(By: Christopher Powell) Please note: Wordpress seems to delete all my Scripture references (how evil is that?!) every time I save. When we work it out, I’ll reinsert them in proper format.

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“Wotcha gonna do, wotcha gonna do when they come for you…” -Inner Circle “Bad Boys” theme from the show “Cops”


The theme song from one of the oldest reality shows on television is culturally evocative of what many people think of when they hear someone talk about  “the Law”.   To many, the Law is entirely about addressing the “bad” guys – it really has nothing to do with the “good” guys.   This was the view of the Rich Young Ruler:  Mark ten verse 20 – “all these [commandments] I have kept from my youth.”   In other words, I’m good, I’m ‘covered’ on this – what’s next?  This in itself is naked self-righteousness.  And Jesus calls him on it.  He starts by seizing on the concept of what it means to be “good” Mark nine verse 19 – only God is good.   He then proceeds to painfully, but, graciously, expose the man’s self-righteousness to him.   He does so with an application of God’s law that would make most modern evangelists blush.  Much of the time we’re too afraid to offend a person, but, Jesus is more concerned with this man’s eternal destiny (and perhaps also of those watching and listening to the exchange).  Jesus tells the man that he is confident that this man knows the commandments intellectually – verse 19.  Jesus is concerned to communicate to this man the purpose of these commandments to humble men to the realization that no human being can of himself fulfill the moral law of God.   This is the first of the three classic “uses” of the law that the Scriptures teach and that our Confession refers to in chapter 19.  These three uses can be generally summarized as:

1. The pedagogical use of the law. This is the work of God whereby he uses the  law to  “teach” us our sinfulness (Romans three verse 20) by revealing the extent of corruption in our hearts and exposing our desperate state and need of a Saviour.
2. The civil use of the law (judicial in confessional terms). It’s use is to restrain wickedness and promote justice and righteousness in human affairs, a ‘public’ righteousness that is a result of God’s common grace.  This is what Paul is referring to in
3. The third use of the law is in the lives of believers as a living guide.  Jesus said in John fourteen v.15  “If you love me, keep my commandments.”  Similarly, instructions and imperatives are given to Christians throughout the New Testament that uphold and expand God’s moral law.  The law is liberty for the Christian to run in the paths of God’s commands (James one v.25 and cf. Psalms one hundred and nineteen v.32)

Jesus skillfully applied the law according to this first use.  He helped the Rich Young Ruler begin to grasp that no amount of effort on his part could rid him of his sins.  That even if he had managed to keep the law in one part he could not keep the whole law of God by himself.  That is our task as evangelists.  We seek to expose the law of God for the unbeliever and point them to Jesus Christ as the only one who can save Romans three v.21 and following.    We must then prayerfully trust the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of the unbeliever to the only solution to his sin.  The cross of Jesus where the law is fully satisfied in the great exchange of our sinfulness for the righteousness of Christ.  Christ’s death acts as a propitiation for our sins.

But it is important that in understanding this fact we not neglect the third use of the law in the process of evangelism.  Wait a second – the third use?  We’re talking about unbelievers.  What do you mean?  Well, the sad reality is that, perhaps unconsciously, many Christians also follow the same line of thinking as the Rich Young Ruler.   The way of thinking that says that the law is really only for bad people, not Christians.  You have nothing to fear from the law if you’re a Christian citizen.  After all, we’re not under law,  we’re under grace – it’s in the Bible!   Practically speaking many folks miss the biblical understanding of the law and see it as something that justifies them and condemns others.  These folks are just as guilty of the sin of self-righteousness.   Thus, when they apply the law in evangelism it is not with the humility of a saved sinner seeking lost sinners.  It is with a self-righteous attitude.  In case you think that’s too far from your own thinking, think about the last time you looked on a homosexual couple flaunting their sin.  What went through your mind?   Was it disgust and dismissal?  Or was it a heart of compassion which at the very least marvels at the mercy of God “but for the grace of God go I?”.  We must never forget that we are ALL recipients of grace – we are all sinners under the law – we are all far better than we deserve.    When Jesus was in the key evangelistic moment of applying the message of repentance to this covetous, self-righteous Rich Young Ruler, the Scriptures record a most amazing internal view of Jesus’ heart: “And Jesus, looking at him, loved him.”  He loved him!  Jesus had compassion for this arrogant, self-righteous but hopelessly lost man.  Does Jesus’ attitude characterize your heart as you engage in ministry or evangelism to others?  Or is it just another work for you – a way to earn a line on your Christian résumé?  The apostle Paul understood the wickedness of his heart.  He did not come from a state of superior self-righteousness in his witness.  He knew his real condition as he expressed it so clearly:  “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.” First Timothy one v.15.   That is the attitude of the Christian who understands that the preaching the Gospel is something that ALL men desperately need to point them to (or back to) the only Saviour, Jesus Christ.   Law and Grace meet at the cross of Jesus Christ.  That’s where we must always return ourselves.  That way we’ll have something beautiful to sing when it comes to meditating on the law:

(By: John Miller)


As Christians in the Reformed tradition, we are those who love the law of God.  We agree with the Apostle Paul that “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” (Romans 7:12) One of the reasons we love the law is because it teaches us how to love.  Our love is not to be merely some amorphous feeling, but directed, active, and expressive of the law of God.  From this we see that law and love are not opposed to one another.  Instead, “love is the fulfilling of the law.” (Romans 13:10)  This is why the law can be expressed as the two great commandments to love:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.  (Matthew 22:37-40)

But there is another reason we love the law:  it teaches us how we fail to love, so that we might look outside of ourselves to the only source of love, the God who is love.  It is as the law shows me how I fail to speak kindly, how I steal from my employer, how I harbor bitterness in my heart that I realize I am a lover of self, lover of money, and lover of pleasure rather than a lover of God.  (2 Timothy 3:2-4).   I come to realize I do not and cannot love God or man in my own strength or power.  And here the law acts as a schoolmaster to drive me to Jesus Christ, the only one who can transform lovers of self into lovers of God.

But how does Jesus Christ make us into lovers of God?  By giving us His Spirit that we may grasp by faith the immeasurable greatness of the love of God in Jesus Christ.  Especially that we may grasp the love of God displayed in the atoning death of Christ on the cross.  For it is in the cross that God reveals to us a love that is unlike any other, that is otherworldly, that is truly heavenly.

Consider just one dimension of the immeasurable love of God in the cross of Christ.  It is at the cross that we see most clearly God’s eternal love for the unlovely.  Indeed, at the cross God loves those who are His enemies, those who hate Him and rebel against Him. How hard it is for us to continually love those who love us, much more those who hate us!  “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)  Here is immeasurable love indeed!

May God give us the grace to immerse ourselves in the multi-dimensional and immeasurable love of God in Christ.  And may the prayer of Paul be answered daily in your life, “that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:17-19)