"For I testify again to every man that
is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law."
"Debtor to do the whole law."
It is curious that many, in considering this statement, have
made it mark a distinction between two laws and have made it
exclude the law of God from the the subject under consideration
by allowing to the word "debtor" only the sense of
"obligation."
They know, by the scripture, that it is the
whole duty of man to fear God and keep His commandments. They
know that there cannot be any other scripture to contradict that.
They know that every man is under obligation to keep the whole
law of God, whether he is circumcised or uncircumcised. And,
allowing that this term implies only obligation--that if he is
circumcised, he is under obligation to do the whole law, they
conclude that this must exclude the law of God; they conclude
that it must be some law that no person is under any obligation
to do unless he be circumcised and that therefore the "whole
law" here under consideration must be only the whole ceremonial
law of sacrifices and offerings.
On the other hand, there are those who
hold themselves under no obligation whatever to keep the law
of God, who bring in this text to support them in their disobedience
and opposition. They will have it that only those who are circumcised
are under any obligation to keep the law of God, and that it
is only by being circumcised that the obligation comes, and they
know that they are not under any obligation to be circumcised.
From this they argue that they are under no obligation to keep
the ten commandments.
But both of these are wrong; both of them
fail to see the thought that is in this verse. And the cause
of this failure is in their allowing to the word "debtor"
only the sense of "obligation."
It is true that the word signifies "obligation."
But in this place and in every other place in its connection
with men's moral obligations, the word has a meaning so much
broader and deeper than that of mere obligation that the sense
of mere obligation becomes really secondary.
The word "debtor" in this verse--Gal.
5:3--signifies not only that a person is in debt and under obligation
to pay but that, beyond this, he is overwhelmingly in debt, with
nothing at all wherewith to pay. If a man is debtor and so under
obligation to pay one thousand dollars and yet has abundance
or even only the ability to pay the one thousand dollars that
is easy enough. But if a man is debtor and so under obligation
to pay fourteen millions of dollars ($14,000,000) and has not
a single cent wherewith to pay and is in prison besides and has
no ability whatever to make a cent wherewith to pay his debt
to that man the word "debtor" signifies a great deal
more than mere "obligation to pay."
And that is precisely the case here. That
is the thought in this verse. That is the meaning embodied here
in the word "debtor." This because the word "debtor,"
when used in connection with morals, implies and can imply only
sin, that the man is a sinner.
This word "debtor" in Gal. 5:3
is precisely the word that is used in Luke 13:4. "Those
eighteen, upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and slew them, think
ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?"--where
the word "sinners" in the text is "debtors"
in the margin.
It is the word used in the Lord's prayer
(Matt. 6:12), "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,"
and which in Luke's version of the prayer plainly expresses the
thought of sin in the words: "Forgive us our sins, for we
also forgive everyone that is indebted to us." Luke 11:4.
It is the same word also that is used
by the Saviour in Luke 7:41, 42: "There was a certain creditor
which had two debtors, the one owed five hundred pence and the
other fifty. And when they had nothing [ with which] to pay,
he frankly forgave them both."
It is the same word also that is used
in the parable in Matt. 18:23-35. Indeed, from the verse, Luke
13:4, where the word "sinners" is used in the text
and "debtors" in the margin, the reference is direct
to this parable in Matthew 18. That is the parable in which it
is said that when a certain king "had begun to reckon"
with his servants, "one was brought unto him, which owed
him ten thousand talents"--about fourteen million four hundred
thousand dollars--and he had nothing with which to pay. Then
the Lord "forgave him the debt." But when the servant
found one of his fellow servants who owed him about fifteen dollars,
he would not forgive him the debt but cast him into prison until
he should pay the fifteen dollars. Then the king called up his
debtor "and delivered him to the tormentors till he should
pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my Heavenly
Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every
one his brother their trespasses." Matt. 18:23-35.
That thought of delivering the debtor
to the tormentors until he should pay all that was due to his
lord belongs with the word, for "the use of the word involves
the idea that the debtor is one that must expiate his guilt."
And "sin is called 'opheilema,' because it involves expiation
and the payment of it as a debt, by punishment and satisfaction."
From these scriptures the attentive reader
can begin to see that in the words of Gal. 5:3--"he is debtor
to do the whole law"--there is far more suggested than that
he is merely under obligation to accept the claims of the law
upon him and do his best to meet them. All this shows that he
is not only under obligation to recognize the binding claims
of the law of God but that he is actually debtor to render to
that law all the claims that it has upon him. And in this it
is further shown that, of himself, he must everlastingly be debtor,
because he has absolutely nothing wherewith to pay, and of himself
has no means of acquiring anything with which to pay. And this
indebtedness lies not only in his obligation to do the law from
this time forward; it also lies in obligation to make satisfaction
for all that is past--for all the accumulations of the past up
to the present time.
Accordingly, of himself, every man is
everlastingly as debtor in all that is implied in this thought
in Gal. 5:3 and the kindred texts that we have here cited, because
"all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
And whosoever would be circumcised in order to be saved and thus
seek to be saved by works of self-righteousness, thereby takes
upon himself the obligation to pay to the law of God his whole
debt from the beginning of his life unto the end of it. And in
that he also takes upon himself the obligation to expiate all
the guilt attaching to his transgressions and accumulated thereby.
That is what it is to be "debtor
to do the whole law." That is what is stated in the words,
"I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he
is a debtor to do the whole law." He is not only debtor
but by that transaction he himself voluntarily assumes of himself
to discharge all that is involved in his indebtedness.
Now it is true that every man in the world
is, of himself, that kind of a debtor. It is also true that any
man today who seeks justification by his own works, even in the
doing of the ten commandments or of anything else that the Lord
has commanded does thereby assume and bind himself to pay all
that is involved in the indebtedness. But he cannot pay. There
is not with him the first element of any possibility, in himself,
to pay any of the debt. He is overwhelmed and lost.
But thanks be to God, whosoever has the
righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ, whosoever
depends only on the Lord Jesus and that which Jesus has done,
though he be of himself debtor just like any other man, yet,
in Christ, he has wherewith abundantly to pay all the indebtedness.
Christ has expiated by punishment and satisfaction all the guilt
of every soul and by the righteousness of God which he brings,
Christ supplies abundance of righteousness to pay all the demands
that the law may ever make in the life of him who believes in
Jesus.
Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable
gift of the unsearchable riches of Christ. Oh, believe it! Oh,
receive it! Poor, overwhelmed, lost "debtor," "buy
of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich and white
raiment that thou mayest be clothed." "Yea, come, buy
. . . without money and without price."
RH Aug. 21, 1900
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