The Three-fold Use of the Law (extended version)

Okay, well, tonight I want to talk to you about something that we don't generally talk about often, but it's talked about in a lot of other churches in the wrong way. What a shocker, right? So I want to talk to you about the three-fold use of the law.

This is something that the Reformers kind of emphasized, the fact that the law in the Old Testament has to be applied in the New Testament. So many people in churches today like to say, I've heard people say, I don't read the Old Covenant, I'm not part of that, I'm part of the New Covenant.

I don't read the Old Covenant anymore. Much to my horror. And then they say, well, we're not under the law, we're under grace, right? Now, of course I would agree that we're not under the law, we're under grace.

But what they mean by that is that we don't need the law anymore. The law is gone.

Hooray.

And tonight what I want to show you is that the law is not gone, the law is present here now and God wants us to follow His law. So the law, this is Louis Burkhoff, and he says, the law serves the purpose of restraining sin and promoting righteousness.

Considered from this point of view, the law presupposes sin and is necessary on account of sin. It serves the purpose of God's common grace in the world at large. And what we're going to learn is that God's law has specific purposes for us in our lives and for unbelievers.

It actually restrains sin in unbelievers. It's called common grace. Now when somebody tells me that they're not under the law, I tell them, we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully. So what we need to know is, what is the law?

Why do we need it? And how does it apply in the New Testament? What is the law? This is what we need to know. Now you might have heard in the Old Testament, a lot of times we hear, like even Abraham, and he was before the Mosaic law.

God in Genesis 26 said that Abraham kept God's laws, precepts, and commands, or his statutes and ordinances. You hear all these different words that describe God's law. And each one of them has a little different nuance, and I tried to look it up to find the exact difference between the words, and most of the commentators say it's really just a similar word designed to encompass all of God's law.

But God's law, like we heard, statutes, laws, and ordinances, can be broken up into three categories, which is what I want to talk about. We have the moral law, the civil law, and the ceremonial law. Anybody tell me what the moral law is codified in?

Bingo, the Ten Commandments. Can anybody tell me what the civil law is contained in, or codified by? This is a little bit more difficult. It's called the Old Testament case law. It's the laws in Deuteronomy and Leviticus that show us how to deal with one another, and what happens with our animals, and purity rituals, and stuff like that.

And anybody want to tell me what the ceremonial law concerns? Yes, about the sacrifices and the duties of the priest, how the men become priests, and then what their functions are as priests. The main differences between the civil, ceremonial, and moral aspects of the law of Moses as revealed in the Pentateuch are in their purposes.

God has a purpose for each one of these categories, and they're very pertinent for us. So when somebody says, I'm not under the law, I'm under grace, you're wiping out God's purposes for His moral, civil, and ceremonial law in our lives.

And what we want to go through, what we want to understand and know, is what does God mean for each one of these? So the moral law. The moral law is based on the character of God and extends from the Old Testament into the New Testament.

Therefore, if it was wrong to lie to somebody in the Old Testament, it's also going to be wrong to lie to somebody in the New Testament.

Right?

Now when somebody says, well, we don't have the law anymore, ask them, would it be okay if I lied to you? Would it be okay if you lied to someone else?

No.

Why?

We're not under the law. See, when they say we're not under the law, they think you just jettisoned the whole law.

You just throw it away.

And that's not God's intended purpose. The civil law deals mainly with relationships between individuals, the settling of disputes, and the description of proper behavior. We hold to the general equity of the law.

There's going to be certain laws in the Old Testament that we don't hold to. We're not scraping mold and mildew off the inside of the walls of our houses, right? But the general equity, the principle behind these laws is what we hold to.

I don't think anybody here has built a parapet around the roof of their homes, right?

Anybody?

I didn't think so. But the general equity, the principle of that law is you want to maintain a safe environment so people come to your house and don't have the opportunity to get hurt. That's why we put banisters on our stairs, right?

So you can hold on to them. And finally, the ceremonial law. That deals with the priesthood initiation and the priestly procedures as they related to the various sacrifices through which the people of the Old Testament were cleansed of their sin.

Okay?

Make sense? So we have moral, civil, and ceremonial. The moral law. Here's some examples. The moral law never expires because it's based on God's character. This is who God is. His laws reflect who he is, and he wants us to reflect who he is to the people around.

Us.

God says, you shall be holy for the Lord your God is holy.

Right?

Do we hear that repeated in the New Testament?

Yes.

Be holy, for I am holy. Without holiness, no one shall see the Lord.

Right?

And a lot of times it might even seep into our own thinking. Well, I'm under grace. I don't have to be holy.

No.

Yes, you're under grace, and we're going to unpack that a little bit later. Yes, you're under grace, but that doesn't mean you don't keep the law. That doesn't mean you're allowed to break it.

Okay?

We have laws against idolatry in Leviticus. The law in Deuteronomy is, love God. You are Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength.

Right?

And we hear these laws repeated in the New Testament. Love your neighbor as you love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. There's laws against oppressing your neighbor, stopping him from doing something that he needs to do.

There's laws against stealing and lying in the Old Testament. There's laws against sacrificing of children.

Right?

There's laws against sexual sins, adultery, homosexuality, etc. And again, the Ten Commandments are where the moral law is codified. It's in one spot in Exodus 20 and other places, okay, so that we can see it clearly.

And finally, there's one law that some people say, because it's not repeated in the New Testament, we don't have to keep it. The law we hold dear around here. It's called the Sabbath. We have one day in seven where we rest and we dedicate all of our thoughts and actions towards God.

Okay?

We try to keep that day holy. We try to keep all our focus and our attention on Him so as to rest from our work as an act.

Of faith.

Okay?

In the Old Covenant, the Sabbath came at the end of the week. So you had to work all week and then rest.

Right?

However, in the New Covenant, what day do we hold as the Sabbath?

Come on.

Thank you. Sunday. Sunday. Is that the last day of the week or the first day of the week? That's the first day of the week.

Right? Why?

Because it represents the New Covenant and the New Covenant is built on better promises.

Why?

We get to rest first and then we work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Whereas in the Old Covenant, you would wait to the end of the week to rest, kind of like you wait to the end of the week to get paid.

In the New Covenant, you get grace up front. And now because of that grace and because of God's love for you, you now are motivated to go out and do the things that God calls us to do.

Okay?

So this is the moral law. Here are some examples of the civil law. And this deals with disputes between individuals.

All right?

We have to be just with the poor. We don't want to take advantage of them. We don't want to charge them excessive rates of interest if they need money. There's laws against destroying your neighbor's cattle or injuring it and not repaying them.

There's laws against rebellious children. They were called to stone the kids. Now, we're not going to stone them right now, but maybe, well, no, let me not go there.

All right?

There's laws that concern debt, especially with slavery. Most people think, most people who are opposed to Christianity often say, I would never believe in a God who would endorse slavery. And they think it's chattel slavery like we see during the Civil War period.

And it's not. It's actually debt servitude. Somebody who can't pay their debt would volunteer to work for that person at a much lower wage and in doing so, pay back his debt that he owes.

All right?

That's one of the principles of the civil law. It's a principle of restitution. We're going to hold to the general equity of the law in that we have to make restitution to the person whom we borrowed money from and can't pay back.

It's interesting, too, with those slavery laws. If after the end of the person's time, which was limited to six years, if they liked their master, they could go to their master and ask if he would be willing to accept that person into the family.

And the master had to say yes.

All right?

So if you had a good relationship with the person who you owed the money to and you liked it and you wanted to stay there, you would ask and he would have to accept you into his family and take care of you forever, for as long as you stay with him.

It's nothing like the chattel slavery that we think of in the Civil War. There was laws against divorce. There was dress laws, laws against hating in your heart, inheritance, right? The firstborn would get a double share of the inheritance.

There was just practices. There were laws against man stealing. You couldn't steal somebody and take them away and make them your property. Landmarks, which is boundaries. Once those landmarks were set up, there were boundary laws.

You weren't allowed to move them. Property redemption, murder and killing, retained just scales and commerce, and on and on, theft and warfare.

Okay.

So that's the Civil Law. And finally, again, we have the Ceremonial Law. And this is fulfilled by the priestly work of Christ. Christ is the one who came and fulfilled all the priestly duties that were necessary for our atonement.

So the temple in the Old Testament and the tent in the wilderness were all types and shadows of the heavenly temple that Christ entered into. So those priests would do these things to point us to Jesus, who would do them actually in reality, I want to say, the spiritual truth behind it in the heavenlies.

So in the Ceremonial Law, we have instructions on how to clean the house of a leper. The festivals, you know, the Feast of Booths, the Passover, all the festivals that the Israelites were commanded to keep.

The laws on the animals for food, the dietary restrictions. You weren't allowed to eat unclean animals, which would be pigs or shrimp or lobster, the things that we really love today, right? You weren't allowed to eat those things.

The Day of Atonement and everything that was associated with that process is part of the Ceremonial Law. All the offerings, a lot of times you'll see, depending on the sin the person had to bring and their financial condition, they might have had to bring two pigeons or they might have had to bring a lamb or an ox or a bull, depending on what the sin was.

The consecration of the priests, how the priests actually became the priests and what had to happen to them, their duties, their regulations, and the various sacrificial offerings for.

Sin.

Okay?

So I just wanted to outline those for you just so that you get an understanding. So we have moral, civil, and ceremonial. Moral, civil, and ceremonial. The moral is the Ten Commandments. Civil is the Old Testament case law.

And the ceremonial is the Old Testament priestly duties. Now, do we keep the moral commandments? Are the moral commandments still in play in the New Testament? In the New Covenant, I should say? Yes, right?

Those are part of what we would consider moral commandments. These are God's commandments to us that will never change. They are a reflection of His nature. We don't just jettison those. How about the civil case law?

Is this part of what we should hold to as New Covenant believers? Yes, right? These dictated Israel's daily living, some of these guidelines cannot be followed specifically like the parapets. The principles behind the commands are to guide our conduct.

Again, it's called the general equity of the law. We're going to hold to the principle for why that law was given to us by God. Okay, the ceremonial priestly duties. Is this still in play?

No good.

The ceremonial law is not in play. We don't have to keep the ceremonial law, although the ceremonial law is still going to help inform us on how to worship God. We're still not to bring strange fire to the altar.

We have to make sure that what we do is in line with the ceremonial law. But we don't have to fulfill the priestly duties because that was fulfilled by Christ once and for all. So we're all on the same page.

Any questions with regards to the moral civil ceremonial? It'll dovetail the moral law, but spell it out more clearly. You know, like if you're in charge of your neighbor's animals and one of them gets eaten by a wolf, are you responsible for that?

The Ten Commandments don't tell you that, okay? But the point of the Ten Commandments is to love God, love your neighbor. So what would love do in that particular case, the Old Testament case law spells that out so that we have a better understanding of how to apply the moral law in that situation.

Does that make sense? Anybody else?

We're good?

Okay.

The Old Testament law is where God reveals His nature. It's where God reveals His will for humanity, His moral laws and guidelines for living. However, we cannot attain heaven or perfect righteousness by keeping that law.

That's not what the Old Covenant law was intended to do. I was talking with Chris before. Paul calls it a covenant of death. The Old Testament law is designed to show you your sinfulness and bring you to repentance.

Okay, we learned from Brother Lawrence a while ago about the deconstruction of the temple and then the reconstruction. This is how God deconstructs us, gets us to admit our shortcomings, to repent and turn to Him.

Then, then we get eternal life because if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by a promise. But God gave it to Abraham through a promise. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.

So in the Old Testament, we had the promise of a new covenant. The new covenant was going to be the covenant by which God would send someone who would come and who would crush the head of the serpent and rescue His people.

The Old Covenant was designed to show you your sinfulness. The New Covenant is designed to save you. In fact, in the Old Covenant, we even hear, the just shall live by faith. That's in Habakkuk and Paul quotes that in Romans chapter 1 in the opening of his argument to show how we're justified, we're made right in God's sight by faith, not by the works of the law.

Because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Justified is you getting the perfect righteousness of Christ after He takes your sin. Once you have the perfect righteousness of Christ, now you can stand in the presence of God without His wrath being poured out on you.

But here's the problem. The church usually falls into one or two errors when talking about the law. The first error is antinomianism. Anti, meaning against, nomos, I think it's Greek or Latin, meaning law.

Is it Greek or Latin? Nomos? Okay, so anti, meaning against, or non, nomos, meaning law. No law. So, some churches, they abrogate the law or not use it, do away with it entirely, as if it has nothing to do with us as New Testament believers.

Now, this is an error.

Why?

Because sin is lawlessness. And where's that found? 1 John. Old Testament or New Testament? New Testament. Right, exactly. Now, sin is lawlessness, and that's in the New Testament. Well, then they must have been applying the law.

Right? Right?

Right.

Thank you. Getting me nervous. Okay, so we have lots of New Testament scriptures that talk about the law, and we're going to see a little bit more of them. So, think about someone who says, I'm not under the law anymore, and they go out and they're zealous to do good works, and they're doing all these things without keeping the law in mind.

This is the scariest verse in all the scriptures, as far as I'm concerned. On that day, there will be many who say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy on your name, cast out demons, perform miracles?

And I will then declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity, or you workers of lawlessness. You jettison the law. What is this? You're lawless. You don't want to be lawless.

Okay?

So, we're not antinomians. We don't just abrogate the law and throw it away. However, there's a second problem that the church also falls into. It's called legalism.

Right?

These are the two sides of the ditch that you can fall into on either side. Legalism is using the law as the means by which someone is saved, or salvation is attained. Now, we know from the Old Testament and the New Testament, salvation is by grace through faith alone.

It's not by keeping the law.

Right?

Every time we look at the Pharisees, what are they doing? They are pointing out other people's mistakes. Oh, look, your disciples, they don't wash the inside of the cup.

Why don't they do this?

And why don't they do that? And they walk through, you know, the land on the Sabbath, and they were eating the grains. You know, that's unlawful. And what were they trying to do? They were trying to show those people that they're sinners, that they're not keeping the law, but they are.

And when they think that they're keeping the law, they think that this is what the cause or the reason for their righteousness is. It was also a way for them to demonstrate their pride, because one of the things a legalist likes to do is point out your errors and then point out his superiority.

So if I could point out your error and point out the fact that I'm not doing that, well, now I'm up here and you're down here. And all that really did was to expose the pride of the Pharisees and any legalists.

In fact, Paul would talk to us about this. He said, for being ignorant of the righteousness of God, these are the Israelites, the Pharisees, the Jews, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to God's righteousness.

What kind of righteousness do you need to get into heaven? Perfect righteousness. Is there any human being on earth, aside from Jesus, who had perfect righteousness?

No. No.

So again, the law is designed to show us our sin and get us to come to repentance. What they didn't understand is that salvation is not achieved, it's received. You're saved by grace through faith, that, not of yourselves.

It's the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast. If you were able to get to heaven by doing something that God told you to do, you would be able, at that point, to put God in your debt and that He would owe you something.

That's not the case. God will never owe us anything. We will always and continually owe God. So, the problem for the legalist is this. Many come to the cross in their unrighteousness and leave in their self-righteousness.

They think that they're good based on how they perceive themselves keeping the law, blinded to the fact that they are sinful and that they have not kept the heart or the spirit of the law. And Jesus, He calls them flat out.

You've heard it said, the law says, thou shalt not murder. But I tell you, if you've had a hateful thought or called your brother a fool, you've committed murder in your heart.

Why?

Because murder starts in the heart. You don't murder somebody without wanting to do it in your heart first. So, just the very fact of you calling your brother a fool or hating somebody starts in the heart.

That's where the murder starts. So, what's the solution? The law in the New Testament is dealing with the moral law and the general equity of the law while the ceremonial law is fulfilled by Christ. So, we don't have to fall into either side of that ditch.

We don't jettison the law and we don't keep the law as a means of salvation. We are going to hold to the law and I'm going to get to what the actual three-fold use of the law is soon. I'm just laying the groundwork because without this we're not going to know and I'm going to have to move a little bit quick.

Again, the law is good if one uses it lawfully. So, here's the three-fold use of the law. I call it the three R's. The law is used as a restraint, the law is used as a reflection, and the law is used as a rule.

So, let's talk about what the restraint is. As a restraint, the law is used to curb and curtail behavior in the culture. Much like a seat belt, the law restrains our behavior, protecting us and the others around us.

So, every human being is created in the image of God and has what written on their heart? God's law. We all have God's law written on our heart. You ever talk to somebody who doesn't believe in God and you ask them, have you ever felt guilty?

And they're like, yeah. And you say, you know why? They're like, no. You say, because you were. You feel guilty because you are guilty.

Right?

And where does that come from? That doesn't come from evolution. That comes from God. So, the law that's written on every human being's heart is a way that God restrains the evil in the world. One of the ways.

Okay?

And when we, as believers, act according to the law, it makes somebody feel convicted. It makes somebody feel, hmm, I don't feel good around these people. They are too righteous for me.

Right?

The law actually helps them see what the result of good behavior is. Because when we act obediently, God blesses us in that. I mean, he blesses us even in our disobedience because of the new covenant.

But when we fulfill the law, God blesses us. And unbelievers see that. And they want to imitate it. This is also known as the civil use of the law. Though the law cannot change the heart, it can, to some extent, inhibit lawlessness by its threats of judgment, especially when backed by a civil code that administers punishment for proven offenses.

And we can go through them. Thus, it secures civil order and serves to protect the righteous from the unrighteous or the unjust.

Right?

We have laws in our government today against stealing.

Right?

What's the penalty for robbing a bank? You might be in jail for 10 years. What's the penalty for murdering somebody? You might be in jail for, you know, 30 years.

Okay?

It serves as a deterrent so that somebody doesn't do that. They don't want to be punished. Through fear of punishment, the law keeps the sinful nature of both Christians and non-Christians under check.

It doesn't stop sin but restrains it with consequences. That's Martin Luther. The law helps bring God's common grace to man and limits man's sinfulness in society, which in turn displays God's goodness to all mankind.

Right?

When people obey the law, it's an act of common grace.

Okay?

God's allowing them to keep the law. He could have taken us out the moment we sinned, but he didn't.

Okay.

So first is a restraint. The law acts as a restraint on our hearts and unbelievers' hearts. Next, it's used as a reflection, as a mirror for the sinner that continually drives him to Christ.

Right?

The law is to be a mirror reflecting to us both the perfect righteousness of God and our own sinfulness and shortcomings. Augustine writes,. In other words, the law helps us to die to ourselves. When I see myself in that law, I say, Oh my goodness, I still have lots of work to do.

Lord, help me to die to myself. Reconstruct me. The law is meant to give knowledge of sin.

Right?

Paul says, That was Sproul. Luther again says, He's the only one who's claimed to be a Savior. He's the only one who can save us. The law is a reflection of God's character and a picture of what love looks like toward God and neighbor.

Love God and love man is the fulfillment of the law. It shows us what our hearts should look like. And then it also shows us how they don't. But the law serves mostly to magnify the gospel. Since the law reflects to us the depth of our sin, it also simultaneously reflects to us the depth of God's love for us in the gospel.

Though our sin is deep, very deep, it is not as deep as God's love for us through Jesus who would sacrifice himself and atone for the very sins that would separate his people from him. So the law serves to magnify the gospel.

Now, if you jettison the law and you think that we don't need it and we're inherently.

Good, right?

God's up here and you're here. So if there is no law and you think you're good, you kind of like minimize the gap between you and God. So the gap between you and God is small. But if you minimize the gap, what are you doing?

You're minimizing the solution. When you recognize that God is creator, transcendent, majestic, holy, and we're not, you magnify the problem. But what happens when you magnify the problem? You magnify the solution.

You understand just how great it is, the fact that he took you from the bottom of the barrel and brought you into union with him. It makes you revere and awe him all the more.

Okay?

So we do not want to minimize the law because we're sinful in the sight of it. However, God's love is so deep that he would redeem us and sacrifice what he held most dear, his son.

Okay.

So we have the law as a restraint. We have the law as a reflection. Thirdly, we have the law as a rule for life. The law is meant to lead us and propel us into good works.

Right?

At the Ephesians 2, 8, 9, 10, right? We're saved by grace through faith that and out of yourselves is the gift of God, not by works that any man should boast. For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which he prepared in advance for us to do.

Right?

So the law actually helps us to do those works that God prepared in advance for us. Okay? It's a function to guide the regenerate into the good works that God planned for us. The law tells God's children what will please their heavenly father.

It can be called the family code. Like I was telling my kids just this morning, you know, once you start walking with God for a certain period of time, you should start to bear the family resemblance.

Right?

You should start walking in holiness. You should look righteous, not just to us, but to the people outside. If you're not bearing the family resemblance, you need to repent. You need to acknowledge your sinfulness and ask God to rescue you, change your heart.

Okay?

So the family code is what Christ was speaking of in the third use of the law when he said that those who must become his disciples must be taught to do all that. He what? Commanded.

Right?

This is Matthew 28. That obedience to his commands will prove the reality of our love for him. The Christian is free from the law as a system of salvation, but is under the law of Christ as a rule for life.

Okay?

The law guides life loveward. It points us and directs us towards love. Any questions? We're good right now?

Okay, good.

So the law is a restraint to curb and curtail behavior and culture. Next, it acts as a reflection for the sinner that continually drives him to Christ. And third, it acts as a rule for life to lead us and propel us into good works.

Finally, where does obedience fit into this? Obedience to the law is the mark of a true Christian. Disobedience to the law is a sign that we don't have a true relationship with Christ. That maybe we haven't really repented of our sins.

We need, once we turn from our sins and cling to Christ, we need to now walk out our obedience and work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We're not saved by those good works. Those good works are the outpouring or the outflow of what God has done in our hearts.

So I like to think of it like this. As we work out our salvation in fear and trembling and keep to the law, and we model this for unbelievers, unbelievers are going to see the blessing that God has on us and say,.

I want that.

They may not truly repent, but they may say, you know, I saw him do this. This is a man with integrity. He doesn't lie. He doesn't use foul language. I'm going to model that behavior. And what happens?

God gives that man common grace. And society starts to look better. An increase of special grace, more bread on the table to the faithful. In other words, when we obey, God gives us bread, leads to more common grace, crumbs under the table.

So the unregenerate ends up eating the crumbs. And you know how they say a high tide rises all boats?

How does that go?

I'm butchering that, aren't I? A rising tide floats all boats. All boats go up when the tide goes up. So when we act in accordance with God's law and act righteously, the people around us are going to see that they're going to imitate our behavior.

And society is going to get better. That doesn't mean that they're saved. We still have to preach the gospel to them, but it shows them the benefit of the law and how we can live peaceful lives when we keep it.

So a lot of times, again, when people who are antinomian, who jettison the law, they come from certain kind of churches. So I like to tell them this. Don't expect your faith to move mountains if it hasn't moved you to obedience first.

So you can talk to me about your faith and how your faith can cast a mountain into the sea. If you're not obedient, it doesn't matter. We need to be obedient in God's sight. That's where the blessing comes from.