Perfect Harmony between Grace and Law
I have written this brief review, as I did my articles in the Signs, with the desire to vindicate the law of God, and to show its perpetuity, its binding claims upon all mankind, and the beautiful harmony between it and the gospel. The law of God is the groundwork of all our faith. It may be said to be the backbone of the Third Angel’s Message. That being the case, we must expect, as we approach the end, that all the forces of the enemy will be concentrated upon it. We shall have to do more valiant service for it than we ever yet have done.Every point in our argument will have to be subjected to the test of the most rigid criticism, and we shall have to fortify every point. If there is any inconsistency in any of our arguments, we may be sure that the enemies of the truth will not always remain blind to it.
I know you will say that it will be a humiliating thing to modify our position on so vital a point as this, right in the face of the enemy. But if a general has a faulty position, I submit that it is better to correct it, even in the face of the enemy, than to run the risk of defeat because of his faulty position. But I do not see anything humiliating in the matter. If our people should today, as a body (as they will sometime), change their view on this point, it would simply be an acknowledgment that they are better informed today than they were yesterday. It would simply be taking an advance step, which is never humiliating except to those whose pride of opinion will not allow them to admit that they can be wrong. It would simply be a step nearer the faith of the great Reformers from the days of Paul to the days of Luther and Wesley. It would be a step closer to the heart of the Third Angel’s Message.
I do not regard this view which I hold as a new idea at all. It is not a new theory of doctrine. Everything that I have taught is perfectly in harmony with the fundamental principles of truth which have been held not only by our people, but by all the eminent reformers. And so I do not take any credit to myself for advancing it. All I claim for the theory is, that it is consistent, because it sticks to the fundamental principles of the gospel.
Before I close, I cannot refrain from expressing my regret to see in your book (on page 78) the expression, “The much-vaunted doctrine of justification by faith.” Do you know of any other means of justification? Your words seem to intimate that you think that doctrine has been overestimated.
Of one thing I am certain, and that is, that those who have held to the theory of the law, which you are endeavoring to uphold, have not overestimated the doctrine of justification by faith; because that theory leads inevitably to the conclusion that men are justified by the law. But when I read Romans 3:28, and read also that Paul knew nothing among the Corinthians but Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and that “the just shall live by faith,” and that “this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4), and that Paul wanted to be found when Christ comes, having nothing but “the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Philippians 3:9), I conclude that it is impossible to overestimate the doctrine of justification by faith. You may call it a “much-vaunted”doctrine if you please; I accept the word, and say with Paul: “God forbid that I should glory [or vaunt], save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”
Hoping that you will read this letter in the spirit in which it is written, and that you will believe that I have written it with only the utmost good-feeling and brotherly love for you personally, and praying that God will guide both of us and all His people to the most perfect knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, I remain your brother in Christ,
E.J. Waggoner