Peter Barnes: There is much confusion today about the relationship between the law of God and the gospel of God. Are Christians still ‘under’ the law? If we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, do we still need to keep the commandments of God? Questions like these are important to answer biblically. In the except that follows, Peter Barnes introduces three legitimate uses of the law, and in so doing, points the way to understanding how Christians today are to relate to the law of God. ‘According to John Flavel the Puritan, ‘There is a good and an evil use of the law.’ We read the same thing in Paul, ‘Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully’ (1 Tim. 1:8). The sixteenth-century Reformers, more particularly John Calvin, discerned three major uses of the law: To convict the sinner of sin. Paul declared that the law did not acquit any sinner before God, but
law and gospel
Christian, Do You Love God’s Law?
Sinclair Ferguson: At a PGA Tour tournament in October 2015, Ben Crane disqualified himself after completing his second round. He did so at considerable financial cost. No matter—Crane believed the personal cost of not doing it would be greater (encouraged by a devotional article he had read that morning by Davis Love III, the distinguished former Ryder Cup captain). Crane realized he had broken one of the more recondite rules of golf. If I followed the story rightly, while in a hazard looking for his ball, he leaned his club on a stone. He abandoned the ball, took the requisite penalty for doing so, played on, and finished his round. He would have made the Friday night cut comfortably; a very successful weekend financially beckoned. Then Ben Crane thought: “Should I have included a penalty for grounding my club in a hazard?” Sure enough (Rule 13.4a). So he disqualified himself. (Got it? Hopefully, no readers will lie awake tonight now knowing the trophy was won illegally.) Crane
Want a Miserable Life? Confuse Law and Gospel
Jeff Robinson: What if your church’s elders passed down a fiat that members couldn’t take more than 1,999 steps on the Lord’s Day without facing church discipline? Just one more step would represent a long trip—a no-no on the day God set aside for worship. What if they said you could not carry your Bible to church, since such heavy lifting would too closely resemble work? Anything heavier than a dried fig is strictly taboo, they say. Or what if they added a clause in the constitution and bylaws that members must not leave a radish in salt, since that vegetable might become a pickle, and pickle-making is work? And what if they added subparagraphs to the constitution prescribing disciplinary action for those found guilty of other activities on the Lord’s Day, such as carrying a pen (lest you be tempted to write), carrying a needle (lest you be tempted to sew), helping those sick with non-life-threatening maladies (it can
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