Excerpted from Piety, Politics, and Ethics: Reformation
Studies in Honor of George Wolfgang Forell, Carter Lindberg,
Editor
Copyright © 1984 by Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers,
Inc., Kirksville, Missouri. Used with Permission.
[1] What are the roles of love and law in Christian life? This has
been and remains today an issue that lies close to the heart of
Christian ethics.1 This may be seen, for
example, in the first set of officially-sponsored conversations
between Lutheran and Reformed theologians in America. Superior
biblical exegesis and improvements in historical research have
facilitated many heartening breakthroughs on issues that have long
divided these two communions in the past.2 Among the theological
problems still unresolved, however, is that which is the subject of
the present study: the proper relation between love and law in the
Christian life.
[2] For example, are the Ten Commandments still binding on
believers in Jesus Christ? If so, which "ten" - as counted by the
Lutherans or by the Reformed? What about the dietary rules and
cultic regulations in Leviticus? Or the theocratic law in I Samuel?
What about the apostolic admonitions regarding slavery, lawsuits,
and even women's hair styles in I Corinthians?
[3] In his own day, Jesus freely broke with Sabbath observance,
commanded obedience to a pagan Caesar, and was accused by more
legalistic Jews of being a glutton and a drunkard. Yet he could
also warn, "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the
prophets: I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them"
(Matthew 5:17).
[4] Is the clue to this paradox to be found in Jesus' insistence
that "all the law and the prophets" - and that includes the
Decalogue - depend on the inseparable coupling of the "two great
commandments" of love to God and neighbor (Matthew 22:37ff)? If
not, how could his apostles proclaim, "We are not under law but
grace . . . Christ is the end of the law" (Romans 6:15, 10:4); and
again, "The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came
through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17)? But even if we insist in the
name of Christian freedom that "the law is not laid down for the
just but for the lawless and disobedient" (I Timothy 1:9), we dare
never forget, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and
the truth is not in us" (I John 1:8).
[5] Conflicting interpretations of these critical biblical
passages introduce us directly to our controversial subject of the
so-called "third use of the law." The doctrine of the third use of
the law used to be regarded as a secondary ornament in the
architectural structure of the old Lutheran dogmaticians. Now
suddenly it has become a storm signal on the theological scene, and
it is of the greatest significance for the present crisis in social
ethical relationships.
[6] According to the traditional view, as presented by the
historians of the past generation, and found in virtually all
theological reference works, Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin were
in basic agreement concerning the third use of the law. The first
use of the law is to show persons their sin (usus theologicus); the
second is to hold people in civil restraint (usus
civilis/politicus); the third defines the validity of the law for
the "regenerate" (so Melanchthon and the Formula of Concord) or for
"believers" (so Calvin). The third use is distinguished from the
other two by the fact that it serves only to inform the regenerate
or the believers, and hence the old dogmaticians called it the usus
didacticus.
[7] This view has been frontally challenged in our day by the
Swedish Lundensian theologians (Gustaf Aulen, Anders Nygren, Ragnar
Bring, Gustaf Wingren), along with the Finnish systematician,
Lennart Pinomaa. They have concluded from Luther's whole conception
of the law that he could not possibly have taught a third use in
this didactic sense. Ragnar Bring then also documents how the
Formula of Concord has been generally misinterpreted as a
result of the introduction of a pietistic or pentecostalistic
conception of progressive regeneration. In the "Luther Renaissance"
on German soil, Paul Althaus, Edmund Schlink, Gerhard Ebeling, and
Werner Elert have all come to similar conclusions. To quote
Professor Elert, "Ragnar Bring has established conclusively that
the Formula [of Concord] knows nothing of a purely
informatory function of the law. Insofar as the regenerate are
empowered by the Holy Spirit, they do not need the law at all.
Insofar as they do not succeed in getting rid of the 'old Adam,'
the law continues to exercise its punitive, and not just an
informatory, function." 3My purpose is to support the
conclusions of Bring and Elert by tracing the historical
development of the various uses of the law in the conflicting views
of the major Protestant Reformers.
I
[8] For Luther, the law and the gospel stand in dialectical
opposition to each other. In the soteriology of his "theology of
the cross," law and gospel represent the two radically different
ways in which the triune God relates to a fallen humankind. In
explaining his ninety-five theses (1517), Luther writes:
According to the Apostle in
Romans 1 (:3-6), the gospel is a preaching of the incarnate Son of
God, given to us without any merit on our part for salvation and
peace. It is a word of salvation, a word of grace, a word of
comfort, a word of joy, a voice of the bridegroom and the bride, a
good word, a word of peace. . . . But the law is a word of
destruction, a word of wrath, a word of sadness, a word of grief, a
voice of the judge and the defendant, a word of restlessness, a
word of curse. For according to the apostle, "The law is the power
of sin" (Cf. I Corinthians 15:56), and "the law brings wrath"
(Romans 4:15); it is a law of death (Romans 5:13).44
Through the demands of the law, God accuses sinners of their
unfaith and disobedience. Through the promises of the gospel, God
grants faithful persons the forgiveness of sin, life, and
salvation. Condemned by the law, sinners are crucified with Christ;
redeemed by the gospel, saints are resurrected in Christ. It
follows for Luther that Christian salvation and service can take
place only when persons pass from the work-righteousness of the law
to the faith-righteousness of the gospel.
[9] A few years later, the Reformer was to develop his highly
influential view of God's twofold rule in the "two kingdoms" of
creation and redemption in the work entitled On Secular
Authority (1523). In Luther's reading of biblical eschatology,
the triune God rules the "two kingdoms" of creation and redemption
by the power of his sovereign Word through the continual
interaction of the law and gospel. As redeemer and sanctifier, God
employs the gospel (1) to reckon the "righteousness of Christ" to
faithful persons in the realm of redemption, and (2) to empower the
"Christian righteousness" of loving persons in the realm of
creation. As creator and preserver, God is at the same time
employing the law (1) to prompt the "civil righteousness" of
rational persons in the realm of creation, and (2) to judge the
"self-righteousness" of sinful persons in the realm of
redemption.
[10] How deftly Luther was able to handle the dialectical
relationship between natural law and the law of Christ in the two
kingdoms of creation and redemption is well expressed in his
analysis of the place of the Ten Commandments in the ethical life
of the Christian. He addressed himself to this controversial issue
in his work Against the Heavenly Prophets (1525). His aim
was to repudiate the radical sectarian attempts to re-establish an
Old Testament theocracy in sixteenth-century Germany. In a letter
to Spalatin contemporary with the treatise, Luther objected
vigorously to the program of the Schwärmer.
Those men who brag about the
law of Moses are to be despised. We have our civil law under which
we live. . . . The laws of Moses were binding only upon the Jewish
people in that place which he had chosen; now they are a matter of
liberty. If these laws are to be kept there is no reason why we
should not be circumcised too, and observe thewhole ceremonial
law.5
[11] Probably most Christians would agree with Luther's
contention that the civil and ceremonial laws of the Jews were
limited in their jurisdiction to the theocratic conditions of
ancient Israel. Certainly this was the view of Paul in his
controversy with the Galatians. This initial decision already has
some important social-ethical consequences (e.g. on church-state
relations, sabbath regulations and "blue laws," etc.). An even more
basic question concerns the moral law of the children of Israel as
transmitted to them by Moses in the form of the Ten Commandments.
What is the status of this Decalogue in Christian ethical life? In
a significant formal opinion which Luther (together with John
Bugenhagen and Philip Melanchthon) sent to Wolf von Salhausen on
the authority of the law for the Christian, the reply is given as
follows:
This is what should be
preached in this case: First, the law should be preached in order
to expose and punish sin. As Christ says, "Repentance and
forgiveness of sins should be preached in Christ's name" (Luke
24:27); and Paul's words, "The law is our custodian" (Galatians
3:24). . . . Further, God also desires that the law should be
preached for the sake of social peace and order against those
godless and crude men who live immoral lives. As Paul says, "The
law is not laid down for the righteous" (I Timothy
1:9).6
The problem then arises: If the twofold purpose of the law is to
expose sin (usus theologicus) and to prevent crime (usus
politicus), this covers the Christian as a citizen in society and
insofar as he remains sinful before God. But what is the role of
the law for a Christian insofar as he is already righteous before
God? More concretely, are the "Thou shalt nots" of the Ten
Commandments binding upon the Christian? Luther's startling
response is typically dialectical: as Mosaic law - no; as natural
law - yes!
[12] This very profound view is developed most cogently in a
decisive section of the work Against the Heavenly
Prophets. Luther has just concluded a defense of the Christian
freedom of evangelicals either to keep or to destroy former Roman
church images, depending upon their state of faith and the state of
local conditions. To answer Andrew Karlstadt's charge that this
liberty violates the letter of the Mosaic law, Luther replies
vigorously that this does not concern him in the least. The reason:
Christians who are under the dispensation of the New Testament
gospel are not bound by the Old Testament dispensation of the Mosic
law. Christ has liberated us from the law-all the law - from the
minutest ceremonial nicety to the Decalogue itself. Says Luther,
"For Moses is given to the Jewish people alone, and does not
concern us Gentiles and Christians. We have our gospel and the New
Testament."7
[13] If the sectarians reply that the Scripture cited by Luther
(I Timothy 1:9; Acts 15:10; Galatians and Corinthians) abrogates
the Mosaic civil and ceremonial law, but refers in no way to the
moral law of the Decalogue, Luther insists that the whole law of
Moses is of one piece. Rationalistic subdivisions of the law are an
unbiblical invention of later theologians. Viewed religiously, the
law is a way of salvation which must be completely obeyed or
completely rejected. Christians who are saved by God's grace
through faith alone have no other alternative but to disavow all
ways of salvation which do not center in the cross of Christ. This
includes the sub-Christian orientation of the Mosic law in which
God shows his steadfast love only to the "thousands of those who
love me and keep my commandments" (Exodus 20:6):
I know very well that this
is an old and common distinction (between civil, ceremonial, and
moral laws), but it is not an intelligent one. For out of the Ten
Commandments flow and depend all the other commandments and the
whole of Moses. Because he would be God alone and have no other
gods, etc., he has instituted so many different ceremonies or acts
of worship. Through these he has interpreted the first commandment
and taught how it is to be kept. To promote obedience to parents,
and unwilling to tolerate adultery, murder, stealing, or false
witness, he has given the judicial law or external government so
that such commandments will be understood and carried out. Thus it
is not true that there is no ceremonial law in the Ten
Commandments. Such laws are in the Decalogue, depend on it, and
belong there.8
[14] This daring position becomes crucial, of course, when one
views the first commandment in this law-free setting. Does Luther's
position mean that the believer in Christ is also free from belief
in the one true God, beside whom there is no other? Of course not,
cries Luther, but it is not necessary that persons derive the
knowledge of God from the Mosaic law. That there is a God is known
by everyone from the law written on human hearts (Romans 1:19-20).
What kind of loving God he is we only know from the gospel of his
self-revelation in Jesus Christ (John 3:16). In neither case is
Moses necessary, "For to have a God is not only a Mosaic law, but
also a natural law."9
[15] From here Luther moves on to affirm that there is a basic
identity between the law of God in the hearts of persons and the
law of God in the Mosaic Decalogue.10 At bottom, these are
elaborations of the "Golden Rule" (Matthew 7:12), which is itself a
natural law summary of the Old Testament message of the law and the
prophets. Moreover, since God the Creator and God the Redeemer are
essentially one, the content and aim of all this law can be said to
be love, as Paul himself maintains in Romans 13:9. It is this
covenanted law of love - long predating the Mosaic law which "four
hundred and thirty years afterward . . . was added because of
transgressions" (Galatians 3:17-19) - that Christ did not abrogate
but radically corrected and fulfilled (Matthew 5:17). "However, the
devil so blinds and possesses hearts, that men do not always feel
this law. Therefore, one must preach the law and impress it on the
minds of people till God assists and enlightens them, so that they
feel in their hearts what theWord says."11
[16] Luther concludes that insofar as the Ten Commandments
provide us with a concise statement of the natural law governing
all of sinful humankind ("to honor parents, not to kill, not to
commit adultery, to serve God, etc."), they are carefully to be
obeyed. But insofar as they include special matters above and
beyond the natural law which are peculiar to the Jewish theocracy
("legislation about images and the sabbath, etc."), they may be
regarded as time-bound statutes of the Jewish law code which are
not binding upon Christians. Luther writes:
It is as when an emperor or
a king makes special laws and ordinances in his territory, as the
law code of Saxony (Sachsenspiegel), and yet common
natural laws such as to honor parents, not to kill, not to commit
adultery, to serve God, etc., prevail and remain in all lands.
Therefore one is to let Moses be the Sachsenspiegel of the
Jews and not to confuse us Gentiles with it, just as the
Sachsenspiegel is not observed in France, though the
natural law there is in agreement with it.12
[17] The church instructs its members in the Ten Commandments,
therefore, because ". . . the natural laws were never so orderly
and well written as by Moses."13 In no instance should this
practice be used to justify the reintroduction of any Judaic
legalism in Christian daily living. Insofar as the Christian
remains sinful, he is bound only to that part of the Decalogue
which coincides with the natural law (civil righteousness). Insofar
as he is righteous, however, he is free from all law - Mosaic and
natural alike - in the liberating power of God's grace (Christian
righteousness). Consequently, righteous Christians will find it
continually necessary ". . . to make new Decalogues as did Christ,
St. Peter, and St. Paul," in responding faithfully to the Holy
Spirit of the living God.14
[18] It is hoped that the somewhat subtle nuances of Luther's
thought as described here might help to refute the mistaken notion
(particularly common in Anglo-Saxon Calvinism) that Luther was an
"immoral antinomian." Along with what we have outlined, even the
most casual examination of his heated polemics against the
antinomian, John Agricola, should convince any impartial reader
that this simply was not true - any more than it was true of his
theological master, St. Paul. 15An antinomian is one opposed
to all law (anti-Nomos) in the Christian life. Paul and Luther,
however, taught that the Christian is (1) free from the law as a
way of salvation, but (2) bound to the law both religiously insofar
as one acts sinfully, and ethically insofar as one acts
civilly.
[19] We turn next to Luther's careful summaries of the
essentials of the Christian faith in his Large and
Small Catechisms at the end of the 1520s. In our
commentary, we must restrict ourselves to noting the crucial
location of the law (Ten Commandments) in Luther's construction of
the Small Catechism. Contrary to the later practice of
Calvin and his followers (e.g. in the Heidelberg Confession),
Luther treats the Decalogue before, rather than after, the Creed.
Why? - because the law's function is to accuse us before our
confession of Christ, not to guide us after our confession of
Christ.
[20] As early as his work Brief Explanation of the Ten
Commandments, The Creed and the Lord's Prayer (1520), Luther
was convinced of the evangelical interrelation of these basic
elements at the heart of his Catechism. He wrote:
The ordinary Christian, who
cannot read the Scriptures, is required to learn and know the Ten
Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer; and this has not
come to pass without God's special ordering. For these contain
fully and completely everything that a Christian needs to know, all
put so briefly and so plainly that no one can make complaint or
excuse, saying that what he needs for his salvation is too long or
too hard to remember.
Three things a man needs to know in order to be saved. First, he
must know what he ought to do and what he ought not to do. Second,
when he finds that by his own strength he can neither do the things
he ought, nor leave undone the things he ought not to do, he must
know where to seek and find and get the strength he needs. Third,
he must know how to seek and find and get this strength.
When a man is ill, he needs to know first what his illness is -
what he can do and what he cannot do. Then he needs to know where
to find the remedy that will restore his health and help him to do
and leave undone the things he ought. Third, he must ask for this
remedy, and seek it, and get it or have it brought to him. In like
manner, the Commandments teach a man to know his illness, so that
he feels and sees what he can do and what he cannot do, what he can
and what he cannot leave undone, and thus knows himself to be a
sinner and a wicked man. After that the Creed shows him and teaches
him where he may find the remedy - the grace which helps him to
become a good man and to keep the Commandments; it shows him God,
and the mercy which He has revealed and offered in Christ. In the
third place, the Lord's Prayer teaches him how to ask for this
grace, get it, and take it to himself, to wit, by habitual,
comforting prayer; then grace is given, and by the fulfilment of
God's commandments he is saved.
These are the three chief things in all the Scriptures.
Therefore we begin at the beginning, with the Commandments, which
are the first thing, and learn to recognize our sin and wickedness,
that is, our spiritual illness, which prevents us from doing the
thing we ought to do and leaving undone the things we ought not to
do.16
[21] In short, Luther consistently taught that the law always
accuses both in society (coram hominibus) and before God
(coram deo). Of special interest to us is the incisive way
in which Luther consistently develops his view of the "double use
of the law" (duplex usus legis) in his Lectures on
Galatians (1531). He writes:
Here one must know that
there is a double use of the law. One is the civic use (usus
civilis). God has ordained civic laws, indeed all laws, to
restrain transgressions. Therefore every law was given to hinder
sins. Does this mean that when the law restrains sin, it justifies?
Not at all. While I refrain from killing or from committing
adultery or from stealing, or when I abstain from other sins, I do
not do this voluntarily or from the love of virtue but because I am
afraid of the sword and of the executioner.17
[22] The other use of the law is the theological or spiritual
one (usus theologicus), which serves to increase
transgressions. This is the primary purpose of the law of Moses,
that through it sin might grow and be multiplied, especially in the
conscience. Paul discusses this magnificently in Romans 7.
Therefore the true function and the chief and proper use of the law
is to reveal to man his sin, blindness, misery, wickedness,
ignorance, hate and contempt of God, death, hell, judgment, and the
well-deserved wrath of God. Yet this use of the Law is completely
unknown to the hypocrites, the sophists in the universities, and to
all men who go along in the presumption of the righteousness of the
Law or of their own righteousness.18
[23] To protect Christian freedom from the continual threats of
moralism and legalism, Luther then firmly concludes: "And that is
as far as the law goes.19
II
[24] In contrast to Luther, Philip Melanchthon introduced a
"threefold function of the law" (triplex usus legis) for the first
time on Lutheran soil in the 1533 edition of his Christian Doctrine
(Loci Communes). In addition, and therefore in contradiction, to
its civil and theological functions, the law is now acknowledged to
have also a "didactic use" (usus didacticus) for moral instruction
in the sanctification of the regenerate: ". . . that saints may
know and have a testimony of the works which please God."
20
[25] Melanchthon's view of the alleged didactic use of the law
received strong support from an unexpected quarter: the ethic of
John Calvin. In his formidable work Institutes of the Christian
Religion (1536ff), Calvin defended the position that the
gospel and the law share in a substantial unity with each other. He
writes:
Paul therefore justly makes
contraries of the righteousness of the law and that of the gospel.
. . . But the gospel did not so entirely supplant the entire law as
to bring forward a different way of salvation. Rather, it confirmed
and satisfied whatever the law had promised. . . . Where the whole
law is concerned, the gospel differs from it only in clarity of
manifestation. . . . The covenant made with all the patriarchs is
so much like ours in substance and reality that the two are
actually one and the same. Yet they differ in the mode of
dispensation.21
[26] Against the background of this Judaized conception of
salvation-history, Calvin goes on to deal with the role of the law
in Christian life. First he treats the law's civil and theological
functions (though in reversed order) along the familiar lines of
Luther.
[27] Calvin then employs Luther's own language from the earlier
quoted Lectures on Galatians to praise the didactic,
rather than theological, use of the law. In other words, that third
function of the law specifically rejected by Luther - Christ is no
new Moses!" - is now lauded by Calvin as "the principal use, which
pertains more closely to the proper purpose of the law."
[28] Furthermore, when related to the faithful, "in whose hearts
the Spirit of God already lives and reigns," the law of God is said
by Calvin to offer a twofold advantage: (1) its instruction will
bring Christians to a better understanding and confirmation of
God's will, and (2) its exhortation and mediation will excite
Christians to obedience, confirm them in it, and restrain them from
the slippery path of disobedience. (Psalms 1,, 119).22
[29] To summarize, both Melanchthon and Calvin suddenly began to
teach three uses of the law beginning with the mid-1530s. This is
in direct contrast to Luther who had consistently taught only two
uses of the law since 1517. Against this new development, Luther
had his first major opportunity to respond to the new views of
Melanchthon and Calvin in his Smalcald Articles (1537).
Significantly, he did not deviate one inch from his lifelong
teaching on the twofold use of the law (duplex usus legis)
in civilly checking crime and theologically exposing sin. In the
article on "The Law," Luther wrote:
Here we maintain that the
law was given by God first of all to restrain sins by threats and
fear of punishment and by the promise and offer of grace and favor.
But this purpose failed because of the wickedness which sin has
worked in man. Some, who hate the law because it forbids what they
desire to do and commands what they are unwilling to do, are made
worse thereby. Accordingly, in so far as they are not restrained by
punishment, they act against the law even more than before. These
are the rude and wicked people who do evil whenever they have
opportunity. Others become blind and presumptuous, imagining that
they can and do keep the law by their own powers, as was just said
above concerning the scholastic theologians. Hypocrites and false
saints are produced in this way.
However, the chief function or power of the law is to make
original sin manifest and show man to what utter depths his nature
has fallen and how corrupt it has become. So the law must tell him
that he neither has nor cares for God or that he worships strange
gods - something that he would not have believed before without a
knowledge of the law. Thus he is terror-stricken and humbled,
becomes despondent and despairing, anxiously desires help but does
not know where to find it, and begins to be alienated from God, to
murmur, etc. This is what is meant by Romans 4:15, "The law brings
wrath," and Romans 5:20, "Law came in to increase the
trespass."23
[30] Now, however, we are confronted by a puzzling surprise. If
we follow the text of the Weimar edition at the end of the
Second Disputation Against the Antinomians (December 1,
1538), Luther suddenly - and totally inconsistently - apparently
also teaches the law's three-fold use. From these dates we might
conclude that sometime late in the year 1537, Luther had been
converted to the doctrine of the third use of the law which
Melanchthon had taught since 1533 and which Calvin had advocated
since 1536. But closer observation will reveal that something must
be wrong.
[31] Erlangen's Professor Werner Elert has published the results
of his literary analysis of this intriguing mystery in Luther
interpretation.24 His conclusion: this sole
exception in the Luther corpus is a forgery! Luther's
Disputation is extant in nine manuscripts. But only two
contain the closing sentences at issue. One of these manuscripts is
undated. The other goes back to Israel Alekriander, a student who
was not matriculated at Wittenberg until 1550 and therefore could
not himself have heard the Disputation (1538). This man -
or his authority, if he copied from someone else - is a deliberate
forger. He took these sentences almost verbatim from Melanchthon's
Loci in 1533 and then put them into the 1538 mouth of Luther. In
this way the Melanchthonian view of the law's didactic function
also came traditionally to be ascribed erroneously to Luther as
well. Elert thereby disposes of the only place in Luther's
voluminous writings in which he was said to have taught a
three-fold use of the law.
[32] What, then, is the relation of Luther and Calvin to each
other in their ethical thinking on the law? For Luther, the law
plays only a negative and regulative role for the Christian insofar
as one is still sinful. For Calvin (and for the Melanchthonian
Crypto-Calvinists), however, the law also plays a positive and
normative role for the Christian insofar as one is already
righteous.
[33] After decades of controversy on this crucial point, the
Formula of Concord (1577) finally sided with the followers
of Luther against those of Melanchthon. The freedom of the
Christian was undergirded by confessional authority against the
unevangelical alternatives of antinomianism (license) and
legalism.
[34] Article VI deals with the subject entitled "The Third Use
of the Law." While granting that the material is not always lucid
or well organized, its content remains a faithful witness to the
Holy Scriptures. The key to the solution lies in relating the law
to the Christian as already fully justified but not yet fully
sanctified - simul iustus et peccator - at once righteous
in hope (in spe) while yet sinful in fact (in re).
[35] The official decision: insofar as Christians remain sinful,
they are still completely subject to the civil and theological
demands of God's law (vs. Neander's antinomianism). But insofar as
Christians are already righteous, they are completely free from the
bondage of the law to live in God's will of love under the guidance
of the indwelling Holy Spirit (vs. Calvin's
legalism).25
Since, however, believers
are not fully renewed in their life but the Old Adam clings to them
down to the grave, the conflict between spirit and flesh continues
in them. . . . As far as the Old Adam who still adheres to them is
concerned, he must be coerced not only with the law but also with
miseries, for he does everything against his will and by coercion,
just as the unconverted are driven and coerced into obedience by
threats of the law (I Corinthians 9:17, Romans 7: 18,19)
But when a person is born anew by the Spirit of God and is
liberated from the law (that is, when he is free from this driver
and is driven by the Spirit of Christ), he lives according to the
immutable will of God as it is comprehended in the law and in so
far as he is born anew, he does everything from a free and merry
spirit. These works are, strictly speaking, not works of the law
but works and fruits of the Spirit, or, as St. Paul calls them, the
law of the mind and the law of Christ. According to St. Paul, such
people are no longer under law but under grace (Romans 6:14;
8:2).
[36] However, one peculiarity of language employed elsewhere in
Article VI has led to frequent misinterpretations: picturing the
law in the metaphor of a mirror. It is clearly affirmed that God
"employs the law to instruct the regenerate out of it," and that
"the law is a mirror in which the will of God and what is pleasing
to him is correctly portrayed. It is constantly necessary to hold
this before believers' eyes and continually to urge it upon them
with diligence. 26
[37] The "regenerate" and "believers" are Christians, of course,
but these specific texts out of context could refer to such
Christians either (1) insofar as they are already righteous, or (2)
insofar as they still remain sinful. If employed in the former
manner, the law's instruction would be edifying (as in
Melanchthon). If employed in the latter manner, its instruction
would be accusing (as in Luther). That the latter is clearly the
case is indicated in a subsequent reference to the same mirror of
the law: "The law of God prescribes good works for faith in such a
way that, as in a mirror, it shows and indicates to them that in
this life our good works are imperfect and impure" (section 21). In
brief, the law naturally accuses even when it formally
instructs.
III
[38] We conclude with the word of one of the foremost proponents
of this century's Luther-Renaissance, the dean of German Lutheran
systematicians, Erlangen's Paul Althaus. He has offered a
penetrating analysis of the Formula of Concord's Article
VI in his work translated The Divine Command. His
theological conclusion:
We find it impossible to
retain the concept of any "third use of the law". In the first
place, the notion of "law" in theology has been decisively stamped
by the contrast of law and gospel, the idea of the law as accusing
and condemning, or as justifying. . . . In the second place, the
term "law" can easily imply the notion of a legalistic regulation
of the Christian life.. . . In the third place, the notion of "the
law" can also imply that it is only the imperative element in the
Scriptures - without the living example of righteous witness - that
provides moral directives forthe Christian.27
[39] To reconcile contemporary Lutherans, Calvinists,
Gnesio-Lutherafls and Crypto-Calvinists, Althaus suggests that a
good deal of the traditional confusion is semantic. It is too
seldom noticed that the authors of Article VI insist in their
conclusion, "the word 'law' here has but one meaning, namely the
immutable will of God according to which man is to conduct himself
in this life." (section 15). In dealing with "the law" in the
Scriptures, Althaus insists that we consistently distinguish the
"command" of God's loving will (Gebot) and the subsequent
"commandments" of the Mosaic and Judaic expressions of that divine
will (Gesetz). Article VI's delineation of the "Third use
of the Law" must always be read in light of the former
(Gebot), never in light of the latter
(Gesetz).
[40] The immutable will of God is what Althaus designates as
Gebot. As the "command" of the Creator to all creatures
made in his holy image, it is ultimately love. It is the reverse
side of God's Angebot-the offer with which the eternal
love of God originally encounters persons. God's Gebot of
love corresponds to man's original righteousness. It is
supralapsarian, depicting the proper relation between the Creator
and his human creatures before their fall into sin. It is the
human's ethical expression of the image of God.
[41] It is in this wholistic sense of God's Gebot that
pre-exilic Judaism and the Psalms (1, 19, 119) speak of the
Torah, the holy and loving will, teaching and way of life
promised, shared and commanded by Jahweh. God's Gebot of
love is the gracious ground of Abraham's Covenant: it serves as the
intentional base of Jesus' word, "From the beginning it was not so"
and his summary of all the later law and the prophets in the
twofold command of love of God and neighbor; it explains St. Paul's
summary of all the various commandments of the Decalogue in the one
command of love.
[42] Now this divine Gebot, says Althaus, must be
radically distinguished from the Gesetz, the Mosaic and Judaic
laws, which are the intralapsarian forms taken by God's
Gebot in opposition to human sin. In other words, the
Creator's permissive command "You may love" (Gebot)-now in
opposition to sin - takes the form of the Judge's accusing
commandment "You shall love" (Gesetz), and consequently, "You shall
not" worship idols, lie, kill, commit adultery, steal, and so
forth. Its negative formulations presuppose the divine-human
alienation.
[43] The gracious Gebot of Abraham - a unilateral,
unbreakable and unconditional covenant - thereby degenerates into
the Gesetz of Moses-a bilateral, breakable and conditional
contract. That is why the Jahweh of Moses does not graciously love
unrighteous sinners; he rather judiciously rewards the righteous
and punishes the unrighteous, quid pro quo. Abraham's
Gebot is good news, whereas Moses' Gesetz is bad news.
That is also why Paul affirms that Christians are children of
Abraham - by grace through faith - but never children of Moses - by
law through works.
[44] Incidentally, and correspondingly, that is also why Luther,
in his treatment of the Ten Commandments in his Small Catechism,
took the Mosaic Decalogue and relativized its binding authority (as
Gesetz) for baptized Christians. How? - by using the last nine
commandments simply as paradigmatic illustrations of the
solely-binding Gebot of the First Commandment. "We should
so fear and love God that "we glorify and serve him in all of life
- ecclesiastically, domestically, socially, economically,
politically, etc.
[45] In short, argues Althaus, Jesus Christ frees us from
obeying the Gesetz of Moses in order to fulfill the Gebot
of Abraham. No longer living legalistically under Mosaic and Judaic
laws, righteous Christians live obediently within the law - the law
of love.
[46] Althaus suggests that with regard to any "third" use of the
law, we must now always ask, "Which law- Gebot or
Gesetz?" Well, if baptized Christians are simul iustus et
peccator (at once wholly righteous and wholly sinful), it means
that
1) we are totally bound by
the Mosaic Gesetz (both theological and civil uses)
insofar as we are still sinful, but
2) we are also totally free in the Spirit to obey the Abrahamic
Gebot of love insofar as we are already righteous,
but
3) in no case is there any third (didactic) use of the
Gesetz for reborn Christians.
It follows that the law (as Gesetz) always accuses,
whereas the law (as Gebot) never accuses and is joyfully
obeyed as the loving will of God in which the Christian - as
righteous - "delights and meditates day and night."
[47] Our conclusion is that God's gracious foundation for an
evangelical ethic is not any so-called "third" use of the law, but
rather the "second" use of the gospel: i.e., justifying faith
active in sanctifying love. The Formula of Concord (VI)
denies that there is any third use of the law directed to the
Christian - insofar as he is already righteous - to guide one
didactically to sanctified perfection. As acknowledged repeatedly,
however, the Christian - insofar as one remains sinful - still
needs the law in both functions of punishing crime and exposing
sin.
[48] Now if some Lutherans insist on speaking of a "third" use
to describe all this - which is pastorally misleading because of
the term's totally different meaning in Calvinism - then let it be
clearly understood that such a so-called "third" use does not
essentially differ from the first and second uses. It is merely the
pastoral application of the first and second uses of God's law to
Christians as well as to non-Christians. God accuses the "governed"
sin of post-baptized believers as well as the "governing" sin of
pre-baptized unbelievers. The law's "third" use does not differ in
kind or in function, but only in the area of its application -
i.e., on Christian as well as non-Christian soil.
[49] The pastoral and congregational consequences of this
theological struggle are awesome.28 If the unique task of the
Christian theologian is "properly" to distinguish the law and the
gospel, then what has been said here about the evangelical depths
of law and gospel affects everything - absolutely everything - that
the pastor and congregation say and do, whether in their worship,
learning, witness, service or support. The Christian fellowship can
all regenerate in "fruits of the Spirit" or degenerate into "works
of the law." Passion for the law-free gospel will alone determine
whether the Lutheran Church will remain a confessional movement
within the church catholic or slowly succumb to the lures of
American mainline, Protestant denominationalism.
© November 2001
Journal of Lutheran Ethics (JLE)
Volume 1, Issue 3
1 Along with original source analysis, this essay will
summarise and integrate Luther research reported elsewhere in my
Luther on the Christian Home (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press,
1960), and critical introduction to Paul Althaus' The Divine
Command (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966); cf. Werner Elert,
"The Third Use of the Law," The Lutheran World Review I (1949),
38-48; and The Christian Ethos (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, tr.
1957).
2 "We are agreed that the new life of faith in Christ
involves obedience, but there is some question concerning the place
and meaning of law in the new life." Cf. Summary Statement on
"Gospel," point 3, in A Reexamination of Lutheran and Reformed
Traditions published jointly by representatives of the North
American Area of Reformed Churches holding the Presbyterian Order
and the USA Committee of the Lutheran World Federation (New York:
National Lutheran Council, 1963).
3 Elert, "The Third Use of the Law," 38-39.
4 LW 31, 231.
5 Preserved Smith and Charles Jacobs (eds.) Luther's
Correspondence and Other Contemporary Letters, 2 vols.
(Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1913-1918), 2,
223.
6 WA 15, 299.
7 LW 40, 92.
8 Ibid., 93.
9 Ibid., 96.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., 97.
12 Ibid., 98.
13 Ibid.
14 WA 39 (1) 47.
15 See WA 39 (1), 359-584 for Luther's extensive
Disputation against the Antinomians.
16 Martin Luther Works, 6 vols. (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg
Press, 1915-1943), 2, 354.
17 LW 26, 308.
18 Ibid.309. Italics added.
19 Ibid., 313.
20 Melanchthon on Christian Doctrine, trans and ed Clyde L
Manschreck (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), chap 7, "Of
Divine Law," p 127.
21 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed
John T. McNeill, Vol 1 (Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1960), Bk.
II, chap 9, sec 4, and Bk II, chap 10, sec 2.
22 Ibid.
23 The Smallcald Articles (Pt III, Art II) in BC, 303.
24 Elert, "The Third Use of the Law," 38-48.
25 BC, 566-567.
26 BC, 564-566.
27 Paul Althaus, The Divine Command, 45ff.
28 Historical references cited:
1517 Luther, Explanation of the Ninety-five Theses
1523 Luther, On Secular Authority
1525 Luther, Against the Heavenly Prophets
1529 Luther, Small Catechism
1531 Luther, Lectures on Galatians
1533 Melanchthon, Loci Communes
1536 Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion
1537 Luther, Smalcald Articles (Pt. HI, Art. II)
1538 "Luther" (forgery), Second Disputation Against the
Antinomians
1577 Formula of Concord (Art. VI)
1900s Scandinavia: Aulen, Wingren, Nygren, Bring, Pinomaa
Germany: Aithaus, Ebeling, Elert, Schlink
Usus Legis
Duplex Triplex