Query 1. Are believers freed from obedience to the Moral Law; or from the Moral Law as a Rule of obedience?

There are some who positively or peremptorily affirm that we are freed from the Law as a Rule, and we are not, since Christ, tied to the obedience of it. Others say it still remains in force as a Rule of Obedience, though it is abolished in other respects. We are still under the conduct and commands of the Law, though not under the curses and penalties of it.

Others say, again, that we are freed from the law as given by Moses, and are only tied to the obedience of it as it is given by Christ. And though they are subject to those commands, and that Law which Moses gave, yet not as he gave it, but as Christ renews it; and as it comes out of the hand, and from the authority of Christ. Joh 13.34, A new commandment I give you, that you love one another. This is a commandment, for Christ is both a Savior and a Lord; and it is a new one — not that it didn’t exist before; but because it is now renewed, and we have it immediately from the hands of Christ. I will not dislike this much; I acknowledge the Moral Law as a Rule of obedience and of Christian walking; and there will be no falling out, whether you take it as
promulgated by Moses, or as handed to you and renewed by Christ.

Indeed, the Law as it is considered as a Rule, can no more be abolished or changed, than the nature of good and evil can be abolished and changed. The substance of the Law is the sum of doctrine concerning piety towards God, charity towards our neighbors, temperance and sobriety towards ourselves. And for the substance of it, it is Moral and Eternal, and cannot be abrogated.
We grant the circumstances, that they were but temporary and changeable, and we now have nothing to do with the Promulgator, Moses; nor the place, Mount Sinai; nor the time, fifty days after they came out of Egypt; nor yet that it was written on Tablets of stone, delivered with thunder and lightning, etc. We don’t look to Sinai the hill of bondage, but to Zion the mountain of Grace. And we take the Law as the Image of the divine Will of God, which we desire to obey, but from which we do not expect life and favor, nor fear death and rigor.

And this, I conceive, is the concurrent opinion of all Divines. The Law is abrogated in respect to its power to justify or condemn; but it still remains in force to direct us in our lives. It condemns sin in the faithful, though it cannot condemn the faithful for sin. Far be that profane opinion from us, to take away the Law as a Rule, which is an inflexible rule of living. By teaching, admonishing, chiding, and reproving, it prepares us for every good work, as Calvin says.

The Law is void for its damnatory power, not its directory power; we are not under its curse, but we are still under its commands.

Samuel Bolton | The True Bounds of Christian Freedom (London, 1545; 1656), 31.

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Post authored by:

• Jack Miller

  

  Jack has been married to Barbara, his partner in the faith, since 1973. They have three daughters and sons-in-law who have blessed them with eleven grandchildren. A Ruling Elder formerly at El Camino OPC , he currently resides as a member of Christ Church Plano (ACNA). Jack has been writing on Reformation and Reformed topics at The World’s Ruined blog since 2010. He is a graduate of the University of California Santa Barbara (1974) and holds a Master’s degree in Biblical Counseling from Grace Theological Seminary (1983).

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