Look at verse 22, “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being.” One of the proper uses of the law – and a part of heartfelt obedience to the law – is to love it. To delight in it. To cherish it. To derive actual pleasure from the righteousness, holiness, and goodness of it. Obeying the law means enjoying the law.
In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, the French reformer and pastor John Calvin wrote that there are three “uses of the law” for today. Calvin wasn’t the first to articulate the enduring value of the Mosaic Law (Calvin himself quotes liberally from his spiritual forebears), but he has become the name most associated with the so-called Three Uses of the Law.
Though other reformers ordered these uses differently, Calvin’s three uses of the law can be listed as:
- Exposing Sin in Everyone (Institutes, 2.7.6–9)
- Restraining Sin in Non-Believers (Institutes, 2.7.10–11)
- Teaching Obedience to Believers (Institutes, 2.7.12–13)
To put it another way: 1) The law shows you how sinful you are by showing you the righteous standard you can’t meet, ultimately driving you to Christ as your Savior. 2) Additionally, the law, when it’s known by unbelievers, causes them to fear judgment for breaking it externally, so they sin less, and society is more inhabitable. 3) But the “principal use” and “proper purpose” of the law, according to Calvin, is its instruction and exhortation to obey God’s will as revealed in the law, and effective only for those whom the Holy Spirit had made willing to obey God through the gospel.
The apostle Paul captured all three of these functions of the Mosaic Law in Romans 7. In the midst of his discussion on sanctification, Paul delineates all three uses of the law in this one chapter.
Paul also shows us that there is yet another use of the law (or, better, an extension of the third use of the law), and it is a critical function of the Old Testament in your life, believer. If Calvin were here writing this article (he’s got better things to do now), he’d give a hearty “Amen” to the last fraction of the use of the law. Christians need the law not only as a spotlight (Use 1), a bridle (Use 2), and a teacher (Use 3), but also as honey.
Let’s look to the text and see Paul’s 3.5 uses of the law in Romans 7.
The First Use of the Law in Romans 7
The law unmasks us. We all assume we’re cleaner than we are, and so avoid a good Scriptural bath with the normal excuses. But when, through the law, we come into contact with actual cleanliness, true purity, and the moral perfection of God, we realize that we stink. And we need to.
That’s Paul’s argument in Romans 7:7. He writes, “What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’”
Paul calls himself “alive apart from the law” (v. 9). In his own perception, without the holy standard of God to rain on his parade, Paul could get away with thinking he was a pretty stand-up guy. But then God exposed his heart of sin with the tenth commandment – don’t covet – and all that external religion started looking suspiciously like the cover-up it was.
He goes on to write in verse 13, “Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.” The phrase rendered “in order that” describes intentional purpose. So, was it the purpose of sin itself to be shown to be sin? No, sin wants to hide in a dark corner and remain unseen (John 3:19-20). Then, who purposed that sin would be shown to be sin through the law? Answer: God, who wrote it. God designed the law to rip off our masks and show us the ugly, sinful motives underneath.