Considering Christian Liberty (3)

In the last post we found that Calvin insists that the believer, when seeking assurance of conscience, "give no place to the law." What does he mean here? Doesn't Calvin teach in many places the value and need of the law in the believer's life?  Indeed, he brings up that very point:

Still it cannot be rightly inferred from this that believers have no need of the law. It ceases not to teach, exhort, and urge them to good, although it is not recognized by their consciences before the judgment-seat of God.

Is he speaking of two different laws? Yes and no. What he means by 'law' in the case of conscience is the law or covenant of works, i.e. the law as a means of justification.  If one is to seek justification, i.e. assurance of conscience, via his works as measured by the law then he is done for. Game over! Even if he were to keep the entirety of the law and yet fail at only one point - one thoughtless inclination or impure thought - then he would be guilty of the entire law (James 2:10) and put under its condemnation. And even more, if one were to attain to living completely righteous before the law there would still be the matter of his former sins. Sins which, according to the same law, have earned him a death sentence.  There simply is no peace nor help to be found in the law for the troubled conscience. 

Yet for the one in Christ, who has been justified solely on the basis of faith, Jesus' perfect obedience and his payment for sin satisfies the law of works. For the believer the law takes on a new dimension. Yet it is still binding. That is what Calvin is referring to in the above quote. The law no longer judges but guides and directs the believer in the way of obedience. For in his place Christ has already been judged under the law. Are we commanded to obey? Yes. Are we still called to perfect obedience? Yes. But we are no longer judged by our works as measured by that law - rather by grace through faith in Christ. 

The believer's relationship to the law has been forever transformed by the death and resurrection of Jesus. And so as those who believe in Him we no longer need to obey the law... What?! Are you saying that it is OK if we sin?  Well, you sin, don't you? Of course you do. All believers sin. So in other words, when we sin (failure to obey the law in any way) we are no longer judged according to the law's demands but according to grace. This is an amazing thing. The righteousness we have is the righteousness of faith, not that of the law through our works. This first liberty we have as Christians is that for Christ's sake we have been set free from the law as a covenant of works so as to no longer be under obligation to meet its demands for righteousness. We are now set free under a new covenant, the covenant of grace. Calvin:

In regard to this liberty there is a remarkable passage in the Epistle to the Romans, where Paul argues, "Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace," (Romans 6:14.) For after he had exhorted believers, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof: Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God;" they might have objected that they still bore about with them a body full of lust, that sin still dwelt in them. He therefore comforts them by adding, that they are freed from the law; as if he had said, Although you feel that sin is not yet extinguished, and that righteousness does not plainly live in you, you have no cause for fear and dejection, as if God were always offended because of the remains of sin, since by grace you are freed from the law, and your works are not tried by its standard.

Considering Christian Liberty (2)

Now back to Christian Liberty... John Calvin opens the chapter on this topic in his Institutes with the following:

We are now to treat of Christian Liberty, the explanation of which certainly ought not to be omitted by any one proposing to give a compendious summary of Gospel doctrine. For it is a matter of primary necessity, one without the knowledge of which the conscience can scarcely attempt any thing without hesitation, in many must demur and fluctuate, and in all proceed with fickleness and trepidation. In particular, it forms a proper appendix to Justification, and is of no
little service in understanding its force.

Something about having a good handle on the liberty we have in Christ - the liberty that Jesus purchased for us with his blood - is linked to our justification. Calvin writes that "without the knowledge of which [i.e. the matter of liberty] the conscience can scarcely attempt any thing without hesitation, in many must demur and fluctuate, and in all proceed with fickleness and trepidation." And as Scripture makes clear, it is in our conscience that the doctrine of justification is intended to have a powerful and liberating effect (Hebrews 9:14; 10:22). It's in the conscience where the assaults of guilt and condemnation come. And those accusations are effectually rebuffed only by God's liberating good news (Acts 13:39).

As those born under the law (covenant) of works, we are wired to look to ourselves and our works (Romans 2:15) for a ground of acceptance in our own eyes, the eyes of others, and ultimately God. The problem is that we know on some level we do fall short, and that something really is wrong with us.  As sinners our righteousness is as filthy rags measured against the standard we are meant to live by. Yet reflexively we often do everything we can to find some ground of justification in ourselves when presented with any accusation, real or imagined. We find ourselves looking to quell questions of conscience (you didn't do what you should have... you shouldn't have done that) with rationalized proofs of our good intentions, that we're being misunderstood, or denial of short-comings even though we know on some level that we do come-up-short.  When it comes to the righteousness of the law and our conscience, search and rationalize as we might, no help is to be found within us or in our works.  Before the law of God we stand condemned.  Before others we often don't measure up (and we judge them likewise!). Where are we to turn?  Calvin:

First, the consciences of believers, while seeking the assurance of their justification before God, must rise above the law, and think no more of obtaining justification by it. For while the law, as has already been demonstrated, (supra, chap. 17, sec. 1,) leaves not one man righteous, we are either excluded from all hope of justification, or we must be loosed from the law, and so loosed as that no account at all shall be taken of works. For he who imagines that in order to obtain justification he must bring any degree of works whatever, cannot fix any mode or limit, but makes himself debtor to the whole law. Therefore, laying aside all mention of the law, and all idea of works, we must in the matter of justification have recourse to the mercy of God only; turning away our regard from ourselves, we must look only to Christ.

What we need can't be found in us or in our works of the law! We are found exceedingly short of the mark when it comes to measuring up to the law. So the question really is the one Calvin poses:

For the question is, not how we may be righteous, but how, though unworthy and unrighteous, we may be regarded as righteous. If consciences would obtain any assurance of this, they must give no place to the law.

The answer isn't in trying harder to measure up in order to ward off guilt. The answer isn't found within us or in what we do but is found only in Jesus Christ and what he has done for us: his death in our place for our sins, his righteous obedience accounted to us by God in place of our lack. And the sinner/saint receives and holds this, that which Christ has done, only as an unmerited gift of grace from God through faith. As Paul wrote,

There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus [who trust in him]. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit (Romans 8:1-2). 

It would seem that this is a good starting place for understanding Christian liberty, a place we shouldn't leave behind as we live the Christian life.

Considering Christian Liberty (1)

Considering Christian Liberty (1)...

Lately I've been looking at the doctrine of Christian liberty and its relationship to our conscience, good works, and justification. In reading, one finds an emphasis on the necessity of distinguishing law and gospel if the liberty believers have in Christ is to be comprehended along with the proper place good works should occupy. In this post I offer up some excerpts from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther. Here Luther refers to law and gospel as precepts and promises. He explains the role of the law and the role of the gospel and the vital connection between justification through faith alone in Christ and the true liberty from the law of works that a believer possesses.    

Martin Luther - Concerning Christian Liberty:

"Meanwhile it is to be noted that the whole Scripture of God is divided into two parts: precepts and promises. The precepts certainly teach us what is good, but what they teach is not forthwith done. For they show us what we ought to do, but do not give us the power to do it. They were ordained, however, for the purpose of showing man to himself, that through them he may learn his own impotence for good and may despair of his own strength. For this reason they are called the Old Testament, and are so... 

"For example, "Thou shalt not covet," is a precept by which we are all convicted of sin, since no man can help coveting, whatever efforts to the contrary he may make. In order therefore that he may fulfil the precept, and not covet, he is constrained to despair of himself and to seek elsewhere and through another the help which he cannot find in himself; as it is said, "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thine help" (Hosea xiii. 9). Now what is done by this one precept is done by all; for all are equally impossible of fulfilment by us. 

"Now when a man has through the precepts been taught his own impotence, and become anxious by what means he may satisfy the law--for the law must be satisfied, so that no jot or tittle of it may pass away, otherwise he must be hopelessly condemned--then, being truly humbled and brought to nothing in his own eyes, he finds in himself no resource for justification and salvation.  

"Then comes in that other part of Scripture, the promises of God, which declare the glory of God, and say, "If you wish to fulfil the law, and, as the law requires, not to covet, lo! believe in Christ, in whom are promised to you grace, justification, peace, and liberty." All these things you shall have, if you believe, and shall be without them if you do not believe. For what is impossible for you by all the works of the law, which are many and yet useless, you shall fulfil in an easy and summary way through faith, because God the Father has made everything to depend on faith, so that whosoever has it has all things, and he who has it not has nothing. "For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all" (Rom. xi. 32). Thus the promises of God give that which the precepts exact, and fulfil what the law commands; so that all is of God alone, both the precepts and their fulfilment. He alone commands; He alone also fulfils. Hence the promises of God belong to the New Testament; nay, are the New Testament... 

"For if the touch of Christ was healing, how much more does that most tender spiritual touch, nay, absorption of the word, communicate to the soul all that belongs to the word! In this way therefore the soul, through faith alone, without works, is from the word of God justified, sanctified, endued with truth, peace, and liberty, and filled full with every good thing, and is truly made the child of God, as it is said, "To them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name" (John i. 12). 

"From all this it is easy to understand why faith has such great power, and why no good works, nor even all good works put together, can compare with it, since no work can cleave to the word of God or be in the soul. Faith alone and the word reign in it; and such as is the word, such is the soul made by it, just as iron exposed to fire glows like fire, on account of its union with the fire. It is clear then that to a Christian man his faith suffices for everything, and that he has no need of works for justification. But if he has no need of works, neither has he need of the law; and if he has no need of the law, he is certainly free from the law, and the saying is true, "The law is not made for a righteous man" (1 Tim. i. 9). This is that Christian liberty, our faith, the effect of which is, not that we should be careless or lead a bad life, but that no one should need the law or works for justification and salvation."