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The Law Of God Versus The Law Of Self, February 11
For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the
obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover the law entered,
that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much
more abound.
Romans 5:19, 20
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Adam did not set his mind in defiance against God, nor did he in any way
speak against God; he simply went directly contrary to His express command. And
how many today are doing the very same thing, and their guilt is of much greater
magnitude because they have the example of Adam’s experience in disobedience
and its terrible results to warn them of the consequences of transgressing the law
of God. So they have clear light upon this subject, and no excuse for their guilt in
denying and disobeying God’s authority. Adam did not stop to calculate the result
of his disobedience.
We can stand down here,...and with the aftersight we are privileged to have,
we can see what it means to disobey God’s commandments. Adam yielded to
temptation and as we have the matter of sin and its consequences laid so distinctly
before us, we can read from cause to effect and see the greatness of the act is not
that which constitutes sin; but the disobedience of God’s expressed will, which is
a virtual denial of God, refusing the laws of His government. The happiness of
man is in his obedience to the laws of God. In his obedience to God’s law he is
surrounded as with a hedge and kept from the evil.
No man can be happy and depart from God’s specified requirements, and set
up a standard of his own which he decides he can safely follow. Then there would
be a variety of standards to suit the different minds, and the government taken out
of the Lord’s hands and human beings grasp the reins of government. The law of
self is erected, the will of man is made supreme; and when the high and holy will
of God is presented to be obeyed, respected, and honored the human will wants
its own way...to do its own promptings, and there is a controversy between the
human agent and the divine.
The fall of our first parents broke the golden chain of implicit obedience of
the human will to the divine. Obedience has no longer been deemed an absolute
necessity. The human agents follow their own imaginations which the Lord said
of the inhabitants of the old world were evil and that continually. The Lord Jesus
declares, “I have kept my Father’s commandments.” How? As a man. Lo, I come
to do Thy will, O God. To the accusations of the Jews He stood forth in His pure,
virtuous, holy character and challenged them, “Which of you convinceth me of
sin?”—
Manuscript 1, 1892
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