WLC Q. 97. What special use is there of the moral law to the regenerate?
A. Although they that are regenerate, and believe in Christ, be delivered from the moral law as a covenant of works, so as thereby they are neither justified nor condemned; yet besides the general uses thereof common to them with all men, it is of special use, to show them how much they are bound to Christ for his fulfilling it, and enduring the curse thereof in their stead, and for their good; and thereby to provoke them to more thankfulness, and to express the same in their greater care to conform themselves thereunto as the rule of their obedience.In beginning to answer the question of how Christians are to use the moral law, it's significant that the Divines, first and foremost, remind the believer of his justification. Christians are delivered from the moral law as a covenant of works. They are no longer under the "law" (Rom 6:14b) and therefore they are no longer under the condemnation of the law (Rom 8:1). They are under grace as a covenant though faith in Christ. Likewise, they are no longer under the law of works as a path or way to keep their justification, or for that matter their salvation (Eph 2:8-9). WSC 33 states:
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.This is the starting point for the third use of the law. Why remind the believer of what the Confession of Faith, as well as the Larger and Shorter Catechism's have already taught? Because we are by nature legalists, born under the law as a covenant of works. Written on our heart is "Do this and live." Though believers we are still sinners who have a bent towards justifying ourselves. And that's what sinners do. Yet how futile! And because of sin we attempt to do that law-keeping by the corrupt tendency within ourselves to water down the law's standards and elevate the quality of our obedience. If we are going to talk about the moral law in the lives of sinners/saints we need to again and again emphasize the ground of grace upon which they stand.
The first use of the law in believer's lives that the Divines refer to is the "general uses thereof common to them with all men" which is the topic of Question 95:
Q. 95. Of what use is the moral law to all men?
A. The moral law is of use to all men, to inform them of the holy nature and will of God, and of their duty, binding them to walk accordingly; to convince them of their disability to keep it, and of the sinful pollution of their nature, hearts, and lives: to humble them in the sense of their sin and misery, and thereby help them to a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and of the perfection of his obedience.So the law informs believers of God's holy nature. It teaches that their duty, as those made in the image of God, is to live in a godly way defined by God's moral law as revealed in Scripture (summed up in the Ten Commandments but not limited to those ten words). And that standard of holy living is non-negotiable. As Jesus taught in Matthew 5, "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Created in his image and likeness, God's children are meant to be morally like him. Considering that high requirement, it's crucial that believing sinners having a proper view of their natural state as well as having their feet firmly planted on the ground of God's free grace of justification.
... to convince them of their disability to keep it, and of the sinful pollution of their nature, hearts, and lives: to humble them in the sense of their sin and misery, and thereby help them to a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and of the perfection of his obedience.As the hymn states, "all other ground is sinking sand." The moral law continues in the lives of believers to convince them of their disability to meet the law's requirements and point them to their salvation in Christ who as their Mediator fulfilled all of the law for them - For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Rom. 10:4). This is true even though we continue to fall short of the moral law in thought, word, and deed. So the law, as described in this function general to all men including believers, continues to discover to God's people the sinful pollutions which remain in their lives.
This brings us back to Answer 97 and the first mention of the laws' use specific to believers.
Although they that are regenerate, and believe in Christ, be delivered from the moral law as a covenant of works, so as thereby they are neither justified nor condemned; yet besides the general uses thereof common to them with all men, it is of special use, to show them how much they are bound to Christ for his fulfilling it, and enduring the curse thereof in their stead, and for their good; and thereby to provoke them to more thankfulness, and to express the same in their greater care to conform themselves thereunto as the rule of their obedience.Sounds like our justification in Christ is front and center when it comes to thankfully giving care to conform ourselves more and more to the law as a rule of obedience.
In a sense the gospel of grace scares us. Sinners saved by grace, we are completely dependent (like an infant in his mother's arms) solely on God's initiating and continuing love and grace which he has given in Christ. We don't have and will never have control over that by our works. To paraphrase the Tom Petty song, we were 'free falling' to our death except that the grace and love of God was poured out on us in the Beloved who caught us. And it is that same sovereign grace that now holds us. Getting used to grace is getting used to God loving us, despite the good that we don't bring to the table and despite the bad that we do. God, apart from our doings, chose us in Christ, sent his Son to die on the cross for us, and Jesus, now at the right hand of the Father, secures our salvation by his mediation in heaven for us. How to explain that? With Paul, I think we'll spend the rest of our lives seeking to comprehend "with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge..."
I don't want to deny that God has written standards (commands) so Christians know what they ought to do, even though I would put the emphasis on the law of Christ rather than the Mosaic law. But I am also tempted to say with some Lutherans, that we don't "use" the law because law "cannot be domesticated". What I mean is this---all God's use of the law tends to be "first use"---even for Christians the law shows us our sins and shows us our need for the gospel.
ReplyDeleteLee Irons---the third use of the Law in the Reformed tradition can easily drift toward legalism. The Reformed tradition on the Law is not legalistic in the hard sense of asserting that we are justified by the Law. But I wonder if it sufficiently guards against the idea that we are sanctified by the Law.”
Exegetical study of Paul’s teaching on the Law has convinced me that it is impossible to separate the stipulations of the Law from the sanctions. The very fact that the stipulations are telling you to do something or warning you against disobedience implies that they are speaking to you apart from your union with Christ, as if you were not doing what the Law required or as if you might be tempted not to. The Law of Christ speaks to us from a totally different, new covenant ethical framework. It speaks to us in a voice which implies that the Law’s demands have already been completely satisfied.... .If the Law itself has been abolished in an ontological sense, we would be saying that the merit of Christ has also been abolished. Thus, as Paul argues so eloquently in 1 Cor. 9:21/Rom. 7:1-6, we have died to the Law, not in order to be anomos, as if we were now widows without a husband, but in order to be ennomos Christou, married to another.
http://www.upper-register.com/papers/married_to_another.html
I basically agree, Mark. except I would say, and I think the WLC teaches, that the law for the believer ( third use) incorporates as primary the first use. We never graduate from having our sin discovered to us and needing to flee to Christ. Then gratitude and renewed obedience which is only our duty as image bearers.
DeleteYes and Amen, Jack. Thank you for engaging the Westminster Standards in this discussion. Grace boys and obedience boys who subscribe to them should do likewise. As you know, Belgic Confession 24, last paragraph, is beee-u-tiful in expressing the importance and priority of justification as we consider sanctification and good works.
ReplyDeleteee Irons--To be driven again to Christ for assurance of pardon is NOT the only use that we make of the extensive New Testament exhortations to holy living. The Reformed tradition, with its “third use of the Law,” is better than the Lutheran tradition in this regard, but only marginally so. The biblical imperatives are not viewed only as goads to drive us to Christ. However,the NT imperatives lose their lively evangelical thrust when they are subsumed under the rubric of the ten commandments. This is seen most clearly in the Reformed catechisms, which use the Decalogue as ten “hooks” upon which to hang the various OT commands and NT mperatives. The NT imperatives are detached from the Christocentric indicative and become little more than elaborations of the ten commandments. The Mosaic Law becomes a vortex that sucks in all of the NT exhortations,attempting to graft them onto Moses. http://www.upper-register.com/papers/law_gospel_contrast.pdf
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ReplyDeletePromise, Law, Faith ,Hendrickson, 2019)
ReplyDeleteT David Gordon–p 27. The Sinai covenant excludes Gentiles. Paul’s question was, “Why have that DIFFERENT covenant that SEGREGATED the descendents of Abraham from the nations ….Paul asked precisely the opposite question that Luther and Calvin asked when they formulated three uses of the law. They asked–“what are the uses of the Sinai law
that it STILL HAS?” Paul asked, “What was the purpose of the Sinai law that IT NO LONGER HAS? Galatians 3: 23 Before this faith came, we were confined under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith was revealed. 24 The Sinai law, then, was our guardian until Christ.
T David Gordon–p 42. “Because the doctrine of justification by faith alone was unsettled in Luther’s and Calvin’s day, much Protestant interpretation of Galatians has (in error) assumed that Paul’s issue was the same as Luther’s and Calvin’s. But it was not. Paul’s issue was virtually identical to the issue addressed at the Jerusalem Council–which if any of the ceremonies of the Mosaic law are Gentiles required to observe in the new covenant? (42)
(Promise, Law, Faith ,Hendrickson, 2019)
T David Gordon--Paul, knowing (as any first century Jew would have known) Israel’s actual history under those conditions, knew perfectly well that the prophets were right for pronouncing judgment on a people who rather consistently failed to remain obedient to their covenant duties. So, even though in theory Sinai proffered either blessing or cursing, in plain historical fact it rarely brought anything but cursing. The Israelites were constantly harassed by the indigenous nations during the period of conquest; their first monarch was removed from office in disobedience and shame; their second monarch was not permitted to build the house of God because he was a violent (and adulterous) man; their third could not even teach his own sons to heed the counsel of their elders (though his Proverbs constantly encouraged such); after which the Israelites were
ReplyDeletedivided into two nations, weakened, and increasingly battered by (and once captured by) their enemies.”
http://www.tdgordon.net/theology/abraham_and_sinai_contraste.pdf
In Paul’s argument it is human deeds of any kind which cannot justify, not simply deeds done "in a spirit of legalism". Paul’s very point is lost to view when his statements excluding the law and its works from justification are applied only to the law’s perversion. (Stephen Westerholm, Israel’s Law and the Church’s Faith: Paul and His Recent Interpreters (Eerdmans, 1998, p 132)
ReplyDeleteT David Gordon –For Paul, nomos is a synecdoche, a figure of speech that refers to the Sinai covenant in its entirety, by referring specifically to its most salient or prominent aspect: law
David Gordon, Promise, Law, Faith, 2019----p 227 The prevailing tendency of Christian confessional language has been to eternalize the ten words in two ways. First, they translate "ten words" as "ten commandments". Second, in order to render this construal of "commandments" plausible, the confessions all removed the first word.....
ReplyDeletep 239 A tradition that can so blithely overlook that the ten words are "words of the covenant" inscribed on the "tablets of the covenant" and placed in the "ark of the covenant" is a tradition that is somewhat tone--deaf to biblical covenants ...Conversations regarding the Sabbath command, for instance, pare partly due to the tension created by attempting to universalize God's covenant stipulations with the Israelites.
David Gordon--The traditions recognize that the apostolic gatherings occurred on the first day of the week. Yet on the other hand, they wish to construe the Decalogue as timeless/ universal moral counsel. So they end up with statements such as found in the WCF 21:7 ---"to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week, and from the resurrection, WAS CHANGED into the first day of the week."
But if the definition of "moral law" is that it is unchanging, then
how can a "moral law" be "changed", either in part of whole?
While we might wish we had a single convenient summary of God's moral purpose for us somewhere, it may be that such a thing does not exist biblically, because the biblical are written to direct covenant communities..... (I regard I Corinthians 13 and Philippians 2 to be rich in moral wisdom).
David Gordon, p 296—NT Wright’s “the covenant” is virtually identical with what the Reformed tradition ordinarily calls “the covenant of grace” and is no better than that common convention. Such a definition uses a biblical term unbiblically. . In the Bible, a berith or a diatheke is always a historical treaty of some kind, enacted in space and time with particular parties.”
ReplyDeletehttps://markmcculley.wordpress.com/2020/03/06/circumcision-was-a-sanction-of-the-abrahamic-covenant-why-i-reject-abrahamic-ecclesiology/