Welcome to Marscast, a podcast from Mid-America Reform Seminary, where our faculty members address all things theological and cultural through a reformed lens. I'm your host, Jared Luchabor. In today's episode, Dr. Beach explores John Calvin's teachings from his Institutes of the Christian Religion on how fallen humanity can only find redemption through faith in Christ as our Redeemer. Calvin argues the Old Testament law exposed our inability to achieve righteousness ourselves, driving us to depend wholly on God's grace. He explains the threefold use of the law to convict of sin, restrain evil, and guide believers, and how Old Testament ceremonies foreshadowed the gospel promises fulfilled in Jesus. Throughout, Calvin shows that the way of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone was the same essence in both testaments, with the law serving to lead us to the Redeemer in whom we are justified. Take a listen. Well, now we turn to the way of redemption in Christ. It sounds like we're going to start talking about Jesus right away. Actually, Calvin, in this second book of the Institutes of the Christian Religion, under the sixth chapter, takes up this title, Fallen Man Ought to Seek Redemption in Christ. So Calvin's going to show us that path, and that path is going to first come by way of the law given, which the law was given not to restrain the folk of the Old Covenant under itself, but to foster hope of salvation in Christ until his coming. So in chapter 6, as I mentioned, fallen man ought to seek redemption in Christ. So we have seen in book 2, the opening chapters, show us human depravity. We did not look at chapters 4 or 5. Chapter 4 had to do with how God isn't culpable for human sin, and he's not culpable when humans act and behave and make their fallen choices in sin, and yet he's still sovereign over those things. So he's free from human guilt and their depravity. And then chapter 5, there Calvin seeks to refute various objections that are often put forward in a defense of free will or in opposition to his denial of free will. We'll forgo that and now consider briefly what it means in chapter 6 that fallen man ought to seek redemption in Christ. Here it's fairly straightforward. Look, if you're broken, if you can't help yourself, if you're not your own remedy, then this is back to true knowledge of God and knowledge of self. True knowledge of self now has to look up to God for help. True knowledge of self has to look to God for remedy and for God to impart the solution. And in fact, that's what the biblical storyline is. so that knowledge of the Creator itself is useless unless we have faith in Him as our Redeemer. So knowledge of God, the Creator, without knowledge of God, the Redeemer, does us no good whatsoever. We need faith in God through Christ as our Redeemer. And so, through faith, we have come, says Calvin, to know God as our Father in Christ, one favorable to us, one disposed for our good, for our salvation. Otherwise, without faith in knowledge of God, this knowledge of God as a Redeemer, we only behold God as frowning upon us, as damning us, as under his judgment. So just so we don't, again, make natural law too much, if we contemplate the universe, says Calvin, we cannot infer that God is Father. So let's just stop it already. Let's not make too much of what natural law can do. It can't get us to Christ, the Redeemer, or to our salvation. Meanwhile, if we're to turn to God for help and hope, we're going to have to disown ourselves in the sense that we're going to have to turn to God for help. God indeed comes to the rescue, and the natural response is dullness, ingratitude, boredom, disinterest, We meet neighbors like this to this day who could literally care less. So if anyone is to come to faith, it has to be God's work, says Calvin, and it is his work. He even uses the folly of preaching the outward means for that purpose and the Spirit working inwardly through that outward means to affect in us this faith in Christ the Redeemer, Christ alone. Being estranged from God, broken away from God, we need redemption and we only get peace with God on his terms and And if it's left to us, we just invent gods, invent religions, invent ideologies. You might add nowadays all kinds of distractions and hobbies of heart that would soothe our conscience or distract us away from a real contemplation of our depravity and our need. So it's always mercy that has to run out ahead of us. Calvin tells us this, apart from Christ, the saving knowledge of God does not stand. From the beginning of the world, he had consequently been set before us, before all the elect, I should say, that they should look unto him and put their trust in him. So we need Christ, God has to give us Christ, and it's the elect who finally look to him and trust in him. Now from there, Calvin examines the law of God, the law of Moses. And the law, by the law, God shows fallen humans their desperate need for redemption. So how does God go about saving us? Well, he needs to show us that we need saving. And the law comes along, and exposes us in our depravity. So in treating the law, Calvin explains that in the Old Testament, God provided witnesses to remind his chosen people of the one to come. Now this is interesting because already in the law, or the Old Testament as a whole, the Gospels contain. Already in the Law, the promise of salvation. Already in the Law, the way of redemption is the way of grace by faith alone, Christ alone, and the like. Already in the Old Testament. Calvin explains what he means by the Law now understood not only as the Ten Commandments, which of course sets forth a godly and righteous rule of living, but this law is whiter than that because it includes the gracious covenant, that is, you know, the whole Old Testament that God established with Abraham, and the law of Moses does not cancel that gracious covenant so established. In fact, Moses, Calvin reminds us frequently, would remind Israel of that freely given covenant made with their fathers, of which they were the heirs. In fact, through the ceremonies of the Mosaic Law, God renews that covenant. They are typological or figurative in pointing ahead to the sacrifice to come in Christ, the cross. Calvin argues that the moral and ceremonial laws point us to Christ. So Calvin's burden isn't the way it rolls out in certain circles today to play up the law of Moses as this way of blessedness. Now he's going to play up the way of grace in the law of Moses, the way of salvation, the gospel, so contained in how the law functions to bring us to lift our minds higher to the heavenly things. In fact, Calvin writes this, God did not command sacrifices in order to busy his worshipers with earthly exercises, but precisely so that he might lift their minds higher. So in that light, Calvin also wants us to see that the Mosaic Law contains the gospel promise of Christ to come. We see it in the royal figure of David and in the Levitical priesthood and in the ceremonies that go with it. He calls that a double mirror that shows us Christ. Quite important. It seems these themes are not denied but undervalued today, I think, in Reformed circles. The Ten Commandments, then, the moral law written down, certainly teach us the way of righteousness, but Calvin would say they teach us the way of righteousness in vain until Christ confers it by free imputation, that is, righteousness, and by the spirit of regeneration. So the law was never given to provide a way of salvation apart from Christ, or as if the law could lead to righteousness. I mean, the law is given to fallen people, depraved people. Don't forget all the depravity and the burden that we're under. The law arouses guilt. The law shows up our depravity. The law would bring us to humility. The law would show us our feebleness. But the law itself is feeble. feeble, says Calvin, to make us righteous, to change our hearts, to renew us. The law is feeble. It can threaten us. It can show us. It can point. It can condemn. It can, through its sacrifices, show us in the ceremonies of the Levitical priesthood and so forth. It points all to the good news of salvation, but the law itself cannot save us, because observance of the law is found in none of us. We're excluded from the promises of life accordingly, and we fall back into mere curse. You want to try to keep the law, then just go ahead and go to hell. because you're not going to make it through the law. So in condemning us, the law leaves us despondent, it leaves us despairing. That's Galatians 3.10. Even the conditional, do this and live, the famed Leviticus 18.5, passage which Jesus alludes to with the rich young ruler in Luke 10, Galatians 3.11, Romans 10. It's also mentioned even that conditional promises, do this and live, contained in the law of Moses, conditions we can never meet. We're not given in order to mock us. Yeah, you go ahead, because you can really do it. Try harder, man. Try harder. Do better. No, says Calvin. When we discover our inability to fulfill such conditions, and that such conditional promises are fruitless and ineffectual for us, we discover that God must intervene on our behalf. That's not, we discover it in the New Testament. We discover it in the Old Testament. And so he receives us without looking at our works. That's in the Old Testament, not just the New Testament. In faith, then, we embrace his goodness presented to us in the gospel, which is also there in the Old Testament. The promises that did not lack effectiveness even with the condition attached. So the law indeed contains promise. That's the gospel. the law. God supplies what we don't have and performs what we cannot do. He meets the condition that we cannot fulfill. That's justification. Yes, in the Old Testament, not just the New Testament. And so we discover the necessity of God's free grace, for we cannot fulfill the law. It's not like you get to the New Testament and discover you can't fulfill the law. That was there all along. And so the way of self-righteousness is impossible. And let us be quite agreed then, says Calvin, that the law cannot be fulfilled in this life of the flesh. If we observe the weakness of our own nature, we know that's true. Now Calvin takes us through what is commonly known as the three uses of the law, which in different traditions get ordered in a different way. But the first use of the law functioning as a mirror to show us our sinfulness. The second use, its restraining effects upon evildoers that has much to do with civic life, you know, the threat of going to jail or getting a ticket, or I'm not going to do this for fear of punishment or penalty. And then the third use, which he considers the proper purpose of the law. I've actually seen reformed people not even talk about the third use of the law. As if it's a kind of, sorry to put it this way, but a kind of Lutheranism where the third use is acknowledged, but we just don't talk about it. Well, that's not how Calvin views it. The third use of the law is the proper purpose of the law. And under this third use, hey, we are absolutely set free from the curse of the law. We're absolutely set free from the condemnation of the law. But the law still, nonetheless, helps us to learn each day what God's will is, because the law is holy, righteous, good, nothing wrong with the law. And the law exhorts us to the way of obedience. And it pulls us back from the slippery path. Calvin would bid us away from antinomianism then. And the Reformed tradition, perhaps because it falls into legalism from time to time, reacts with antinomianism. And then the third use of the law needs to go away again. But Calvin says, no. We must resist this vehemently. The law has no power to condemn us, but it has power to exhort us. It has no power to bind our consciences or bring us under a curse, but it can shake us awake from sluggishness or pinch us awake to our continuing imperfections. The law cannot destroy our conscience, ought not, by frightening us, confounding us, but it ought to inspire us to love God back according to his will. So it's very important. And even the ceremonial laws, which are abrogated, because this is what he's talking about, the abrogation of the law, they're terminated with their fulfillment. They've been fill-fulled in Christ. And so the ceremonial law has been abrogated. It no longer abides, because it's been filled full. It's hard to say. Filled full in Christ Jesus. So it's important we grasp that Calvin in chapter 8 takes on an exposition of the moral law. We're not going to examine that. He has an abbreviated, you could go to his commentaries if you wanted a more extended exposition of the moral law. listeners might find it interesting to carefully examine Calvin's teaching on the fourth commandment, which he regards as having a large ceremonial dimension which has reached fulfillment, and that we find our real rest, eternal rest, in Christ Jesus, Christ having now come, We're at rest with God. But it's important that as Calvin considers the law, he's setting us up to turn to Christ the Redeemer. In fact, the chapter that will follow this is Christ, although he was known to the Jews under the law, was at length clearly revealed only in the gospel. So now Calvin's using the distinction of law and gospel in that Old Testament, New Testament sense. So maybe we could conclude with that. The way we talk about law and reformed circles is sometimes confusing to people, because reformed writers, and Calvin included, We'll talk about the law in a narrow sense, as in the Ten Commandments or the ceremonial dimensions that go with it. And then it will talk about the law in a broader, comprehensive sense. And in each of these, gospel can be manifest. Now, if you just talk about the Ten Commandments independent of the promises in the Old Testament, if you talk about the Ten Commandments as law in the raw, that's my phrase, raw law, and it's only that, well then you have the letter that kills. Then you have a do this and live only on its own terms, independent of promises, lifted from the context of grace and gospel. the law in the raw this way, is impotent and helpless. However, even the Ten Commandments, then couched within the larger Old Testament with the promise of salvation, announces, particularly through the Levitical priesthood, its foreshadowings and so on, announces gospel, prefigures gospel, foreshadows gospel, the promises of the covenant of grace under which the law is couched. Remember, the preface to the law, Calvin brings this out too, is a God who's run ahead of us and brought deliverance and blessedness. His grace has run out in front. And so it's important we see that There's gospel in the law, and that the way of salvation is one and the same, and Calvin is very emphatic on this, same in substance in the Old Testament and the New Testament. That which a thing is without which it wouldn't be what it is. So the law gives us the gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord. Next time, we'll have one more episode before we break for the month of July. Dr. Beach will conclude this segment on Calvin's Institutes by going into more detail on Calvin's view that the Old and New Testaments share the same substance or essence in terms of the way of salvation, but differ in the mode or manner of dispensation, with the New Testament revealing more clarity on the gospel promises fulfilled in Christ. If you enjoyed this episode of MarzCast, please consider subscribing, telling others who might be interested. Also consider leaving a review wherever you listen to the show. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated and they'll help us to enhance our content further. Your support allows us to produce engaging content and to build a community of lifelong learners and thoughtful practitioners. I'm Jared Luchobor signing off for now. See you in the next episode of MarzCast.