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10. God's eternal law of
righteousness existed before the law of Sinai was given.
This proposition is
self-evident. Surely God had a law by which to govern his
creatures long before Sinai. But "the law," as
worded in the Decalog and in the "book of the
law," was not given till Moses, 2,500 years after the
creation of man. Hence moral obligations did not begin
with that law, nor would it cease if that law was
abolished. "All unrighteousness is sin" (1 John
5:17); and "sin is the transgression of the law"
(1 John 3:4). This text is used by Sabbatarians to prove
that every possible sin is always a violation of the Ten
Commandments. But, 1. "The law" is the whole
Mosaic law, not merely the Decalogue. 2. A correct
translation entirely spoils this text for them. The word
"law" is not in the text in the original. The
Revised Version gives it correctly: "Sin is
lawlessness." This is the true meaning of the text.
Sin is lawlessness, a disregard for some law, but not
necessarily the same law.
Adam "sinned" long before
that law was given (see Rom. 5:12-14). Cain sinned (Gen.
4:7). The Sodomites were "sinners (Gen. 13:13), and
vexed Lot with their unlawful deeds" (2 Pet. 2:8).
Surely none of these violated "the law," which
was not given till Moses. To say that they must have
violated the principles of that law is not to the point.
When the Jews killed Stephen (Acts 7:59), they violated
the principles of the law of Michigan which forbids
murder; but did they violate the "law of
Michigan" ? No; for it was not given for eighteen
hundred years after, and they were not under it anyway. So
neither Adam, nor the Sodomites could have transgressed
the law of Sinai, for it was not yet given. Abraham kept
God's laws (Gen. 26:5), but surely not "the law which
was four hundred and thirty years after" (Gal. 3:17).
All this clearly shows that God had a law before the code
of Sinai was given.
Jesus, under the gospel fifteen
hundred years later, in naming the commandments, gives
them neither in the same words nor in the same order as
found in the Decalogue. Further, he mingles them with some
precepts from the book of the law as of equal importance
with the Ten. Thus: "Do not commit adultery, Do not
kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud
not, Honor thy father and mother" (Mark 10:19). This
shows that the mere form and order of the commandments is
of no consequence as long as the idea is given. The two
editions of the Decalog in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5
vary much in the wording; yet one is as good as the other.
In whatever form or manner God
chose to communicate his will to men, this would be
"his commandments, his statutes, and his laws"
(Gen. 26:5). Paul says: "God, who at sundry times and
in divers manners spake in time past unto the
fathers" (Heb. 1:1, 2).
A disregard for his revealed will
would be lawlessness —sin. But to claim that God gave
the patriarchs his law in the exact form and words of the
Ten Commandments is a proofless assumption, contrary to
reason and all the clear testimony of Scripture.
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