“Holiness is, in subordination to the glory of God, profitable, honorable, and pleasant to believers themselves and so is highly beneficial to them, they are bound to make continual progress in the love and practice of it.
As they are bound to glorify God as their redeeming God and, in subordination to this, to advance in the enjoyment of Him, so they are under strong obligations, in obedience to His holy law, to advance in conformity to Him and in communion with Him. For they cannot glorify Him but in proportion as they enjoy Him, and they cannot enjoy Him but by such conformity to His image as is the fruit of communion with Him.
Let every believer, then, endeavor diligently to advance in faith and holiness according to the law of Christ; for “blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is” (Jer. 17:7), and “blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, that delighteth greatly in his commandments” (Ps. 112:1).
From what has now been said, we may warrantably infer that all they to whom the law of the Ten Commandments is given as the authoritative rule of their life have already received spiritual life as the beginning of life eternal.
They have all been quickened by the Spirit of Christ, united to Him as their living head, instated in His covenant of grace, and justified for His righteousness imputed to them. And so they have received already the beginnings of eternal life as the gift of God through Him.
“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life” (John 3:36). And again, “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (11:26).
The law as a covenant of works says to the dead sinner, “Do this and live; do this for life.” The law as a rule of life, on the contrary, says to the living saint, “Live and do this; do this not for but from life already received.”
All they, then, to whom the law as a rule of life in the hand of the Mediator is given already have, in their regeneration, received the beginning of eternal life prior to their being capable of performing the smallest degree of obedience to the law in that form.
They cannot obey the law as a rule of life otherwise than by working from life, but this supposes them to have life previous to such working and as the principle of it. Christ lives in them, and they live by the faith of Him.
Their spiritual and eternal life is the life of Christ, life that is wholly derived from Him; and the rule of it by which all its activity is to be regulated is the divine law as the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2).
Regeneration and vital union with Christ are previously and absolutely necessary to the smallest act of acceptable obedience to the law as a rule of life.”
-John Colquhoun, The Law and the Gospel (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1816/2023), 236-237.
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