The Perpetuity and Uses of the Law
It occurs to me that before we get any deeper into the Decalogue itself, two concepts need to be more deeply explored in order to avoid misunderstanding. I refer to both the perpetuity of the law and its three uses. I ended the last installment with something of a footnote that should have taken up an entire lesson.
When the Apostle says “you are not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:14), he is speaking specifically about the ground of our relationship to God, not the totality of our relationship to God. He is not declaring Christians to be lawless people. It is not that we will have no law in our lives. It is that we will live by faith.
But to say only these words will not do. The misunderstandings about the relationships of law to grace, and old to new, are so great and diverse and harmful that we need to make a more systematic study of them.
The Perpetuity of the Law
It logically follows from the previously mentioned forms of law that the spirit of the law continues. But, let us face the facts, we do not do logic much anymore. So “zooming in” on that inference, one notch closer in the microscope, we can start to understand that the moral law continues because the image bearer continues. The ceremonial law does not continue (as to its letter) because the old priesthood does not. It still teaches us, but it does not bind us as though we were old covenant priests or participants in the Temple.
However there is something else about the law that needs to be understood in light of the gospel. For this we may expand our study out from the book of Hebrews to other places where the Apostle Paul sharply contrasts law versus promise as to source, and thus works versus faith as their methods. The Epistles to the Romans and Galatians in particular take up this line of argument.
Long story short, when Paul says, “you are not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:14) it is our status of inheriting the promise through faith that is in view. We are not seeking to obtain eternal life, and all of its blessings, by obedience, or moral effort, or what he so often calls “works of the law.” To bring in one of the basic doctrinal terms for this: We are justified by faith alone (cf. Rom. 3:28; 4:4-5; Gal. 2:16-17; 3:8-12; Phi. 3:8-9). As the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it:
“Justification is an act of God's free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.”1
However, we must note that this contrast between “works of the law” and “faith alone” as to the methods of justification does not make the law irrelevant to everything else.
A big part of the problem is that when Evangelicals ask what is necessary “to be saved,” what they really mean is what all is necessary to count for justification. They do not know that this is what they mean, since their motivational coaches that they have been calling “pastors” are not feeding them anything of substance. Nevertheless, when the question is over what is necessary to “be saved,” the question is actually honing in on justification (i.e. God’s declaring the sinner both righteous and forgiven). But this sets us up for the main corrective that we need in our soteriology: that is, our doctrine of salvation.
Salvation is a broad term including the entire activity of the triune God to rescue sinners from the judgment of God and from the many distortions that sin brings. It involves the Father's election, the Son's redemption, and the Spirit's regenerating work. All sorts of things can belong to salvation, and even be “necessary” for salvation, without in any sense implying that they contribute to justification.
So justification is not even the whole of salvation, let alone the whole of everything else! To fail at making this distinction will only lead to shallow and sloppy thinking in many other areas of the Christian life. I cannot tell you the amount of times that I have been explaining this or that part of Christian ethics, or right religion, or personal piety, only to be met with the smug retort, “Sounds like works!” or else “That’s legalism.” Likely we have all heard this a time or two. Ironically the person who says this is escaping a phantom bondage by fleeing to a real one. If we are afraid to do anything that will make a dent in this age because “That’s works,” well then, we certainly will not do much living.
In looking at the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:17, namely where he says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them,” John Murray comments that, “The substantive form of this word, often rendered ‘fullness,’ means the full tale, the full measure or complement of something. Hence what Jesus means is that he came to realize the full measure of the intent and purpose of the law and the prophets.”2
It is often alleged that the very form of the Sermon on the Mount makes plain the annulment of the old law. To this the reply of Turretin is sufficient,
It is one thing to correct the law itself; another to clear it of the false interpretation of the scribes and Pharisees. One thing to introduce an entirely new sense into the law; another to introduce only a new light by unfolding what lay concealed in the law and was not attended to by teachers (and so by explaining, to declare; and by vindicating, to restore). Christ did the latter, not the former.3
The honest reader of that greatest sermon will find the assessment of Turretin to be accurate.
Now all of this will fly in the face of Dispensationalism and some more radical New Covenant Theology proponents, just as it was fought by the Socinians and Remonstrants following the Reformation. But the fact of the matter is that the New Covenant in Christ was never meant to abolish the obligation of the image bearer to God.
Yes, all legal charges against the believing sinner have been dropped, but the other kind of “charge,” namely that moral direction of the human actors onto the theater of God’s glory—what madness to think that such has been obliterated!
The Three Uses of the Law
The first use of the law is to show us our need for Christ. This is often called the evangelical use of the law because it is the “gospel driven” use. Paul said that “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Rom. 10:4). The word τέλος there is less like the “end” of a book and more like the bullseye of a target. Synonyms include aim, design, goal, and motive. What exactly is meant by this? Paul gives us a very clear glimpse of this use operating on his own soul.
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me (Rom. 7:7-11).
Other verses in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans clearly depict this purpose of the law which is to expose our sin: Romans 3:20, 4:15, and 5:13. Now if this is true, then surely this purpose of the law was not done away with by Christ coming. For all sinners in the ages beyond the first century need to have their sin exposed in order to turn to Christ.
The second use of the law is its civil dimension. We have all heard the expression that, “You can’t legislate morality.” Of course such a statement is rather oblivious. All law is legislated morality. No law would ever be passed unless a group of people got together and decreed that a thing ought to be made a rule, and that violation of such ought to be punished. When people say such things, they are not thinking very deeply about what morality is. Now it may be that in many cases what the person means is that law cannot change the heart. And if this is what is meant, that civil legislation will not “make men moral,” well that is something I think most of us can agree upon. But this is very different from supposing that one could ever divorce the morality of a people from their civil legislation.
As it is, God himself has not divorced his image from social relations. Like it or not, that includes civil government. Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:14 are two New Testament texts that teach us about the ongoing nature of God’s design for the state. This lawful use of force continues after Christ’s First Advent because, as already demonstrated, the purpose the civil (or judicial) law has respect to man in society with man. The fact that this applies to all mankind is the reason why the Apostles can say this about the secular government, rather than merely a theocratic state.
The third use of the law has been called its directive use, or sometimes its “normative” use. This is the law for the Christian life. In other words, as we grow in our sanctification it will be God’s word that informs how our lives are to glorify God (1 Cor. 10:31). And of course much of that word comes in the imperative form. Think for a moment of this simple fact.
The New Testament is filled with imperatives to predominantly Christian audiences.
Just to give a few examples, Paul charges the Corinthians to financially support ministers of the gospel (1 Cor. 9:8-14; cf. Deut. 25:4; Matt. 10:10). The commandments for children to obey parents (Eph. 6:1-2) and for husbands and wives to be faithful to each other (1 Cor. 6:9-10; Heb. 13:4) are reaffirmed in the New Covenant community. Jesus repeats the entire second table to the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:18, and he does so precisely in the imperative (v. 17). The New Testament even commands our internal habits, affections and attitudes: thinking (2 Tim. 2:7), loving (Eph. 5:25; 1 Jn. 3:11), zeal (Rom. 12:11), humility (Phi. 2:5; 1 Pet. 5:6), rejoicing (Rom. 12:15; Phi. 4:4). What this law does for the already-justified-by-faith-alone Christian is to inform our pursuit of sanctification. How does a Christian man or woman conform to the image of Christ? If there is a nearest material cause, it is the word of God, where the commands and examples of Jesus can be found.
Do We in Today’s Reformed Church Really Believe in the Civil Use (of God’s law)?
Oddly enough, most of the movement formerly known as “the New Calvinism” seems to think that (1) since the New Testament reaffirms common grace duty to that secular state, and (2) since Christ fulfills the Davidic throne, such that the theocracy of Israel gives way to the mediatorial reign of Christ, that therefore no state influenced by biblical principles may exist. We affirm our brethren’s premises, but stare dumbfounded at their conclusion.
To be fair, it should be noted that the most able advocates of the two kingdom view would not appreciate being placed within the circle of the New Calvinists. Point granted. However, this thinking is not new and on the crucial element of divorcing the moral law from its civil use in secular society, the more able school is really at one with those looser antinomianisms, from the first Anabaptists down to the present day Progressives.
Now I say this is “odd” logic only because those two premises above, by themselves, simply do not lead to such a conclusion. However, the rationale becomes clearer once one reads a bit from the present brand of “two kingdom” thinking. The way the two premises are put together runs like this: Since the Christian’s King and kingdom constitute a spiritual reign, until it is consummated at the Second Advent (we agree so far), therefore there are only these two kingdoms: the church and the secular state. The latter is not “Christian,” but is secular.
Certainly the civil sphere in this age is not to be confused with either church or Christ’s kingdom, but what is happening in this line of reason? It can be difficult to see whether we are dealing with hidden premises that have gone unstated or a simple equivocation of terms. In speaking of the modifying adjective “Christian” about a civil order, the potential for equivocation can work both by degrees or kinds. Two questions seem relevant: What makes a thing more or less “Christian” and where are the boundaries around a “civil order”? The second question exceeds the limits of our present study.
But I would offer a very brief and reasonable explanation for what is happening in our minds in the first question. For many people a thing is “Christian” if it is redeemed. In other words, if it is a part of this world that is passing away, then it cannot in any sense be called a “Christian” thing. But in addition to equivocal speech, this is also special pleading. The same people (for the most part) will not say the same about their jobs, financial assets, family diets and leisure, or even so much as their own front lawn. But if God’s law directs us in those areas, is it unreasonable that he would also give some directives in our civic relations? We will have to come back to this when we arrive at the Second Table of the Decalogue which deals with those very relations.
Concluding thoughts of these “uses” relating to each other
All of that said, perhaps the most important thing to state about how these uses work together is to remove any fear that “works” are coming back into the courtroom. What keeps that from happening is precisely that first use of the law doing its work everywhere that there is a command of any kind. In short, whether we are speaking of any of the three forms (moral, civil, ceremonial) or one of the two other uses (civil or directive), we will all fail to perform that law (no matter which) to the perfect standard of God’s righteousness. What does James say?
For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it (2:10)
Now let us combine that with what we know about the Greatest Commandment. Jesus said, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mk. 12:30). If we were to take Mark 12:30 and James 2:10 as our two premises, and then draw the obvious conclusion, what we will be left with is that not a single son of Adam or daughter of Eve has ever once fulfilled the law of God. We often speak of how often we sin. But we have completely misunderstood reality. The fact is that, at least as far as the covenant of works is concerned, none of us have ever obeyed. Not to God’s standard. Not even once.
The antidote to legalism, therefore, is not license (or by its technical term: antinomianism). The answer is the gospel. God demands perfection. We cannot. Christ can and did. And it is that perfect righteousness that is ours through faith alone.
So if you are indeed in Christ, familiarize yourself with God’s whole law: no longer as anxious convicts in his courtroom, but as well-pleasing sons and daughters in his house, united to Christ and viewed by God through that perfect work.
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1. WSC, Q.33
2. John Murray, Principles of Conduct (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), 149-50.
3. Turretin, Institutes, II.11.3.9
