The Law of God
The law is not the enemy of the gospel, it is the schoolmaster that brings us to Christ and the rule by which the regenerate walk in gratitude. The question is never whether the law matters; it is which law, and in what role.
Position
I hold to the classic Reformed threefold division of the law: moral, ceremonial, and civil/judicial. The ceremonial law, sacrifices, feasts, the Levitical priesthood, was fulfilled in Christ and is no longer obligatory for God's people. The civil law of Old Covenant Israel was particular to that theocratic nation and expired with it, though its general equity may still be applied. The moral law , summarized in the Ten Commandments, retains abiding validity for all people in all times, because it is a transcript of God's own character and an expression of the natural law written on every human conscience.
Believers are not under the law as a covenant of works, as a condition of justification or continued standing before God. Christ fulfilled the law perfectly on our behalf, and we are “not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:14) in that sense. But believers are not antinomians. The moral law remains the pattern for the regenerate life, now internalized through the Spirit (Ezekiel 36:27; Jeremiah 31:33). Obedience to the law is not the ground of acceptance, it is the fruit of it. We obey because we have been justified, not in order to be justified.
On the specific question of the Sabbath: I hold to a Christian Sabbatarianism , one day in seven set apart for rest and worship, transferred to the first day of the week in light of the resurrection. The principle is creational (Genesis 2:2–3) and moral, not merely ceremonial. The Westminster and 1689 confessions both affirm this. The Sabbath is not abolished in Christ; it is transformed and fulfilled in the worship of the risen Lord.
The law has three uses in the Reformed tradition: (1) a civil use, it restrains wickedness in society through the threat of punishment; (2) a pedagogical use , it reveals sin and drives the sinner to Christ; (3) a normative use, it guides the redeemed in the shape of grateful obedience. All three remain. The third use is the most disputed, but Paul's language in Romans 7:12 (“the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good”) and his instruction to Corinthian believers to obey God's commandments (1 Corinthians 7:19) supports it.
Key Scripture
“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”
Matthew 5:17–18
“So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.”
Romans 7:12
“I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it.”
Jeremiah 31:33
“Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you… I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”
Ezekiel 36:26–27
Confession Reference
The 1689 London Baptist Confession addresses the law in Chapter 19 (Of the Law of God). It teaches that God gave Adam “a law of universal obedience written in his heart,” that this same law was delivered through Moses in the Ten Commandments, and that “the moral law doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof.” It distinguishes this from the ceremonial and judicial laws of Israel, both of which “are now abrogated.” The chapter closes by affirming that the law and gospel are not in opposition: “the Spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely and cheerfully which the will of God, revealed in the law, requireth to be done.”
Resources
- Samuel Bolton, The True Bounds of Christian Freedom
- Ernest Kevan, The Grace of Law
- Tom Wells & Fred Zaspel, New Covenant Theology (for interaction with the Dispensationalist and NCT views)
- Philip Ross, The Finger of God: The Ten Commandments in the Life of the Believer
- John Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life