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Galatians 6:2
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
In our progressive sanctification, God by His Holy Spirit enables us to work out our salvation in fear and trembling so that we are conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 3:18; Gal. 5:16, 25; Phil. 2:12–13). We are not passive in this, but we are to act, putting sin to death and growing in personal righteousness (Rom. 8:12–13; Col. 3:1–17). In this, not only is the work of the Spirit indispensable, but also what we call God’s moral law.
Westminster Confession of Faith 19 provides helpful instruction on the role of the law in our sanctification. Taking into account the scope of Scripture, it reminds us that the moral law was revealed in the original creation. This moral law consists essentially of the Ten Commandments, which we see even in the garden of Eden. For example, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they violated the eighth commandment by stealing something that did not belong to them and the tenth commandment by first coveting the fruit to “make one wise.” Also, Eve and the serpent both bore false witness, contra the ninth commandment, and our first parents were enticed to become like God in an inappropriate way, contra the first commandment (Gen. 3:1–7). We see the seventh commandment’s prohibition against adultery in God’s establishing marriage (2:24). So the Lord’s moral law was to guide humanity from the very start.
When Adam fell, the moral law became an agent of condemnation for human beings as long as they remained outside Christ. Dr. R.C. Sproul writes, “We know that the power and ability to keep God’s law was lost by Adam, but the obligation to keep the law was never set aside.” God never rescinded His demand for obedience, so non-Christians are under the covenant of works and, like Adam, must keep the law perfectly in order to be saved. For those who are in God’s covenant of grace through faith in Jesus Christ, however, the moral law no longer serves as a means by which we merit our salvation. Instead, it guides us in how to thank God for our redemption. We obey out of gratitude for the great things our Creator has done for us, not to earn eternal life. The moral law, which Paul calls the “law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2), restrains sin in regenerate people, encourages us to keep it for the sake of blessing, and reveals to us the will of God (WCF 19.6).
Those who have not trusted in Christ, on the other hand, are not freed from the moral law either. For them, it remains a covenant of works that condemns them for not keeping it perfectly.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
In Christ, our relationship to the law has changed. No longer does it condemn us for our failure to obey perfectly. It does shed light on our remaining sin, but it does so to drive us again and again to Christ. The moral law also gives us the blueprint for what a life pleasing to God looks like. Let us seek to follow this law today and every day, repenting when we fall short.
For further study
- Deuteronomy 4:40
- Romans 7:12
- 1 John 5:3
- 2 John 6
The bible in a year
- Isaiah 59–61
- 1 Thessalonians 5