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I. WHAT WE MEAN BY THE MORAL LAW.

1. The moral law signifies that rule which is given to all mankind to direct their manners or behaviour, considered merely as they are intelligent and social creatures, who have an understanding to know God and themselves, a capacity to judge what is right and wrong, and a will to choose and refuse good and evil.

2. It is found in the Ten Commands; it is found in the Holy Scriptures, scattered up and down through all the writings of the Old and New Testaments, and it may be found out in the plainest and most necessary parts of it, by the sincere and diligent exercise of our own reasoning powers.

II. THIS MORAL LAW IS OF UNIVERSAL AND PERPETUAL OBLIGATION TO ALL MANKIND, EVEN THROUGH ALL NATIONS AND ALL AGES.

1. It is a law which arises from the very existence of God and the nature of man; it springs from the very relation of such creatures to their Maker and to one another.

2. This law is so far wrought into the very nature of man as a reasonable creature that an awakened conscience will require obedience to it forever.

3. This law is suited to every state and circumstance of human nature, to every condition of the life of man, and to every dispensation of God; and since it cannot be changed for better law, it must be everlasting.

4. It appears yet further that this law is perpetual, because whatsoever other law God can prescribe or man can be bound to obey, it is built upon the eternal obligation of this moral law.

5. Scripture asserts the perpetuity and everlasting obligation of the moral law (Luke 16:17).

III. THE EVIL NATURE OF SIN.

1. It is an affront to the authority and government of a wise and holy God, a God who has sovereign right to make laws for His creatures, and has formed all His commands and prohibitions according to infinite wisdom.

2. Sin carries in the nature of it high ingratitude to God our Creator, and a wicked abuse of that goodness which has bestowed upon us all our natural powers and talents, our limbs, our senses, and all our faculties of soul and body.

3. Sin against the law of God breaks in upon that wise and beautiful order which God has appointed to run through His whole creation (Proverbs 16:4).

4. As it is the very nature of sin to bring disorder into the creation of God, so its natural consequences are pernicious to the sinful creature!

5. Sin provokes God to anger, as He is the righteous governor of the world; it brings guilt upon the creature, and exposes it to the punishments threatened by the broken law.

IV. THE PROPER DEMERIT OF SIN, or what is the punishment it deserves.

1. When God made man at first, He designed to continue him in life and happiness so long as man continued innocent and obedient to the law, and thereby maintained his allegiance to God his Maker.

2. By a wilful and presumptuous transgression of the law, man violated his allegiance to God his Maker, and forfeited all good things that his Creator had given him and the hope of all that He had promised.

3. This forfeiture of life, and the blessings of it by sin, is an everlasting forfeiture.

4. There is scarce any actual, i.e., wilful sin, but carries with it some particular aggravations, and these deserve such further positive punishments as the wisdom and justice of God shall see reason to inflict.Conclusion:

1. Is the law of God in perpetual force and is every transgression of it so heinous an evil? — then let us take a survey how wretched and deplorable is the state of mankind by nature.

2. Is the moral law of such constant obligation, and is death the due recompense of every transgression of it? — then it is necessary for ministers to preach this law, and it is necessary for hearers to learn it.

3. What a holy regard and jealousy has God shown for the honour of His everlasting law, and what a sacred indignation has He manifested against sin, when He sent His own Son to obey this law, and to suffer for our disobedience of it!

4. How glorious is the wisdom and the mercy of the gospel, which does honour to the law in every respect, which prepares an honourable atonement and pardon for guilty rebels who have broken this everlasting law, and provides grace and power to renew our nature according to the demands of it!

5. Happy is the world above, where such natural and such easy obedience is forever paid to this law of God without the least transgression.

(Isaac Watts, D. D.)

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KJV: Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

WEB: Everyone who sins also commits lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness.