The law is an old house. It is a death trap to all who live inside. The law says to all who come under it, “You must do this to live; and if you do not, then I will kill you.” So the law is a ministration of death. The law never makes anyone holy. It did not make Israel holy. It made the Israelites terrible sinners. Where the law enters in, transgressions abound, and death comes. There is no life in the law. There is no joy, happiness, blessedness, assurance, or fellowship with God in the law. There is only death in the house of the law.

Christ fulfilled all the law. He tore down that house. He built the house of God. The house of God is a beautiful house of fellowship with God, freedom from guilt, deliverance from bondage, and joy in the Holy Ghost. It is a house of joy and gladness and of assurance and life. All who inhabit the house live unto God. To live unto God is to live God’s own life, for God lives unto God. All who live in the house of God are made holy. They seek God and his glory in everything.

Thus every minister of the gospel is charged with preaching Christ. He tears down the house of the law. Every minister is to so preach Christ that the house of the law is destroyed, so that the bondage of the law is lifted, the terror of the law is abolished, and the curse of the law is dismissed, and the joy and life of the house of God is built.

Ministers who build again what they have destroyed are fools. Such are many sermons, articles, and speeches that pass for the gospel. They are nothing more than the folly of rebuilding what they destroyed.

If you had an old and rickety house that was a death trap to you and your family who lived in it, then you would want that rickety house destroyed. But if the builder you hired to tear it down tore down the house and then rebuilt the very same sort of rickety structure, you would call him a fool. Worse, you would suspect that he was full of malice toward you.

Such are the ministers of the gospel who preach Christ and the law. Christ and the works of the sinner are the way to the Father. Christ and the obedience of the sinner are the way to the assurance of salvation. Christ and the striving and activity of the sinner are the way to salvation. When they say, “Christ,” they destroy the house of the law. When they say, “And the sinner’s obedience, activity, and repentance,” they rebuild what they destroyed.

And they make themselves transgressors. They say that they are interested in the church’s holiness, but they themselves are wicked. They defend their doctrine by saying they are interested in the church’s life. But where they serve no one lives, and death is the result of their preaching. They change the gospel into law and the law into gospel. Their Christ leaves sinners, sinners who must still be active to be righteous. They charge God with lying. God said, “All who believe in Christ shall be saved.” But their gospel is, “All who are active will be saved.” They were charged to be ministers of reconciliation, but they displace Christ.

They are transgressors. They are not ministers of life and joy; they are ministers of death and doom. They are transgressors if they rebuild what they destroyed; if they preach Christ and the sinner’s obedience, activity, and repentance as the way to the blessedness, joy, happiness, and assurance of salvation. They are unfaithful messengers. Worse, they do not build the house of God, but they build a death trap that slays all who come into it.