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    June 24, 1895

    “Catholicism v. Christianity” The Bible Echo 10, 25, pp. 195, 196.

    ATJ

    SELF TO WORK OUT RIGHTEOUSNESS

    THERE is another statement that the Catholic Church makes which so clearly reveals again the essential nature of the “faith” which is held, and the salvation that is offered, by the Catholic Church, that it is worth quoting. Here it is:—BEST June 24, 1895, page 195.1

    “We seem to hear Jesus, our heavenly Physician, say: I died for all, and thereby prepared in My blood a remedy for all. If you would have the merits of My passion and death applied to you, to free your souls from sin, you must ... believe that I am what I declare Myself to be, and believe what I teach. Do also what I have told you to do, and then you shall have the merits of My passion and death applied to you and you shall be justified.”BEST June 24, 1895, page 195.2

    This is in very substance, and even in terms, the old covenant. It is identical with the covenant “from the Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage.” Galatians 4:24. Here are the terms of the old covenant, the covenant from Sinai. “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people: for all the earth is Mine; and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.” “And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” Exodus 19:4-6, 8.BEST June 24, 1895, page 195.3

    Their agreement to obey His voice indeed, was an agreement to keep the ten commandments indeed. For when His voice was heard from Sinai the ten commandments alone were spoken. And of these it is written: “Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” Ecclesiastes 12:13.BEST June 24, 1895, page 195.4

    So that in substance this covenant from Sinai, just as certainly as this Catholic statement, says, I have done this great thing for you. Now, if you would have the benefit of it, believe what I teach, do also what I have told you to do, and then you shall have it and you shall be justified. And the people all said they would do it, and this, too, with the hope of being justified. These two statements are identical in substance and in doctrine. The thought of both is that man must do righteousness in order to be righteous, instead of first being righteous in order to do righteousness.BEST June 24, 1895, page 195.5

    MEANING OF THE OLD COVENANT

    It will not do though to say that as the Lord made the statement from Sinai, therefore this statement from Rome is truth. The Lord had a purpose in this covenant from Sinai even though it did then “gender to bondage.” That covenant from Sinai corresponds to Hagar in the family of Abraham. The children of that covenant, the people who entered into it, correspond to Ishmael, the child of Hagar. As Hagar was a bondwoman, so the child that was born of her was a bondchild. And thus she gendered to bondage. As Hagar represents the covenant from Sinai, and her child was a bondchild, so the covenant from Sinai gendered to bondage and the children of that covenant were bondchildren.BEST June 24, 1895, page 195.6

    Moreover, Ishamael was “born after the flesh.” And as Ishmael represents the children of the covenant, so they were “after the flesh” and knew only the birth of the flesh. Knowing only the birth of the flesh, and minding only the things of the flesh, they thought themselves capable of fulfilling all the righteousness of God. The Lord knew full well that they could not do it; but they did not know it, and they would not believe that they could not do it. In order to convince them that they could not do it, and enable them to see it so plainly that they themselves would confess their inability to do it, the Lord gave them a full and fair opportunity to try.BEST June 24, 1895, page 195.7

    Within forty days they had fully demonstrated their utter inability to do what the Lord had told them, and what they had freely promised to do. They were in deeper bondage than ever. They were then willing to have the Lord deliver them from the bondage of sin to the liberty of righteousness by his own power, through His own word, in His own promise, even as He had delivered their father Abraham. In a word, they were then willing to attain to righteousness, to be justified, by faith, instead of trying to obtain it by works. They were willing to be children of promise, instead of children of the flesh.BEST June 24, 1895, page 174.1

    Having found by this experience that “the minding of the flesh is enmity against God, and it not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be,” they were willing to be born again and of the Spirit of God, rather than to trust longer to the ways of the birth of the flesh. Having found that by this old and temporary covenant they were lost, they were willing to be saved by the new and everlasting covenant, which is this:—BEST June 24, 1895, page 174.2

    “I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people; and they shall not teach every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know Me from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.”BEST June 24, 1895, page 174.3

    In this covenant there is no “if.” It depends not upon what we shall do, but upon what God will go “unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”BEST June 24, 1895, page 174.4

    A WICKED PERVERSION

    Such was the covenant from Sinai, such was its nature, and such its purpose. And that the recording of it, with the nature and experience of those who caused it to be made and who entered into it, was necessary for future ages, is demonstrated by this repetition of it in the Catholic system of “faith.” That covenant was faulty, as it rested upon the promise of the people to obey God’s law without faith in Jesus Christ; but this repetition of it is infinitely faulty and altogether bad, as compared with the original example. For there, although it was their own sinfulness and self-righteousness that led to the making of it, yet through the sad experience of it God would draw them away from themselves to the knowledge of Christ; while here and in this, the Papacy takes the very revelation of the gospel of Christ itself and perverts it into the old covenant, and through this perversion draws men away from Christ to the exaltation of self. It puts the old covenant in the place of the new. It puts works in the place of faith. It puts bondage in the place of freedom. It puts ceremonies in the place of Christ. And it puts man in the place of God.BEST June 24, 1895, page 174.5

    This is the Papacy, and this her doctrine of “faith.” And as God said of Hagar and Ishmael in the family of Abraham, and of the covenant from Sinai and its children in the family of Israel, so He says of this same wicked thing as it would be in the family of Christianity: “Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” Galatians 4:30.BEST June 24, 1895, page 174.6

    There never was a truer description of the Papacy than that it is “a method of forgetting God, which shall pass as a method of remembering Him.”BEST June 24, 1895, page 174.7

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