The law remains the law and we remain sinners. “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar” (1 John 1:10). The nomist thinks that, now that we have grace, we have no need of the gospel or that the gospel is only to help us obey the law. The antinomian thinks that now that we have grace, we have no need of law. Both are wrong. The gospel is that Christ obeyed in the place of, died for,and was resurrected for, and intercedes for sinners. We were justified in order that we might be gradually, graciously sanctified and that means being brought into conformity to Christ and to his holy law.

In the ancient world a teacher (a pedagogue) was not your friend nor your therapist. He almost a legal figure whose job it was to see that you had done your lessons properly, that you made memorized your vocabulary and paradigms and finished your translation (e.g., from Latin into English). This is why Paul described the law as a “tutor” (παιδαγωγός; Gal 3:24).

By common law (still in effect today), the teacher acts in loco parentis, in place of one’s parents. The traditional assumption was that sensible parents would discipline their children with corporal punishment. That is almost certainly the assumption behind Hebrews 12:7 when it says, “For what son is there whom his father does not discipline…?”  So, acting in that capacity, a teacher would commonly spank a student who had failed to hit the mark.

It was not that long ago that a teacher or a vice-principal in the USA could turn a disobedient student over his knee and administer a paddling. It was called corporal punishment. To date it is banned in 31 states. Corporal punishment was certainly in practice when I was in grammar school. My first school principal had a switch and she was not afraid to use it and I certainly deserved what I got. The knowledge that our Jr High School vice-principal had a paddle (in which holes had been drilled to improve aerodynamics) helped to keep us in line. Whatever abuses have occurred, and doubtless they have occurred, the move to abolish corporal punishment generally is a symptom of triumph of the therapeutic over the forensic. Whatever one’s view of corporal punishment it is clear from Holy Scripture that God is not a therapist. He is a judge and a Father and his law is a reflection of his unbreakable, immutable righteousness.

As we saw under Heidelberg 114, even though believers are no longer under the law for justification and salvation, part of our ongoing restoration into the image of Christ (Eph 4:24; Col 3:10) is learning to delight in God’s law (Ps 119:70, 97). Nevertheless, as Paul recognized in Romans 7, there remains a persistently difficult relationship between the justified, saved sinner and God’s holy law. Thus we confess

115. Why then does God so strictly enjoin the ten Commandments upon us, since in this life no one can keep them?

First, that as long as we live we may learn more and more to know our sinful nature, and so the more earnestly seek forgiveness of sins and righteousness in Christ; secondly, that without ceasing we diligently ask God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, that we be renewed more and more after the image of God, until we attain the goal of perfection after this life (Heidelberg Catechism).

Sometimes we are given the impression that in light of our free justification and our union with Christ our relation to the law is so transformed that it no longer convicts us of sin. Some modern Reformed writers have been known to suggest that it is a distinctively Lutheran doctrine to say that the law always accuses (lex semper accusat). To be sure this language is found the Lutheran confessions and in that form one finds it principally in Lutheran writers (e.g., Melanchthon used it about 5 times in works) but one does find Reformed writers saying very similar things. Martin Bucer (1491–1551) used similar language in his massive commentary on Romans and Caspar Olevianus (1536–87) used similar language in his 1579 commentary on Romans.

Here the catechism first reflects on the elenctic or correcting (2 Tim 3:16) or convicting function of the law in the Christian life. The law remains the law and we remain sinners. “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar” (1 John 1:10). The nomist thinks that, now that we have grace, we have no need of the gospel or that the gospel is only to help us obey the law. The antinomian thinks that now that we have grace, we have no need of law. Both are wrong. The gospel is that Christ obeyed in the place of, died for,and was resurrected for, and intercedes for sinners. We were justified in order that we might be gradually, graciously sanctified and that means being brought into conformity to Christ and to his holy law.

Nevertheless, the law continues to teach us the greatness of our sin and misery and to drive us to Christ, not because we are under the law for acceptance with God but because we are under grace and need the law to continue to push us to Christ.

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