Chapter 7. That the Law Was Given, Not to Hold the People Still in It, but to Nourish the Hope of Salvation in Christ Until His Coming

By this continual process that we have rehearsed, may be gathered, that the law was added about four hundred years after the death of Abraham, not for this intent to lead away the chosen people from Christ: but rather to keep their minds in expectation until his coming, to kindle a desire of him, and to confirm them in looking for him, that they should not grow faint with long tarrying. I mean by this word Law, not only the ten commandments, which prescribe a rule how to live godly and righteously, but also the form of religion delivered by the hand of Moses. For Moses was not made a lawgiver to abolish the blessing promised to the kindred of Abraham: but rather we see how everywhere he puts the Jews in remembrance of that free covenant made with their fathers whose heirs they were, as if he had been sent to renew the same. That was most plainly set forth by the ceremonies. For what were more vain and foolish, than for men to offer up loathsome stink of the fat of cattle, to reconcile themselves to God thereby? To flee to the sprinkling of water or blood to wash away their filthiness? Finally, all the service of God appointed in the law (if it be considered by itself, and does not contain shadows and figures, which the truth should answer to) shall be but a very mockery. Therefore not without cause both in Stephen's sermon, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews is that place so diligently weighed, where God commands Moses to make all things pertaining to the tabernacle, according to the pattern that had been shown him in the mount. For if there had not been some spiritual thing appointed that they should tend to, the Jews should no less have foolishly spent their labor in them, than the Gentiles did in their trifles. Profane men that never earnestly applied the study of godliness, cannot without loathsome tediousness abide to hear so many sundry fashions of usages: and they not only marvel why God wearied his people with such a heap of ceremonies, but also they despise them and scorn them as children's plays. And the cause is, for that they consider not the end, from which if the figures of the law be severed, they must needs be condemned of vanity. But that same figure shows, that God did not therefore command sacrifices, because he would occupy those who worshiped him with earthly exercises, but rather to raise up their minds higher. Which may also plainly appear by his nature: for as he is spiritual, so he is delighted with no other worshipping but spiritual. This do the sayings of the Prophets testify, wherein they rebuke the Jews of sluggishness, for that they thought that any sacrifices were of any value with God. Is that because their purpose is to derogate anything from the law? No, but according as they were true expositors of the law, so they would by this means have men's eyes directed to the mark from which the common people strayed. Now by the grace offered to the Jews it is certainly gathered, that the law was not void of Christ. For Moses did set forth to them this end of the adoption, that they should become a priestly kingdom to God. Which they could not obtain, unless there were had for the means thereof a greater and more excellent reconciliation, than by the blood of beasts. For what is less likely than Adam's children, which by inheritably descending infection are all born the bondslaves of sin, to be advanced to royal dignity, and so to become partakers of the glory of God, unless that so excellent a benefit should come to them from elsewhere than from themselves? Also how could the right of priesthood remain in force among them, who by filthiness of sins were abominable to God, unless they had been consecrated in a holy head? Therefore Peter does very aptly turn that saying of Moses, where he teaches, that the fullness of grace, the taste of which the Jews had taken under the law, was given in Christ: 'You are (says he) a chosen kindred, a kingly priesthood.' For to this end tends that turning of the words to show that they, to whom Christ appeared by the Gospel, have obtained more than their fathers, because they are all endowed both with priestly and kingly honor, that trusting upon their mediator, they may freely be bold to come forth into the sight of God.

And here by the way it is to be noted, that the kingdom which at length was erected in the house of David, is part of the law, and contained under the ministry of Moses. Whereupon it follows, that as well in all the kindred of the Levites as in the posterity of David, Christ was set before the eyes of the old people as in a double looking glass. For, as I said even now, they could not otherwise be before God either kings or priests, which were both the bondslaves of sin and of death, and defiled by their own corruption. Hereby it appears that the saying of Paul is most true, that the Jews were held as under the keeping of a schoolmaster, until the seed came for whose sake the promise was given. For, because Christ was not yet familiarly known, they were like to children, whose weakness could not yet bear a full knowledge of heavenly things, but how they were by ceremonies as it were led by the hand to Christ, is before spoken, and may be better understood by many testimonies of the Prophets. For although it was commanded them, to come daily with new sacrifices to appease God: yet Isaiah promises that all their sins shall be cleansed with one only sacrifice. Wherewith Daniel agreeably says: The priests appointed of the tribe of Levi, did enter into the Sanctuary: but of the only priest it was once said, that by an oath he was chosen of God to be a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. At that time the anointing with oil was visible: but Daniel by his vision pronounces that there shall be another manner of anointing. And, because I will not tarry upon many examples, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews even from the fourth chapter to the eleventh does largely and plainly enough show, that the ceremonies are nothing worth and vain until we come to Christ. As concerning the ten commandments: that lesson of Paul is likewise to be kept in mind that Christ is the end of the law to salvation, to everyone that believes. And another lesson, that Christ is the Spirit that quickens the letter which of itself slays. For in the first of these two, he means that righteousness is vainly taught by commandments, until Christ does give it both by free imputation and by the spirit of regeneration. Therefore he worthily calls Christ the fulfilling or end of the law. Because it should nothing profit us to know what God requires of us, unless he did succor us fainting and oppressed under the yoke and intolerable burden. In another place he teaches that the law was made for transgressions, that is to bring men to humility being proved guilty of their own damnation. And, because this is the true and only preparation to seek Christ, whatever he teaches in diverse words, do all very well agree together. But because he then was in contention with perverse teachers, which feigned that we do deserve righteousness by the works of the law, to confute their error, he was compelled sometimes to speak precisely of the bare law, which yet otherwise is clothed with the covenant of free adoption.

But now it is good to know, how being taught by the moral law, we are made more inexcusable, that our own guilt may move us to crave pardon. If it be true that we be taught perfection of righteousness in the law, then this also follows, that the absolute keeping thereof is perfect righteousness before God, that is, whereby a man may be deemed and accounted righteous before the heavenly throne of judgment. Therefore Moses, when he had published the law, doubted not to protest before heaven and earth, that he had set before Israel life and death, good and evil. And we may not deny, but that the reward of eternal salvation belongs to the upright obedience of the law, as the Lord has promised it. Again, yet it is good to examine, whether we perform that obedience, upon the merit of which we may conceive a trust of that reward. For to what small purpose is it, to see the reward of eternal life set in keeping of the law, unless we further know whether we may by that way attain to eternal life? But herein the weakness of the law does show itself. For because that keeping of the law is found in none of us all, we are excluded from the promises of life, and do fall into curse only. I do not now tell what does come to pass, but what needs must so come to pass. For whereas the doctrine of the law is far above the power of man, he may indeed a far off look at the promises, but yet not gather any fruit of them. Therefore this one thing remains, that by the goodness of them he may the better weigh his own misery, while he considers, that all hope of salvation being cut off, death does certainly hang over him. [reconstructed: On] the other side do press us terrible penal laws, which do hold entangled and fast bound not only a few of us, but everyone without exception: they press us, I say, and do pursue us, with unappeasable rigor, so that we may see most present death in the law.

Therefore if we look only upon the law, we can do nothing but be discouraged, be confounded, and despair, for as much as by it we are all damned and cursed, and kept far off from the blessedness that he offers to them that worship him. Will you say then, Does the Lord so mock us? For how finally does it differ from mocking, to show forth a hope of felicity, to allure and exhort men to it, to protest that it is laid open for us, when in the mean season the entry to it is foreclosed and impossible to come to? I answer: although the promises of the law in so much as they are conditional, do hang upon the perfect obedience of the law, which can nowhere be found, yet are they not given in vain. For when we have learned that they shall be void and of no effect to us, unless God embrace us with his free goodness without regard of our works, and unless we do embrace by faith the same goodness given us by the Gospel, then do they not want their effectualness, yea with their condition annexed. For then he does so freely give all things to us, that he adds this also to the heap of his bountifulness, that not refusing our half-full obedience, and remitting so much as it wants of full performance, he so makes us to enjoy the fruit of the promises of the law, as if we ourselves had fulfilled the condition. But we will at this present proceed no further in this matter, because it shall be more largely to be treated of, when we shall speak of the Justification of faith.

Whereas we said that it is impossible to keep the law, that is in few words to be both expounded and proved. For it is wont among the people commonly to be accounted an opinion of great absurdity, so far that Jerome doubted not to pronounce it accursed: what Jerome thought, I do nothing stay upon. As for us, let us search what is truth. I will not here make long circumstances of diverse sorts of possibilities. I call that impossible, which both never had been, and also is hindered by the ordinance and decree of God, that it never hereafter may be. If we record from the farthest time of memory, I say that there has none of the holy men, that being clothed with the body of death, has ever attained to that full perfection of love, to love God with all his heart, with all his mind, with all his soul, with all his power. Again, that there has been none that has not been troubled with concupiscence. Who can say no? I see indeed what manner holy men foolish superstition does imagine to us, even such whose purity the heavenly angels do scarcely countervail: but against both the Scripture and proof of experience. I say also, that there shall none hereafter be, that shall come to the mark of true perfection, unless he be loosed from the burden of his body. For this point there are open testimonies of Scripture. Solomon said, there is not a righteous man upon the earth that sins not. And David said: every living man shall not be justified in your sight. Job in many places affirms the same. But Paul most plainly of all: that the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. And by no other reason he proves that all that are under the law, are subject to the curse. But because it is written, that cursed are all they that do not abide in all the commandments thereof: meaning, or rather taking it as a thing confessed, that no man can abide in them. And whatever is forespoken by the Scriptures, that must be held for perpetual, yea and necessary. With such subtlety did the Pelagians trouble Augustine, saying that there is wrong done to God, to say that he does command more than the faithful are able by his grace to perform. Augustine, to avoid their cavilation confessed, that the Lord might indeed, if he would, advance a mortal man to the purity of angels: but that he neither has done so at any time, nor will, because he has otherwise affirmed in the Scriptures. And that do I also not deny. But I add further, that it is inconvenient to dispute of his power against his truth, and that therefore this sentence is not subject to cavilation if a man should say, that that thing is impossible to be, of which the Scriptures do pronounce that it shall not be. But if they dispute of the word: when the Disciples asked the Lord, who may be saved, he answered: with men indeed it is impossible, but with God all things are possible. Also Augustine with a most strong reason stiffly defends, that in this flesh we never yield to God the due love that we owe him. Love (he says) so follows knowledge, that no man can perfectly love God, but he that has first fully known his goodness. We, while we wander in this world, see by a glass and in a dark speech: it follows therefore, that our love is imperfect. Let this therefore remain out of controversy, that in this flesh it is impossible to fulfill the law, if we behold the weakness of our own nature, as it shall yet also in another place be proved by Paul.

But that the whole matter may be more plainly set forth: let us in a compendious order gather up together the office and use of the law which they call Moral. Now, as far as I understand, it is contained in these three parts. The first is, that while it shows to every man the righteousness of God — that is, the righteousness which only is acceptable to God — it admonishes, certifies, proves guilty, and condemns every man of his own unrighteousness. For so it is needful that man, blinded and drunk with love of himself, be driven both to the knowledge and the confession of his own weakness and uncleanness: inasmuch as if his vanity be not evidently convinced, he swells with mad confidence of his own strength, and can never be brought to think of the slenderness thereof, so long as he measures it by the proportion of his own will. But as soon as he begins to compare his strength to the hardness of the law, there he finds matter to abate his courage. For however he before conceived a great opinion of it, yet by and by he feels it pant under so great a burden, and then to shake and falter, at last even to fall down and faint. So being taught by the schooling of the law, he puts off that arrogance with which before he was blinded. Likewise he is to be healed of another disease of pride, of which we have said that he is sick. So long as he is suffered to stand to his own judgment, he devises [reconstructed: Hypocrisy] instead of righteousness, with which being contented, he rises up in courage, by I know not what forged righteousnesses, against the grace of God. But as soon as he is compelled to try his life by the balance of the law, then leaving the presumption of that counterfeit righteousness, he sees himself to be an infinite space distant from holiness: again, that he flows full of infinite vices, of which before he seemed clean. For the evils of lust are hidden in so deep and crooked private corners, that they easily deceive the sight of man. And not without cause the Apostle says, that he knew not lust, except the law had said: You shall not lust (Romans 7): because except it be by the law disclosed out of her lurking holes, it destroys miserable man so secretly, that he feels not the deadly dart thereof.

So the law is like a certain looking glass in which we behold, first our weakness, and by that our wickedness, and last of all by them both our accursedness, even as a glass represents to us the spots of our face. For when power fails man to follow righteousness, then he must needs stick fast in the mire of sins. And after sin by and by follows curse. And by how much the greater transgression the law holds us guilty and convicted, with so much the more grievous judgment it condemns us. For this purpose serves the saying of the Apostle, that by the law is the knowledge of sin. For there he speaks only of the first office of the law, the proof of which is in sinners not yet regenerate. And like to this are these two sayings, that the law entered that sin might abound, and therefore that it is the ministry of death that works wrath and slays. For without doubt so much more grows iniquity, by how much more understanding of sin the conscience is struck, because to breach of law is added obstinacy against the maker of the law. It follows therefore that the law arms the wrath of God to the destruction of the sinner, because of itself it can do nothing but accuse, condemn and destroy. And as Augustine writes, if the spirit of grace be absent, the law is present with us, only to this end, to accuse us and kill us. And yet when this is said, neither is the law dishonored thereby, nor anything taken from the excellence thereof. Truly, if our will were wholly framed and disposed to the obedience of the law, then plainly the only knowledge of it were sufficient to salvation. But inasmuch as our fleshly and corrupt nature fights, as an enemy with the spiritual law of God, and is nothing amended with the discipline thereof, this follows: that the law which was given for salvation (if it had found fit hearers) turns to the occasion of sin and death. For since we are all proved transgressors of it, the more plainly it opens the righteousness of God, so much the more on the other side it discloses our iniquity: the more surely it confirms the reward of life and salvation laid up for righteousness, so much the more assured it makes the destruction of the wicked. So far is it therefore that these sayings should be to the dishonor of the law, that they much avail to the more glorious commendations of God's bounty. For truly it hereby appears that we are hindered by our own wickedness and perverseness, that we enjoy not the blessedness of life set openly abroad for us by the law. Whereby the grace of God that helps us without the succor of the law is made so much the sweeter, and the mercy more lovely that gives it to us, whereby we learn that he is never wearied with often doing us good and heaping new gifts upon us.

And whereas the iniquity and condemnation of us all is sealed by the testimony of the law, it is not done for this purpose (if at least we well profit in it) to make us fall down with despair, or with discouraged minds to tumble down headlong. Indeed the reprobate are amazed after that manner, but that is by reason of their obstinacy, but with the children of God, there behoves to be another end of instruction. I grant, the Apostle testifies that we are all condemned by judgment of the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and that all the world may become bound to God (Romans 3:20): but yet the same Apostle in another place teaches, that God has concluded all under unbelief, not to destroy all, or to suffer all to perish, but that he might have mercy on all (Romans 11:32), that leaving the foolish opinion of their own strength, they may understand, that they stand and are upheld by the only hand of God: that they being naked and empty, may flee to his mercy, that they may rest themselves wholly upon it, hide themselves wholly in it, take hold of it alone instead of righteousness and merits, which is laid open in Christ for all men, whoever they are that with true faith do desire and look for it. For God in the commandments of the law appears but a rewarder of perfect righteousness, of which we all are destitute, and on the other side a rigorous judge of evil doings. But in Christ his face shines full of grace and lenity, even toward the wretched and unworthy sinners.

Of profiting, to crave the grace of his help, Augustine speaks often, as when he writes to Hilary, The law commands that endeavoring to do the things commanded, and being wearied with our weakness under the law, we should learn to ask the help of grace. Again to Aselius: The profit of the law is to convince man of his own weakness, and compel him to crave the medicine of grace that is in Christ. Again to Innocent of Rome: The law commands, and grace ministers strength to do. Again to Valentine: God commands those things that we cannot do, that we may learn to know what to ask of him. Again: The law was given to accuse you, that being accused you should fear, that fearing you should seek pardon, and not presume of your own strengths. Again: The law was given for this purpose, of great to make little, to show that you have no strength of your own to righteousness, that you as poor, unworthy and needy, should flee to grace. After, he turns his speech to God and says: Do so Lord, do so merciful Lord, command that which cannot be fulfilled: indeed, command that which cannot but by your grace be fulfilled, that when men cannot fulfill it by their own strength, every mouth may be stopped, and no man may think himself great. Let all be little ones, and let all the world be guilty before you. But I am not wise to heap up so many testimonies, since that holy man has written a book properly of that matter, which he has entitled, Of the Spirit and Letter. The second profiting he does not so vividly describe, either because he knew that it did hang upon the former, or because he did not so well understand it, or because he wanted words with which distinctly and plainly to express his meaning of it, which yet he rightly conceived: but this first office of the law is not idle even in the reprobate also. For though they go not thus far forward with the children of God, that after the throwing down of their flesh they be renewed and flourish again in the inward man, but amazed with the first terror do lie still in desperation: yet it serves to show forth the equity of God's judgment, that their consciences be tossed with such [reconstructed: waves]. For they ever willingly desire to make shift against the judgment of God. Now while the same is not yet opened, they yet so astonished with the testimony of the law and their conscience do reveal in themselves what they have deserved.

The second office of the law, is that they which are touched with no care of that which is just and right, unless they be compelled, when they hear the terrible penal ordinances therein, may be restrained at least with fear of punishment. But they are restrained, not because their inward mind is moved or affected with it, but because being as it were bridled, they withhold their hand from outward work, and do keep in their perverseness within them, which otherwise they would have outrageously poured out. Thereby they become truly neither the better, nor the more righteous before God. For although being hindered either by fear or by shame, they dare not put that in practice which they have conceived in their mind, nor openly blow abroad the rages of their lust: yet they have not a heart framed to the fear and obedience of God, indeed the more that they hold back themselves, so much the more strongly within they are kindled, they burn, they boil, ready to do anything, and to break forth any way, if this terror of the law did not stay them. And not that only, but also they most spitefully hate the law, and do detest God the lawmaker, so that if they could, they would very gladly take him away, whom they cannot abide, neither when he commands rightful things, nor when he revenges himself upon the despisers of his majesty. In some indeed more darkly, and in some more plainly, but in all generally that are not regenerate, is this feeling, that they are drawn to the following of the law not by willing submission, but resisting and against their wills, only by violence of fear. But this constrained and enforced righteousness is necessary for the public common state of men, the quiet of which is herein provided for, while order is taken that all things be not confounded with uproar, which would come to pass, if all things were lawful for all men. Indeed it is not unprofitable for the children of God to be exercised with this schooling, so long as they before their calling being yet destitute of the spirit of sanctification, are still wanton with the folly of the flesh. For when they are drawn back, though it be but from outward licentiousness, by the terror of God's vengeance, although for that they are not yet tamed in mind, they go for the present time but a little forward, yet they partly grow in practice to bear the yoke of Christ, so that when they are called, they be not altogether rude and raw to discipline, as to a thing unknown. This office the Apostle seems properly to have touched, when he says that the law was not set for the righteous man, but for the unrighteous and disobedient, wicked and sinners, evil doers and profane men, slayers of their parents, and murderers, fornicators, Sodomites, robbers of children, liars and perjured men, and whatever else is against sound doctrine (1 Timothy 1:9). For he says, that it is a stay to the wild outraging lusts of the flesh, that else would stray abroad without measure.

But to both may that be applied which he says in another place, that the law was to the Jews a schoolmaster to Christ, for there are two sorts of men, whom with her schooling she leads by the hand to Christ (Galatians 3:23). The one sort, of whom we first spoke, because they are too full of confidence of their own strength or righteousness, are not fit to receive the grace of Christ, unless they be first emptied, therefore the law brings them down to humility by knowledge of themselves, that so they may be prepared to desire that which before they thought they wanted not. The other sort need a bridle to be held back, lest they so give loose the reins to the wantonness of their flesh, that they fall off altogether from all study of righteousness. For where the spirit of God does not yet govern, there sometimes lusts do so boil, that it is in great peril lest they throw down the soul that is subject to them into the forgetfulness and despising of God: and so would it come to pass if God did not with this remedy provide for it. Therefore those whom he has appointed to the inheritance of his kingdom, if he does not by and by regenerate them, he keeps them by the works of the law under fear, until the time of his visitation, not that chaste and pure fear such as ought to be in children, but yet a profitable fear for this that they may according to their capacity be taught by introduction to true godliness. Of this we have so many proofs, that it needs no example. For whoever have at any time continued in not knowing of God, will confess that this happened to them, that they were held by the bridle of the law in some fear and obedience of God, until the time that being regenerate by his spirit, they began heartily to love him.

The third use, which is also the principal use, and more nearly looks to the proper end of the law, concerns the faithful, in whose hearts already lives and reigns the Spirit of God. For although they have the law written and graven in their hearts by the finger of God, that is to say, be so affected and minded by the direction of the Spirit that they desire to obey God, yet do they still two ways profit in the law. For it is to them a very good means, by which they may daily better and more assuredly learn what is the will of the Lord which they aspire to, and may be confirmed in the understanding thereof. As if a servant be already bent with all the affection of his heart, to please his Lord: yet has he need diligently to search out and mark the fashions of his Lord, that he may frame and apply himself to them. And let none of us exempt himself from this need. For no man has hitherto attained to so great wisdom, but that he may by daily instruction of the law get new profit in proceeding to the purer knowledge of God's will. Then because we need not only doctrine but also exhortation: this other profit shall the servant of God take by the law, to be by the often meditation thereof stirred up to obedience, to be strengthened in it, to be held back from the slippery way of offending. For after this manner, must these holy ones drive forward themselves, which with how great cheerfulness so ever they travail Godward according to the Spirit, yet they are always laden with the sluggishness of the flesh, that they proceed not with such full readiness as they ought. To this flesh is the law given as a whip, that like a slow and dull ass it may be pricked forward to work, indeed to the spiritual man, because he is not yet dispatched of the burden of the flesh, it shall be a continual prick that suffers him not to stand still. Even to this use David had respect, when he did set forth the law with those notable praises: The law of the Lord is undefiled, converting souls: the justices of the Lord are upright, and cheering hearts: the commandment of the Lord is bright, that gives light to the eyes, etc. Again: A lantern to my feet is your word, and a light to my paths — and innumerable other things that he rehearses in all that Psalm. Neither are these things against the sayings of Paul, wherein is showed, not what use the law ministers to the regenerate, but what it is able to give to man of itself. But here the Prophet reports with how great profit the Lord does instruct them by reading of his law, to whom he inwardly inspires a readiness to obey. And he takes hold not of the commandments only, but also the promise of grace annexed to the things, which only makes the bitterness to grow sweet. For what were less amiable than the law, if it should only with requiring and threatening trouble souls carefully with fear, and vex them with terror? But especially David shows, that he in the law conceived the Mediator, without whom there is no delight or sweetness.

Which while some unskillful men cannot discern, they boldly shake away all Moses, and bid the two tables of the law farewell, because they think it is not agreeable for Christians to cleave to that doctrine that contains the ministration of death. Let this profane opinion depart far out of our minds. For Moses taught excellently well, that the same Law which with sinners can engender nothing but death, ought in the holy to have a better and more excellent use. For thus, when he was ready to die, he openly said to the people: Lay your hearts upon all the words that I do testify to you this day, that you may commit them to your children, that you may teach them to keep, to do, and to fulfill all the things that are written in the volume of this law, because they are not vainly commanded you, but that every one should live in them. But if no man can deny that there appears in it an absolute pattern of righteousness, then either we must have no rule at all to live justly and uprightly, or else it is not lawful for us to depart from it. For there are not many but one rule of life which is perpetual and cannot be bowed. Therefore, whereas David makes the life of a righteous man continually busied in the meditation of the law, let us not refer that to one age only, because it is most fitting for all ages to the end of the world. And let us not therefore be frayed away, or flee from being instructed by it, because it appoints a much more exact holiness than we shall perform, while we shall carry about the person of our body. For now it executes not against us the office of a rigorous exacter that will not be satisfied, but with his full task performed: but in this perfection to which it exhorts us, it shows us a mark, toward which in all our life to endeavor, is no less profitable for us, than agreeable with our duty. In which endeavor if we fail not, it is well. For all this life is a race, the space whereof being run out, the Lord will grant us to attain to that mark, toward which our endeavors do travail from afar.

Now therefore, whereas the law has toward the faithful a power to exhort, not such a power as may bind their consciences with curse, but such as with often calling on, may shake off sluggishness and pinch imperfection to awake it: many when they mean to express this deliverance from the curse thereof, do say, that the law is abrogated to the faithful. (I speak yet of the moral law) not that it does no more command them that which is right, but only that it be no more to them that which it was before, that is, that it do no more, by making afraid and confounding their consciences, damn and destroy them. And truly such an abrogation of the law, Paul does plainly teach, and also that the Lord himself spoke of it, appears by this that he would not have confuted that opinion that he should dissolve the law, unless it had been commonly received among the Jews. But since it could not rise causelessly and without any color, it is likely that it grew upon false understanding of his doctrine, as in a manner all errors are wont to take occasion of truth, but lest we should also stumble at the same stone, let us diligently make distinction, what is abrogated in the law, and what remains yet in force. Where the Lord protests that he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it: and that till heaven and earth pass away, no one jot of the law should pass away, but that all should be fulfilled (Matthew 5:16): he sufficiently [reconstructed: confirms] that by his coming nothing should be taken away from the outward keeping of the law. And for good cause: since he came rather for this end, to heal offenses. Therefore the doctrine of the law remains for all Christians, inviolable, which by teaching, admonishing, rebuking and correcting may frame and prepare us to every good work.

As for those things that Paul speaks of the curse, it is evident that they belong not to the very instruction, but only to the force of binding the conscience. For the law not only teaches, but also with authority requires that which it commands. If it be not performed, indeed if duty be [reconstructed: slacked] in any part, it bends her thunderbolt of curse. For this cause the Apostle says, that all they that are of the works of the law, are subject to the curse, because it is written: Cursed is every one, that fulfills not all (Galatians 3:10; Deuteronomy 27:26). And he says, that they be under the works of the law, that do not set righteousness in the forgiveness of sins, by which we are loosed from the rigor of the law. He teaches therefore that we must be loosed from the bonds of the law, unless we will miserably perish under them. But from what bonds? The bonds of that rigorous and sharp exacting, that releases nothing of the extremity of the law, and suffers not any offense unpunished. From this curse (I say) that Christ might redeem us, he was made a curse for us. For it is written: Cursed is every one that hangs upon the tree (Galatians 3:13; Deuteronomy 21:22-23). In the chapter following indeed he says, that Christ was made subject to the law, to redeem them that were under the law: but all in one meaning, for he by and by adds, that by adoption we might receive the right of children. What is that? That we should not be oppressed with perpetual bondage, that should hold our conscience fast strained with anguish of death. In the meantime this always remains unshaken, that there is nothing withdrawn of the authority of the law, but that it ought still to be received of us with the same reverence and obedience.

Of ceremonies it is otherwise, which were abrogated not in effect, but in use only. And this, that Christ by his coming has made an end of them, does so nothing diminish their holiness, that it rather sets them forth and makes them glorious. For as they should have given but a vain show to the old people, unless the power of the death and resurrection of Christ had been shown therein, so if they had not ceased, we could not at this day discern to what purpose they were ordained. Therefore Paul, to prove that the keeping of them, now is not only superfluous, but also hurtful, teaches that they were shadows whereof we have the body in Christ (Colossians 2:17). We see therefore how in the abolishing of them, the truth shines better than if they did still afar off, and as it were, with a veil spread before show a figure of Christ that has already plainly appeared. Therefore the veil of the Temple at the death of Christ was torn in two pieces and fell down: because now the true and express image of the heavenly good things was come to light, which before had been but imperfectly begun with dark rude drafts, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says (Hebrews 10:1; Luke 16:16). Hereunto serves the saying of Christ, that the law and the Prophets were to the time of John, and that from that time forward, the Kingdom of God began to be joyfully preached: not meaning that the holy fathers were without the preaching that contains the hope of salvation, and of eternal life, but because afar off, and under shadows only they did behold that which we at this day see in the full light. But why it behooved that the Church of God should climb up higher from those first instructions, John the Baptist declares: for that the law is given by Moses, but grace and truth began by Jesus Christ (John 1:17). For although the purging of sins were truly promised in the old sacrifices, and the Ark of the covenant was a sure pledge of the fatherly favor of God, yet all this had been but a shadow, if it had not been grounded upon the grace of Christ, wherein is found perfect and eternal steadfastness. Let this then remain sure, that although the ceremonial usages of the law have ceased to be observed, yet by the end of them it is the better known, how great was the profit of them before Christ's coming, which in taking away the use of them has sealed the force and effect of them with his death.

Somewhat more difficult is the point that Paul notes: He has renewed you together with him, when you were dead by sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, forgiving you of all your offenses, blotting out the handwriting that remained in the decrees against us, which was contrary to us, and he has taken it away, fastening it to the cross, etc. For he seems to stretch the abolishing of the law somewhat further, so that now we have nothing to do with the decrees thereof. For they err that expound it only of the moral law, whose unappeasable rigor rather than doctrine thereof they think to be taken away. Some more deeply weighing the words of Paul do see that it is properly spoken of the ceremonial law, and do show that this word does more than once so signify in Paul. For to the Ephesians he says thus: He is our peace, that makes both to be one, that makes void the law of commandments consisting in the decrees, that he might make two in himself into one new man. It is no doubt that he speaks there of the ceremonies, for he calls it the partition whereby the Jews were separated from the Gentiles: therefore I grant that those first expositors are rightly rebuked by these: but yet I think that these do not sufficiently well set forth the mind of the Apostle. For I do not like at all to have these two places compared together in all points — when his purpose was to advise the Ephesians of their adoption into the fellowship of Israel, he teaches that the obstacle is taken away, whereby they were before time kept apart, which was in ceremonies. For the observances of washings and sacrifices, with which the Jews were made holy to the Lord, did separate them from the Gentiles. But in the epistle to the Colossians, who does not see that [reconstructed: it] touches a higher mystery? Indeed the point of the disputation there is of Mosaic observations, to which the false Apostles did labor to drive the Christian people. But, as in the Epistle to the Galatians he draws that controversy further off, and as it were brings it back to the first head thereof, so does he also in this place. For if in the ceremonies you consider nothing else but a necessity of that use of them, to what purpose was it to call it a handwriting against us? Moreover, to set the whole sum in a manner of our redemption in this, that it should be cancelled? Therefore the matter itself shows that here is some more secret thing to be considered. And I trust that I have attained the natural understanding of it, if at least this be granted me to be true, which in one place is most truly written by Augustine — indeed that he has taken out of the plain words of the Apostle — that in the Jewish ceremonies was rather a confession than a cleansing of sins. For what did they else by sacrifices, but confess themselves in their conscience guilty of death, that did put cleansings in their place? What did they with their cleansings, but testify themselves to be unclean? And so was the handwriting of their sin and uncleanness often renewed by them, but there was no discharge in that testifying thereof. For which cause the Apostle writes that at length by means of the death of Christ was performed the redemption of the offenses that remained under the old Testament. Therefore the Apostle does worthily call the handwritings against those that observe them: for inasmuch as by them there did openly seal to their own damnation and uncleanness. And it hinders not, that they were also partakers of the same grace with us. For this they obtained in Christ, not in the ceremonies, which there the Apostle does separate from Christ, because being at that time used, they did obscure the glory of Christ. Thus we learn that the ceremonies, if they be considered by themselves, are well and fittly called handwritings against the salvation of men, because they were as solemn instruments that testified their being bound. When the false Apostles went about to bind the Christian Church to them again, Paul did not without cause admonish the Colossians, by drawing their significance from them further off, to what point they should fall back again, if they suffered themselves in such sort to be yoked by them. For with that was the benefit of Christ wrested away from them, inasmuch as he having once performed the eternal cleansing, has utterly abolished these daily observations, which were only of force to seal sins, but could do nothing to the putting away of them.

From the entire sequence of events we have traced, we can conclude that the law was added about four hundred years after Abraham's death — not to draw the chosen people away from Christ, but to keep their minds in anticipation of His coming, to kindle in them a longing for Him, and to strengthen their hope so they would not grow weary from the long wait. By 'the law' I mean not only the Ten Commandments, which lay out the rule for holy and righteous living, but also the full form of religion delivered through Moses. Moses was not made a lawgiver to abolish the blessing promised to Abraham's descendants. On the contrary, we see that everywhere he reminds the Jews of the free covenant made with their fathers — the covenant whose heirs they were — as if he had been sent to renew it. This was set forth most plainly through the ceremonies. What could be more futile and foolish than for people to offer up the repulsive smell of burning animal fat in order to reconcile themselves to God? Or to seek the washing away of their moral filth through the sprinkling of water or blood? In short, all the religious rituals prescribed by the law — if considered on their own, apart from the shadows and figures that pointed to a corresponding reality — would amount to nothing but empty mockery. It is not without reason that both Stephen's sermon and the letter to the Hebrews give careful attention to the passage where God commands Moses to make everything concerning the tabernacle according to the pattern shown him on the mountain. For if these things had not pointed toward something spiritual, the Jews would have wasted their labor on them just as uselessly as the Gentiles wasted theirs on their worthless rituals. Those who have never seriously pursued godliness cannot endure the long lists of various rites and regulations without tedium. They not only wonder why God burdened His people with such a heap of ceremonies but even mock and ridicule them as childish games. The reason is that they do not consider the purpose behind them — and if the figures of the law are separated from that purpose, they must indeed be condemned as empty. But those very figures show that God did not command sacrifices in order to occupy His worshippers with earthly exercises; He intended to lift their minds to something higher. This is also evident from His nature: since He is spirit, He is pleased with no worship except spiritual worship. The prophets testify to this when they rebuke the Jews for sluggishness — for thinking that God found any value in sacrifices in themselves. Did the prophets intend to undermine the law? No — as true interpreters of the law, they wanted to direct people's eyes toward the goal from which the common people had strayed. From the grace offered to the Jews, it is certain that the law was not without Christ. Moses set forth this goal of their adoption: that they should become a priestly kingdom to God. But they could not attain this unless they had access to a greater and more excellent reconciliation than the blood of animals could provide. What is less likely than Adam's children — all born into slavery to sin through inherited corruption — being raised to royal dignity and made partakers of God's glory? Such an extraordinary benefit could only come to them from a source outside themselves. And how could the right of priesthood remain in force among people who were abominable to God because of their sins, unless they had been consecrated in a holy head? Peter therefore rightly applies Moses's words to show that the fullness of grace — of which the Jews had only a taste under the law — was fully given in Christ: 'You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood.' The purpose of that reworking is to show that those to whom Christ appeared through the Gospel have received more than their fathers — because they are all endowed with both priestly and kingly honor, so that, trusting in their Mediator, they may boldly come before God.

We should also note in passing that the kingdom eventually established in the house of David was part of the law and fell under the ministry of Moses. It follows that Christ was set before the eyes of the old covenant people as in a double mirror — both in the tribe of Levi and in the descendants of David. As I said, they could not stand before God as either kings or priests — bound as they were by sin and death and defiled by their own corruption — apart from Christ. This confirms Paul's statement that the Jews were held under the supervision of a guardian until the seed came for whose sake the promise was given. Because Christ had not yet come in person, they were like children — too young and weak to bear the full weight of heavenly knowledge. How the ceremonies led them by the hand to Christ has already been explained and can be understood even more clearly from the testimony of the prophets. Although the people were commanded to come daily with new sacrifices to appease God, Isaiah promised that all their sins would be cleansed with one single sacrifice. Daniel speaks in harmony with this: the priests from the tribe of Levi entered the sanctuary daily; but of the one great Priest it was declared once for all, by an oath, that He was chosen by God to be a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. In that era the anointing with oil was visible and external; but through his vision Daniel announced that a different kind of anointing was coming. I will not work through many more examples, since the author of the letter to the Hebrews, from chapter four through chapter eleven, has shown at length and clearly enough that the ceremonies are worthless and empty until we come to Christ. Concerning the Ten Commandments: Paul's lesson must also be kept in mind — that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. And another lesson: Christ is the Spirit who gives life to the letter that kills on its own. In the first of these two, Paul means that righteousness is taught in vain by commandments until Christ grants it — both through free imputation and through the Spirit of regeneration. He rightly calls Christ the fulfillment and end of the law, because knowing what God requires of us would do us no good unless He came to help us when we are fainting and crushed under an unbearable burden. Elsewhere Paul teaches that the law was given for transgressions — that is, to bring people to humility by showing them their own guilt and condemnation. Since this is the true and only preparation for seeking Christ, everything Paul says in various passages fits together consistently. At times Paul was forced to speak narrowly of the bare law, because he was opposing false teachers who claimed that we earn righteousness through the works of the law — yet in reality the law is always clothed with the covenant of free adoption.

It is important to understand how the moral law, by showing us our guilt, leaves us without excuse and drives us to seek pardon. If it is true that the law teaches perfect righteousness, then it follows that perfectly keeping the law is perfect righteousness before God — the kind by which a person may be judged righteous at God's heavenly tribunal. Therefore, when Moses published the law, he did not hesitate to declare before heaven and earth that he had set before Israel life and death, good and evil. We cannot deny that eternal salvation belongs as its reward to perfect obedience to the law, just as the Lord has promised. But we must also examine whether we actually render that obedience — obedience upon the merit of which we could reasonably hope for that reward. It is of very little use to see eternal life set as the reward for keeping the law if we cannot know whether we can actually reach eternal life by that path. And here the weakness of the law reveals itself. Because none of us keeps the law, we are shut out from the promises of life and fall under the curse alone. I am not describing what sometimes happens — I am describing what must inevitably happen. The law's demands far exceed human ability, so a person may see the promises from a distance but never gather any fruit from them. Only one thing remains: through the law's goodness, a person may better understand his own misery — recognizing that all hope of salvation has been cut off and that death certainly hangs over him. On the other side, the terrible penalty laws press down on us — not just a few of us, but every single person without exception. They pursue us with relentless severity, so that we see imminent death staring at us through the law.

Therefore, if we look only at the law, we can do nothing but be discouraged, confused, and driven to despair — because through it we are all condemned and cursed and shut out from the very blessedness it offers to those who worship God. Will someone ask: Is the Lord mocking us? How does it differ from mockery to hold out the hope of happiness, to call and encourage people toward it, and to declare that it lies open before them — while at the same time the entrance to it is blocked and impossible to reach? My answer is this: although the conditional promises of the law depend on perfect obedience to the law — which no one renders — they are not given in vain. When we have learned that those promises will be empty and useless for us unless God embraces us with His free goodness apart from any regard for our works, and unless we receive by faith that same goodness given to us in the Gospel, then even the conditional promises are not without their effect. God freely gives us all things, and to the overflowing of His generosity He adds this: He does not refuse our imperfect obedience but forgives whatever it falls short of full performance — and so He allows us to enjoy the fruit of the law's promises as if we ourselves had fulfilled the condition. We will not pursue this matter further here, since it will be treated at greater length when we come to discuss the justification of faith.

Our claim that it is impossible to keep the law needs to be explained and proved briefly. This view has long been considered absurd by many people — so much so that Jerome did not hesitate to call it accursed. What Jerome thought is not my concern. Let us seek what is true. I will not labor through various philosophical distinctions about the kinds of possibility. I call something impossible if it has never happened and if God's own decree prevents it from ever happening. Looking back as far as human memory reaches, I say this: not one holy person, while clothed in a body of death, has ever reached that full perfection of love — loving God with all his heart, all his mind, all his soul, and all his strength. Nor has there been anyone who was not troubled by the pull of sinful desire. Who can deny this? I know what kind of saintly figures foolish superstition imagines for us — people whose purity the angels of heaven could hardly match — but this is contrary to both Scripture and the testimony of experience. I also say that no one in the future will reach the mark of true perfection while still burdened with a mortal body. The testimony of Scripture on this point is plain. Solomon said: 'There is not a righteous man on earth who does not sin.' David said: 'No living man will be justified before You.' Job affirms the same in many places. Most clearly of all, Paul says that the flesh desires against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. And Paul's proof that all who are under the law are subject to the curse rests on this very point: because it is written that cursed are all who do not abide in all the commandments of the law — taking it as a given that no one is able to abide in them. Whatever Scripture declares must be held as permanent and necessary. The Pelagians once challenged Augustine with the clever argument that it was an injustice to God to say He commands more than the faithful are able to perform by His grace. Augustine, to avoid their trap, conceded that the Lord could, if He chose, raise a mortal man to the purity of angels — but that He has never done so and never will, because He has declared otherwise in Scripture. I do not deny that either. But I add this: it is inappropriate to argue about God's power in opposition to His truth. Therefore this statement is not open to caviling: that something is impossible if Scripture declares it will not be. When the disciples asked the Lord who could be saved, He answered: 'With men it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.' Augustine also argues powerfully that in this flesh we never render to God the full love we owe Him. Love, he says, follows knowledge — and no one can perfectly love God unless he has fully known God's goodness. While we journey in this world, we see through a glass and in a dim reflection; it follows that our love is imperfect. Let this stand without dispute: while we are in this flesh, it is impossible to fulfill the law — as will also be proved from Paul in another place.

To set the whole matter out more clearly, let us briefly summarize the purposes and uses of what is called the moral law. As I understand it, they fall under three headings. The first is this: by showing every person the righteousness of God — that is, the righteousness that alone is acceptable to God — the law warns, convicts, and condemns every person of his own unrighteousness. For man, blinded and intoxicated by self-love, must be driven to knowledge and confession of his own weakness and corruption. As long as his self-conceit is not clearly exposed, he swells with reckless confidence in his own strength and cannot be made to think it small, since he measures it against the standard of his own will. But as soon as he begins to compare his strength against the demands of the law, he finds reason to lower his confidence. However great his opinion of himself had been before, he immediately feels himself struggling under the enormous weight — then staggering and stumbling, and finally collapsing entirely. Schooled by the law in this way, he sheds the arrogance that had blinded him. He must also be cured of another kind of pride — the disease of hypocrisy we mentioned. As long as he is permitted to stand on his own judgment, he devises a counterfeit righteousness in place of the real thing, and being satisfied with this, he dares to defy God's grace with fabricated righteousnesses of his own. But as soon as he is forced to weigh his life on the scales of the law, he sets aside his presumptuous claim to righteousness and sees himself as an infinite distance from true holiness. He also sees that he is full of countless vices of which he previously thought himself clean. For the evils of sinful desire are hidden in such deep and twisted inner recesses that they easily escape a person's notice. It is not without reason that the apostle says he would not have known what sinful desire was had the law not said, 'You shall not covet' (Romans 7) — because unless it is exposed from its hiding places by the law, it destroys a person so secretly that he does not even feel its deadly blow.

The law is like a mirror in which we see, first our weakness, then through our weakness our wickedness, and finally through both our condemnation — just as a mirror shows us the blemishes on our face. When a person lacks the power to pursue righteousness, he inevitably sinks in the mud of sin. After sin comes curse. And the more transgressions the law holds us guilty of, the more severe the judgment it pronounces against us. This is the point of the apostle's statement that through the law comes the knowledge of sin — for there he speaks only of the law's first use, which is demonstrated in sinners who have not yet been regenerated. Similar to this are two other statements: that the law came in so that the offense would increase, and that it is the ministry of death that produces wrath and kills. Without doubt, the more the conscience is struck by the law's knowledge of sin, the more iniquity grows — because the violation of the law is compounded by defiance against the Lawgiver. It follows that the law arms God's wrath for the destruction of the sinner, since by itself it can only accuse, condemn, and destroy. As Augustine writes: when the Spirit of grace is absent, the law is present only to accuse and kill us. And yet saying this brings no dishonor to the law, nor takes anything from its excellence. If our will were fully shaped and directed toward obedience to the law, the knowledge of it alone would be sufficient for salvation. But because our fleshly and corrupt nature fights as an enemy against God's spiritual law and is not improved by its discipline, the law — which was given for salvation, if it had found willing hearers — turns instead into the occasion of sin and death. Since we are all proved to be transgressors, the more clearly the law reveals God's righteousness, the more fully it exposes our own wickedness on the other side. The more securely it confirms the reward of life laid up for righteousness, the more certain it makes the destruction awaiting the wicked. These statements, far from dishonoring the law, serve all the more to glorify God's generosity. For they make plain that it is our own wickedness and stubbornness that prevents us from enjoying the blessedness openly set before us in the law. And this makes God's grace — which helps us apart from any merit of our own — all the sweeter, and His mercy all the more lovely. Through this we learn that He never wearies of doing us good and heaping new gifts upon us.

When the law seals our guilt and condemnation, it does not do so — if we respond to it rightly — in order to crush us with despair or drive us headlong into ruin. The reprobate do react that way, but that is because of their stubbornness. For the children of God, the instruction must have a different end. I grant that the apostle testifies that we are all condemned by the law's judgment, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may stand accountable to God (Romans 3:20). But the same apostle teaches elsewhere that God has shut everyone up in unbelief — not to destroy all or let all perish, but that He might have mercy on all (Romans 11:32). The purpose is that, abandoning their foolish confidence in their own strength, they may understand that they stand and are upheld only by God's hand. Stripped bare and empty, they may flee to His mercy, rest in it completely, hide themselves entirely in it, and take hold of it alone in place of the righteousness and merits that are freely given in Christ to all who sincerely desire and seek them by true faith. For in the commandments of the law, God appears only as the rewarder of perfect righteousness — which none of us possesses — and as a strict judge of wrongdoing. But in Christ His face shines full of grace and gentleness, even toward wretched and unworthy sinners.

Augustine speaks often about this benefit — seeking the help of grace — as when he writes to Hilary: 'The law commands that, striving to do what it commands and growing weary of our weakness under the law, we should learn to ask for the help of grace.' Again, to Aselius: 'The benefit of the law is to convict man of his own weakness and compel him to seek the medicine of grace that is in Christ.' Again, to Innocent of Rome: 'The law commands; grace supplies the strength to obey.' Again, to Valentine: 'God commands things we cannot do, so that we may learn what to ask of Him.' Again: 'The law was given to accuse you, so that being accused you would fear, and fearing you would seek pardon, and not presume on your own strength.' Again: 'The law was given for this purpose: to make the great small, to show that you have no power of your own for righteousness, so that as a poor, unworthy, and needy person you would flee to grace.' Then he turns to address God and says: 'So do it, Lord; do it, merciful Lord. Command what cannot be fulfilled — yes, command what cannot be fulfilled except by Your grace. That way, when people cannot fulfill it by their own power, every mouth may be stopped and no one may think himself great. Let all be small, and let the whole world stand guilty before You.' I am not wise enough to pile up more testimonies, since this holy man has written an entire book devoted to this subject, which he entitled On the Spirit and the Letter. The second benefit of the law he does not describe as vividly — either because he saw it as dependent on the first, or because he did not understand it as well, or because he lacked the words to express clearly what he correctly grasped. Yet even for the reprobate, this first use of the law is not without effect. They do not go as far as the children of God — who, after their pride is broken down, are renewed and flourish again in the inner person. Instead, they are struck by the initial terror and lie still in despair. Yet even this serves to display the justice of God's judgment, as their consciences are tossed by troubled waves. The reprobate always want to evade God's judgment. Even before it is fully revealed, they are so convicted by the testimony of the law that their own consciences expose what they deserve.

The second use of the law is this: those who feel no concern for what is just and right unless compelled, when they hear the law's terrible penalties, are at least held back by the fear of punishment. They are restrained — but not because their inward attitude has changed. They are held back as if by a bridle: they keep their hands from outward wrongdoing and suppress their perverseness within, which they would otherwise unleash freely. This does not make them any better or more righteous before God. Although fear or shame prevents them from acting on their inner intentions or openly letting their sinful desires run loose, their hearts are not turned toward the fear and obedience of God. In fact, the more they restrain themselves outwardly, the more fiercely they burn inwardly — boiling and ready to do anything and break out in any direction, if only the terror of the law did not hold them back. More than that: they deeply hate the law and despise God its Lawgiver, and if they could, they would gladly be rid of the One they cannot stand — neither when He commands what is right, nor when He punishes those who despise His majesty. In some this attitude is more hidden, in others more obvious, but it is present in all who have not been regenerated: they follow the law not by willing submission but by compulsion, resisting it under the force of fear. Yet this coerced and enforced righteousness is necessary for the common life of society. It preserves order and prevents everything from descending into chaos — because if all things were permitted to all people, everything would be thrown into turmoil. This discipline is also not without benefit for the children of God, as long as they — before their calling, still lacking the Spirit of sanctification — are still driven about by the folly of the flesh. When they are pulled back from outward lawlessness by fear of God's judgment, even though their minds are not yet tamed and they make only small progress at that stage, they are at least partly trained to bear the yoke of Christ. So when they are called, they are not completely raw and unacquainted with discipline as something foreign. This use of the law is what the apostle seems particularly to have in mind when he says that the law was not made for the righteous but for the lawless and disobedient, the ungodly and sinners, the unholy and profane, those who strike their fathers or mothers, murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice homosexuality, slave traders, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine (1 Timothy 1:9). By this he means that the law serves as a restraint on the wild impulses of the flesh, which would otherwise stray out of control.

Paul's statement that the law was a guardian or schoolmaster leading the Jews to Christ (Galatians 3:23) can be applied to both groups we have discussed. The first group consists of those who are overly confident in their own strength or righteousness and are therefore unfit to receive Christ's grace unless they are first emptied. The law humbles them through self-knowledge so that they may be prepared to desire what they previously thought they did not need. The second group needs a bridle to hold them back from giving the flesh such free rein that they abandon all pursuit of righteousness. Where God's Spirit does not yet govern, sinful desires can boil up so intensely that they are in great danger of dragging the soul down into the complete forgetting and despising of God. God prevents this through this remedy. Those He has appointed to the inheritance of His kingdom — if He does not regenerate them immediately — He keeps under fear through the works of the law until the time of His visitation. This is not the pure and childlike fear that ought to characterize God's children, but it is still a useful fear that, according to their capacity, serves as an introduction to true godliness. The evidence for this is so abundant that examples are hardly needed. Anyone who has ever spent time without knowing God will acknowledge that during that period the law held him in some degree of fear and submission to God, until the time when God's Spirit regenerated him and he began to love God from the heart.

The third use of the law — which is also its principal use and most directly serves its true purpose — applies to believers, in whose hearts God's Spirit already lives and reigns. Although they have the law written and engraved on their hearts by the finger of God — that is, they are so moved and directed by the Spirit that they desire to obey God — they still benefit from the law in two ways. First, the law is an excellent means by which they can daily learn more clearly and confidently what God's will is — the will they are striving to follow — and be confirmed in their understanding of it. Consider a servant who is already fully devoted in his heart to pleasing his master: he still needs to carefully study his master's ways so that he can shape and apply himself to them. None of us should exempt ourselves from this need. No one has yet attained such great wisdom that daily instruction from the law cannot bring fresh progress toward a purer knowledge of God's will. Second, since we need not only instruction but also motivation, God's servant will draw from the law this further benefit: through frequent reflection on it, he is stirred up to obedience, strengthened in it, and pulled back from the slippery path of sin. In this way holy people must keep pressing themselves forward. However eagerly they may be pursuing God according to the Spirit, they are always weighed down by the sluggishness of the flesh, so that they do not advance with the full readiness they should. To this flesh the law is given as a whip — to prod it forward like a slow and dull donkey. And for the spiritual person as well, since he is not yet free from the burden of the flesh, the law serves as a constant spur that will not let him stand still. It was with this use in mind that David praised the law with such remarkable words: 'The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; the statutes of the Lord are upright, making the heart rejoice; the commandment of the Lord is pure, giving light to the eyes,' and so on. And again: 'Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path' — and countless other things he rehearses throughout that psalm. None of this contradicts Paul's statements about the law, which show not what the law does for the regenerate but what the law in itself can give to man. Here, David describes how greatly the Lord instructs those whom He has inwardly prepared for obedience through the reading of His law. David has in view not the commandments alone, but also the promises of grace attached to them — and it is these promises that alone make what is bitter become sweet. What could be less attractive about the law if it did nothing but trouble souls with demands and drive them with dread and terror? David especially shows that he understood the Mediator through the law — for without the Mediator, there is no delight or sweetness in it.

Because some people fail to grasp this, they boldly dismiss all of Moses and bid farewell to the two tables of the law, arguing that it is not appropriate for Christians to cling to a doctrine that contains the ministry of death. Let this irreverent opinion be far from our minds. For Moses himself taught excellently that the very same law which can produce nothing but death in sinners ought to have a better and more excellent use in holy people. When he was about to die, he openly declared to the people: 'Take to heart all the words I am testifying to you today, that you may command your children to keep, to do, and to fulfill all the things written in this book of the law — for they are not empty words for you, but they are your life.' And if no one can deny that the law contains a complete pattern of righteousness, then either we must have no rule at all for living justly and uprightly, or else we must not depart from it. There is one rule of life — not many — and it is permanent and unbending. Therefore, when David describes the life of a righteous person as continually occupied in meditating on the law, let us not restrict that to his own era, for it is most fitting for all ages until the end of the world. Do not be frightened away or turned back from being instructed by it simply because it prescribes a standard of holiness far beyond what we can perform while we carry about our mortal bodies. The law no longer acts toward us as a harsh debt collector demanding full payment before it will be satisfied. Rather, through the perfection it calls us to, it shows us a target — and striving toward that target throughout our lives is both profitable for us and fully in keeping with our duty. If we keep pressing forward in that striving, it is well. All of life is a race, and when the course is finished, the Lord will grant us to reach the mark toward which our efforts have been pressing from afar.

Now, since the law's power over the faithful is the power to exhort — not the power to bind their consciences with a curse, but only to shake off sluggishness and stir up imperfection by repeated calling — many people, when they want to express this freedom from the law's curse, say that the law has been abolished for believers. I am speaking here of the moral law only. They do not mean that the law no longer tells believers what is right, but only that the law is no longer to them what it was before — that it no longer condemns and destroys them by filling them with dread and confusion. Paul clearly teaches this kind of abrogation, and it also appears that Christ Himself addressed it — as is evident from the fact that He went out of His way to deny that He had come to abolish the law, which would have been unnecessary unless that opinion had been widespread among the Jews. Since such an opinion could not arise without some plausible basis, it likely grew from a misunderstanding of His teaching — as most errors tend to take occasion from some element of truth. So that we do not stumble over the same stone, let us carefully distinguish what is abrogated in the law and what remains in force. When the Lord declares that He did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, and that until heaven and earth pass away not a single jot of the law shall pass away but all shall be fulfilled (Matthew 5:17-18), He clearly confirms that His coming takes nothing away from the outward keeping of the law. And rightly so, since He came rather to heal transgressions. Therefore the teaching of the law remains in full force for all Christians — instructing, warning, rebuking, and correcting to form and prepare us for every good work.

As for Paul's statements about the curse, it is clear that they do not apply to the law's teaching itself, but only to its power to bind the conscience. For the law not only teaches — it also authoritatively demands what it commands. If the demand is not met, if any duty falls short in any way, the law unleashes its curse like a thunderbolt. This is why the apostle says that all who are under the works of the law are subject to the curse, because it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who does not fulfill all' (Galatians 3:10; Deuteronomy 27:26). And he says that those are 'under the works of the law' who do not place righteousness in the forgiveness of sins — the forgiveness by which we are released from the law's rigid demands. He therefore teaches that we must be freed from the law's bondage, unless we want to perish miserably under it. But freed from which bondage? The bondage of its harsh and exacting demands — which relent nothing from the law's extremity and leave no offense unpunished. It was from this curse that Christ redeemed us by becoming a curse for us. For it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree' (Galatians 3:13; Deuteronomy 21:22-23). In the following chapter Paul also says that Christ was made subject to the law in order to redeem those who were under the law — and both statements mean the same thing, for he immediately adds that we might receive the rights of adopted children. What does this mean? That we should no longer be crushed under perpetual bondage that holds our consciences gripped tight with the anguish of death. And yet this remains always unshaken: nothing is withdrawn from the authority of the law, and it ought still to be received by us with the same reverence and obedience.

The situation with the ceremonies is different — they were abolished not in their underlying meaning but only in their outward practice. The fact that Christ brought them to an end by His coming does not diminish their holiness; it actually sets them forth and makes them glorious. For just as the ceremonies would have been empty displays to the ancient people apart from the death and resurrection of Christ being shown through them, so if they had continued we could not today discern what purpose they were ordained to serve. Therefore Paul, to prove that observing them now is not only unnecessary but even harmful, teaches that they were shadows of which we now have the substance in Christ (Colossians 2:17). We see then how in the abolishing of the ceremonies the truth shines more clearly than if they still pointed from a distance — as though through a veil — to a Christ who has now plainly appeared. This is why the veil of the temple was torn in two at Christ's death and fell down: the true and clear image of heavenly realities had come to light, having previously been only imperfectly sketched in dim and rough outlines, as the author of the letter to the Hebrews explains (Hebrews 10:1; Luke 16:16). This is what Christ's statement means: that the law and the prophets were until John, and from that time the kingdom of God has been proclaimed gladly. He does not mean that the holy fathers had no preaching that contained the hope of salvation and eternal life — but that they saw it only from a distance and under shadows, whereas we see it today in full light. John the Baptist declares why the church of God had to advance beyond those first instructions: because the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). Although the cleansing of sins was truly promised through the ancient sacrifices, and the ark of the covenant was a real pledge of God's fatherly favor, all of this would have been mere shadow had it not rested on the grace of Christ — in whom alone there is perfect and lasting stability. Let this then stand firm: even though the ceremonial practices of the law have ceased, their very ending makes it all the clearer how great their benefit was before Christ's coming — and Christ, in abolishing their outward practice, confirmed and sealed their force and meaning with His death.

There is a somewhat more difficult point in what Paul writes: 'He made you alive together with Him, when you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, having forgiven all your offenses, having canceled the certificate of debt consisting of decrees that was against us and contrary to us, and He has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.' Paul seems here to extend the abolishing of the law further, so that we have nothing more to do with its decrees. Those who interpret this passage as referring only to the moral law are wrong — they think it is the law's relentless severity rather than its teaching that is abolished. Those who examine Paul's words more carefully see that he is properly speaking about the ceremonial law, and show that this word carries this meaning more than once in Paul. In Ephesians he writes: 'He is our peace, who has made the two into one and broken down the dividing wall, abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments contained in decrees, so that He might create in Himself one new man out of the two.' There he is clearly speaking of the ceremonies, which he calls the dividing wall that separated Jews from Gentiles. I agree that the first interpreters are rightly corrected by these, but I do not think those latter interpreters fully set forth the apostle's meaning either. In Ephesians, where Paul's purpose was to inform the Ephesians about their adoption into the fellowship of Israel, he teaches that the obstacle that had kept them apart — namely the ceremonies — has been removed. The ritual washings and sacrifices by which the Jews were consecrated to the Lord were what separated them from the Gentiles. But in the letter to the Colossians, who can fail to see that something deeper is in view? The issue there is about Mosaic observances, which the false apostles were pressing on the Christian people. But just as Paul in Galatians takes that controversy further back to its ultimate source, he does the same here. If you consider the ceremonies as nothing more than required practices, why would Paul call them 'a certificate of debt against us'? Why would he place the whole substance of our redemption in the canceling of that certificate? The subject itself shows that something more profound is being considered. I believe I have reached the natural meaning of the passage, if the following is granted — a statement written most truly by Augustine and drawn from the plain words of the apostle himself: in the Jewish ceremonies there was a confession of sins rather than a cleansing of them. What else did the worshippers do through sacrifices but confess in conscience that they were guilty of death, offering cleansings as substitutes? What else did they testify through their washings but that they were unclean? In this way, the certificate of their sin and uncleanness was renewed again and again, but the repeated testifying of it brought no discharge. This is why the apostle writes that the redemption of the offenses that had accumulated under the old covenant was accomplished at last through the death of Christ. The apostle therefore rightly calls these ceremonies 'certificates against those who observe them' — for by observing them, worshippers publicly sealed their own guilt and uncleanness. It does not contradict this that they were also partakers of the same grace we have. That grace they obtained in Christ — not in the ceremonies. Paul separates the ceremonies from Christ because at that time, as they were being practiced, they obscured Christ's glory. So we learn that the ceremonies, considered in themselves, are rightly called certificates against human salvation, because they were formal documents testifying that those who relied on them were still bound. When the false apostles tried to bind the Christian church to these ceremonies again, Paul had good reason to warn the Colossians — by showing them their deeper meaning — where they would end up if they allowed themselves to be yoked by them once more. For in doing so, Christ's benefit would be taken from them, since He, having once accomplished eternal cleansing, has completely abolished these daily observances, which had only been able to seal sins but could do nothing to remove them.