What are the Three Uses of God's Law?
Reflecting God’s holiness and our sin, restraining evil, and pleasing the Lord
Have you ever wondered how God’s law, instituted in the Old Testament, applies to believers today? Does the mere mention of the law make you shudder, perhaps due to a legalistic background? I certainly don’t believe—and don’t think the Bible teaches—that the solution to avoiding legalism is neglecting the law of God.
We don’t want to be antinomians, those who ignore God’s law and take the attitude of, “I’ll just keep sinning since grace abounds.” The solution is not law-neglect but law-mindfulness. In other words, we need to come to grips with how God’s law still has an impact on our lives. To be sure, Christians are not under his law anymore; we are under the covenant of grace; we are, indeed, in Christ.
The French Reformer John Calvin did the church a tremendous service in his Institutes when he wrote about the “Threefold Use of the Law” (Institutes 2.1.304-10). And that is what we will meditate on today—what does the law do today, and what specifically does it do for Christians who are no longer under the law?
The first use of the law is that it reflects. God’s law reflects in two different ways. First, it mirrors His perfect, holy, and just righteousness. When we gaze upon the law, we are gazing upon God’s perfect and holy character. It doesn’t have to be an attitude of confusion or fear when we see God’s law. We know we can’t measure up to that; Jesus did for us. But when we glance at it, we see how holy, how pure, how perfect God is. And then we marvel.
The second aspect of the law’s reflection is that it reveals our sin (Romans 3:19-20); it shows our corruption. It displays our weakness as sinful human beings in comparison to the holiness of God. That’s why it’s important to use the law in this way when evangelizing. Many people either ignore or don’t realize how sinful they truly are until they honestly assess themselves in light of God’s law. (In the words of Ray Comfort, “You’re a lying, thieving, adulterer at heart and you’re going to face God on judgment day.”)
The second use of the law is one of restraining evil, which we see in 1 Timothy 1:9. Most humans today and throughout history have inherently understood that it is objectively wrong to murder, to steal, to do harm in some form or fashion. That’s reflected in countries’ laws . . . which all trace back to the character and nature of God and the law. Of course, the law cannot change hearts, but it does restrict evil.
It is only by God’s restraining power through the law and himself that the world is not more corrupt, increasingly evil. It is an act of common grace that God restrains evil through his law and slows down rampant corruption (though we certainly still see a lot).
The third and final use of the law is in how we as Christians look to it to please the Lord, as shown in places like Romans 7:22, 12:2, and Titus 2:11-14. The Christian ought to delight in God’s law and know it’s a pathway to good works. “If we were created in Christ Jesus for good works, we must know what a good work is,” Keith Mathison wrote. “The moral law provides us with our inspired and infallible definition.”
I, as a Christian, shouldn’t look at the law of God with concern. God’s law is a roadmap to Christian holiness; not in the sense of needing to keep it to earn God’s favor—that was earned by Jesus on our behalf—but it’s a guide for our hearts of what holiness looks like. Of course, we look to Jesus, the one who perfectly obeyed God’s law to the last jot and tittle. But as Jesus said in Matthew 5:17, he did not “come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
The law is good; for the Christian it’s used as a sense of direction, a trail to walk for pursuing holiness and pleasing God.
We Christians needs to reorient our minds when it comes to God’s law. No, we’re not under it. We are in Christ, and will be forever. But God’s law is good and right and holy, for God is. God’s law reflects his character, restrains evil in the world, and is a roadmap to pleasing God in our daily lives. Don’t be afraid to look at it from the vantage point of being in union with Jesus Christ. It’s good.