Many people believe that because we are saved by grace apart from works of the law, we have absolutely no obligation to obey the law. In actuality, there are so many different views about the relationship between the law and the gospel of grace that we can’t possibly mention them all. So, to counter a host of false notions, we’ll describe the biblical perspective on this relationship by focusing on what theologians have traditionally called the “three uses of the law.”

The first use of the law is the pedagogical use, or the use of the law as a teacher. In this use, the law shows us our sin and teaches us of the absolute danger we’re in without Christ’s saving grace. We all know the experience of learning that something is forbidden and being drawn all the more to do it. In this way, it drives us to repentance and faith in Christ. Paul wrote about his own experience with the pedagogical use of the law in Romans 7:7-8, when he wrote these words:

I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness.

This use of the law is commonly associated with the biblical teaching that believers were once under law, but are now under grace. When unbelievers are confronted with the law’s standards and penalties, they are incited to sin even more. And they recognize the punishment or curse that the law threatens against them because of their sin. This threat drives some unbelievers to Christ, who graciously saves them from the law’s curse.

The civil or second use of the law involves the way the law restrains sin by threatening punishment against those who violate it. We can think of ways we restrain our own behavior for fear of punishment by those who hold civil authority over us. This use of the law is for believers and unbelievers alike. God has designed the law in civil societies as an instrument for restraining evil. According to God’s plan, we are to obey our civil authorities. We should note, however, that when our governments defy the law of God, we are always bound to follow God’s law.

The normative or third use of the law is very helpful to study when we think about the law in terms of the gospel and Christian ethics. The normative use applies the law as a revelation of God’s will for Christian living. We might compare it to the household rules that parents make to keep their children safe — rules children obey because they love and trust their parents. For example, listen to the words of 1 John 3:4:

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.

John wrote these words long after Christ had ascended into heaven. Nevertheless, he asserted that the law remains the standard for our behavior. He even went so far as to define all sin in terms of breaking the law.

To put it simply, the law is still the standard by which Christian behavior is judged to be righteous or sinful. And many passages indicate that when the law is used as a standard for Christian behavior, it is perfectly compatible with the gospel.

We were under the law’s curse because we were lawbreakers. But now that we are saved, we are counted as perfect law-keepers in Christ, so that we receive the law’s promised blessings of salvation and life. In short, while believers are not “under law” in the sense that we suffer its curse when we sin, we are “under law” in the sense that we receive its blessings, and in the sense that we are obligated to obey it. Listen to what Jesus said in Matthew 5:17-18:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.