To understand the Law we must recapture the classic Reformed distinctions about the Law, particularly with respect to the kinds of law, the uses of the law and the relationship of the covenants to the law as we find it in the Bible. These distinctions profoundly deepen our understanding of the Bible and of the work of Christ

The Psalmist declares: “Great peace have those who love your law” (Ps 119:165).

Do we as Christians embrace this sentiment about the Law of God? Does the Law inspire our love and enhance our peace? How should we understand the law?

The teaching of the Bible on the Law of God is complex and can even seem contradictory. From the New Testament it is easy to proliferate texts that seem to set the Law absolutely against the Gospel of Jesus. Paul writes with special power and eloquence of the Law: “the law bring wrath” (Rom 4:15), “the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” (Cor 15:56), “you are not under law but under grace” (Rom 6:14), “now we are released from the law” (Rom 7:6), “Christ is the end of the law” (Rom 10:4), “the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient” (1 Tim 1:9).

Jesus repeatedly in the Sermon on the Mount (especially in Matt 5:21-48) reinterprets the Law: “You have heard that it was said to those of old…but I say to you…” It is not surprising that some interpreters of the Bible have concluded that Christians are entirely free of the Law and live on by love.

On the other hand many New Testament passages seem to exalt the Law rather than to denigrate it. Jesus, in the verses just before his “reinterpretation: of the Law in the Sermon on the Mount, declared: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, no a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches other to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:17-19). Paul too exalts the Law: “the law is holy, and the commandments is holy and righteous and good…the law is spiritual” (Rom 7:12,14) and “I delight in the law, in my inner being” (Rom 7:22). Indeed Jeremiah’s vision of the new covenant is precisely that the law will be written on the heart:” “this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” (Jer 31:33)

Such apparently contradictory directions from the Scriptures demonstrates the complexity of the Bible’s teaching about the Law. This complexity can be seen throughout church history, as Christians have studied this matter carefully and have sometimes come to very different theologies, even falling into heresies!

Reformed theology has reflected on the Law with great care and biblical fidelity. It has done this by making very careful distinctions in the various ways in which the Bible can use the word “Law”. Seventeenth-century Reformed theologians rightly said that good distinctions make good theology. Too often in the twentieth century theologians impatiently and imprudently threw aside useful distinctions and distorted the message of the Bible. To understand the Law we must recapture the classic Reformed distinctions about the Law, particularly with respect to the kinds of law, the uses of the law and the relationship of the covenants to the law as we find it in the Bible. These distinctions profoundly deepen our understanding of the Bible and of the work of Christ.

Kinds of Law

Sound theology distinguishes three kinds of Law in the Bible. The recognition of three kinds of Law in the Bible has its roots in the ancient church, was articulated clearly in the medieval church and was embraced and reasserted in the Reformation. These three kinds of Law are the moral, the ceremonial and the judicial.

The moral law, summarized in the two great commandments of Jesus and the ten commandments of Moses, is the perpetual and unchanging holy will of God for his human creature. For example, the prohibition of idolatry in the first commandment is a moral law that binds all people at all times.

The ceremonial law was the law of religious ritual given to Israel which was a type and shadow that pointed to Christ. With the coming of Christ the obligations to keep the ceremonial law passed away. For example, Christians are not obligated to be circumcised even though that was a strict ceremonial law of the old covenant.

The judicial law was the civil law given to Israel to govern its political and social life. That law too has expired with the coming of Christ and the building of his kingdom in the midst of the nations of the world. For example, we read in Leviticus 19:13. “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning.” The first sentence of this verse is the moral law of God that always directs and binds us. The second sentence is a judicial application of the moral law that bound Israel, but does not bind modern Christian employers to pay their employees every day.

The recognition of these three kinds of law is incorporated explicitly into the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF). Chapter 19, “The Law of God,” begins with a statement about the Law given to Adam before the fall, and then section 2 continues: “This law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness, and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in Ten Commandments…” Section 3 begins: “Beside the law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws…all which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the New Testament.”

Section 4 continues: “To them (Israel) also, as a body politic, He gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.”

Uses of the Law

As our Reformed heritage has spoken of three kinds of Law, so it speaks of three uses of the Law: the pedagogical, the civil and the normative. John Calvin discusses these three uses in his Institutes of the Christian Religion (II, vii, 6) clarifying the meaning of each. While Calvin’s ordering of these uses is different from Luther’s, all the Reformers embraced these three uses.

We can see those three uses if we consider one command of the moral law: “You shall not steal.” The pedagogical use of this commandment shows us that we are inclined to steal and to cheat and to defraud and that therefore we must turn again and again to Christ to find refuge and salvation in him.

The second use of the Law is the civil use. In this use the command “you shall not steal” directs human society about the responsibility of the state to preserve justice and protect property. This civil use applies to the unregenerate and the regenerate alike. The social and political lives of human society should be guided by the moral law of God to make such society just and tolerable.

The third use of the Law is the normative use. The Law remains for Christian a necessary guide to the path of holiness. Left to ourselves we would not know God’s holy will for us. The normative use, often called the third use, make explicit for us the goal of holiness to which we should aspire. In this use Christians are reminded to avoid stealing and to cultivate honest relations with their neighbors.

In his Genevan Catechism Calvin recognized how often the Scriptures call us to obedience and the great value of the Law in all its uses. He wrote: “Why are there then so many admonitions, commandments, exhortations, which both prophets and apostles everywhere employ? There are nothing but mere expositions of the law, which conduct us into obedience of the law, rather than lead us from it.” We need the direction of the Law to live as Christians.

The Law and God’s Covenants

The kinds of laws and uses of laws vary according to the covenants under which they are given. In the covenant of works, the Law was the way to life: “God gave to Adam a law, as a covenant of works, by which He bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience; promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of it…” (WCF 19,1). Apart from perfect law-keeping only death come to those under the covenant of works.

By contrast the Law had a very different function in the covenant of grace: “Man by his fall having made himself incapable of life by that covenant (of works), that Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein He freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in Him that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto life His Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe” (WCF 7,3). Here the Law is replaced by the work of Christ as the way to God and to live. Still the law is valuable and necessary for those in the covenant of grace: “Although true believers be not under the Law, as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified or condemned; yet is it great use to them, as well as to others; in that, as a rule of life informing them of the will of God, and their duty, it directs, and binds them to walk accordingly…” (WCF 19, 6). This section of the Confession continues to show in some detail the help and blessing that the Law brings to the life of a believer.

In addition to these two overarching covenants which dominate the Bible, there are also subordinate ones especially under the covenant of grace. The most notable is the Mosaic covenant. The covenant of grace in the time of Moses “was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all foresignifying Christ to come: which were, for that time, sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission of sins and eternal salvation; and is called, the Old Testament” (WCF 7,5). Here is the positive side of the Mosaic covenant.

Paul reminds us that the Mosaic covenant also had a negative side. Certainly the Mosaic covenant of grace and Israelites found salvation and life in the Christ promised under it. Still Paul could speak of the ministry of death and condemnation found under it (2 Cor. 3:7-9) in contrast to the new covenant in Christ. The Mosaic covenant had a strong pedagogical dimension reminding Israel that transgression of the Law brought death and only in Christ would Israel find life.

While the Mosaic covenant was an administration of the covenant of grace and while Israelites found salvation and life in the Christ promised under it, still the struggles and sins of Israel were so great that often the pedagogical use of the Law seemed primary in its experience. Because of Israel’s recurrent failures Paul could speak of Moses as having a ministry of death (2 Cor. 3:7-9). Where Israel trusted in herself and her accomplishments rather than in the Christ to come, she experienced only condemnation.

Conclusion

Our reflection on the Law of God has only scratched the surface of the rich revelation of the Bible about law. We all must continue to study this subject to grow in an understanding of Scriptures and the ways of God with his people. The more we know about the Law, the more we can sing with the Psalmist: “Oh how I love your law!” (Ps 119:97)

W. Robert ‘Bob’ Godfrey is a Minister in the United Reformed Church of North America and is President and Professor of Church History at Westminster Seminary California. He holds an MDiv from Gordon Conwell Seminary and an MA and PhD from Stanford. This article was first published in Evanglium 2007. It was adapted from the author’s seminar at the Law of God conference in January of that year. It is used with his permission.