How Are We to Use the Law: Let Me Count the Ways, Pt 3

God’s law reveals God’s character. By it, we know Him and know what it means to be like Him. Therefore, the law itself is beautiful and desirable, reflecting God Himself. The law is also mankind’s tutor. It instructs us of our inability to be like God or to fellowship with Him apart from a perfectly righteous Mediator. The law leads us to Christ, “so that we may be justified by faith” (Gal. 3:24).

Having been born again and adopted into God’s family, the Christian returns to the law as the rule of conduct by which he lives for God. To the Christian, the law is not only objectively beautiful and desirable, but subjectively “his delight” (Ps. 1:2). He sings, “I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies, as much as in all riches” (Ps. 119:14). He pledges, “I shall delight in Your statutes; I shall not forget Your word” (Ps. 119:16). And he pleads, “Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, for I delight in it” (Ps. 119:35). The old paths of God’s law are the way of new life in Christ, “for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

The law also restrains man’s wickedness. Where there is no love for God, there is yet some fear of God among men. This too is an example of God’s gracious provision for our every need. To understand how God has made this provision for us, we need to review some ancient—even antediluvian—history.

From Fall through Flood

After the Fall of our first parents (Gen. 3), man was plunged into woeful misery due to sin. Through successive generations, humanity proved irremediable, though not irredeemable. “The wickedness of man was great on the earth” and “every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). To address this universal declension, God sent a universal judgment—the Flood whose waters rose “so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered” (Gen. 7:20). The resulting devastation was global. God “blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the land” (Gen. 7:23a). But God showed mercy, for “Noah was left, together with those that were with him in the ark” (Gen. 7:23b) which God had graciously directed Noah to build for his salvation.

After the waters subsided, Noah made a burnt offering to God, and God “said to Himself” that He would never again destroy the earth (and its inhabitants) with a worldwide flood (Gen. 8:21). He also actualized fear as a restraint on both man and beast. In the animal kingdom, the fear of man spread like leaven from this point onward in history (Gen. 9:2). Among men, however, the fear of God functions analogously.

God decreed, “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man” (Gen. 9:6). Though not less than the basis for capital punishment, this universal law is so much more. By this covenantal declaration, God established the restraining use of His law among men. The precepts of divine law have a restraining influence on society by partially instructing the consciences even of the unregenerate as they share common ancestry (and history) with the regenerate who consciously follow God’s will.

Society’s Guide to Judgment Day

In a just society, evil is punished. There are consequences for wrongdoing. Human government “is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil” (Rom. 13:4). If this was true under the despotism of Imperial Rome, how much truer is this for us who enjoy some measure of Christianity’s influence in society?

Though regenerating grace is not universal, restraining grace is common to all men as one expression of God’s general benevolence. Just as “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt. 5:45), God implants in each individual a sense of the divine, an instinct to worship, and knowledge—however partial, darkened, or confused—of His existence and holy wrath against sin (Rom. 1:18-19).

The consequences of rejecting God are grim, but instructive. “Just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper” (Rom. 1:28). From this we infer that God who gives men over also restrains man’s depravity in society, as He wills.

One way God restrains depravity is by promulgating His law in society. This is Paul’s point in 1 Timothy 1:9-10: “Law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching.” This does not deny the regulatory use of the law for the Christian. Rather, this describes the restraining use of the law for those who are “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1).

As the laws of men align with God’s law, they manifest justice. As individual Christians follow God’s law, they tend to have an ennobling influence on unbelievers who otherwise reject divine morality. In both cases, men encounter God’s righteousness.

For those who persist in their rejection of God, the restraining influence of God’s law provokes resentful frustration. Annoyance today is but a mild foretaste of the torment that will ensue at Judgment Day for all who stand guilty before Christ’s throne.

But for those who are converted to Christ, the restraint of God’s law becomes a cause for grateful praise because He has not abandoned us to our own sinful devices! Thanksgiving today is but a mild foretaste of the joy that will be realized at Judgment Day for all who are clothed in Christ’s righteousness and who delight in the law of God. Then they will enjoy that eternal blessedness which is reserved for those finding refuge in Christ who alone satisfies all the law’s demands.

Zachary Groff (MDiv, Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary) is Pastor of Antioch Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Woodruff, SC, and he serves as Managing Editor of The Confessional Journal and as Editor-in-Chief of the Presbyterian Polity website.