Sylvanus Stall

Suggestion:—The object used is a looking-glass of any desired size.

If the law is perfect, and no one has ever kept it perfectly, but all have broken the law in some one way or another, and on that account all are guilty before God, you may ask, what is the purpose of the law? Why did God make the law? Now, I desire to explain that to you to-day.

I have here a looking-glass. Now the Bible compares the law to a looking-glass. In the epistle or letter of James, in the first chapter, we are told, "If any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass; for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." (James i:23-25.)

In other words, the Bible means to say that the law of God is like a looking-glass. When we read the law of God, we see just what God requires that we should both be and do. He enables us to see what He requires of us. It shows us also how imperfect we are. It shows us our sins. It reveals to us the importance of doing something in order to get rid of our sins.

It is just like a man whose face is all dirty. When he goes to the looking-glass and looks into it he sees the dirt upon his face. If he did not look into the glass, other people might see that his face was dirty, but he would not see it himself. But when he looks into the glass, he sees for himself that his face is all black and dirty.

Now, when the man finds that his face is all dirty, he does not take the looking-glass with which to wash his face. The looking-glass was not made to wash our faces with. It was only made to show us that our faces needed to be washed. And then, instead of using the looking-glass to wash our faces, we go and use soap and water.

Now, the looking-glass did not make the man's face black, neither will it wash his face. It simply shows him that his face is dirty.

So it is with the law of God. The law of God does not make us sinful. We are sinful, whether there be any law or not. The law is simply designed to show us that we are sinners, and that we are wicked, and that we need a Saviour. And when this law reveals to us our sin, and shows us our need of a Saviour, it purposes, as we are told in the Scriptures, to lead us to Christ (Galatians iii:24.) No man can cleanse or wash away his sins by the aid of the law. But the law plainly shows him his sins, and then leads him to Christ—to the fountain which has been opened for sin and uncleanness. It is all very beautifully expressed in that hymn which, I trust, you all know:

Now, I want to tell you the effect of coming to this fountain and washing. When we come to Christ our sins and guilt are washed away, and we become more like Christ. And then we grow up into His likeness and into His image. (Eph. iv: 13.) We become more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ from day to day. This change which takes place in our hearts and in our lives is very wonderful. We cannot understand it, but we cease to be intentionally wicked. More and more we become holy. It is this wonderful change which is referred to in Second Corinthians, third chapter and the 18th verse, where it says, "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

I think now, you will understand why we have the law. It is not to make us wicked, for we are wicked already. But it is to show us our wickedness, it is to reveal to us the fact that we are sinners, and that we are lost and undone without a Saviour. And then it reveals the Lord Jesus Christ to us, and we come to Him, the same as men with blackened faces go to the fountain to wash. So we come with our sins and our guilt "to the fountain which has been opened for sin and uncleanness," and we wash all our sins and guilt away; and then we are changed into His image and into His likeness, from glory to glory, until at last, in the world on high, we awake in the likeness of Jesus.