Law & Gospel
How does the “law” fit into God’s plan - in our thinking and in our theology? I mean the Ten Commandments and all the moral imperatives of the Bible? Do you agree with Martin Luther or with Luther’s collaborator, Philip Melanchthon? Melanchthon died April 19, 1560, and thinking about him this morning got me thinking about how important it is to get this right. If we don't get “law” right, how can we possibly understand grace's response to the law's demands?
The idea of "uses" was Martin Luther's. He recognized in Scripture two uses: the civil use and the theological use. The civil use of the law is to restrain sin so that there is basic moral order in an otherwise chaotic world (1 Tim 1:9) - we stop at Stop signs (except in Texas and Italy) because it’s shameful not to, and we will be punished if we don’t. The second is the theological use of the law. This is the main use of the law for Luther (and St. Paul) by which our consciences are accused and then terrified because the law ultimately demands perfection and holiness of which we all fall short (Be ye holy, for heaven's sake!). The second use then points us to reconciliation with God found by faith in the promise of forgiveness in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The 2nd use is like a scale that shows us plain-as-day that we need to lose ten pounds, but it doesn't have the power to do it for us. Only grace is the power of God to accomplish what the law demands.
Then along came Melanchthon (who wrote the Lutheran Augsburg Confession) to slip in a third use (terius usus legis, 1535, “Loci Communes”). The third use is for already-Christians to show them (again) what they need to be doing and what their lives should look like. The third use gained steam in Christian thinking and presents as the law's primary use by John Calvin (and modern-day evangelicals) who see it as a whip to the believer's backside to urge their fleshly selves towards godliness. The “three uses” of the law is now carved into stone, and so firmly that to question it is like bringing a live grenade to the cocktail party.
Here's what I wonder: does the preference for the third use sometimes suggest that once we are justified by grace alone, then now that we are over the line, we need to put our work boots on and place ourselves back again under the law's demands for sanctification? The law that never worked to bring us to holiness in the first place? Does the third use logically lead us to the conclusion that sanctification is required to prove or complete our salvation (Lordship Salvation)? Isn't the third use just the second use still in good working order to bring us face-to-face with our sinfulness and need for God for sanctification? And, actually, isn’t the third use what St. Paul warned against: "Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (Gal 3:3)?
I like Luther. He knows that the law is always God's plan for our lives, and the description of what our lives will look like when we are in a right relationship with God. But it's "knowing God" rather than “knowing the law” that matters most to Luther: so that the law is written on our hearts (Jer 31:31). Luther has a very high view of the power of imputed grace to transform lives. He is convinced that what the heart loves, the human will obeys - in that order. The law changes things from "do this" for the unbeliever to "it is done" for the believer - and knowing he has done it all, love and gratitude become the motivation to please God with the conduct of our lives. It can be said that Luther assumed a third use of the law, but he doesn't camp on it because he wants our focus on the accusatory function of the law that always brings us to our need for God, for the unbeliever and for the believer. Our need for God never becomes less. The unbeliever hears the law, is crushed for the impossibility of its demand, and is sent running for the arms of a God who can and did fulfill the law for us. The believer hears and remembers that God’s Son came, not to abolish the law but, to fulfill it as our substitute because we couldn’t and can’t. The third use is great, but isn’t it really a restatement of the primary use that is meant to help us to the gospel - for justification and for sanctification?
Anglicans are not Lutherans, of course, but Luther’s influence on the English reformers was profound, fundamentally influencing the way they understood the good news of God’s salvation. The Elizabethan historian John Foxe memorably wrote:
“There is nothing more comfortable for troubled consciences than to be instructed in the difference between law and the gospel. The law shows us our sin; the gospel shows us the remedy for it. The law shows our condemnation; the gospel shows our redemption. The law is a word of ire; the gospel is a word of grace. The law is a word of despair; the gospel is a word of comfort. The law is a word of unrest; the gospel is a word of peace. The law says pay your debt; the gospel says Christ has paid it. The law says you are a sinner, despair you shall be damned. The gospel says your sins are forgiven, be comforted you shall be saved. The law says where is your righteousness? The gospel says Christ is your righteousness.”
God’s Two Words: Law and Gospel in the Lutheran and Reformed Traditions, Ed. Jonathan A. Linebaugh
Luther in English: The Influence of His Theology of Law and Gospel on Early English Evangelicals (1525-35), Michael S. Whiting
Law & Gospel: A Theology for Sinners and Saints, William McDavid, Ethan Richardson, David Zahl
The Necessary Distinction: A Continuing Conversation on Law and Gospel, Ed. Albert B. Collver III, James Arne Nestingen, John T. Pless