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If you were to ask the average Reformed Christian to name the three uses of the law, there is a decent chance that the answer might be the moral, the civil, and the ceremonial. In short, some Christians confuse the threefold division of the law with the three uses of the law. The threefold division of the law has to do with the different kinds of laws that we find in the Mosaic covenant—namely, the moral law, the ceremonial law, and the civil law. The three uses of the law are something different. But before we get to that, let us briefly look at the threefold division of the law, commonly delineated as the moral law, the ceremonial law, and the civil law. This is necessary because the three uses pertain to only one of those divisions.
The moral law is contained in its most concise written form in the Ten Commandments, which concern our duties toward God and man. The ceremonial laws, such as those concerning the priests and the sacrifices, were typical ordinances that prefigured the person and work of Christ. These ceremonial laws are now abrogated since Christ offered the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Himself on the cross (see Heb. 7–10). Few today (outside certain strands of Messianic Judaism) argue for any continuing use of the ceremonial law, and even then, such arguments typically contend only for things such as the observation of Jewish festivals.
The civil law consists of those laws given to Israel as a unique political state (for example, the cities of refuge in Josh. 20:7–9). As the Westminster Confession of Faith explains, these laws “expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any other, now, further than the general equity thereof may require” (19.4). The civil law has expired because it had to do with Israel in its unique place under the Mosaic covenant. Within the Reformed churches, however, there are some who argue for a continuing use of the civil law that goes beyond the “general equity” mentioned in the Westminster Confession. Those who hold to the view known as theonomy have often argued for an essentially twofold division of the law rather than threefold. In this twofold division, the civil law is effectively a subset of the moral law. Proponents of theonomy argue that the civil law should be enforced by every nation on earth (with qualifications related to different times, places, and cultures). There are a number of serious problems with theonomy, but the most serious has always been a failure to come to grips with the absolute uniqueness of Old Testament Israel within redemptive history.
The ceremonial laws prefigured Christ and His work, and we are still able to learn much about Him by studying these laws even though they have been abrogated. Furthermore, we can still make use of the general equity of the civil law even though it has expired. To say that the ceremonial laws are abrogated and the civil law has expired is not to say that these laws are worthless. When we discuss the three uses of the law in a technical sense, however, it is important to understand that we are specifically talking about the three uses of the moral law. We are not discussing the ceremonial law, and we are not discussing the civil law.
What, then, are the three uses of the moral law? They are the political use, the pedagogical use, and the normative use. The first and second uses are found in a different order in some discussions. Some will speak of the political use first, while others will speak of the pedagogical use first. The third use of the law (Latin tertius usus legis), however, almost always refers to the normative use.
The first or political use of the law is grounded in texts such as 1 Timothy 1:9, where Paul says that the law is laid down “for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane.” This use of the moral law serves to restrain sin and encourage order in a community. It is the standard according to which wise rulers are to make and enforce the laws of their nations.
The second or pedagogical use of the law is grounded in texts such as Romans 3; 7; and Galatians 3:15–29. In Romans 3:19–20, for example, Paul explains:
Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
This use of the moral law serves to convict fallen human beings of their sin and drive them to Christ as their only hope.
The third or normative use of the law is grounded in texts such as Romans 7:22; 12:2; and Titus 2:11–14. This use of the moral law serves the regenerate, not as a means of justification, but as a norm that defines the way of righteousness. Christians are to be zealous for good works. Paul writes in Ephesians 2:10 that “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” If we were created in Christ Jesus for good works, we must know what a good work is. The moral law provides us with our inspired and infallible definition. The culture wants to reduce ethics to a vague notion of love. Yet we’re told by the Word: “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3). What are the commandments? The precepts of the moral law.
The classic Reformed exposition of the three uses of the law is found in John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (2.7.6–14) and is expanded on greatly in Calvin’s commentaries. Calvin’s discussion of the three uses of the law serves as a preface to his detailed comments on the Ten Commandments. Calvin speaks of the pedagogical use of the law as the first use and the political use as the second use. Calvin then speaks of the third, or normative, use as the principal use of the law. This third use “has respect to believers in whose hearts the Spirit of God already flourishes and reigns” (2.7.12).
One of the most fascinating aspects of Calvin’s discussion of the three uses of the law is its relation to his concept of the natural law, that law written on the hearts of all men. Immediately after his discussion of the three uses of the law, Calvin exposits the moral law as found in the Ten Commandments. At the very beginning of that exposition, Calvin identifies the Ten Commandments with the natural law that is “written and stamped on every heart” (2.8.1). As he explains in his commentary on Deuteronomy 10:12–13, the law “prescribes nothing which nature does not dictate to be most certain and most just.” In other words, the moral law and the natural law are identical. For Calvin, this means that the three uses of the moral law apply to the natural law as well.
Although the natural law written on the heart and the moral law written on tablets of stone are identical in terms of content, the fall has corrupted man’s faculties (2.2.12). It has not annihilated his knowledge of the natural law, however. Calvin explains, “We certainly cannot say that they [the unregenerate] are altogether blind as to the rule of life” (2.2.22). Because it is written on the hearts of all men and is known by all men, the natural law renders all men inexcusable (2.2.22; see also Calvin’s commentary on Rom. 2:14–15).
The written law does not differ in content from the natural law, but the two have an interesting relation in Calvin’s thought. According to Calvin, the Ten Commandments remind us of the natural law that we have suppressed. In his commentary on Psalm 119:52, for example, he writes, “The written law is just an attestation of the law of nature, through means of which God recalls to our memory that which he has previously engraven on our hearts.” This is probably one of the reasons that Calvin appeals to man’s natural sense of good and evil over and over in his commentaries (for example, in his commentary on Gen. 18:2; 37:25). In one place, for example, Calvin explains:
God has never suffered the sense of nature to be so entirely extinguished, by the brutal intemperance of those who desire to sin with impunity, but that their own obscenity shall compel even the most wicked to be ashamed. (Commentary on Gen. 38:14)
The Apostle Paul has told us that “the law is good, if one uses it lawfully” (1 Tim. 1:8). Let us then meditate on the uses of the law so that we might use the law lawfully and in doing so glorify our Father who is in heaven.