Jon and Justin talk about obedience and the uses of the law. What is the first use of the law? What is the third use? Are there ways these are often confused?
Regular Episode
MEMBERS Podcast Transcripts
Justin Perdue: Welcome to the member's podcasts. The name of this podcast is about to change in the not-so-distant future. If that is alarming to you, please don't be afraid. Know Christ is your righteousness and you are safe in him. But beyond that, Theocast is going nowhere. In fact, this is part of an exciting thing that we have in store for our members and just part of the vision that we have for Theocast moving forward
Jon Moffitt: We want to see the Reformation go forward and God is blessing it and encouraging people. One of the things that we're doing is we're starting a whole new section of Theocast and it's going to be called Semper Reformanda, which means always reforming. It's a community; it's a community of you. You are Semper Reformanda. We are going to be doing something that is very hard. It's a lot of work. It's taking a lot of donation of time and money to pull this off, but we find it necessary. I'll leak this out to you cause we're working on the details, but Semper Reformanda is going to have an app, and that is going to allow us to meet locally and online where we can then take the podcast, and all of these questions that you have, and all of these ongoing development, and meeting other people who have like-minded transitions going on. We want to get you together. We're going to have people that are trained and ready to facilitate these conversations so that this rest, this transition that you're feeling, we can then facilitate that. The whole membership is going to be changing, and what we're moving toward is a Semper Reformanda community. We're going to be doing a unique, different podcast for Semper Reformanda. This becomes this conversation that Justin and I want to have with those of you who are part of this Reformation. You've joined the team.
Justin Perdue: For real, it's a family conversation. Even, as I said to Jon before we recorded today, it's like the conversations that we have with members of our churches. As our people are experiencing, this is different from what they've known before, and it's really good. They just don't fully understand it. What about this and what about this? How do I talk to my friend? Or how do I talk to my mom? It's that stuff that we talk about all the time in the context of our own churches. We want to start having those kinds of conversations with you, the members, the people who have partnered with us and who have wanted to join this movement. We'll talk together about how we can love others and bring them in.
Jon Moffitt: You guys come out with so much energy and so many questions that often you can confuse people, and your family is offended because you get it and they can't get it yet. We want to take all that energy that you have. We want to funnel it towards other people that are in the same place that you are. We almost want to put you in a cage in some places just to allow you to get it out of your system. We want to facilitate conversation. Then the second thing we want to do is we want to begin to develop and equip you to then lead other people into rest.
We want to help churches. We want to help strengthen churches. We want to start churches. By God's grace, in His will, we're going to be launching this very soon. Your donations have allowed us to start facilitating something like this. We're still a little bit behind. We're going to be putting out another push for some donations to finish up with what the cost of this is going to be, but stay tuned. Those of you who are hungry to have community to discuss this stuff, it's coming.
All right, Justin, let's get into this.
Justin Perdue: To pick up on where we were in the regular episode, effectively, when we're having this conversation about the "demands of the gospel" and how that kind of language is absurd biblically, we're having a conversation about the law and the gospel, and the distinction that exists between the two.
What we introduced toward the end of the regular episode was trying to think about the difference between the role of the law and how the law functions in bringing people to Christ, and then how the law functions for people who are in Christ. In that sense, we're having a conversation about what has historically been understood as the first and third use of the law. The first use of the law is to crush us, to show us our sin, and drive us to the Savior. That's how the law is used to bring us to Jesus. But then the third use, as it's been historically understood, is to guide our living in Christ. The two uses are very different.
Just like the law and the gospel are confused and blended and it produces bad fruit, these uses of the law, John and I are convinced, are oftentimes, we trust, unintentionally blended together in a way that is very unhelpful to the saints as well.
The way that I might start our conversation is that I think a lot of times in many churches, like of the Calvinistic ilk, for example, the third use of the law that is meant to be our kind adviser, our guide for living in Christ, not condemning, not threatening, but to guide us, that third use of the law is often preached with this first use of the law threatening, edgy tone to it. It's like, "You better or you're going to stand condemned." No, that's not how the law should be used for those who are in Christ, because we are no longer condemned by it. For those who are not in Christ, yes, preach the law in all of its holiness and terror and say, "Unless you do this, you will stand condemned." But that is not how the third use of the law works. That is not how the law works for the Christian in Christ. We can look to the law as a good, beautiful, perfect, all-wise thing, because that's what it is. In saying that it's good, in agreeing with God that it's good, we can pursue it, we can strive after righteousness and holiness, according to the law, and we can trust that as we do so, we are counted with all the righteousness that we'll ever need because of Christ. We're not in any kind of jeopardized position, and we will trust the Spirit of God to work in us and to cause us to bear fruit in keeping with not only the fruits of the Spirit outline in Galatians 5, but in keeping with the good things God has revealed in His law. That's a good thing.
We are going through the book of Ephesians right now on Sunday morning, and we recently got to Ephesians 4 and was preaching some of those exhortations of the apostle Paul in the early part of that chapter: to be patient, to be humble, to love one another, and bear with one another, and all these things. The reaction of people was really wonderful; where I am now, where the imperatives of God in the Scripture are no longer a burden, but they're a joy. They're a joy because I'm not threatened by these things, like if I'm not patient enough, if I'm not loving enough, I'm going to be condemned. No, rather we look at what Christ has done for us. We look at how good patience, love, and gentleness are. Why would I not want to pursue them? Why would I not want to do these things for other people who have been rescued by Christ like I have? That's how this goes.
Jon Moffitt: The promises of the first use of the law is life, but they must be accomplished with perfection. The third use of the law is the motivation of love or is the guide. Let me put it this way: our flesh is still strong so God uses the third use of the law through the means of love to guide our flesh. It's confusing people and they say, "How can you love these instructions from Paul?" Like when it says be gentle, or in Ephesians 4 where it says to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with gentleness, meekness, and patience. How can you say you love that? Because you understand the end result is love of neighbor. When I obey, the third use of the law, my neighbor feels loved. I want my neighbor to feel loved. That's a motivation for me. I want Justin to, at the end of the relationship that he has with me, go, "Jon Moffitt loves me because Christ loves him." So the motivation changes. I'm not trying to earn God's favor. I'm not trying to get out from underneath condemnation. I'm not trying to confirm my salvation. Not to confirm your election, he says, because you've been chosen, love your neighbor. And you look at that and go, yeah, I'm going to be patient. I'm going to be kind.
Justin Perdue: We both understand. I'm just talking about you and me, Jon. How much more true for people who are in the same local church and you're living life together every day?
We understand, mutually, our desperate need for Jesus and what he alone has done. We understand, to some extent, what we have been rescued from. Thinking also of Ephesians 4, we have so many things in common that outstrip anything about which we might ever disagree, that now we have been brought together in Christ Jesus and legitimately are concerned for one another's welfare. There is this unity that's there: this one Lord, one faith, one baptism; we've been called to one hope and all of those things. Of course, why would we not want to love each other? Look at what Christ has done for us. This is an outflow of the gospel. It's an implication of the gospel. That's what I would say the third use of the law part is: that's an outflow or an outworking of the gospel itself. The third use of the law is not the gospel. That needs to be stated. This whole "you're safe in Christ, now live this way" is not gospel. The gospel piece is you're safe in Christ because of what he's done. "Now live this way" is an implication or an outflow of the gospel in accordance with God's law. That's good.
I have a thought, brother, I'm going to mention it because it's the members' area. I'm going to mention a book that was written. I know the author, he's a good guy, and I appreciate much of what he says. There's a book called What Is the Gospel? that was written by a man named Greg Gilbert. There's a lot of good in the book. Just an observation I was making the other day in a conversation with my wife, the formula that is offered in that book for presenting the meta-narrative of Scripture; I think there's confusion here. There's this God, man, Christ, and a response: here's who God is, here's who we are, here's what Christ did, here's how we respond in faith. That's fine to say, but we need to understand that of those four bullet points—God, man, Christ, response—the only part that's actually gospel is Christ.
I know that sounds foreign to people because people so equate the gospel with the plan of salvation, and there's a difference in the two. The plan of salvation might include the message about God and us and the response, but all of those things are not the gospel itself. The gospel itself is Christ, what he did, and who he is, and what he accomplished for us in our place, to be received by faith—and that really matters.
Jon Moffitt: Just to clarify what you mean by that, when someone says the plan of salvation, I would say if you're walking someone towards Christ, if you've got a plan it's you gotta, you gotta pump them with the law first.
Justin Perdue: The plan of salvation includes the law.
Jon Moffitt: Right. Which is not the gospel. So, law, despair, good news, then gospel. When I meet with the last person, I got a plan. If I'm going to get him to the point where he needs Christ, I have to start with a law which leads to despair, and then I get to run in and herald the good news: victory and Jesus.
Justin Perdue: This is where people say things, again, well-meaning but they'll say that in order to get people the good news, you got to give them the bad news, which is true; but people will then assume that the bad news is somehow part of the good news, which is insane.
The bad news is the law, though the law itself is good. Here's the paradox. The law itself is good; the problem is we are not. There's bad news there that we stand rightly condemned by God. Now, let me offer you the gospel.
This stuff matters a bunch because it fleshes itself out, not only in preaching, but it's going to flesh itself out a lot in your day-to-day life or in your life with fellow members of your church, your life in your own household, with your spouse, or your kids, or whoever. It's important that we are really precise. The focus of the gospel is actually quite narrow. The gospel is only Christ and what he did, and anything else around it is a part of the revelation of God, but it is not gospel.
Jon Moffitt: Here's an illustration we make all the time. When Adam and Eve fell, God came and exposed their failure to the law. "Do not eat of the fruit." And they ate of the fruit. So they did not uphold the law. What is amazing is that, what did God do? He brought good news. He said to Eve, "From you will come the seed and he will crush the head of Satan.
Justin Perdue: Even in that promise in Genesis 3:15, what kind of commands does he make to Adam and Eve?
Jon Moffitt: Right! That's what I'm getting at. So the law, failure of the law, euangelion—what everybody believes is the proto-euangelion is. It's the first mention of the gospel from the very first promise of God to fix what we have destroyed. God made no demands. He declared it to be so. He declared victory before victory was there. He said, "Listen, I'm going to declare victory. The seed's going to crush the head." then what ends up happening? Jesus goes, "It's finished. I crushed it." It's a declaration. It's done. That's why the gospel is always done, not do. We can't forget that.
I was listening to a Catholic. I don't know how it came across my YouTube channel. The guy is super entertaining. He's really well-spoken, he's got millions of followers. I think it's called Ascension something. It's a podcast. I was super fascinated by the title of the podcast, which was about purgatory. I wanted to know what modern day Catholicism is teaching about purgatory. He was saying, "Yeah, when Christ yelled 'it was finished', it was done. We believe that. Christ was sufficient to pay for all of our sins. But our flesh, even though we have been declared justified, our flesh is still sinful. So we still do things that are offensive to God and those things must be taken care of." It was so interesting to hear him say he believed in the declaration of Christ's righteousness, but it was almost like it only covered a certain point. Your transformation in baptism—that was a clean slate, but anything after that, you had to be purged of it because it's still part of your nature. That sounds like modern day gospels that are being preached today. It sounded like read your Bible and do these things to purge yourself of sins that God somehow hasn't cleansed you of. No, that doesn't sound right.
Justin Perdue: I'm not trying to do any kind of caricaturing or strong hand stuff here, but to pick up on what you just said, I think sometimes the way that stuff is presented is maybe even worse than what that Roman Catholic man said. It's often trust in Jesus Christ and you are declared righteous, you're justified, but then do all of these things that God demands of you, and do them well enough that you would keep yourself in good standing. If you don't do these things well enough, you probably will just have proven yourself to be illegitimate. Not only would you face purgatory, you'll actually just face hell. That's a very discouraging, disheartening, damning message.
This is what people will say: we have all the equipment now that we've trusted Christ and have been indwelt with the Spirit. We have all the equipment that we need to live a life that honors God that would effectively be worthy of heaven. People don't mean that we can be perfect and be worthy of heaven, but they mean that we would be good enough that God would then pronounce upon us legitimacy.
Jon Moffitt: Would you say this is like a confusion of Hebrews 12's "Without holiness, no one will see the Lord"?
Justin Perdue: Two or three bullet points on Hebrews 12 for people who are newer. There's a reference to Isaiah 35, it's quoted, about strengthening your weak hands and your feeble knees and all these kinds of things. That language is an Isaiah 35, which is a passage about salvation that the Lord will accomplish for His people. And that matters.
But then the language is one of the discipline of a loving Father who does these things in the life of His children, so that they might share in His holiness. What we're being told is the discipline of God is actually good, and we need to be told that because discipline is never pleasant. We're being told by the writer of the Hebrews to take heart when you face the discipline of God, because He's up to good things in your life, and He is just sanctifying and transforming you that you might share in His holiness so that you will see Him one day. He is doing that. It is not a threatening passage. It's a passage of comfort.
Jon Moffitt: I'll say it is threatening in this way: if you think your righteousness, then you should be terrified.
Justin Perdue: I agree about that. That's just one example of how people, because of a hermeneutic, because of a presupposition that we need to smoke out the fakers, we overlay that on the Scripture and force it into categories that I don't think exist. That's what's happened with Hebrews 12 on the part of many people. Many guys who are gifted teachers of the Scriptures say things about Hebrews 12 that I don't think are accurate, and they turn a passage that's meant to encourage and give strength and hope to people who are undergoing the discipline of God, and what they end up doing is just terrifying all of us, that if we don't do well enough in holiness, then we're going to be damned.
Jon Moffitt: Right. Imagine hearing this and being able to go online or to a local place or a local coffee shop. Having a conversation about this, fleshing it out. Coming soon.
Justin Perdue: Coming soon. Thanks for listening. We're grateful for you guys and your partnership with us. Keep trusting Christ. Keep pointing others to him. We'll talk with you soon.
