The Law Leads Us To Christ: The Law And Its First Use -- By: Barry J. York

Journal: Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal
Volume: RPTJ 01:1 (Fall 2014)
Article: The Law Leads Us To Christ: The Law And Its First Use
Author: Barry J. York


The Law Leads Us To Christ:
The Law And Its First Use

Barry York

Professor of Pastoral Theology

Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary

“The law must be laid upon those who are to be justified,
that when they are cast down and humbled by the law, they should fly to Christ.”

Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians

As the quote from Luther above indicates, if we are to see men and women come to Christ, then we must first lay the law upon them so that they might see their need. The use of the law to show lost souls their need for Christ historically has been called the first use of the law.

Before we look at how to use the law in this manner, we need to make some working assumptions that will help us do so in a pastoral manner.

Seven Working Assumptions

1) We accept Paul’s declaration that “the law became our tutor to lead us to Christ” (Galatians 3:24). Few Christians argue this point, making this first use then the easiest to defend! Whether reformed or Lutheran, two kingdoms or one kingdom, or even dispensational, most evangelicals will use the law in one way or another, to one degree or another, to seek conviction of sin.

2) When we speak of the law, our primary reference is to the moral law. This law is “summarily comprehended” in the Ten Commandments (Westminster Shorter Catechism 41), but also further revealed by “good and necessary consequence” (Westminster Confession of Faith 1.4) and in the “general equity” (WCF 19.4), or the undergirding moral principles found in the case laws, ceremonial laws, and civil laws.

3) The law of God is not a set of arbitrary rules, but issues forth from the heart and mouth of God Himself. “The law of the Lord is perfect” because God is perfect. “The commandment of the Lord is pure” because the Lord is pure. Hodge says in his commentary on The Westminster Confession of Faith that the law “has its ground in the all-perfect and unchangeable moral nature of God. When we affirm that God is holy, we do not mean that he makes right to be right by simply willing it, but that he wills it because it is right.”1

4) The law was expressed in the Covenant of Works, which was re-emphasized (though not republished!) at Mt. Sinai. Thus, it bound Adam “and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience; promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of it” (WCF 19.1). “The moral law doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to ...

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