“For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God it is evident: for, “The just shall live by faith.” And the law is not of faith: but, the man that doeth them shall live in them” (Gal. 3:10-12).
Note the proof that is given that “as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse.” It is this: “Cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.”
Now, since the proposition is that “as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse,” why does not the proof of that proposition read, Cursed is every one that continues in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them? —Well, the simple reason is that the fault, which brings the curse, is not in the law, but in those who would be the doers of the law: not in the law, but in the people.
No curse could ever possibly come to any who really do the law. But all who “are of the works of the law are under the curse” simply because their works are not truly the works of the law, but are their own works, which they themselves have shaped by their own blurred and imperfect conception of what the law really is; and are therefore sin. Therefore the curse is upon all who “are of the works of the law,” simply because they have not continued, “in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them”; but have all sinned.
If they had begun and had continued truly “in all things, which are written in the book of the law to do them,” there never could have been any curse. However, mark this: though they had begun and had continued truly in all things which are written in the book of the law, or in the law, to do them, even then their righteousness would not have been of the law; because they would necessarily have had to be righteous before they could begin in righteousness to do the righteousness of the law. As it is written: “He that doeth righteousness is righteous.”
He has to be righteous, in order to do righteousness. For, in the nature of things, it is impossible for one who is unrighteous to do righteousness: it is impossible for a sinner, while he is a sinner, to do good. The law is perfect with the very perfection of God. Therefore, in the very nature of things, it is impossible for an imperfect person to do the law. Therefore every man must be righteous to begin within order to do righteousness. And he must remain righteous in the same way that he became righteous to begin with, in order to continue to do righteousness. And this righteousness, which every soul must have to begin with in order to do righteousness, is “the righteousness of God without the law” (Rom 3:21); that is, it is a righteousness, which he obtains from God, and not at all from the law. Accordingly, it is written: “He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as HE is righteous.”
Every soul must be righteous to begin with, before he can, by any possibility, do righteousness. There is no true righteousness except the righteousness of God. Therefore every soul must have the righteousness of God to begin with, before he can ever do righteousness; which is simply to say that every soul must have the righteousness of God before he can show it: it must be in him before it can appear.
The only true righteousness of the law of God is the righteousness of God. But nobody but God can see in the law the righteousness of God. Consequently, nobody but God can find in the law the righteousness of God. Everybody else can find only his own righteousness, which comes as far short of the righteousness of God as the individual differs from God.
Therefore the righteousness that every soul must have before he can ever do the righteousness that is in the law of God, must be the righteousness of God. And as nobody but God can see or know this righteousness that is in the law of God, it follows inevitably that it is from God alone that every soul must obtain the righteousness which he must have to begin with, and which he must have always, in order to manifest at any time in his life the righteousness of the law, —the true keeping of the commandments of God.
And this righteousness that every man must have to begin with, before it can possibly be manifest in his life, —this righteousness which he must have in his life to begin with, before the righteousness that is in the law can appear in his life, —this righteousness which is the righteousness of God, and which comes only from God, —in the nature of things, can come only as the gift of God, and can be received only by faith. It never can come to any soul by the law, but only by faith.
Therefore it is written that, “no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident.” And what is the evidence? —Ah! The evidence is precisely that, and because, “the just shall live by faith.” That is, God’s word that “the just shall live by faith” is the evidence, conclusive and universal, that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God. “The just shall live by faith;” not by the law; by the law is to attempt to live by himself: as all the law he can thus have is his own conception of the law, and not God’s at all, which is the only true one. “And the law is not of faith: but, “The man that doeth them shall live in them.”
And it is with life as it is with righteousness: for “in the way of righteousness is life” (Prov. 12:28); and in the way of life—true life—is righteousness. Every man must live before he can possibly do anything. And every man must live from God, before there can be found in his life any of the doing of the things of God. And the life can come only as the gift of God, and is received by faith. And having received the life of God, which, in itself, is able to manifest the righteousness of God that is in the law, then the man that does these things is righteous. In the doing of them there is no sin; consequently, no curse: therefore, no death; and so, in such doing he lives; and so long as the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in him, so long he lives.
Thus, he that does those things “shall live in them;” but even then he does not get life by the doing of these things: he has to get life from God to begin with, before he can possibly do; and this life can come only from God as the gift of God, and can be received only by faith. And so it is forever written, “The just shall live by faith.”
Therefore, as all have sinned, all are under the curse, and all are dead; because “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). But now, bless the Lord, Christ, the Gift of God, has come, and “hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” Therefore “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And “Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” And in all this “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ died in vain.”
“But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No; but by the law of faith” (Rom. 3:21-27).
Bless the Lord! Believe, only believe, in the Lord Jesus Christ; and thou shall be saved. And “this is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (John 6:29).
[Advent Review and Sabbath Herald | December 19, 1899]