VI. De Tertio Usu Legis
The Three Uses of the Law and the Controversy
The chapter opens by stating the settled threefold purpose of God's Law and then introduces the specific controversy over whether the Law must still be urged upon the reborn.
The state of the controversy. Since it's settled that God's Law was given to people for three reasons. First, so that some outward discipline may be preserved, and fierce, unmanageable people may be restrained, as it were, by certain barriers.1 Second, so that through the Law people may be led to an awareness of their own sins. Third, so that people now reborn — though the flesh still clings strongly to them all — may, for that very reason, have some fixed rule by which and according to which they can and ought to shape their whole life, etc. A controversy has arisen among a few theologians over the third use of the Law: namely, whether the Law must also be impressed upon the reborn, and its observance urged among them, or not. Some have judged that the Law must be urged; others have denied it.
The Reborn Are Not Without Law
The affirmative confession declares that believers, though freed from the Law's curse, are still called to meditate on and observe God's Law, just as Adam bore God's image and law written on the heart before the fall.
THE AFFIRMATIVE POSITION. The sincere and faithful teaching on this controversy. I. We believe, teach, and confess that although those who truly believe in Christ and have sincerely turned to God are freed from the law's curse and compulsion through Christ, they are nevertheless not without law — for the Son of God redeemed them for this very purpose: that they might meditate on God's law day and night and diligently exercise themselves in its observance.✦✦ For even our first parents, even before the fall, did not live entirely without law — it was certainly written on their hearts at that time, because the Lord had created them in his own image.✦✦
The Law Preached to Believers
Thesis II confesses that the preaching of the Law must be diligently urged not only upon the unbelieving and impenitent but also upon true believers who have been justified through faith.
II. We believe, we teach, and we confess that the preaching of the law is to be urged diligently not only among those who do not have faith in Christ and are not yet practicing repentance, but also among those who truly believe in Christ, who are truly converted to God and reborn, and who have been justified through faith.
The Incomplete Renewal and the Need for the Law
Thesis III explains that regeneration in this life is only begun, so believers still struggle with the flesh and the old Adam, making the Law's constant guidance necessary to restrain private invention in worship and to discipline the old nature.
III. For even those who have been reborn and renewed by the spirit of their own mind — that regeneration and renewal, in this life, is not complete in every respect, but only begun. And those believers continually struggle with the flesh — that is, with corrupt nature, which clings to us right up to death. And because of the old Adam, who still remains fixed in the intellect, will, and all the powers of the person, there is a need that the Law of God always shine before the person, lest they devise anything from private devotion's affection in the practice of Religion, and choose divine worship not established by the word of God. Likewise, the old Adam must not act according to its own disposition, but rather against its own will — restrained not only by the admonitions and threats of the Law, but also by punishments and blows — so that the spirit may obey, and surrender itself as captive to it.
Works of the Law and Fruits of the Spirit
Theses IV and V distinguish works extorted by the Law's threats from the free fruits of the Spirit, showing that the reborn live in the Law willingly — what Paul calls the law of Christ and the law of the mind.
IV. Now, as far as the distinction between works of the law and fruits of the Spirit is concerned, we believe, teach, and confess that works done according to the law's prescription are, to that extent, works of the Spirit and are called such, inasmuch as they are extorted from a person solely by the pressure and threats of punishments and of divine wrath. V. The fruits of the Spirit, then, are the works that the Spirit of God, dwelling in believers, performs through reborn men — and those done by believers insofar as they are reborn, so willingly and freely that it's as though they had never received any commandment, heard any threats, or expected any reward.✦ And in this way the children of God live in the law, and according to the standard of the divine law they order their life — this way of living D. Paul is accustomed to call this in his letters the law of Christ and the law of the mind.✦✦
One Law, Two Kinds of Obedience
Thesis VI confesses that God's unchanging Law is presented to all people alike, but the distinction lies in the hearer: the unregenerate obey under compulsion, while believers obey freely by the Spirit.
VI. In this way the one and same law stands, unchanging — namely, the will of God — whether it's presented to the repentant or the unrepentant, to the reborn or the unregenerate. The distinction, however, where obedience is concerned, exists only among people: some, who are not reborn, render to the law whatever obedience it requires — but they do so under compulsion and unwillingly (just as the reborn also do, insofar as they are still carnal). Those who believe in Christ, however, insofar as they are reborn, render such obedience without compulsion, by a free and willing spirit — the kind of obedience that otherwise no threats of the law, however severe, could ever wrest from them.23
Rejection of the Opposing Dogma
The negative section rejects as pernicious the teaching that God's Law should be set before the impious alone and not before devout believers.
The negative use. The rejection of false teaching. Let's therefore reject as pernicious and false the dogma that is opposed to Christian discipline and true piety: when it's taught that the law of God (in the way explained above) is not to be set before the devout and true believers, but only before the impious, the faithless, and those who aren't living in repentance, and that it is to be urged upon these alone.
Read the original Latin
Status controversiae. Cum constet, legem Dei propter tres causas hominibus datam esse. Primo, ut externa quaedam disciplina conservetur, et feri atque intractabiles homines quasi repagulis quibusdam coërceantur. Secundo, ut per legem homines ad agnitionem suorum peccatorum adducantur. Tertio, ut homines iam renati, quibus tamen omnibus multum adhuc carnis adhaeret, eam ipsam ob causam certam aliquam regulam habeant, ad quam totam suam vitam formare possint et debeant, etc. Orta est inter paucos quosdam Theologos controversia, super tertio usu Legis: videlicet, an Lex etiam renatis inculcanda, et eius observatio apud eos urgenda sit, an non. Alii urgendam legem censuerunt: alii negarunt.
AFFIRMATIVA. Sincera et pia doctrina de hac controversia.
I. Credimus, docemus, et confitemur, etsi vere in Christum credentes, et sincere ad Deum conversi, a maledictione et coactione legis per Christum liberati sunt: quod ii tamen propterea non sint absque lege: quippe quos filius Dei eam ob causam redemit, ut legem Dei diu noctuque meditentur, atque in eius observatione sese assidue exerceant. Etenim ne primi quidem nostri parentes, etiam ante lapsum, prorsus sine lege vixerunt: quae certe cordibus ipsorum tum inscripta erat: quia Dominus eos ad imaginem suam creaverat.
II. Credimus, docemus, et confitemur, concionem legis non modo apud eos, qui fidem in Christum non habent, et poenitentiam nondum agunt, sed etiam apud eos, qui vere in Christum credunt, vere ad Deum conversi et renati, et per fidem iustificati sunt, sedulo urgendam esse.
III. Etsi enim renati, et spiritu mentis suae renovati sunt: tamen regeneratio illa et renovatio, in hac vita non est omnibus numeris absoluta, sed duntaxat inchoata. Et credentes illi, spiritu mentis suae perpetuo luctantur cum carne, hoc est, cum corrupta natura, quae in nobis ad mortem usque haeret. Et propter veterem Adamum, qui adhuc in hominis intellectu, voluntate, et in omnibus viribus eius infixus residet, opus est, ut homini Lex Dei semper praeluceat: ne quid privatae devotionis affectu in negotio Religionis confingat, et cultus divinos verbo Dei non institutos eligat. Item, ne vetus Adam pro suo ingenio agat, sed potius contra suam voluntatem, non modo admonitionibus et minis Legis, verum etiam poenis et plagis coërceatur, ut spiritui obsequatur, seque ipsi captivum tradat.
IV. Iam quod ad discrimen operum legis, et fructuum spiritus attinet, credimus, docemus, et confitemur, quod opera illa, quae secundum praescriptum legis fiunt, eatenus opera legis sint et appellentur, quatenus ea solummodo urgendo, et minis poenarum atque irae divinae, ab homine extorquentur.
V. Fructus vero spiritus sunt opera illa, quae Spiritus Dei, in credentibus habitans, per homines renatos operatur: et quae a credentibus fiunt, quatenus renati sunt: ita quidem sponte ac libere, quasi nullum praeceptum unquam accepissent, nullas minas audivissent, nullamque remunerationem expectarent. Et hoc modo filii Dei in lege vivunt, et secundum normam legis divinae vitam suam instituunt: hanc vivendi rationem D. Paulus vocare solet in suis epistolis, legem Christi, et legem mentis.
VI. Ad hunc modum una eademque lex est manetque, immota videlicet Dei voluntas, sive poenitentibus sive impoenitentibus, renatis aut non renatis proponatur. Discrimen autem, quo ad obedientiam, duntaxat in hominibus est: quorum alii non renati legi obedientiam qualemcunque a lege requisitam praestant: sed coacti et inviti id faciunt: (sicut etiam renati faciunt, quatenus adhuc carnales sunt) Credentes vero in Christum, quatenus renati sunt, absque coactione, libero et spontaneo spiritu, talem obedientiam praestant, qualem alias nullae, quantumvis severissimae legis comminationes extorquere possent.
NEGATIVA. Falsae doctrinae reiectio.
Repudiamus itaque ut perniciosum et falsum dogma, quod Christianae disciplinae et verae pietati adversatur: cum docetur, quod Lex Dei (eo modo, quo supra dictum est) non sit piis et vere credentibus, sed tantum impiis, infidelibus et non agentibus poenitentiam, proponenda, atque apud hos solos sit urgenda.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.1.2 — But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
- ↩Gal.3.13 — Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree."
- ↩Rom.2.15 — who show the work of the law written on their hearts, their conscience bearing witness with them, and their thoughts among themselves accusing or even defending them
- ↩Gen.1.27 — So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
- ↩Gal.5.22-Gal.5.23 — But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, Gal.5.23 — gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
- ↩Rom.8.2 — For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.
- ↩Gal.6.2 — Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Notes
- 1 ↩repagulum is a rare word; rendered 'barriers' following the gloss sense of a restraining boundary or bolt.
- 2 ↩The parenthetical '(just as the reborn also do, insofar as they are still carnal)' marks a striking theological tension: even the reborn act under compulsion while still carnal. The contrast is between carnal-compelled obedience (shared by unregenerate and regenerate alike) and the free spiritual obedience proper to the reborn-in-Christ life.
- 3 ↩quatenus rendered 'insofar as' twice to mark the limiting/qualifying force: the reborn still act carnally (quatenus carnales sunt) but obey freely insofar as they are reborn (quatenus renati sunt). The distinction is theologically load-bearing.
Formula of Concord / Book of Concord companion
Doctrine settles in daily doses, not weekend cramming
Chosen Portion pairs a short historic reading with prayer every day, including confessional texts like this one, free on iOS.
The Book of Concord was written to be read and confessed regularly in churches and courts, and Chosen Portion turns that regular confessional reading into a personal daily portion.
- A 3-minute daily reading from historic confessions and devotional works
- Cover one Concord article roughly each week alongside daily prayer
- Free iOS app plus a weekly email digging into one doctrine