Jul 11
15
THE KILLING LETTER-NOT THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE
A fountain is supplied from its own spring, yields its contents to supply the poor and needy when they seek water and there is none elsewhere, and their tongue faileth for thirst, that they may drink and not famish, or die by famishing. So this law of the wise is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death. Can this law of the wise be the ten commandments, which are affirmed by some to be the believer’s only rule of life? I trow not. Paul tells us the letter killeth, 2 Cor. 3:6; that it is the law of death, Rom. 7:2; that the law worketh wrath, (Rom. 4:15); and is the ministration of death and condemnation, (2 Cor: 4:7,9) nor does our faith in Christ alter the nature of the law, or make it to us what it was not before. It is the yoke of bondage, and gendereth to bondage still; hence we are exhorted to stand fast in our liberty, and not be entangled again with that yoke of bondage, Gal. 5:1. It still retains its binding nature, even to the believer, and will entangle him again if he looks to it for help.
This rule of life, as some term it, is still a killing letter, hence God declares that, “we are delivered from the law, that being dead, wherein we were held, that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter,” Rom. 7:6. If the law be a killing letter, and the law of death, it cannot be a fountain of life; by which the wise man departs from the snares of death. We know that sin is a transgression of the law, and that where there is no law there is no transgression; and that death is the sentence of the law; if so, the commandments are the snares that hold the sinner in the arms of death. The first snare that entangles a thief is the law; and if he is left to the mercy of that, it will serve him as the spider does the fly in the web, never let him go till it has killed him; it is a killing letter, and so all will find it that weave the spider’s web, no web can be woven that will cover the soul on that loom; the commandment is exceeding broad. Nor can we suppose that our calling the ministration of condemnation the rule of life will alter this matter, or turn a killing letter into a living fountain; for that law gives no life, therefore it can be no part of this law of the wise. “Had there been a law given that could have given life, verily righteousness should have come by the law.” This law of the wise, that is, a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death, is what Paul calls the ministration of the Spirit opposed to the ministration of death, 2 Cor. 3:9. Solomon’s fountain of life is Paul’s ministration of the Spirit; and what Solomon calls the snares of death is Paul’s law of death. The wise man’s law of life is the same as the living water that the Savior gives, that is in the believer as a well of water springing up into everlasting life. (Jn. 4:14)
Blessed be God forever, it is a fountain of life indeed by which the poor believing sinner departs from the snares of death, and that for ever more; or, to speak in the apostle’s language, “The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death;” that is, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ has made me free from the law of sin that works in my members, and to the law of Moses, which is the ministration of death. We may call this law of the wise the believer’s only rule of life, without talking nonsense.
William Huntington – extract from ‘The believer’s rule of life’.