What use is the law?

I have had the privilege to teach the youth Sunday school at our church. The first year I taught I wanted to ground my students in the fundamentals of the faith. In the end, I wanted them to know the answers to two basic questions. Both related to the law of God. The first: “Is the law good?” The second: “is the law good news?” The answers are a resounding “Yes!” and then an equally resounding “No!”

As Christians, we know what the good news is: it is the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is not the law since it is the way that the ungodly, lawbreakers, can be justly justified apart from works of the law (Rom. 3:26-28). So what use is the law? Let us start with 1 Tim. 1:8 that reads, “Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully,” (ESV throughout). This implies two things, the law can be used lawfully and the law can be used unlawfully. The number of ways the law can be used unlawfully is countless, but by Scriptural example there is but three ways to use the law lawfully. Historically, these have been called the Three Uses of the Law. 

However, the unavoidable prerequisite to this discussion is a definition of what the law is. First, I will attempt to explain what is meant by the term. Then I will cover the three uses in their classical form. Next, we will ask and seek to answer the question, “so what?”

What is the law?

The answer to this question is not as easy as might be supposed. We could say, “it’s God’s law” or, to be more concrete, “the Ten Commandments.” However, both of these answers are insufficient. Anyone who reads the book of Romans, for instance, knows that Paul employs the word “law” in many different senses in different places. Some theologians have created different and helpful categories to help us navigate this issue. We could use the categories of moral law versus positive law, or, in reference to the mosaic law, we could distinguish between moral, civil, and ceremonial law. These categories are very helpful in their place, but I would like to turn to a lesser known distinction that will best clarify the matter for the present topic. 

Typically and emblematically, the Law in Scripture is the Old Covenant and the Old Covenant is the Law. This is contrasted with the gospel (“the word of faith” Rom. 10:5-8) or New Covenant.  Yet, in more nuanced passages like Romans 7:25 (“… with my mind [I] am serving the law of God,…”), something else is meant. This is where our distinction comes in: the distinction between the matter and form of a covenant (Renihan, 198-204). In the typical use of the word, the Law is in the form of a covenant. In Romans 7:35 and elsewhere, Scripture speaks of the law only as to its matter and not to the form it took in the Old Covenant. 

To put these categories, matter and form, in simple terms, the matter of the Old Covenant is simply the “Do this” but the form is “Do this and live” or “Don’t do this and die” (Lev. 18:5 as cited in Rom. 10:5, Duet. 27:26 as cited in Gal. 3:10 respectively). The matter is mere command, rule, direction, etc. The form adds to this special rewards for obedience (additional  to the natural blessings that ordinarily follow from obedience) and curses for disobedience (Deut 27-28). 

In their essence, since we must acknowledge some covenantal context (Owen, 365-366), the Ten Commandments are the summary of the “Do this” of God’s moral law. This is what every morally responsible creature is obligated to observe by virtue of their being created by God even in the absence of a covenant. Additionally, this is what the Christian agrees with joyfully and confesses is good (Rom. 7:16; 22). Yet, the Ten Commandments in the form of a covenant is death to sinners (2 Cor. 3, Rom. 7:9), that is why we who are alive to God (Rom. 6:11) are no longer under the law (as a covenant) but under grace (as a covenant) (Rom. 6:14-15). 

In understanding how we can use the law, this distinction is vital. In the three uses of the law that follows, it will be seen that the first two uses are in the context of the law as a covenant (in the form of a covenant). The third use of the law only uses the law as to its matter and is in the context or form of grace. 

What are the three uses of the law?

Although the concepts of the three uses predate the Protestant Reformation, the classic treatment is found in the Reformer John Calvin’s famous Institutes, Book 2, Chapter 7 (383-395). I will summarize and comment on them next. 

The First Use of the Law: A mirror to show us our sin, condemnation, and moral inability so that we hope in Christ alone for mercy (383-386)

The law is called a mirror because it shows us who and what we are (Rom. 3:20). First, it shows us our sin. As the catechisms remind us, sin is transgressing any of the law of God or not conforming wholly to it. (WSC 14, Spurgeon’s 14, WLC 24, Keach’s 18). Therefore, we cannot define sin without reference to the law of God. We know that we have sinned because we know we have not done what God’s law requires. 

Thus far, we have only touched on the matter of the law. However, God not only said do not eat of this tree, but also “in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen. 2:15-17). The law as a covenant tells us what we ought to do and adds that we will be condemned to death if we fail, “For the wages of sin is death…” (Rom. 6:23a). So, second, the law not only shows our sin but also our condemnation. 

However, this is not all that the law shows us. At this point we may think that though we have sinned and though we must die (physically) and maybe suffer, as some imagine, in purgatory thereafter, maybe we can still turn things around by sinning no more and even by doing some bonus good works and make it to heaven after all. The law in the fullness of its matter and its form dismisses these fictions and vain hopes. 

Jesus in his sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7) teaches the fullness of the matter of the law. The law is spiritual; it is not only concerned with what we do externally but with thoughts and motives too (5:21-22; 27-28). No one who knows the fullness of the law thinks that they can literally sin no more. Furthermore, the sentence of death is not simply physical. It is first spiritual death, then physical, and lastly eternal. So in showing us the fullness of what God requires and fullness of the curse that we are under, the law, third and finally, shows us our utter inability to fulfill the law for a right to heaven and escape from hell. 

At this point, we should all be terrified, indeed, that is the purpose of the law according to its first use. However, this terror is not an end in itself but a means to another end. The law terrifies us so that we look for salvation outside ourselves and outside the law. We find this salvation in Christ and by His gospel. In this sense then, Paul says the law is not contrary to, that is, it does not work against, the promise (gospel) for it is meant to lead us to Christ (Gal. 3:21-29). In this use, law is the means and God’s redeeming grace is the intended end. 

The Second Use of the Law: A restraint on the wicked through fear of its threats to reduce outward evil. (386-388)

As “mirror” was the key word for the first use, “restraint” is the key word here. This use only restrains but does not prevent lawbreaking. It also suggests that the subjects of this restraint would immediately tend to all sorts of evil actions if that restraint were removed. 

This is why Calvin stresses that this use is for the wicked and not the regenerate. In fact, it is what Paul stresses in the verses that follow the verse mentioned at the beginning, 1 Timothy 1:8. Verses 8-10 say, “Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murders, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine….”

Next, the motive for the unregenerate not breaking out into various evil actions is the slavish fear of punishment that the law promises and not the filial (child-like) fear of God as Father. Thus Calvin says when they “refrain from external acts” it “makes them neither better nor more righteous in the Divine view.” This is because “…whatever does not proceed from faith is sin (Rom. 14:23) and “… without faith it is impossible to please [God]…” (Heb. 11:6). Obeying the law externally out of slavish fear is entirely opposed to faith in God.

The last element of this use is that it is outward evil that is restrained and not the evil of the heart. As Calvin says of the wicked thus restrained by the law that “the more they restrain themselves, the more violently they are inflamed within; they ferment, they boil, ready to break out into any external acts, if they were not prevented by this dread of the law.” This he says makes them hate the law itself. Any who has battled their own legalism and/or suffered under legalistic teaching can well attest this point. 

The proper end of the first use of the law is redeeming grace, but the end of the second use is common grace. Common grace is that grace that extends commonly to believers and unbelievers, to the elect and to the non-elect, the just and the unjust (Matt 5:45). To quote Calvin again, “… this constrained and extorted righteousness is necessary to the community, whose public tranquillity is provided for by God in this instance.” 

The Third Use of the Law: A guide for the righteous to better know what is the will of their Father, their own good, and the ideal they aspire to attain (388-395)

The key word associated with this use is “guide.” As redeemed sinners in a fallen world, we need God’s law to show us how we are to live so we can please our Father in heaven. Because of our indwelling sin, we will often fall short, but since it is what pleases our Father, we aspire to do it. Furthermore, because it is from our Father, we know it is for our good both in this life often, but always in the life to come. 

It is a true statement to say that our only rule as Christians is love. This is what Paul says in Romans 13:8-10, but notice that Paul hearkens back to the law in the Ten Commandments to illustrate how we are to love. We cannot be trusted to know what it is to love God firstly, and neighbor secondly. What God in His Word tells us to do, very much including what is commanded in the Old (as it pertains to the moral law) as well as the New Testament, defines what that love looks like. As Calvin says, “… no man has already acquired so much wisdom, that he could not by the daily instruction of the law make new advances into a purer knowledge of the Divine will.” To supply us the wisdom we lack, God has graciously given us His law as our guide. 

However, we are still weak in our flesh, so we will always fall short of what we learn from the law is what we ought to do. Nevertheless, it is the ideal we “aim at which, during the whole of our lives, would be equally conducive to our interest and consistent with our duty.” Notice that it is not only the duty we owe our Father that as children we wish to render, but also, because He is a perfect father, it is most “conducive to our interest,” i.e. it is what is best for us.

If the law still came to us in the form of a covenant, this falling short would spell our doom, so we could never say with David that we love it or with John that it is not a burdensome (Psalm 119:97; 1 John 5:3). This is because, as Edward Fisher says it in the Marrow of Modern Divinity, the law in its third use comes to us in the hand of Christ. It does not come to us as a covenant promising blessing for entire obedience but as the blessing of the New Covenant (confer Heb. 8 and Jer. 31:31-34) already attained for us in Christ and received by faith. The more we meditate on this law in light of the Gospel, the more we can join with David in saying, “O how I love your law!” (Ps. 119:97).

The other uses of the law were both means to grace, either common or redeeming, but in the third use grace becomes the means to law keeping, indeed, the only means for true law keeping. Consider Titus 2:11-14. The passage begins with “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people training us to renounce ungodliness…” verse 11. It ends with, speaking of Christ, “who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Verse 14). The end of this grace that appeared in Christ was to redeem us from lawlessness and to good works. Lawlessness, as the name implies, is not living according the matter of God’s moral law, and good works can only be defined according to that perfect law. Therefore, the law must remain as a guide to believers; otherwise, we would not know for what works we should be zealous. 

I have relied on Calvin because he writes so systematically and clearly on the topic, but it must be remembered that Calvin did not invent these uses of the law. Most importantly, if you have made use of the Scripture references, which are certainly not exhaustive, I hope you can see that these are the three uses, and to my knowledge, the only three uses that the Bible makes of the law. Also, before Calvin, Luther utilizes all three uses of the law in his Galatians Commentary, though the 1st Use is stressed most vigorously in that work (Luther, 145-147 for the 2nd and 1st Use, which he calls the 1st and 2nd purpose of the law respectively; 56 for the 3rd Use). Many believe that Luther had no place for the 3rd Use, but I think they miss the point of his rhetoric (which Calvin defends, 391), for, without making the distinction himself, Luther speaks of the law in the form of a covenant, but he does not deny that the law is good in telling us that we should love God and neighbor, etc. (56). Additionally, even before the Protestant Reformation, Calvin points out that Augustine wrote a whole book, De Spiritu et Litera, on the 1st and 3rd Use, though Calvin admits he is less clear on the 2nd use, but few would deny that use in any case (385-386). So, this is certainly a Reformed doctrine, but it is also a Protestant doctrine, and most importantly, it is a biblical doctrine.

Why do we need to remember the three uses of the law?

If we do not become skilled in the proper uses of the law, we can never distinguish the Law and Gospel rightly. Inevitably, we will either confuse the law for the gospel or gut the gospel by making it unnecessary and something tending to immorality. Calvin’s successor, Theodore Beza, said, “…Ignorance of [the] distinction between Law and Gospel is one of the principal sources of the abuses which corrupted and still corrupt Christianity” (Clark, “Beza on Law and Gospel”). Beza said this in 1558 and it rings just as true today. 

I assume that my audience, like me, are consciously Reformed in understanding. Nevertheless, I do not assume that I am preaching to the choir. Though the three uses are thoroughly and historically Reformed, it does not mean that all who claim the title of Reformed today, certainly, but also in the past know/knew the proper use of the law and how to distinguish it from the gospel. A prime example of this in history is the Marrow Controversy in the 18th Century Scottish Church. 

Passing over a great deal of detail, the controversy revolved around a book published in 1645 in puritan England by a man named Edward Fisher. It was called The Marrow of Modern Divinity. It was meant to tie together the “marrow” or choicest parts of Reformed and Lutheran theology up to that day. Though Calvin’s section on the three uses of the law is the classic text, I find this book to contain a richer treatment of the three uses (Fisher & Boston, p. 95 and throughout). 

The General Assembly of the Scottish Church came to censor this book as tending to antinomianism (read “anti-law-ism”). The minority that championed the book where called the Marrow Brethren, most famous among them was Thomas Boston who wrote copious notes that now can be found alongside the original text in the edition published by Christian Focus Publications. I cannot recommend this edition highly enough. In short, the prevailing opinion at the time was that a sinner must repent (that is amend life to some degree) before believing in Christ for forgiveness of sins. This puts justification posterior to some obedience to the law. This is a kind of neonomianism (“new-law-ism”). This clearly is a use of the law that is foreign to any of the proper three uses. 

The Marrow Men in their correspondence with the General assembly identify four groups in history that were neonomians. Of them they said, “And Socinians, Arminians, Papists, and Baxterians, by holding the gospel to be a new, proper, preceptive law, with sanction, and thereby turning it into a real, though milder covenant of works, have confounded the law and the gospel, and brought works into the the matter and cause of a sinner’s justification before God.” (Fisher & Boston, p. 349). Arminians and Papists are the obvious antagonists of the Reformed Tradition. Socinians are little known today (though they are highly relevant, but the explanation of that must wait for another time). The last group refers to the followers of Richard Baxter. This is the author of the Reformed Pastor still printed by the Banner of Truth. The fact that Baxter is thought to be a model Puritan in many Reformed circles today is sufficient proof that we must refresh our memory regarding the law/gospel distinction, and consequently, the three uses of the law. 

I hope what I have written thus far and what I plan to add in the future will contribute something to the retrieval or renaissance of Reformed theology for my generation. If my various other duties in life allow, I will expand on each use separately and deal with common but related misuses of the law in coming posts. 

Works Cited

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by John Allen, vol. 1, WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1949. 

Clark, R. Scott. “Beza on Law and Gospel.” The Heidelblog, heidelblog.net/2022/09/beza-on-law-and-gospel/. Accessed 31 July 2023. 

Fisher, Edward, et al. The Marrow of Modern Divinity. Christian Focus Publications, 2015. 

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (ESV), Containing the Old and New Testaments. Crossway Books, 2011. 

Luther, Martin. A Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians: A New Abridged Translation. Translated by Theodore Graebner, Zondervan Publishing House, 1970.

Owen, John. The Works of John Owen. Edited by William H. Goold, vol. 17, Banner of Truth Trust, 2010. 

Renihan, Samuel D. From Shadow to Substance: The Federal Theology of the English Particular Baptists (1642-1704). Vol. 16, Centre for Baptist History and Heritage, Regent’s Park College, 2018.