Again, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Can "the natural man" do this? Does he love his neighbor as himself? Is this the principle which obtains in the chambers of commerce, the exchanges, the banks, the marts, the fairs, and the markets of this world? Alas! no. Man does not love his neighbor as he loves himself. No doubt he ought; and if he were right, he would; but then he is all wrong--totally wrong--and unless he is "born again" of the Word and the Spirit of God, he cannot "see nor enter the kingdom of God." The law cannot produce this new birth. It kills "the old man," but does not, and cannot, create "the new." As an actual fact, we know that the Lord Jesus Christ embodied, in His glorious Person, both God and our neighbor, inasmuch as He was, according to the foundation-truth of the Christian religion, "God manifest in the flesh." How did man treat Him? Did he love Him with all his heart, or as himself? The very reverse. He crucified Him between two thieves, having previously preferred a murderer and a robber to that blessed One who had gone about doing good--who had come forth from the eternal dwelling-place of light and love--Himself the very living personification of that light and love--whose bosom had ever heaved with purest sympathy with human need--whose hand had ever been ready to dry the sinner's tears and alleviate his sorrows. Thus we stand and gaze upon the cross of Christ, and behold in it an unanswerable demonstration of the fact that it is not within the range of man's nature or capacity to keep the law.[10] [10] For further exposition of the law, and also of the doctrine of the Sabbath, the reader is referred to a tract entitled "A Scriptural Inquiry into the True Nature of the Sabbath, the Law, and the Christian Ministry." It is peculiarly interesting to the spiritual mind, after all that has passed before us, to observe the relative position of God and the sinner at the close of this memorable chapter. "And the Lord said unto Moses, 'Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel.... An altar of earth thou shalt make unto Me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt-offerings and thy peace-offerings, thy sheep and thine oxen: in all places where I record My name I WILL COME UNTO THEE, AND I WILL BLESS THEE. And if thou wilt make Me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone; for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto Mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.'" (Ver. 22-26.)