But I must not prolong this letter much further. I pass to a brief notice of your strictures upon my argument upon Galatians 4:21. You say:—
“Here we have the expression ‘under the law’ repeated once more. We have already dwelt at some length upon this phrase, and have claimed that its uses in the letter to the Galatians referred to being subject to the law, under its authority.
But one of our friends who is enthusiastic in his devotion to the view that the law in Galatians is the moral law, goes so far as to claim that in every case where this expression is used, it signifies being in a state of sin or condemnation; i.e., in a position where the penalty of the law hangs over one’s head. That penalty is the ‘second death’ in ‘the lake of fire.’
We have, then, according to that view, these Galatian brethren desiring to be in a state of guilt, which would expose them to the lake of fire. ‘Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law,’ with this equivalent expression substituted, would read, Tell me, ye that desire to be under the condemnation of the law—Tell me, ye that desire the condemnation of the second death.
We have known men to desire many strange things, but we never before knew one to desire the second death. But if that view of the subject is correct, and this jaw is the moral law, and all these expressions ‘under the law’ mean under its condemnation, then we have no possible escape from this conclusion. But to think of these new, zealous converts to Christianity desiring to go into a state of condemnation, exposed to such a doom, is too preposterous for a moment’s consideration.”
I gladly acknowledge that I am the identical one of your friends who has claimed that in every case where the expression “under the law” occurs in the original, it signifies “being in a state of sin or condemnation, that is, in a position where the penalty of the law hangs over one’s head.” And I trust that I shall never be counted as your enemy because I tell you this truth.
You make sport of this idea, and say that you never knew anyone who desired the second death. My knowledge is not very extensive, but I have known that very thing. In the eighth chapter of Proverbs, Wisdom, which is the fear of God, is personified and in the last verse of that chapter she says, “All them that hate me love death.” There you have a plain Bible statement that there are some that love death. It is not to be supposed that men deliberately desire death, but they do deliberately choose and love the course which must result in death, and consequently they are said to love death.
In Acts 13:45 we read that Paul and Barnabas said to the Jews who had rejected the word of God, “contradicting and blaspheming:” “Seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.” Here we have a similar statement. The apostle did not mean to indicate that those self-conceited Jews thought that they were not fit to enter Heaven; on the contrary, they thought that they were the only ones who were worthy of that privilege. But they were unwilling to receive the only truth which could fit them for everlasting life, and so they could justly be said to be unwilling to receive everlasting life.
So Paul could say to the Galatians who were turning aside from the gospel of Christ, that they desired to be under the law. Not that they deliberately chose death, but they were seeking justification by something which could not bring them justification. They were losing their faith in Christ, and being removed from God (Galatians 1:5); and such a course, if carried out, would inevitably bring them under the condemnation of the law. I see nothing absurd in this position. If it is absurd, then you must attach absurdity to the words of Solomon in Proverbs 8:36.
Let me prove the point in another way. You will admit that a man’s own way, if followed, will always end in death. Says Solomon: “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.“ And this way which seems right to a man, is his own way. Now since a man’s own way is the way of death, it can truly be said that all who love their own way love death. The Galatians had turned to their own way, which is opposed to the ways of God. And so they were desirous to be under the condemnation of the law.
But I have already made this letter longer than I anticipated. I have done so only because I have a deep sense of the tremendous importance of this question, and I am morally certain that your theory is opposed to the truth. That those who have held it have not oftener been discomfited by the enemies of the truth, is due rather to the providential blindness of those enemies, than to the strength of the argument with which they have been met on this question.