By Chuck Collins
February 15, 2025
I'm ok with the third use of the law, but I am not thrilled with it. Those who emphasize the third too often fall into the pit of seeing it as the primary use. And doesn’t this make Christians boastful, rigid and judgmental? The idea of "uses" was Martin Luther's, but the third use of the law was slipped in by Philip Melanchthon (terius usus legis, 1535). The third use appears as the law's main use by John Calvin who saw it as a whip to the believer's backside to urge our fleshly selves towards godliness.
Luther started with the law's primary use: the command to do the humanly impossible (Be ye holy as I am holy!) which, by God's providence, drives us to the only solution to the law's demands: God's gracious love for sinners. The law commands, but it doesn’t have power to accomplish what it calls for. The law is the voice at the top of the ladder yelling for us to “just climb!” but the more we climb the higher the ladder gets until we realize that we can never do it - that all fall short - that we need a righteousness outside of ourselves - that we need God. The law shows us our true sinful condition; the gospel promises and brings rest and assurance in the One who answers the law's demands. The third use applies only to already-Christians, but it sometimes suggests that once we are saved by grace alone, then we rush to put ourselves back under the law's demand that never worked in the first place to bring us to holiness - that justification is by grace, but sanctification is by grace and works.
Is holy living the fruit of love or the way to God’s love? Won't the human will obey what the heart loves? Is my problem a love problem or an obedience problem? The third use suggests that sanctification is required to prove or complete our salvation (lordship salvation). Over-focusing on the third use sometimes demeans the power of God's grace to save and sanctify the believer. Doesn't it contradict St. Paul: "Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (Gal 3:3)?
Luther knew that the law is always God's plan for our lives, and the description of what our lives will look like when we are in a right relationship with God. He never softened the hammer of the law (Jer 23:29). But it's "knowing God" that matters to Luther, so that the law is written on our hearts (Jer 31:31). He is completely convinced that what the heart loves, the human will obeys - in that order! The law changes from "do this" for the unbeliever to "it is done" for the believer. And knowing God has done it all for us becomes the motivation to live pleasing to him. Luther assumes a third use of the law, but he doesn't mention it because he wants our focus on the accusatory function of the law that always brings us to our need for God, for the unbeliever and for the believer.
Our need for God never becomes less. The unbeliever hears the law, is crushed for the impossibility of its demand, and is sent running for the arms of a God who can and did fulfill the law for us. The believer hears and remembers that God’s Son came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it as our substitute because we couldn’t and can’t. The third use is great, but isn’t it really a restatement of the first use that is meant to help us to the gospel? The gospel is what justifies, sanctifies and glorifies.
Dean Chuck Collins is a reform theologian and historian. He resides in Texas.
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