Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2506
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord; I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts.” Hebrews 8:10.
WHEN God gave Israel His Law—the Law of the First Covenant—it was such a holy Law that it ought to have been kept by the people. It was a just and righteous Law, concerning which God said, “You shall do My judgments, and keep My ordinances, to walk therein: I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep My statutes, and My judgments: which if a man does, he shall live in them: I am the Lord.” The Law of the Ten Commandments is strictly just—it is such a Law as a man might make for himself if he studied his own best interests and had wisdom enough to frame it aright. It is a perfect Law in which the interests of God and man are both studied. It is not a partial Law, but impartial, complete, and covering all the circumstances of life. You could not take away one command out of the ten without spoiling both tables of the Law and you could not add another command without being guilty of making a superfluity. The Law is holy, just and good—it is like the God who made it—it is a perfect Law. Then, surely, it ought to have been kept. When men revolt against unjust laws, they are to be commended, but when a law is admitted to be perfect, then disobedience to it is an act of exceeding guilt.
Further, God not only gave a Law which ought to have been kept because of its own intrinsic excellence, but He also gave it in a very wonderful way which ought to have ensured its observance by the people. The Lord came down upon Mount Sinai in fire and the mountain was altogether on a smoke—and the smoke thereof ascended “as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.” And the sight that was then seen on Sinai and the sounds that were there heard, and all the pomp and awful grandeur were so terrible that even Moses—that boldest, calmest, quietest of men said, “I do exceedingly fear and quake.” The children of Israel, as they heard that Law proclaimed, were so amazed and overwhelmed with God’s display of His majesty and might, that they were ready enough to promise to keep His Commandments. The Law of God could not have been made known to mankind in grander or more sublime style than was displayed in the giving of that Covenant on Mount Sinai.
And, dear Friends, after the giving of the Law, did not God affix to it those terrible penalties which should have prevented men from disobeying His commands? “Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them.” “The soul that sins, it shall die.” It was the capital sentence that was to be pronounced upon the disobedient—there could be no heavier punishment than that! God had, as it were, drawn His sword against sin, and if man had been a reasonable being, he ought at once to have started back from committing an act which he might be sure would make God his foe.
Moreover, the blessings that were appended to the keeping of the Law ought to have induced men to keep it. Look again at those words I quoted just now—“You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments: which if a man does, he shall live in them: I am the Lord.” This did not mean that the man who kept God’s Law should merely exist—there are some in these degenerate days who seek to make out life to be existence and death to be annihilation, but there is little likeness between the words, or between what those words mean. “He shall live in them,” said the Lord concerning the man who kept His Law—and there is a fullness of blessedness couched in that word, “live.” If men had kept the Covenant of the Lord—if Adam, for instance, had kept it in the Garden of Eden, the rose would have been without a thorn to tear his flesh, and the enjoyment of life would never have been marred by the bitterness of toil or grief.
But, alas, notwithstanding all these solemn sanctions of the ancient Covenant, men did not keep it. The promise, “This do, and you shall live,” never produced any doing that was worthy to be rewarded with life, and the threat, “Do this, and you shall die,” never kept any man back from daringly venturing into the wrong road which leads unto death! The fact is, that the Covenant of Works, if it is looked upon as a way of safety, is a total failure! No man ever persevered in it unto the end and no man ever attained unto life by keeping it. Nor can we, now that we are fallen, ever hope to be better than our unfallen covenant-head, Adam. Nor may we, who are already lost and condemned by our sinful works, dream for a moment that we shall be able to save ourselves by our works. You see, dear Friends, the first Covenant was in these terms—“You do right and God will reward you for it. If you deserve life, God will give it to you.” Now, as you all know right well, that Covenant was broken all to pieces—it was unable to stand by reason of the weakness of our flesh and the corruptness of our nature!