The Only Legitimate Gospel Motive... A Profound Proof Of Universal Reconciliation.
A Quote from I.D. Williamson D.D. 1883
"See now the divine and the profound philosophy of the man of Nazareth. He proposes to establish a kingdom in which the law of love, hitherto feebly impressed upon the heart and imperfectly embodied in the precepts of the old law, should be elevated to the position of a fundamental law. To use a current phrase, there is but "one plank in the platform" on which he stands, and that is the law of love. He asks for no servants; but he wants friends, who will follow him for the love of him. He comes with no code of law, nor does he promise rewards nor threaten punishments. No anxiety does he express, lest his system should be destitute of a nicely adjusted penal code. To his disciples he says, "Lovest thou me?" "Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee." It is enough. That love was all the moral obligation he imposed. It was the pledge of all fidelity – the guarantee of all duty, and he asked no more. His word is, "A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another." And of God the disciple says, "We love him because he first loved us." Here is the true source and origin, the ground and basis of all moral obligation. We are only bound to love God because he first loved us, and our only obligation to love our fellow-men rests upon the fact that they are God's dear children and our brethren. Precisely in proportion to our love to God and man will be the strength and validity of our real internal moral obligation. The divine teacher only asks us to yield ourselves obedient subjects to this law of love. But suppose we do not yield to the law, what then? Then, of course, two things follow. First of all, that holy and tender law is broken. But it does not storm or threaten. It does not drive or seek to enforce obedience by pains and penalties, nor yet by promises and rewards, because it knows that love comes not at the bidding of such instrumentalities. But with whatever strength it is impressed upon the soul, it causes the soul to grieve in penitential sorrow, and it seeks to win the heart by new manifestations of its tenderness and divine beauty.
But this is not all of the responsibility there is in the case. Neither the natural law nor the law of reason, nor yet the law of commandments, is repealed by the law of love. Its object is to fulfill them, not to abrogate them. Now the apostle says, "Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are." Of course when we fail of obedience to the law of love, we fall back under the "law of commandments," and become its servants, responsible to it and exposed to all its pains and penalties. Consider now for a moment the difference between the law which came by Moses and the grace and truth that came by a greater than Moses. The old law thunders its letter from Sinia against idolatry in the mandate, "Thou shalt have no other God before me." But the Decalogue of love breathes in the spirit and causes the soul to look up to God with filial reverence and holy love, and say, "Our Father, who art in heaven." The old law forbids the outward act of profanity, saying, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." But the "law of the spirit of life" so touches the heart and fills it with love that it meekly looks up as it were into the face of the dear Father, and says, "Hallowed be thy name," in every thought, word, and deed. The law in the letter levels its denunciations against the outward act of transgression, saying, "Thou shalt not kill," "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not commit adultery." But the law of love so fills the soul with tenderness that it recoils from the occasion for a thought of evil, and sensible of the weakness of the flesh, it prays ever, "Lord, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." It is easy to perceive thus that the whole law is fulfilled, and more than fulfilled, in every soul that yields to the law of love. The man who loves God with all his heart, and his neighbour as himself, will worship no other God. He will mention that holy name only in reverence and love. He will not kill the neighbor that he loves. He will not commit adultery. He will not steal. He will not bear false witness against his brother. He is the servant of the law of love. What need hath he of any other law? Why need he trouble himself about the schoolmaster with his alphabet and his scepter of authority? He is not a servant labouring for hire, but a son, serving the father for the love of him. What need hath he to chaffer about the amount of wages that the father pays his servants? He is no longer under tutors and governors, but is a free man. Why should he again entangle himself with the yoke of bondage? But as the law of reason, when it supervenes upon the law of animal life, does not repeal the latter, but only the more perfectly fulfills it, so neither does the law of love repeal, but only the more perfectly fulfills the "law of commandment." And as the man who violates the law of reason not only incurs the protest of his reason, but falls under the law of animal life and incurs its pains and penalties, so also the man who violates the law of love not only grieves his own soul in its highest aspect, but he also yields himself a servant to the "law of commandments," and assumes its responsibilities and accountabilities. So, then, when any man professing to be a teacher of the New Testament, prides himself on having a perfect system of rewards and punishments, and insists upon the necessity of proclaiming the terrors of the law, the reply is pertinent, "Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? – 'Cursed is every one that continueth not in all the things written in the book of the law to do them.' If this is the responsibility and accountability that ye desire, it is open to you. Nay, it is the very responsibility that you incur whenever you fail of yielding yourself to the law of love. If you are content to be a servant and to labour for hire, why then it is well enough to talk about the amount of your wages. And if your object is to build up legal righteousness in others, and induce them to become servants under the law, then it is well to be able to offer good pay and to threaten heavy penalties for disobedience.
But all this has nothing to do with the sublime and beautiful philosophy of Jesus. There is a law in which all law is fulfilled: "Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the word, that man shall be blessed in the deed." Not for the deed, but in the deed. The service of the Father is his joy, because he loves him. To him the wages of a servant is dross. What cares he for the "law of commandment?" He hath been lifted above it. He is raised by his obedience to the law of love to the adoption of a son, and the spirit that is in him cries continually, "Abba Father;" and in all his soul he desires to do nothing that is prohibited in the law. His meat and drink is to do the will of his Father, and he hath no need to be quickened in this service by the promise of reward or the fear of punishment. As soon would he claim a reward for loving his wife and children as for loving God and his neighbour. Or as soon would he think of causing others to love their wives and children by fines and imprisonment, as to make them love God by the "law of commandment," and its pains and penalties. . . .
. . . Herein is the precise difference between legal and moral obligation, as also between moral and legal righteousness. Legally we are bound to obey the law of command, which says, "Thou shalt not steal," because it is God's law, and disobedience will incur certain pains and penalties. Morally we are bound to obey that law, because we love God and our brethren. Our obedience in the first case was legal righteousness, having respect merely for the command. In the latter case it was moral righteousness, because it proceeded from the law of love, and would have been equally performed if there had been no command. So, then, we may easily see what we have to do. If our aim is to build up an outward conformity to the letter of the law, and to cause the world to abound in legal righteousness, our course is plain. We have only to go back to the "law of commandment," to hold up its rewards and threaten its penalties – we must talk much of punishment and retribution for disobedience, and much of the rewards for obedience. If we succeed in offering sufficient wages we may engage many servants, who will, for hire, give us "eye service" and "hand service." But "we love him because he first loved us," is the source of all moral obligation and the parent of all genuine moral righteousness. It is a conscience-binding law, which lays its obligation on the heart and secret thoughts of the soul, and shuns a lustful look as it shuns the very act of adultery . . .
. . . But it is plain enough, we suppose, that, as regards the fulfillment of the law of love in the sphere of our internal activities, no pain or penalties, no rewards or punishments, can make one hair black or white. On the contrary, in so far as any man is led to perform an act from the hope of reward, or the fear of punishment, in just so far does he fail to fulfill the law of love in his own soul." I.D. Williamson 1883