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Dedication · Senior Member

3rd Use of the Law

Eriel · Veteran Member

(Third use of the law)

We realize Luther had a problem with the book of James.

Yet if we examine both harmony and contrast between Paul and James, we will simply see that Paul's main emphasis is how the law relates to unbelievers in Christ, while James considers how the law relates to the Christian community.

Thus Paul, like Luther, is what we would call a second use of the law theologian (the law is our school master to lead us to Christ). And James would say "Yes, and the law continues to function as the rule of life and the only viable evidence of true faith."

In the reformation concept of "faith alone" it was formulated in opposition to Rome's idea of merit in human works. And thus "faith alone" was always in reference to the Christ event and His finished work on Calvary as the only meritorious cause of justification and forgiveness of sin.

God imputes to us merit-- that is an action in the mind of God, that is our title to heaven. We cannot earn it.

Just because we can not "pay" for our sins and merit heaven does not mean works do not play a role in whether we are saved or not.
In other words, our response to the gospel is just as much "salvational" as what Jesus did for us. If it were not, then the Unitarians are right that everyone will be heaven no matter what their characters are like.

The Bible is clear.
We are saved by grace through faith in Christ,
and we are judged by our works.

Eriel · Veteran Member

Many today do not understand the third use of the law.

For example, I was asked if I keep the law. I answered: “Yes, I do keep the law. Albeit with many short comings and failures.”

The answer returned: "Sorry to break this to you, Eriel, but there is no almost allowed."

That is a classic example of the denial of the third use of the law. The responder wanted to place the situation into the 2nd use of the law where the law only condemns me as a sinner.
Of course, if my relationship is only with the law and I have not accepted Christ and don't know Jesus and the gospel, he would be correct.

Like most the person doesn't seem to know the difference between justification and sanctification.
Jesus accepts my best efforts, even if they do fall short, because He has already paid for my way to heaven.  I'm not earning it. But to obtain a fitness for heaven I need to be following Him in obedience to His commandments. That is my reasonable service. And these are the ten commandments. Not some none definable mystical commands that have no concrete definition.

Heb. 12:1   I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
12:2   And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

1 John 2:1   My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
2:2   And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for [the sins of] the whole world.
2:3   And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
2:4   He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

Eriel · Veteran Member

Three Uses of the Law

Formula of Concord, Epitome, Article VI

The Law has been given to men for three reasons: 1) to maintain external discipline against unruly and disobedient men, 2) to lead men to a knowledge of their sin, 3) after they are reborn, and although the flesh still inheres in them, to give them on that account a definite rule according to which they should pattern and regulate their entire life."

Of course, Bob, even in the 3rd use a Christian is condemned if he refuses to obey the law. Some explanations fall short of a full comprehension of all that is included in the 3rd use because all three uses are in effect at all times.

Luthereans tend to deny the 3rd use and claim only the second use is needful. This would limit the law and its continual application for a believer and lead to a "once saved, always saved" conclusion.

Only if the third use is continually validated can the second use continue as well. How can the law as a "schoolmaster" (2nd use) have any meaning if the law as a "rule of life" (third use) is not enforced? Without the 3rd use, we can only opt for some "spirit ethic" that has no objective definable guide to Christian ethics.

John Warwick Montgomery ( a Lutherean scholar) has clearly defended the 3rd use of the law even though many Lutherean scholars deny its application.

The Third Use of Law
John Warwick Montgomery

In 1528 — only a decade after the posting of the Ninety-five Theses — Erasmus asserted that "the Lutherans seek two things only — wealth and wives (censum et uxorem)" and that to them the Gospel meant "the right to live as they please" (letter of March 20, 1 528, to W. Pirkheimer, a fellow humanist). From that day to this Protestants have been suspected of antinomianism, and their Gospel of "salvation by grace through faith, apart from the works of the Law" has again and again been understood as a spiritual insurance policy which removes the fear of hell and allows a man to "live as he pleases."

continued....

Eriel · Veteran Member

Answer of Classical Protestantism

In the Protestantism of the Reformation, antinomianism is excluded on the basis of a clear-cut doctrine of the Law and a carefully worked-out relation between the Law and the Gospel. The Reformers assert, first of all, that no man is saved on the basis of Law. As the Apology of the Augsburg Confession puts it: Lex semper accusat ("The Law always indicts"). Whenever a man puts himself before the standard of the Law — whether God's eternally revealed Law in the Bible or the standard of Law written on his own heart — he finds that he is condemned. Only the atoning sacrifice of Christ, who perfectly fulfilled the demands of the Law, can save; thus, in the words of the Apostle, "by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast" (Eph. 2:8, 9).

But God's Law as set forth in Scripture, remains valid. Indeed, the Law has three functions (usi): the political (as a restraint for the wicked), the theological (as "a paidagogos to bring us to Christ"—Gal. 3:24), and the didactic (as a guide for the regenerate, or, in Bonhoeffer's words, "as God's merciful help in the performance of the works which are commanded"). Few Protestants today dispute the first and second uses of the Law; but what about the third or didactic use? Do Christians, filled with the love of Christ and empowered by His Holy Spirit, need the Law to teach them? Are not the Christian existentialists right that love is enough? Indeed, is it not correct that Luther himself taught only the first two uses of the Law and not the tertius usus legis?

Whether or not the formulation of a didactic use of the Law first appeared in Melanchthon (Helmut Thielicke [Theologische Ethik] and others have eloquently argued for its existence in Luther's own teaching; cf. Edmund Schlink, Theology of the Lutheran Confessions), there is no doubt that it became an established doctrine both in Reformation Lutheranism and in Reformation Calvinism. One finds it clearly set out in the Lutheran Formula of Concord (Art. VI) and in Calvin's Institutes (II, vii, 12 ff.). It is true that for Luther the pedagogic use of the Law was primary, while for Calvin this third or didactic use was the principal one; yet both the Lutheran and the Reformed traditions maintain the threefold conceptualization.

An Essential Doctrine

The Third Use is an essential Christian doctrine for two reasons. First, because love — even the love of Christ — though it serves as the most powerful impetus to ethical action, does not inform the Christian as to the proper content of that action. Nowhere has this been put as well as by the beloved writer of such hymns "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say" and "I Lay My Sins on Jesus"; in his book, God's Way of Holiness, Horatius Bonar wrote:

But will they tell us what is to regulate service, if not law? Love, they say. This is a pure fallacy. Love is not a rule, but a motive. Love does not tell me what to do; it tells me how to do it. Love constrains me to do the will of the beloved one; but to know what the will is, I must go elsewhere. The law of our God is the will of the beloved one, and were that expression of his will withdrawn, love would be utterly in the dark; it would not know what to do. It might say, I love my Master, and I love his service, and I want to do his bidding, but I must know the rules of his house, that I may know how to serve him. Love without law to guide its impulses would be the parent of will-worship and confusion, as surely as terror and self-righteousness, unless upon the supposition of an inward miraculous illumination, as an equivalent for law. Love goes to the law to learn the divine will, and love delights in the law, as the exponent of that will; and he who says that a believing man has nothing more to do with law, save to shun it as an old enemy, might as well say that he has nothing to do with the will of God. For the divine law and the divine will are substantially one, the former the outward manifestation of the latter. And it is "the will of our Father which is in heaven" that we are to do (Matt. 7:21); 50 proving by loving obedience what is that "good and acceptable, and perfect will of God" (Rom. 12:2). Yes, it is he that doeth "the will of God that abideth forever" (1 John 2:17); it is to "the will of God" that we are to live (1 Peter 4:2); "made perfect in every good work to do his will" (Heb. 13:21); and "fruitfulness in every good work," springs from being "filled with the knowledge of his will" (Col. 1:9,10).

Eriel · Veteran Member

Secondly, the doctrine of the Third Use is an essential preservative for the entire doctrine of sanctification. The Third Use claims that as a result of justification, it is a nomological fact that "if any man be in Christ he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (II Cor. 5:17). A man in Christ has received a new spirit — the Spirit of the living God — and therefore his relation to the Law is changed. True, in this life he will always remain a sinner (I John 1:8), and therefore the Law will always accuse him, but now he sees the biblical Law in another light — as the manifestation of God's loving will. Now he can say with the psalmist: "I delight in Thy Law" and "0 how I love Thy Law!" (Ps. 119;cf. Ps. land 19). Only by taking the Third Use of the Law — the "law of Christ" (Gal. 6:2) — seriously do we take regeneration seriously; and only when we come to love God's revealed Law has sanctification become a reality in our lives. Ludwig lhmels made a sound confession of faith when he wrote in Die Religionswissenschaft der Gegen wart in Selbstdarstellungen: "I am convinced as was Luther that the Gospel can only be understood where the Law has done its work in men. And I am equally convinced that just the humble Christian, however much he desires to live in enlarging measure in the spirit, would never wish to do without the holy discipline of the tertius usus legis."

The answer to antinomianism, social-gospel legalism, and existential relativism lies not only in the proper distinction between Law and Gospel, as C.F.W. Walther so effectively stressed, but also in the proper harmony of Law and Gospel, as set forth in the classic doctrine of the Third Use of the Law.

Reprinted from John Warwick Montgomery, The Suicide of Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, Inc., 1970), pp. 42~428. This thought-provoking book can be obtained from Bethany Fellowship, Inc., 6820 Auto club Road, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55438. copyright 1970 by Bethany Fellowship, Inc.; reprinted by permission.

Eriel · Veteran Member

No one can understand bible Adventism who does not understand what is written above.

And the emphasis of the 3rd use of the law is the challenge of our message.
Our original message was and is in harmony with TRUE Protestantism.
"Come out of her my people" is still relevant and an important emphasis in our evangelism. Apostate protestantism has rejected the 3rd use of the law.

We don't know our lack of faith and how confining sin is until we begin to appropriate the freedom the gospel offers and find our true freedom in obedience. .

If we deny the third use of the law, the second is soon dead. If the law is not a rule of life by which we will be judged, it can no longer be dynamic as a schoolmaster. And when this is true, the gospel dies with the law.

Eriel · Veteran Member

Most fail to see that bible Adventism is a "third use of the law" system of theology.

The IJ is not for the purpose of determining who has earned and merited heaven as those who vehmently oppose it imply.

The IJ will determine who has been "born again" and accepted the moral obligation of keeping God's law. Children are not released from their father's authority just because they are members of the family.

Neither are Christians released from God's authority because they are "born again".

So, I say this, the faulty view of the IJ does not negate its true purpose.

While justification preceeds sanctification in the initial experience, (because by faith we accept the final verdict before the fact, knowing full well that our "right doing" does not earn us any merit) this does not negate the historical process whereby sanctification preceeds justification in the final judgment.

Only historic Adventism by way of EGW can clearly present the true biblical mechanics of salvation in the context of the cleansing of the sanctuary.

We do not trust in our own righteousness, we do not boast in our holiness, we trust in Christ's merit. Yet, salvation is more than a forensic matter, important as that is. God wants to cleanse the soul temple from sin. It is His mission to cleanse the heart from the defilement of sin,--from the earthly desires, the selfish lusts, the evil habits, the spirit of rebellion against His law, that corrupt the soul.

But God will not do this without a person's consent and co-operation.

Eriel · Veteran Member

We are saved by grace through faith in Christ,
and we are judged by our works.

We are saved by grace through faith in Christ,

Ps. 3:8      Salvation is from the LORD.
Ps. 13:5   But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.
Ps. 18:46 let the God of my salvation be exalted.
Ps. 21:1    O LORD; and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!
Ps. 25:5    thou art the God of my salvation;
Ps. 27:1    The LORD is my light and my salvation;
Ps. 37:39 the salvation of the righteous is of the LORD:
Isa. 12:2   Behold, God is my salvation;
Isa. 12:3   Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation
Isa. 43:11   I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no Saviour.
Acts 4:12   Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
Eph. 2:8   For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

and we are judged by our works.

James 2:11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.
2:12 So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.

Ps. 7:8 The LORD shall judge the people: judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me.
isa. 3:13 The LORD standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people.

Heb. 10:30 And again, The Lord shall judge his people.
Psalms 76:9 When God arose to judgment, to save all the meek of the earth.
Eccl. 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this [is] the whole [duty] of man.
12:14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether [it be] good, or whether [it be] evil.

Isa. 1:27 Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.

Matt. 12:36 But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
12:37 For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

Matt. 25:32-45 Separates sheep from goats...I was sick and you visited me, (etc.) enter joy of the Lord.... I was sick and you did not visit(etc.)...go into everlasting punishment.

Romans 14:10 But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
2 Cor. 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in [his] body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

2 Thess. 1:5 A manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer:

Heb. 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
Heb. 10:30 The Lord shall judge his people.

1 Peter. 4:17 For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
4:18 And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?

Rev. 14:7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

To those who deny the above:

Amos 6:12 Shall horses run upon the rock? will one plow there with oxen? for you have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock:

Mal. 2:17 Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?

Romans 2:2 But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.
2:3 And do you think this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and do the same, that you shall escape the judgment of God?

Eriel · Veteran Member

As I have pointed out, the gospel is not ipso facto salvation. How we respond to the gospel is just as much "salvation" as the gospel itself.

So Paul says, "The gospel is the power of God UNTO salvation." That is, it is the means of salvation and not salvation in and of itself.

We are saved "by the gospel".

It is the legal payment of our debt, and, the moral influence for obedience.

Yet Christ's great sacrifice upon the cross, though fully sufficient to save everyone, cannot save any person who rejects Christ and wilfully continues his life of disobedience and rebellion to God's commands. The legal payment has no value at all, unless the sinner responds by faith and obedience.

The cross is provisional. It saves no one who will not believe.

Faith in its comprehensive application includes obedience. And this means for historical Christanity, the ten commandment law as well as the broader definitions given in scripture which magnify these commandments.