There Is No Power in the Law | Theocast

The Law Has No Power to Save or Sanctify

Some of you are probably really concerned about this title. Guys, you've gone too far. Well, we're here to defend not ourselves, but we want to show you from scripture that all power remains in Christ and Him crucified, and the law is only but here to guide us or convict us.

And we're gonna talk about the different uses of the law, but the law is powerless to save and it's powerless to sanctify. Let us prove it to you from scripture. Stay tuned. If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word.

It's called pietism. You ever felt like the Christian life is a heavy burden versus rest and joy, that you wake up worrying about how well you're gonna perform instead of thinking about what Christ has done for you?

It's dread versus joy, really. That's pietism. Pietism causes Christians to look in on themselves and find their hope, not in what Christ has done, but what they're doing. And we have a little book for you.

It's free.

We want you to download it. And we're gonna explain the difference between pietism and what we call confessionalism. Reform theology, really. How it is that we walk by faith, seeing the joy of Christ, and when Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest, what does that look like?

You can download it on our website. Just go to theocast .org. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. Conversations about the Christian life from a reformed pastoral confessional perspective.

Our aim today, if this is your first time listening, is to pull the clutter off the gospel, which is the power of God to save, and reclaim the purpose of the kingdom, which is God uses the church to advance his gospel throughout the world to bring those into his kingdom.

That is the purpose. And that's what we wanna talk about today. Your hosts are Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina and I'm John Moffitt. I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

And Justin, it's good to be on the pod. This is, for those of you who don't know, we sometimes record two episodes in a week. And so this is our second episode of the day.

That is true, John.

Yeah.

Hopefully we can deliver a second time.

Yeah.

Well, let's see, when this comes out, we'll be about a week away from GRN. You still have time to register if you wanna come. We live local in the area. It's gonna be in South Nashville, just north of Brentwood at Community Bible Church.

And we'd love to have you there. Justin and I are two days full of panels, lectures and preaching and singing. And it's all gonna be centered around the powerful means of grace. God comes to us and encourages us by his power and his spirit through these means.

And so you're gonna wanna come hear that and learn more about GRN, a bunch of pastors who are weak and frail, who are looking to Christ and put the gospel in their local cities. And very soon globally, we've got some churches that are gonna be joining us from around the world.

So please pray for Grace Reform Network as we are adding on several new churches this year. And if you so desire to help us add more churches and plant more churches, maybe consider partnering with us and donate to the ministry.

So there's my shameless plug.

Brief plug on that too. We are in the early phases of this network's life and are really just getting to the place where the infrastructure is in place to enable us to grow. And so we're gonna be putting more of our effort into growth in the coming years.

And we would be very grateful for any ways that you would partner with us in that effort. And so I'm sure you'll hear occasionally us mention the Grace Reform Network here on Theocast. And if you ever have any questions, hit us up.

We'd love to give you more info.

Sometimes, Justin, when we do these podcasts, we create questions. I know there's an advertisement coming later, but I'll say it now. We have a growing community of over 1 ,500 people in our app. It's a private app and you can only access it through our system.

And we like it that way because it keeps out advertisements and spamming and all of that. It's a great place for encouragement, for questions, for fellowship. There are lectures in there. Justin has one on the three uses of the law, law, gospel, distinction, the history of the Reformation.

I have stuff in there on prayer. What else? Spiritual warfare. I know there's a lot of stuff in there. All of our previous podcasts, Justin's sermons, my sermons, and all of the conferences we've ever done, it's all in the app.

And you can go access that for free. If you want to join and donate to our ministry, there's an opportunity for that as well. Justin, let's not waste any more time. Not that what we said was wasteful, but we want to get into the topic of today, which, you know, it could sound punchy, but we're just trying to do what Paul did and pull the clutter off the law here.

Let's let the law be what it's for and let's let the gospel be what it's for. So talk to us about, what do you mean there is no law, sorry, there's no power in the law?

Law, Gospel, and the Uses of the Law

I would say it's more than punchy. It sounds borderline blasphemous and weird.

You heretic.

Yeah, now we want to defend ourselves, right? Because of a title that we came up with. We are trying to take our cue from the Apostle Paul and from the other apostles, from Jesus. But Paul, especially when he says that the law is good, provided that it's used lawfully.

We're going to talk about lawfully using the law today. And I think it's important to make this observation. Nobody ever accused Paul of being a legalist. He was always accused effectively of being against Moses.

And Jesus as well, I mean, accused of similar things. So we're in good company in thinking about the law this way. So what we want to do, the title again, there is no power in the law. There's power in the blood, amen.

And there is power in the gospel. It is the power of God. The gospel is the message of Christ, is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe. The law is good. So don't misunderstand us. The law is good.

The law is holy. The law of God is wise. Amen. It is righteous. All of those things. And the law in and of itself does not have power to save anyone. And the law in and of itself does not have power to sanctify anyone.

Both of those are important. I'll just go ahead and say it right now. When it comes to salvation, the law can not save, it can only kill. And when it comes to sanctification, the transformation of a Christian's life, the law cannot change or transform.

It can only guide.

That's right.

And so we just want to be really clear about those things today because there's a lot of confusion out there. The podcast last week that we trust many of you have heard, we really went against what we called moral preaching or we might even call it law preaching that is devoid of gospel where it's all about what we're to do or not do.

And we're kind of going at that again today because there's a lot of preaching in churches across this land and across this world that are basically just the preaching is law as though the law can do something.

And as though the law alone is what we need. And this is the instinct of many people, whether it's the church needs to preach law so that people will live better, just unashamedly, we're just about better living.

We're about making better people who are more morally upright. Or even if it's a church where the gospel is wonderful and the gospel is preached, but the instinct is something like, okay, yeah, we get the gospel, but now let's move on to the more important matters of the Christian life.

Tell me what to do. Give me the insight, give me the marching orders, whatever. There's just a lot of law preaching out there. And what we are contending for is the preaching of law and gospel. And even though the law is holy, good, righteous, wise, we're saying it has no power to save, no power to sanctify.

When the law is preached the right way with the gospel, when the law and the gospel are rightly divided, wonderful things happen. And the law and the gospel are not contradictory, but they are complimentary in God's economy of salvation.

And I hope that this podcast today, I know you do too, will make that even more clear.

Yeah, Justin, I love how you say that because it's sometimes in Christianity, and this is antinomianism, where we just ditch the law together. And we're just like, well, we're gonna

Which we are not doing.

No, we're gonna walk by the spirit. Well, dear friend, to walk by the spirit,.

You need the law.

Or walk by grace or whatever, yeah.

Yeah, but you need the law because the law is then what guides you to do that. The way I would look at it is, Justin, is that when you understand what the law is, in order for, I have three children who are driving now in my home.

I feel really old at the moment. But I've had to give them the instructions on how to perform not only the proper means of driving, but also the rules of the road. And why would I want to do that? Because it's what keeps them safe in using a very powerful machine, something that can be extremely beneficial and helpful, or it can be very dangerous.

And that's exactly how the law works in the believer's life. What powers us is not the instructions. It's that which we are being carried in. We're being carried by Christ. But as we are being moved by Christ, our flesh still wants to get in the way.

And the law is what guides and protects us and keeps us from not going off the rails. And when you understand this illustration, we love the law. The law is extremely helpful, but it is not the power that actually does anything.

That is always done by Christ. And so I think when you say that phrase that you used, it's really important, because what we're actually trying to do is elevate the law and make its value really helpful, but not put our trust in the law as far as the means by which we are going to obey.

Well, and to even piggyback on 1 Timothy 1 .8, that the law is good, provided it's used lawfully. When the law is used unlawfully, when you try to make the law do something that it cannot do, it actually becomes harmful and detrimental, which is why there's so much ink spilled in the New Testament on the fact that we cannot be justified by works of the law, right?

Paul throws such sharp elbows on that, as do the other apostles, as does Jesus. I mean, even in the ways that he handles the law and the gospel, which we've talked about at a number of other points.

Yeah, can I use one more verse there?

Sure.

Hebrews 7 .19, for the law made nothing perfect, but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced through which we draw near to Christ. So what's the whole book of Hebrews about? Christ, right?

Yeah, Christ is better. He's greater. So we've talked, I wanna just do this really quickly, John, and then we can dive in further. We have talked at a number of points too over the years about the three uses of the law historically understood.

I just wanna do this quickly. And this will differ, number one and two will differ depending on whether you're talking to a Lutheran or a Reformed person, but that's neither here nor there. The three uses are still the same.

Yeah, in our conversation earlier today, I did that.

Yeah, it's okay.

I switched the numbers up.

So the way that we often articulate it here, the first and greatest use of the law, so like a Romans 3, Romans 5, Romans 7, Galatians 3 reality, is to show us our sin and drive us to Christ. It's that kind of theological use.

It's the mirror where we assess ourselves in light of the law and we're crushed in our sin and driven to Christ who kept it for us. As we would define the second use, that's the more broad civil use. It curbs human corruption.

And then the third use is to guide our living in Christ. And so that's for the believer. It's not condemnatory. It's not threatening as it pertains to our standing, but it tells us like what's good for us, what's good for our neighbor, what does righteousness look like, and what are things that we should run from because it's gonna ruin us, those kinds of things.

We're guided by the law, right? Because we don't have wisdom in and of ourselves. So I hope that's clear for people. I wanna dive into some scripture. Even when it comes to that first use of the law, John, that mirror use to show us our sin and drive us to Christ, the law in and of itself does not have power to do that apart from the Holy Spirit accompanying it.

And I think Romans 7, 1 through 13 -ish makes that very clear. So in the early verses of Romans 7, Paul makes it plain that we have to be, we used to belong to the law. And now as believers, we actually have died to the law in Christ, right?

So we've been united to Jesus in his death. His death counts as our death. And so the death that lawbreakers deserve, Jesus died it, and in him, we did too. And so because a death has occurred, we no longer belong to the law.

And we needed to be set free from the law. We now belong to Jesus. And this is how we're actually able to serve God. And Paul says in like verses 4, 5, 6 of Romans 7, that before when we were unregenerate, before we'd been united to Christ, the law only served to exacerbate our passions.

So this is important. So even when we preach the law and try to apply it to the heart, like Jesus does in Matthew 5 and there are other places in scripture, but that's maybe the most epic one where he says, you've heard it said that you shouldn't murder.

And then he makes it plain that if you've been angry, you're a lawbreaker and liable to the hell of fire. And you've heard it said, don't commit adultery. But I'm telling you, if you've looked at someone with lustful intent, you're a lawbreaker, that kind of thing.

Even preaching the law that way, apart from the power of the Holy Spirit, for us as fallen people, all that's gonna do is exacerbate our passions. When things are forbidden, we want them all the more as fallen people.

There's something really epically wrong with us because this is how we all operate. But then Paul pivots beginning in Romans 7, 7, and he makes it really clear how the Lord used the law for him. And when the law is accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit, Paul sees that he's ruined in all of his legal hopes.

Remember, this is a man, he writes in Philippians 3, that he, righteousness according to the law, blameless. He had all this confidence in the life that he had lived and the disciplines that he had and all that.

But the law, when it's accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit, showed him that all of his legal hopes were dashed, and it showed him that he was ruined, and it showed him, through the commandment, he says, sin becomes sinful beyond measure.

So sin is shown to be sin through the right preaching of the law when the Holy Spirit accompanies it and gives us eyes to see. But then what does that first use of the law, what do we do with it? I mean, rightly said, that first use of the law preaching, we're trying to kill everyone.

We're trying to crush everyone in terms of our hope and our own merit and our own legal righteousness, so that, this is important, we preach the law this way so that we can then herald Christ. So this is law and gospel preaching.

So it's not just that you mow everybody down with the law, like, hey, this is what God requires and you haven't done it. Like, ain't nobody done this, not even for five minutes. That's great, but that's not Christian preaching.

Christian preaching is then, that's true, you haven't done this, but oh, beloved, let me tell you of the one who's done it in your place. Let me tell you of the one who has taken all of your law-breaking upon himself and he died for it, and he made satisfaction for it.

And because God is good and just, he doesn't just sweep sin under the rug, but that's not what he's done because he designed it this way that he would crush his son in the place of sinners. So we preach that and then we preach Jesus as the law keeper and it's as though we have been as obedient as he was obedient for us and we receive all of that by faith in Christ.

So even with that first use of the law piece, even when the power of the Spirit accompanies it, that really is only laying us open, John, in order to make us fertile soil for the seed of the gospel to be sown.

Right.

Amen.

The Spirit, Not the Law, Produces Sanctification

Yeah, a couple of things. First of all, if you're new to Theocast, we, in the notes, or you can go look it up, we have an entire series on the three uses of the law. Highly recommend you to go listen to that.

That'll expound on a little what Justin just said, which was great. We also have a podcast on what does it mean to walk by the power of the Spirit, which I'm gonna kind of allude to right now. Justin, this tendency towards trusting in the flesh or the law, when we say trust in the flesh, what we mean is when Paul says I have the desire to do what is right, but not the capacities to carry it out, that's what he's fighting for constantly.

He's sympathetic to that desire of going, I can do this. I can do this. I know I can do this. And then the scripture goes in and goes, but don't try it because you will fail. So probably the most clear place that he puts this is in Galatians chapter three.

And he says, oh, foolish Galatians who bewitched you. So that's very strong language. He's saying this is like demonic. You know that, right? Like this is not of the spiritual realm of Christ. This is of the spiritual realm of the evil.

He says, it was before your very eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Now this is important.

How did you start? How did you come into the family of God? I mean, Ephesians two, just slap you upside the head, not by works as any man should boast, right? Not by obedience. So are you so foolish having begun by the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Do you suffer so many things that is in vain, right? In verse five, does he who supply the spirit to you and works miracles among you, I love that he talks about the supernatural work that's happening now, do so by works.

Now this, I love this, by works of the law or by hearing with faith. Paul is not downplaying the law. He's not belittling it. He's not casting it aside. He's saying you are not using it as it was designed.

You are not living according to its purpose. The way in which that we continue in our progression and faith, the way in which we grow into the likeness of Christ is by faith and Justin, he points it out clearly.

It's faith in the work of Christ. I love this when Paul says we walk by faith, right? And that's how we don't fulfill the lust of the flesh. What we hear in modern day preaching is the law, law, law. If you don't wanna obey the flesh and you wanna stop lusting and stop all your problems, it's law, law, law.

And Paul goes, no, no, it's not. That's demonic in nature actually.

It's actually Christ, Christ, Christ. Because walking by faith is to receive the righteousness of Christ. To walk by the spirit is to receive the righteousness of Christ. And so that's what we need to continue to be exhorted in.

Keep trusting him, keep looking to him, right? And then yes, the law of God is a perfect guide for your life, amen.

So he does this twice. Yeah, he does this twice in 1 Peter and in 2 Peter, but I'm gonna go to 2 Peter. How he starts it, Justin, and this is part of what, when we say pull the clutter off the gospel, Justin and I want to reclaim the power of the gospel.

And when I mean power, I mean the supernatural work of the spirit. When Jesus says that it's like the wind blowing and he does a work, we believe that there's an actual supernatural work happening here.

He says, 1 Peter 1, 3, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Justin, that should just wrap it up and sum it up right there. Now he goes into the third use of the law later on.

Now, if this is true about you, here's how you should obey. But he says the power to do so is divine. It's not flesh, it's divine. I mean, that should just wrap up this argument, case closed, right? But how many writers of the New Testament, this is like, what's our fourth book we've quoted so far?

They're all having to clarify what we keep falling into.

Yeah, I'll jump on this sanctification, obedience, third use of the law stuff too. The law can only guide, can't transform. What transforms? It is literally, I mean, it is the power of God at work in us, right?

Through our union, our vital union with Jesus Christ. This is the Roman six argument in other places, John 15. I mean, so both immediately pop into my mind. In Romans six, the argument's very clear. Like we shouldn't continue in sin because we've been united to Christ.

We've been baptized into him, right? We're united with him in his death. We're united to him in resurrection power. What's that mean? It's the Ephesians one, end of Ephesians one argument, right? That the very power of God that raised Jesus from the dead is the power that's at work in believers, right?

Unto sanctification. And we've been justified from sin's guilt and we've been set free from its tyranny. And we're not under the law anymore, we're under grace, but we've become obedient from the heart.

Like this is the argument and it's all through our vital union with Christ. We've said this before, I'll say it again, that the believer's sanctification comes from the same source and rests on the same foundation as our justification.

And that is union with Christ by faith. So this is why we continue to preach Jesus. You wanna see sanctified people in the church preach Christ and then guide people with the law, right? Confirm them in the faith.

Extol as much as possible the grace of Jesus and watch what the Lord will do in growing his people. John 15, right? "'Apart from me, you can do nothing,' Jesus says. "'If you're united to me, I'm the living vine.

"'If you are united to me, you will bear fruit.'".

Right?

Now, again, this isn't we let go and let God. I mean, it's not what we're saying, but what we are clearly advocating for is hold Jesus out and preach Jesus out. Preach the love and the mercy and the grace and the power of Christ to the believer.

Guide the believer with the law that is good. And the Lord will use that to transform and to sanctify. But just beating people with the law or merely telling people to try harder and do better, there's no power in that.

Hey guys, real quick. Some of you are listening to this and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions. So where do you go? How do you interact with other people who have the same questions and share resources?

We have started something called the Theocast Community. We're excited because not only is it a place for you to connect with other like-minded believers, all of our resources there, past podcasts, education materials, articles, all of it's there and you can share it and ask questions.

You can go check it out. The link is in the description below. Well, just to your point, you know the famous verse, Romans 10, 17. So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. And I don't believe that just means to the unbeliever.

I think it is to the believer because what does Paul keep saying? To increase our faith, to help our faith grow into maturity, it is the heralding of Christ. It's the continuing reminder of the work of what Christ has done.

That doesn't mean to the exclusion of the law. What he means is that faith is what we walk by. So we need that to be strengthened constantly so that we can obey the law. The law is a good diet. It is a faithful preacher of the Bible will preach the law, right?

But he must power his listener through the means of Christ. And that's what we're trying to get into order here. The law needs to have its proper place. It's instructions, it's not power. Where's power?

Power is in Christ. So we feed on Christ and then we receive the, I love how it's the sandwich effect, Justin. I don't know if you can point out a passage in scripture that even James will use the sandwich effect of Christ for you, now obey, remember Christ.

They always use that sandwich effect.

It's incredible. I mean, Romans again, right? You get the justification that we have in Christ, the imputation of Christ's righteousness. We have peace with God now and forever. We've been united to Christ, right?

And we've become obedient from the heart, all the things. There still is gonna be a struggle. We delight in the law of God and our inner being now because we're born again, but yet we don't have the power.

We don't have the ability to live in accord with it perfectly. Who's gonna deliver us? Jesus will. There's no condemnation for any of us who are in Christ Jesus. We're groaning, the creation's groaning, but the spirit of God is with us in the groaning and God is uber faithful and nobody will ever be able to take us away from his love for us in Christ Jesus.

Then God's gonna save all his peoples from Jews and Gentiles alike. And then Paul says, I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God, right? So on the basis of all that, Romans 12 and following, here's how we're to live together in the church.

And then even to last thing I wanna say right now and to bring the law back in, it's very clear that the moral law of God, i .e. the 10 commandments is what Paul is basing his understanding of righteousness on and even how we should live.

Because in Romans 13, eight to 10, he cites several of the 10 commandments and then he basically draws the conclusion to love one another is to fulfill the law. To love one another is to keep the law.

So he exhorts us in those ways. And then he tells that the weak and the strong to bear with each other and not cast shade and not cast judgment, right? And he emphasizes the unity that should exist in the church.

And then he, like you said, at the end of Romans and the end of 15 and 16, he goes back to Jesus and how God is going to bring about faith in his people and stuff. I mean, it's beautiful the way the apostles write.

We could geek on that for a long time, but.

The Gospel Restores Us When We Fail the Law

Yeah, so part of the good news of the gospel is God's unconditional favor and love towards us. Now, unconditioning mean that before you were saved and after you're saved, there's nothing you can do that will either gain his love or lose his love, right?

Romans 8, nothing can separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus. What I love about this, Justin, is when we are lawbreakers, what does God use to bring us back to himself? I love how Hebrews says this.

It's his love. It's the gospel that brings us back. It says he disciplines those whom he loves. That's gospel, right? So gospel motivates us and gospel repents us. It's so good.

It repents us.

Say it again for the people in the back. Like the love of God, the gospel is what produces repentance in the believer, yeah. I mean, again, the law is involved, of course, because we understand. How do we know what sin is?

Well, because we know the law. But when we sin, what is it that restores us? What is it that brings us back? It is God's love and mercy and grace in Christ.

I mean, I'll give you another example, Justin. I'll give you another example. In Hebrews 4, when we know we failed the law, in time of need, with boldness running in my presence, and ask me for mercy and grace, and it will be granted.

Well, why would we do that? That's the goodness of the gospel. Unconditional mercy and grace, always, forever. What was that in light of? That was in light of law-breaking, right? So we broke the law, we did not love God, we did not love neighbor, we lusted, we failed, whatever it is that you want to say, and what does he motivate us with?

The gospel. I mean, those are, can we keep going? You know, Romans 12, laying aside the weight and the sin that easily resets us, we're, sorry, Hebrews 12, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, right?

He who began a good work in us will complete it. These are all motivating passages to show us the powerlessness of the law and the power of the gospel.

No, amen. I love that Hebrews 12 piece, too, because that's what launches the writer into the words about discipline. Like, we're looking at Christ and bearing up under the discipline of a loving, heavenly Father who desires that we share in his holiness.

That's beautiful. I mean, but then, yeah, I mean, you were talking about, you talked about Romans, you talked about several different places, and I was thinking about Philippians, even. You know how Philippians 1 begins, and like, he who began a good work in you will complete it?

And then we have the example of Christ in Philippians chapter 2, and then even those words in verses 12 and 13 of Philippians 2, that we're to work out our salvation with fear and trembling because it is God who wills and works in us, or God who works in us both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

So all of our, all of our working, everything we do in the Christian life is fueled by the work of God, by the power of God at work in us. And then Paul in Philippians 3 goes back to say, to write the same things to you again is of no trouble for me, and it's safe for you.

And then what does he write in Philippians 3, 1 to 11? He writes about, don't pay any attention to the circumcision party, like to those who are telling you that you need works, and then he, in order to be justified.

And then he talks about how he has more reason to boast than anybody. And then he doesn't renounce his vice. He renounces his virtue. He renounces all the good things about himself, quote unquote, good things about himself.

Why?

And he counts them as nothing, as rubbish, right? So that he might have what? The righteousness of Christ that we receive by faith. Yeah, and, but yeah, and he, but he's been guiding people. I mean, he's already encouraged through the example of Jesus has encouraged humility and love for one another, but how does he even encourage humility and love?

He holds Christ out and look at what, look at what Christ has accomplished for you and now consider him and love each other, you know?

Well, the gospel, if you'll notice, the gospel always comes first as power and motivation, and then obedience is the fruit of it. I'll give you an example. Jesus says, come to me, all you are heavy laden and burdened by the law, and I will give you rest from that.

Then he says, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. In light of my love, the work I have for you is much lighter than if you try to do it by the flesh and the law, right? Like, forget that. Our first John is like, why do we, why do we love?

Well, it's not the law. We love because he first loved us, right? He first loved us, and there's so many examples of this, of like, when Jesus says that the greatest joy that we can have is by laying our life down, why?

Because the son laid his life down for us, you know? It's like, how many times is the gospel just washed over us and saying, trust me, walk by faith, and don't look to the law to give you the strength to do this, look to the law to give you the guidance to do this, but first, child, always, always, always look to me, my love, my forgiveness, my strength, my grace, my mercy.