Does the Law Really Lead People to Christ by Revealing Sin Only?
The insanely celebrated return to our Reformed roots teaches the following about the law:
We are unable to keep the law perfectly. And since a perfect keeping of the law is the standard for righteousness required to live with God forever, our inability to keep the law perfectly leads us to Christ who must keep/fulfill it for us. As Christians, we continue to use the law in this way to “preach the gospel to ourselves.” The more we use the law to show our innate sinfulness, the more we experience “vivification” (a joyful, perpetual rebirth).
The bogus idea that perfect law-keeping is justification’s standard aside, the most popular text that supposedly supports this idea is Galatians 3:24 –
So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
To make that verse work, “guardian” (paidagōgos) is often translated as “tutor.” That’s a stretch. The word is better translated “protector”:
Among the Greeks and the Romans the name was applied to trustworthy slaves who were charged with the duty of supervising the life and morals of boys belonging to the better class. The boys were not allowed so much as to step out of the house without them before arriving at the age of manhood (Strong’s Dictionary).
Furthermore, the Reformed gospel teaches that the law is used by the Christian for this same purpose in our Christian walk—to continually lead us closer and closer to Christ by showing forth sin. This blatantly contradicts the context of the passage:
Galatians 3:25 – But now that faith has come, we are no longer [added] under a guardian,
Reformed doctrine clearly teaches that Christians are still under the law’s purpose to show us a deeper and deeper need for Christ and His grace as we see our own sinfulness in a deeper and deeper way. In other words, for Christians, God’s word still has a redemptive purpose. This is the basis for Historic Redemptive hermeneutics. However, even in regard to the lost, the showing forth of sin is only one purpose for the law, but far from being the only one.
Primarily, the law shows forth life. This is by far the primary theme of law throughout the Scriptures. The law shows forth the wisdom of God, and the wellbeing (blessings) of those who follow it. The law is also framed in the context of promise much more than it is judgment.
This gets into the major crux of the Reformed false gospel; the fusion of justification and sanctification concepts. The blessings of law-keeping can be experienced by unbelievers and believers alike, but such cannot obtain eternal life. The point is that the law shows forth life as much as it does death. It shows both. Again, this is a constant theme throughout the Scriptures. Who will deny that unbelievers will have a higher quality of life to the degree that they follow God’s law? No, it can’t gain salvation for them, but the law brings horizontal blessings by virtue of its wisdom.
Point in case:
1Peter 3:1 – Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they see your respectful and pure conduct.
In this passage, the husband is not won over by the wife demonstrating how sinful we are and our subsequent need for Christ; she is showing forth the blessings of being a believer. These are blessings that he is also experiencing because the home is sanctified by her presence:
1Corinthians 7:14 – For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. 15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. 16 For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?
So, there is a sense in which the unbelieving spouse is blessed by the believing one. The law not only shows forth sin, but also shows forth life. The latter is the way the law leads people to Christ just as much as the former.
paul
The ABCs of the Protestant False Gospel: Law; Romans 3:21, Life; Galatians 3:21, and Curse; Galatians 3:10
The American church isn’t impressive? Maybe a false gospel is the problem.
A challenge to all pastors; this Sunday, pass out a slip of paper to all your congregants with this question: “Christ obeyed the law perfectly so that we could be saved, true? Or false?” I am willing to bet all slips will be returned with, “true.” If we don’t even know the gospel, how can we communicate it to those who don’t?
A. According to the Reformation gospel, salvation/justification is predicated on a perfect keeping of the law. Hence, Christ’s death and perfect obedience both are needed to secure salvation. This means justification must progress through the Christian life to glorification via the same way we originally obtained it: by faith alone.* This contradicts a justification that is APART from the law.
Romans 3:21, 28
The Calvin Institutes: 3.14.1-21
B. The Protestant gospel therefore propagates a law that can give life; who keeps it is not relevant. A fulfilled law paves the way for salvation. This completely contradicts Pauline apostolic doctrine (see Galatians, particularly 3:21).
C. This means we are all under a curse because we are still under law. Again, who keeps the law is not relevant—we are still UNDER it as justification’s standard for righteousness (Galatians 3:10-14). In the book of Romans, the very definitions of the lost versus the saved are, “under grace” and “under law” (Romans 6:14,15). If the perfect keeping of the law by Christ brings life, life is not imparted separate from the law, and we are still under the law, and therefore under a curse.
Christ became that curse for us and eradicated the law as a standard for our justification (Romans 10:4). Christ is the end of the law “FOR righteousness” (ie., justification) to everyone who believes. Those still under the law will be judged by the law at the great white throne judgment, but the law has NOTHING to say about a righteous standing to those who are under grace (Romans 3:19). Christ didn’t fulfill the law for our justification, he paid the price for its penalty. By that one act we are saved, not that plus multiple acts of obedience (Hebrews 10:12, 14).†
*Like the Catholicism that it came from, perpetual forgiveness of sins to remain saved is efficacious and can only be found in the institutional church, and administered by elders (or priests) and the sacraments.
The Calvin Institutes: 4.1.20-22
Timothy J. Wengert: A Contemporary Translation of Luther’s Small Catechism; Augsburg Fortress PUB 1994, pp.35,49
† This gargantuan problem hasn’t been lost on many Reformed thinkers. New Covenant Theology was created in an attempt to reconcile this problem. It posits the idea that Christ FULFILLD the law by His perfect obedience and replaced it with the “law of Christ.” Depending on the type of camp in this theology, certain parts of the Old Testament law were abrogated, and replaced with new laws that Christ ushered in. Others teach that the law was replaced with the single “law of love.”
However, the results are exactly the same: some law is still the standard for our justification, and the role of the law (or some form of it) remains the same in pre-salvation and post-salvation resulting in antinomianism. The Reformed definition of antinomianism follows:
The law is NOT the standard for justification (the Reformed disagree, but believe Christ keeps it/kept it/fulfilled it/ for us).
The Biblical definition of antinomianism follows:
The role of the law does not change in regard to justification and sanctification.
paul
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