02. Man Under Law
CHAPTER II
Man Under Law Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.- Romans 7:12. The question has been asked, Why did God put man under law and thus make sin and the fall possible ? The question is equivalent to asking, Why did God make a man at all, Those qualities that make man superior to the brute are the qualities that make law a necessity. Righteousness and reward, no less than sin and punishment are impossible without law.
Love, too, without law is impossible. It appears from God’s precepts to man that God created man especially to love Him; the first and greatest commandment of divine law is, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. " But love is invariably an act of choice, and choice is impossible without an alternative. Man was permitted to eat of every tree of the garden except one; of that one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he was forbidden to eat. The ording of the law implies man’s power to disobey, and he certainly had the power to obey. By obedience man would prove his love; by disobedience he would prove his disloyalty. The power to sin, therefore, was the unavoidable opposite of the power to love and to obey. Give man power to love, and you give him power to sin; remove from him the power to sin, and you rob him of the power to love. The institution of the Edenic law was no injustice to man. Man, possessing, as he did, the power to obey, could by obedience secure to himself the highest degree of happiness. To make happiness possible is certainly no injustice, even if the possibility of pain be included; more particularly so if the possibility of both the happiness and the pain, with the way to attain each, is clearly pointed out, and the way to happiness advised.
Everything associated with Eden, man’s first home, indicates that man could have secured to himself, by obeying God’s law, the highest degree of physical, esthetical, and spiritual happiness. "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 2:810). The word "Eden," the name of the garden, means " pleasantness. " There grew trees to supply "food, " " every tree that is pleasant to the sight "; and in the midst, where walked the voice of the Lord in the cool of the day, grew the tree of life. God, seeing that it was not good that man should be alone in the enjoyment of Eden, made "an helpmeet for him, " that man’s joy and happiness might be heightened by his sharing it with another. The consequence of disobedience was made plain to Adam in these words: "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:16-17). It is indisputable, also, that Eve understood both the law and its penalty; for in her conversation with the tempter she said: "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die" (Genesis 3:2-3). No injustice, then, was done man by any lack in telling him of either the law or the result of disobeying that law.
Obedience to the Edenic law was most certainly a divine preference. Man, created in the image and likeness of God, was predisposed by nature to obey any law that could come from a divine and holy source. Thus, God made man with an inward advantage in favor of obedience. Disobedience to the Edenic law was, therefore, a free and willful act of man committed against divine preference and adequate warning. The infinite goodness of God could not prefer the fall and defilement of holy beings created in his own image. As well might we think of his creating man in a state of moral defilement. God could not wish obedience of our foreparents without wishing them the ability to obey. Therefore they must have possessed the power to obey as also they possessed the power to disobey. Disobedience, then, I repeat, was a free act on the part of man. Hence no injustice could be ascribed to God on account of the Edenic law. The law of Eden was a testing law of duty, under which man was placed on probation. This probation under a testing law of duty was not only a reasonable economy, but a necessity to man’s highest good. Primitive holiness, as we have learned, had no ethical value, for only personal acts of merit can be rewarded; created holiness, therefore, could not be the basis of reward to man. Hence in order that man be rewarded, it was necessary that he have an opportunity of performing deeds of merit, of living a life that is rewardable. But deeds that are inevitable, bound to be done in the very nature of things, have no ethical value and are consequently not rewardable. If man had been given no testing law of duty, he could never have gained a crown. It is deeds done by choice that may be rewarded. Hence the necessity of an alternative-the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Some might ask: "Even if the law was a necessity to the possibility of reward, why should the law have a penalty?" We answer: In the very justice of law every deed must have its appropriate recompense. Therefore if obedience is justly rewardable, disobedience is justly punishable. It is an axiomatic fact that there can be no law without penalty. The law of Eden, then, with its reward and penalty, was both reasonable on the part of the Creator and best for the created.
We have now learned: (1) That primitive man was a holy being created, morally, in the image and likeness of God; (2) That man was endowed with power of choice and of action, and placed on probation under a testing law of duty; (3) That moral law was a necessity to man’s happiness and the purpose of his creation; (4) that obedience to the law and the happiness consequent upon obedience was a divine preference; and (5) That no injustice in placing man under law and no responsibility for man’s disobedience can be ascribed to God.