Again you say:—
“We claim that this expression, ‘under the law,’ has two significations: (1) Primarily meaning under the authority of the law, or under obligation to keep it; (2) under the condemnation of the law, with its penalty impending over us, or already suffering it. The expression itself does not decide which of these meanings is to be understood; the connection must decide that.”
It would have been more to the point if you had quoted some instances outside of the one under discussion, to show that “under the law” is ever used in the sense of “subject to the law.”
To be sure, you quote from Greenfield’s Lexicon, where it is stated that the word hupo is used with the sense “of subjection to the law.” But you should remember that it is the province of lexicons simply to give the meaning of a word, and not to decide upon points of doctrine. When Greenfield says that hupo means “under,” he states a simple truth; but when he says that it is used in the sense of “subjection to the law,” he gives merely his opinion upon a text of Scripture; and his opinion on the meaning of a text of Scripture is no better than that of any other man.
Indeed, I think that if you had examined Greenfield a little more closely you would have left his opinion in this matter out entirely, for he cites Romans 6:14 as an instance of the use of the word hupo in the sense of “subjection to the law,” and that is the only text that he does give as an illustration. There is no more doubt in your mind than there is in mine that that text refers to the moral law, and to that alone. So if you accept Greenfield as a commentator, you will read that text thus: “For ye are not subject to the law, but under grace.” This would suit the enemies of the truth, but I know that you do not accept it.
Your argument from Greenfield is certainly an unfortunate one for you.
You say:
“Greenfield gives a variety of definitions [comments, you should have said], such as the sense in many places requires, one of which is, ‘of subjection to law,’ etc. He gives no instance where it is used in the sense of being subject to the condemnation of the law.”
That is, he gives no instance where he thinks it is used in the sense of under the condemnation of the law. And the instance he gives where he thinks it is used in the sense of subject to the law, is one where it does unquestionably mean condemned by the law. I have not time here to give an exposition of every text where the expression “under the law” occurs; I have done this in my articles, and you have not noticed or attempted to overthrow a single position which I took upon those texts. I therefore repeat that (with the exception of Romans 3:19 and 1 Corinthians 9:21, where the word hupo is not found, and which should properly be translated “in the law”) the term “under the law,” wherever it occurs in the New Testament, means “condemned by the law.” It never has any other signification. Christians are all subject to the moral law, but they are not under it. If they were under it they would not be Christians.
You say:—
“The moral law never led a man to Christ and left him. It always stays with him. We may be delivered from its condemnation; but its supreme authority must be regarded then as before. Its claims never leave us.”
I agree with that most heartily, The law does not leave the man when he comes to Christ, but the man’s relation to it is changed. Before he was “under the law,” now he is “in the law” (Psalm 119:l) and the law is in him (Psalm 37:31). He is in Christ, who is the personification of the law, and in Him he is made the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21.