the Scottish Secession Churches and, for the last 13 years of his life, he ministered to their congregation in Wall Street, London. This is an edited extract from Hall’s Treatise on the Faith and Influence of the Gospel. Last month’s article (the first of two) spoke of the harmony of the perfections of God with His law.
These principles show that:
(1.) The law of God can never lose its authority and obligation over reasonable creatures.
It is as absurd to imagine that His law can ever cease to prescribe the duty of mankind, as to suppose that God, with whom there is no shadow of turning, can divest Himself of the glorious perfections of His own nature.
Hall is referring to what he said of the harmony of the perfections of God with His law.
(2.) The lack of conformity to the law of God is criminal, as well as open disobedience.
Since the law exhibits the faithful portrait of Jehovah’s likeness, any lack of conformity to it must be a lack of conformity to the image of God. Hence the lack of original righteousness and the defects of the Christian’s obedience are to be considered as sins against God. Every lack of perfection in the understanding, will, affections, or conduct is a dishonour both to God and His law, or rather to God revealing His nature and sovereign authority in the law. Therefore every such lack of perfection is really a sin in the sight of God.
(3.) The law of God is spiritual, and extends to the inmost thoughts, principles, and purposes of the soul.
This “Word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart”.
(4.) Every sinner is a child of wrath, and under a sentence of condemnation.
“The wages of sin is death”, and the Judge of all the earth will execute righteous judgement in rendering to sin its just recompense of reward. The punishment of sin is not the effect of something arbitrary in the divine law, but a necessary vindication of the holiness and righteousness of the sovereign Lawgiver. An offence in one point of commanded duty dishonours the whole law, and subjects the offender to the wrath and curse of God. If one link of a chain is broken, the whole chain is damaged; a violent assault on one part of a man’s body is an assault on the man himself; and every sin is a transgression of the law of God, an invasion on His royal authority, and rebellion against the Lord. Shall He not punish for such enormities? Shall not His soul be avenged on such criminals as these? Yes, the word has gone out of His mouth; it has been proclaimed from heaven and registered in everyone’s conscience: “The soul that sinneth it shall die”.
(5.) Every sinner that lies under the curse of God is, at the same time, “a debtor to do the whole law” by yielding perfect, unsinning obedience to all its holy and righteous precepts.
The fact that he is under condemnation for having previously violated the law does not dissolve his obligation to continue “in all things which are written in the book of the law”, concerning his present and future conduct, “to do them.”
(6.) Every sin deserves infinite punishment, being committed against the law of the most high God.
Accordingly, every sin receives such punishment, either in the everlasting misery of the sinner, or in the sufferings of the Son of God, his substituted Surety – through these sins being imputed to Him and the benefits of His redemption being received by faith.
(7.) Every sinner is “without strength”; he neither possesses anything amiable, nor has he the least ability to acquire it; he cannot please God by any of his performances, being dead in trespasses and sins, and lives in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.
He is chargeable with horrid guilt, and incapable of expiating a single offence. “The carnal mind”, or unregenerate soul, “is not subject to the law of God” – indeed, is an enemy, or rather enmity itself. Against what? Against sin? That would be a noble antipathy. Against the world? That would be a laudable disaffection. No, but against God and His law. Amazing perverseness! To be enmity against God, who is boundless goodness; enmity against His law, which is the transcript of His perfections, and the faultless model of all virtue.
(8.) The substitution of one person for others, in order to establish a valid title to everlasting happiness for many, by the work of that one substitute, is perfectly consistent with the distinctive nature of the law of God.
In the covenant of works, Adam was constituted the public representative of his posterity. They are now in a state of condemnation by his first transgression but, if he had not fallen, they would have been confirmed in a state of happiness on the footing of his perfect obedience. Why then should it be reckoned unreasonable and unjust for God to make Christ, “who knew no sin”, become “sin for us”; and to make ungodly sinners “the righteousness of God in” Christ?
(9.) Those who enjoy God’s favour are not released from the everlasting obligation of His law, but their blessed state only enables them to see more clearly, and to perform more cheerfully, the reasonable service it prescribes.
Had Adam and his posterity been confirmed in a state of holiness, he and they would have continued for ever to walk in the commandments of their God.
(10.) The law of God demands perfect obedience from every child of Adam, and insists on a full atonement being made for past transgressions.
The righteousness of the law, in its largest extent, must be fulfilled in all those that inherit eternal life. They must be covered with a robe of righteousness, and their beauty must appear perfect. They must stand, in the eye of God’s law, invested with a holy nature, righteousness of life, and complete forgiveness of all their sins. “Know ye not, that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?”
If these doctrines were understood and believed by mankind, many would be ready to say with the disciples, “Who then can be saved?” All would agree to set their seal unto these truths: “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified” in the sight of God – every mouth is stopped, and the whole world is guilty before God. Many would adopt the prophet’s question, “Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?”
Hall answers his question in another section, on “the gospel of the grace of God”.