Notes: Query 11. Distinguishing the Law
Notes: Query 11. Distinguishing the Law
523
The Law of Works, the Law of Faith (or Covenant of Grace), and the Law of Christ.
524
Rom 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. Rom 7:1 Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? 2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. 4 Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another-- to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.
525
WCF 19.6. Although true believers are not under the law, as a Covenant of Works, to be justified or condemned by it; yet it is of great use to them, as well as to others in that, as a rule of life informing them of the will of God, and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly; it also reveals the sinful pollutions of their nature, hearts and lives; so that, examining themselves by it, they may come to a further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin, together with a cleareralthough these are not due them by the law as it would be in a Covenant of Works.Thus, doing good and refraining from evil, because the law encourages the one and deters the other, is no evidence of a man’s being under the law and not under grace.sight of the need they have of Christ, and the perfection of His obedience. It is likewise of use to the regenerate, to restrain their corruptions, in that it forbids sin: and its threats serve to show what even their sins deserve; and what afflictions, in this life, they may expect for them, even though freed from the curse of it that is threatened in the law. The promises of it, in the same way, show them God’s approval of obedience, and what blessings they may expect upon its performance:
526
Q. 19. What is the misery of that estate into which man fell? A. All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so are made liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever.
527
WCF 19.1 God gave a law to Adam, as a Covenant of Works, by which He bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience; God promised life upon the fulfilling of it, and threatened death upon the breach of it, and endowed Adam with the power and ability to keep it.