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The Third Use of the Law (The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification)

…The Ten Commandments bind us still as they were then given to a people that were at that time under the covenant of grace made with Abraham, to show them what duties are holy, just and good, well-pleasing to God, and to be a rule for their conversation. The result of all is that we must still practice moral duties as commanded by Moses, but we must not seek to be justified by our practice. If we use them as a rule of life, not as conditions of justification, they can be no ministration of death, or killing letter to us.

-Walter Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, Chapter 6, Kindle Loc. 1235-39 (Get a free copy for Kindle HERE).

The traditional Reformed understanding of God’s Law is that it has three continuing uses:

1. It is to restrain evil (Civil Use)

2. It is to reveal sin and lead us to the Savior (Pedagogical Use)

3. It is to direct the living of the Christian life (Moral or Normative Use)

Marshall nails the third use here: having been accepted by God the Father solely on the basis of the finished work of Christ, we are now to strive, by the power of the Spirit at work within us, for new obedience. The problem emerges when we slip into the idea that our obedience now somehow contributes to God’s acceptance of us. At that point the third use of the Law is wholly perverted and becomes an agent of death rather than life, disobedience rather than obedience.

What Does It Mean To Be ‘In the Flesh?’ (The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification)

The true interpretation is that by flesh is meant the nature of man, as it is corrupted by the fall of Adam and propagated from him to us in that corrupt state by natural generation; and to be in the flesh is to be in a natural state, as to be in the Spirit is to be in a new state, by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us (Rom. 8:9)…The corrupt nature is called ‘flesh,’ because it is received by carnal generation; and the new nature is called spirit, because it is received by spiritual generation. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6).

-Walter Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, Chapter 5, Kindle Loc. 977-81 (Get a free copy for Kindle HERE).

Marshall goes on to describe the properties of ‘the flesh’:

  • One thing belonging to our natural state is the guilt of sin, even of Adam’s first sin, and of the sinful depravation of our nature, and of all our own actual transgressions, and therefore we are by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:3) under the curse of God…
  • Another property…is an evil conscience, which denounces the wrath of God against us for sin, and inclines us to abhor Him as our enemy, rather than to love Him…or, if it is a blind conscience, it hardens us more in our sins.
  • A third property is an evil inclination, tending only to sin, which therefore is called ‘sin that dwells in us,’ and ‘the law of sin in our members,’ that powerfully subdues and captivates us to the service of sin (Rom. 7:20,23)…
  • A fourth property is subjection to the power of the devil who is the god of this world, that has blinded the minds of all that do not believe (2 Cor. 4:4), and will certainly conquerall whom he fights with on his own dunghill, that is, in a natural state.

Marshall understands ‘flesh’ (in relation to salvation) to be the sinful nature of man. The sinful nature involves the guilt and power of original sin, total depravity (inability to do what is pleasing to God in our own strength), sinful actions, a marred conscience, continual and powerful inclination to sin, and subjection to the influence and power of Satan. To the degree that these things are being subdued and weakened, we are putting the sinful nature to death.

I would add here that Marshall will go on to argue that it is through gospel means that we put sin to death. Once we have believed the gospel and trusted in Christ as the means of doing away with the guilt of sin and our marred consciences, from there we will trust in him to work in us to subdue sin’s power and sway in daily experience.

What To Do When You Don’t Feel Like Praying

If you find your heart so very dry and unaffected with the things of religion that you can say nothing at all to God in prayer, that no divine content occurs to your thoughts, go and fall down humbly before God and tell him with a grievous complaint that you can say nothing to him, that you can do nothing but groan and cry before him. Go and tell him that without, his Spirit you cannot speak one expression, that without immediate assistance from his grace you cannot proceed in this worship.Tell him humbly that he must lose a morning or an evening sacrifice if he does not condescend to send down fire from heaven upon the altar.

– Isaac Watts, A Guide to Prayer

Profess your powerlessness. Admit your inability. Plead your prayerlessness. You will find that you are praying.

John Calvin writes,

It is, therefore, by the benefit of prayer that we reach those riches which are laid up for us with the Heavenly Father. For there is a communion of men with God by which, having entered the heavenly sanctuary, they appeal to him in person concerning his promises in order to experience, where necessity so demands, that what they believed was not vain, although he had promised it in word alone. Therefore we see that to us nothing is promised to be expected from the Lord, which we are not also bidden to ask of him in prayers. So true is it that we dig up by prayer the treasures that were pointed out by the Lord’s gospel, and which our faith has gazed upon (Institutes 3.20.1).

In other words, to my point, it is by pleading our inability that we dig up the riches of prayer itself. It is by pleading our prayerlessness that we call down the blessing of prayer. For God promises, “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn” (Zech. 12:10). The Spirit is the Spirit of supplication. And we plead with him therefore, to give us the grace of prayer. And as we do so, he is already at work, for in our pleading about prayerlessness, we are already praying.

Four Motivations for Holiness (The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification)

In the first place, I assert that an inclination and propensity of heart to the duties of the law is necessary to frame and enable us for the immediate practice of them…

The second endowment necessary to enable us for the immediate practice of holiness…is that we be well persuaded of our reconciliation with God…

The third endowment necessary to enable us for the practice of holiness…is that we be persuaded of our future enjoyment of the everlasting heavenly happiness. This must precede our holy practice, as a cause disposing and alluring us to it…

The last endowment…is that we will be persuaded of sufficient strength both to will and perform our duty acceptably, until we come to the enjoyment of the heavenly happiness.

-Walter Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, p. 34ff (Get a free copy for Kindle HERE).

In other words, we must have the Spirit dwelling in us (we must be born again), comprehension that we are justified (forgiven and accepted on account of Christ’s suffering and obedience), assurance of final salvation and joy in the presence of God, and awareness that we are not doing this on our own (i.e. in our own strength). Marshall calls these ‘endowments.’ This means that they are not things that we can work up. Rather, they are gifts from God given for the purpose of sanctifying us.

The Spirit, who wrote the Law, is in me, inclining me to do His will. The Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, lived and died for my failures (both past and present) to do so, with the result that I am completely reconciled to the Father. He promises me that I will be with him where he is, with His Father. He promises that He will help me on my journey there. That’s motivation.

I have a new nature;
I am forgiven and accepted;
I will enjoy God for all eternity;
I have the help of the Spirit.

Now go to war with sin.

 

A Savior From Sin (Charity and Its Fruits)

He that, by the act of his will, does truly accept of Christ as a Savior, accepts of him as a Savior from sin, and not merely as a Savior from the punishment of sin.

Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits, Chapter 11

Edwards is commenting on 1 Corinthians 13:6: ‘[Charity] rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.’ Quite frankly, I got chills as I read these words for the first time. I do not know if I have read a statement that I would consider more of a theological bomb, for it blows up our lawlessness. Our Lord is named Jesus, ‘because he will save his people from their sins’ (Matthew 1:21), not just the punishment their sins deserve.

Edwards further proves the statement like this:

The most remarkable type of the work of redemption by divine love in all the Old Testament history, was the redemption of the children of Israel out of Egypt. But the holy living of his people was the end God had in view in that redemption, as he often signified to Pharaoh, when from time to time he said to him by Moses and Aaron, “Let my people go, that they may serve me.” And we have a like expression concerning Christ’s redemption in the New Testament, where it is said, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, . . . to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life” (Luke 1:68-75). All these things make it very plain that the end of redemption is, that we might be holy.

He won’t stop until we are not only counted as holy, and forgiven of our unholiness, but until we actually are holy. Christ’s work will not be complete until we are glorified, but that glorification is so certain that the Apostle Paul can speak of it in the past tense (Rom. 8:30). That’s motivation to put sin to death and live unto righteousness. That’s not Legalism – that’s high and heavenly motivation. Those who know the love of Christ, and love him on account of it, will rejoice in truthful living, which is holiness.

He Delights More in Simple Sincerity than Grand Acts of Pride

Jonathan Edwards takes 1 Corinthians 13:3: ‘If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing,’ along with Mark 9:41: ‘For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward,’ and comes to this conclusion:

God abominates the greatest things without sincerity, but he accepts of and delights in little things when they spring from sincere love to himself. A cup of cold water given to a disciple in sincere love, is worth more in God’s sight than all one’s goods given to feed the poor, yea, than the wealth of a kingdom given away, or a body offered up in the flames, without love.

-from Chapter 3 of Charity and Its Fruits

If we accept this conclusion (and I think we have to), then we can never underestimate the value of small acts performed out of sincere love for Christ. In that sense, there is more cosmic significance in the Jesus-loving housewife changing her child’s dirty diaper than in the religious man burning in flames of martyrdom for his pride. He delights more in the loving mopping of the janitor than in the grand politicking of the prideful leaders of the masses. He delights more in the modest hymning of the loving country church member than in the grandiose singing of the loveless tenor.

Let that fact encourage you, as it has me, in the midst of the mundane.