Ellet J. Waggoner
The Signs of the Times : January 28, 1886
A moment’s thought will show any one the folly of supposing that the law may be kept in spirit and not in letter. Can a man worship gods of gold, or stone, or brass, and yet have a proper regard for the God that made heaven and earth? Can a man blaspheme the name of God, and at the same time have perfect love and reverence in his heart? Is it possible to wantonly violate the letter of the sixth commandment, by taking human life, and yet have no trace of enmity, but only perfect love in the heart? Will a man deliberately and persistently take the goods of others, if he has no covetous desires in his heart? And does not everybody know that the committing of adultery is only the outward manifestation of the lust that burns within? There can be but one answer to these questions. Even so there can be no spiritual obedience without obedience to the letter as well.
The statement of the wise man, that to keep the commandments is the whole duty of man, and of Christ, that whosoever shall do and teach them shall be called great in the kingdom of Heaven, prepares us for the truth stated by the apostle, in Romans 2:13—
“For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.”
Since to keep the commandments of God is the whole duty of man, of course the one who keeps the law will be justified; a man can never be justly condemned, when he does his whole duty. We will not, at this time, inquire just how comprehensive the term “the doers of the law” is, nor whether or not there are any such. For the present we shall be content with the truth, which allows of no exception, namely, “the doers of the law shall be justified.”
the wages of sin is death
In Romans 6:23 we read that “the wages of sin is death.” But if a man never sins, he will never receive the wages therefore, consequently the doer of the law will live. And this, again, is no more than we find plainly stated in Romans 10:5: “For Moses describes the righteousness which is of the law. That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.” The man whom the law justifies - the one who is really a doer of all its requirements - will certainly live. Now it is a self-evident fact that when God made a perfect, holy, and just law, he designed that all his subjects should obey it. And since the law, when it is kept, gives life, we can see the force of the apostle’s statement, that the law “was ordained to life.” Romans 7:10. As we shall hereafter see more fully, the law was given that man might ever keep in harmony with God’s will, in which condition he must necessarily have life.