A Critique of John Colquhoun’s The Law and The Gospel (Pt.3)

Section 1 (Pt.3): The Law as written on the heart of the first man (Adam) is often styled the law of creation because it is the will of the sovereign Creator revealed to the reasonable creature by impressing or engraving it on his mind and heart?

Is this a ‘reasonable’ question after what we established as the ‘whole’ truth in the previous question of part 2 of this critique of the presupposition that every man is created in the image of God?

We should have concluded that the moral image is “judged” or “discerned” by the moral standard of the one Mediator between the image of God and the image of man, the Man Christ Jesus, since He alone represents the economy of the eternal life of the heavenly Man as the Lord from heaven, who is both God and man.

1 Timothy 2:5–6 (NKJV)

5 For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time,

Galatians 3:19–20 (NKJV)

19 What purpose, then, does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made, and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. 20 Now, a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one.

So again, we see here directly from Scripture that the natural man doesn’t have the power to represent himself as God does. Therefore, the image of eternal life was lost to us as mere men because of the likeness of Adam’s sin, which represents the nature of our sin according to the likeness of the law of sin and death created through the law that discerns between life and death that build according to the economy of the garden of God for fellowship with Him as God.

The moral law, then, is not ‘materially’ natural to us but must be imputed and infused to us supernaturally through the Providence of the divine outworking of God’s image in the Mediator who judges between life and death outside of the natural image of our propensity or likeness to sin. The moral principle is the mediation of Jesus of Nazareth, who is called the Christ, to whom the promise was made as the Seed of eternal life. With Christ as the last Adam, the first Adam is defeated, by which Christ swallows up the likeness of death by virtue of the divine life of His own nature (1Cor.15:36-57).

Therefore, only in Christ can the inscription of the law of sin and death be erased (Jer.17:1), and the law of the Spirit of life be written as the moral likeness of the moral principle of eternal life (Jer.31:31-33). So then, there is a difference in nature under which principle we have been conceived between the law of sin and the law of grace by which we have our relationship with God (Ps.51:5; Rom.3:9). We are either by nature children of wrath or by nature adopted by grace (Eph.2:1-3; Jn.1:12-13). However, the mediation between the two natures is based on the exclusive moral principle of the image of Jesus Christ (Jn.14:6). The first man, Adam, is a living ‘soul’ but is rendered powerless to pass on the moral image (of being) through his own nature because (being) requires more than the material soul but must be shaped by the nature of the spirit (1Cor.15:45).

The power to discern the moral principle, then, as a spiritual law comes not through flesh and blood but is revealed only by the Father of spirits (Matt.16:13-17; Heb.12:7-9, 20-24), and Christ is the life-giving spirit of the moral image of the likeness of the Father because they are one (Matt.5:48; Jn.10:33-38), which must be one in us who walk by the Spirit of the Father unless we perish with the spirit of the world who have their ‘being’ in the darkness and do not possess the light of life as spiritual beings of the Father of lights (Jn.17:3-5, 10-12, 20-23; James 1:16-18; Col.1:9-18).

So then, since it is established that the last Adam is the moral principle of the eternal and unchanging image, which is the life-giving spirit of that image, the first Adam is only his earthly representation as a type of the heavenly man according to the principle as a shadow of the divine things to come (Jn.10:34-36; 1Pet.3:18-22; Jn.10:6-9). So then, the image is preserved and even restored to the first man, Adam, but only according to faith in the promise fulfilled in the Christ to come. Therefore, Adam’s children do not receive the image ‘naturally’ through natural conception but must receive it by faith through spiritual regeneration according to the incorruptibility of the word of promise (Gen.4:16-5:32/emphasis:vs.4:25-5:3), which is not promised to every creature coming into the world by the seed of the serpent (Rom.9:17; Gen.3:15; 6:1-8, 11-13). The promise is to every kind of man in the dispersion of his rebellion but not to every man of the rebellion (Acts 17:22-34/emphasis:vs.26-7), for every man sets out to be a law unto himself against the discerning factor of the Word of God as the special revelation that distinguishes between the knowledge of good and evil (Rom.2:11-16; 3:9-26; Acts 19:23-28; Jn.10:34-36).

Apart from Christ as the moral principle of this exclusive mediation of the image of God’s likeness, every man continues to do what is right in his own eyes, fulfilling the immoral principle of the law of sin and death operating in those made a law unto themselves exercising the original blasphemy of the humanistic idolatry of the freedom to sin (Acts 19:34-41; Gal.4:8-11).

Romans 6:19–23 (NKJV)

19 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Therefore, we should rightly disregard any statement of faith that denominates the moral law as a law of nature (in correlation to) the natural man whose likeness is only capable of bearing witness to the nature of sin and death when the moral law represents the nature of eternal life (Jer.13:23). Such a statement participates in the lie that correlates to the nature of darkness and has no light according to the nature of the word of promise (Jn.8:42-47; 10:35-36; 1Jn.1:5-10; 5:6-13).

Isaiah 8:19–22 (NKJV)

19 And when they say to you, “Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter,” should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? 20 To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. 21 They will pass through it hard-pressed and hungry; and it shall happen, when they are hungry, that they will be enraged and curse their king and their God, and look upward. 22 Then they will look to the earth, and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish; and they will be driven into darkness.

Therefore, let us who have the light of life bear witness to the only Light that gives life to the world by the moral standard of His own likeness and good nature. And may the Lord from heaven give you all discernment in all things pertaining to His life and godliness according to the image of the Scriptures. 2 Peter 1:2–4 (NKJV)