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256 The Tabernacle their own hopeless state? They supposed themselves able to obey, whereas they were in the helplessness of death. And does not many a good resolution, even at this present day, my friend, manifest the same ignorance of self, the same dream of strength, the same disregard for God's holi- ness and man's helplessness? Though Israel was ignorant of her own lost condition, yet God knew it well. That is why He commanded the golden depository, which was the ark of the covenant, to be made, in order that it might shut out of sight the very "ministration of death" (II Cor. 3:7), to which His people had so eagerly bound themselves. In this God also fore- shadowed the necessity of removing the curse of the law, in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, even as the Holy Spirit tells us, "Christ hath redeemed us from the ·curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for ic is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Gal. 3:13). In the death of the Son of God, and in that death alone, could God remove the law, at the same time vindicating His righteousness. He could not lower His standard. Man had no power to attain it. Neither God nor man could set it aside. The penalty for breaking it was death; and every Israelite had broken it. What, then, could be done? How could the sinner be redeemed from the curse of the law, and at the same time the law be magnified? Only by the grace of God, who Himself bore the curse for the guilty sinner. God foreknew and foreordained the way of deliverance. Let One be found, a Man "made under the law," who should fulfill all of its requirements; who, plac- ing Himself in the sphere of the guilty, should walk with unwavering perfectness along the peculiar path of strict, unerring righteousness; who among the disobedient should
The Tabernacle prove Himself obedient; who among the unholy should prove Himself holy; who among the rebellious should prove Himself humble, patient, dependent upon His heavenly Father. Let such an One be found, who should 0 ful:.6.ll all righteousness," both as to the letter and as to the spirit of the law. Let Him be the sinner's Substitute in the place of death; and the debt of sin would be forever paid. Israel was not only impotent to fulfill human right- eousness; she had also broken the law, and had incurred its fearful curse. Before the very tables of the testimony 'I.JVerc brought down from God, Israel was revelling in sin a r ound the golden calf. Moses seems to have felt the use- lessness, as well as the danger, of bringing the tables of the covenant into the camp. He dashed them to pieces at the foot of the mount. The curse of the broken law, there- fore, had to be borne. There was no provision of mercy; there could not be; the law called for death. God fore- knew all this; and He foreshadowed it in the hiding of the tables of stone beneath the mercy seat. Then- "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons" (Gal. 4:4, 5). In His death our Lord magnified His holy law, made it honorable, and ushered in the day of grace. "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth" (Rom. 10 :4). "Free from the law-Oh, happy condition! Jesus hath died, and there is remission: Cursed by the law, and bruised by the fall, Christ hath redeemed us once for all!"
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