Three Uses of the Law & Proverbs

We're dealing with another thing that we talk about a lot at Theocast, which is law gospel distinction when you come to Proverbs as well, because the Proverbs is full of imperatives, and there are even certain phrasings that go just like the law goes, where Solomon will write to his proverbial son and say, son, keep my commandments and you will live.

We look at that and we say, oh my goodness, this sounds just like Moses when Moses says, do these things and you will live. Do these things and you will live by them. So there's a lot of that in Proverbs where we have to parse law and gospel to help people realize that the uses of the law are in full effect as we come to Proverbs when we look at these imperatives.

Some of it is wisdom, as you and I were talking about before we even came on, and then some of the commands, certainly there are promises attached to them. When we see that, we should think first use of the law, where we're told, do these things and you'll live.

We assess ourselves in light of that, and we have not done what we're commanded to do, and we look to Christ who has done it for us. Second use of the law, though, is to restrain our corruption. When Solomon will write to his proverbial son, do these things, son, and your life will go well, or do not walk in the streets where you're going to be tempted at night.

Don't hang out with people who plan and do wickedness all the time. It'll wreck your life. The adulterous, do not go there, son, because it will absolutely destroy your life. That's second use of the law in terms of the restraint of our corruption because we see that there are promises associated with doing good, and there are punishments and suffering associated with doing evil.

It curbs our corruption. Then third use of the law in Christ Jesus, we see a guide for our living. Christ has done it. We're safe. We're good with God. We've been reconciled to Him, and now we can consider these things in thinking about how we love God and also how we love neighbor.

Proverbs is very useful because you and I are talking about this too. There's nothing in Proverbs that you and I can think of that is not vertically oriented in terms of love to God or horizontally oriented in terms of love to neighbor.

Proverbs is packed full of stuff that makes you useful to your neighbor. You will be a better neighbor if you think in these ways and apply some of these things, but they're not to be just internalized and turned into this really hyper-introspective thing that we often do, thinking that if we just take these things to heart, our lives are just going to have this nice, clean, upward trajectory all the time.

That's not the promise of Proverbs.