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The Law’s Third Use - Are You Feeling Rejected and Condemned?
Mark D. Menacher, Ph.D.
Introduction
The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, generally known as the Book of Concord (BoC) in English, conclude with the Formula of Concord (FC). The FC is composed of two parts, the Epitome (Ep) and the Solid Declaration (SD).1 As the names imply, the FC and the BoC were written and compiled, respectively, then published in 1580 to bring concord within Lutheran lands between contending parties whose doctrinal differences after Martin Luther’s death in 1546 threatened Lutheranism itself. By and large, the BoC and the FC have accomplished their task. Unfortunately, Ep Article VI and SD Article VI regarding the “third use of the law” have not been so successful, especially in recent decades. Why might this be the case, and why is it important for both parishioners and pastors?
If you do not know what the law’s “third use” is or, worse, do not regard it too highly, the consequences are harsh. Ep VI.8 concludes, “Accordingly we condemn as dangerous and subversive (schädlich) of Christian discipline and true piety the erroneous teaching (widerwärtige Lehr und Irrtumb) that the law is not to be urged (getrieben), in the manner and measure above described, upon Christians and genuine believers, but only upon unbelievers, non-Christians, and the impenitent.” Similarly, SD VI.26 states, "Hence we reject (verwerfen) and condemn (verdammen), as pernicious (schädlich) and contrary to discipline and true godliness, the erroneous doctrine (nachteiligen Irrtumb) that the law in the manner and measure indicated above is not to be urged upon Christians and true believers but only upon unbelievers, non-Christians, and the unrepentant.” Because not teaching the “third use of the law” is “dangerous and subversive,” to be “rejected and condemned,” those failing to do so frequently face the same fate. To paraphrase the catechism, what does this mean?
References to the law’s use (usus), application (Gebrauch), or office (officium) are routinely employed by Luther. According to Luther, God uses the law to address human sin in two ways. The “first use,” often called the political or civil use (usus politicus, usus civilis), reflects God’s efforts to protect sinful human beings from each other and from themselves through civil government and laws. Through the “second use,” known as the theological or spiritual use (usus theologicus, usus spiritualis), which is effected through the church’s preaching and teaching, God reveals sin, thereby terrifying consciences and humbling sinners, in order to drive them to Christ.2 When Christ and his gospel are then proclaimed to such terrified consciences and when Christ’s promises invoke and evoke the faith alone in Christ by which these same sinners are justified, “we are freed from the law, sin, death, and all evils and are made partakers of grace, righteousness, and life, and then are appointed lords of heaven, of earth, and of all creatures. The law is added over reason in order that it might illuminate and aid a human being and might show him what he ought to do and to omit.”3 For Luther, this addition of the law does not represent a “third use” but rather reflects the function of the law within its two divinely established uses. “In true theology,” according to Luther, “this is effected first, that a human being is to become good through the regeneration of the Spirit, who is a sure, holy, and bold Spirit. Then, as from a good tree, it happens that good fruit also sprouts forth.”4 These good works as good fruit are not coerced but follow faith voluntarily (sponte).5
Martin Luther
The Third Use
The concept of a “third use” of the law was formulated in the wake of the First Antinomian Controversy6 by Philip Melanchthon, who arguably was Luther’s right-hand man. Beginning in 1527, another close associate of Luther, Johann Agricola, began to contest Melanchthon’s understanding of Luke 24:47 “that repentance Melanchthon and the forgiveness of sins should be preached in [Christ’s] name to all peoples, beginning from Jerusalem.” Agricola asserted that both repentance and the forgiveness of sins were affected by the gospel without any use of the law. Agricola and his followers were subsequently branded as “antinomian” (from anti + nomos in Greek meaning “against the law”).
Luther and Melanchthon responded differently to Agricola’s dissolution of the distinction between law and gospel. Between December 1537 and September 1540, Luther published six series of theses in four Disputations against the Antinomians, 7 a theological tour de force. Melanchthon countered by adding more law to the 1535 edition of his Loci Communes, which he initially described as a “third office” of the law (tertium officium legis),8 later adding the term
Philip Melanchthon
“threefold use” of the law (triplicex usus legis). In Melanchthon’s scheme, with the “first use” (usus paedagogicus or politicus) God wants to restrain (coercere) all human beings from committing outward sins. In the “second use,” God wants to show sin, accuse, terrify, and condemn all human beings for their corrupt nature, and to demonstrate the need for repentance. The “third use” is applied to the regenerate or the reborn (usus in renatis). According to Melanchthon, although the regenerate are free from the law, nonetheless the law must be preached to teach them so that they might exercise obedience towards God.9
A Speed Limit
Perhaps an example will help clarify these concepts. Think about a speed limit sign. The sign represents one law with three uses. The first use, drafted by civil politicians, is established to protect human beings from speeding and thus potentially endangering their lives and the lives of others. Second, when used in conjunction with a vehicle or roadside speedometer, the same sign “shows,” “accuses,” and “condemns” speeders, revealing that they are corrupt and should repent by slowing down. Third and finally, that same sign tells those reborn in Christ not only that it is God’s will for them to observe the speed limit but also that doing so is pleasing to God.
So, when was the last time that you observed any “speed limit” with the dual goal of being obedient and pleasing to God? Furthermore, when was the last time that such adherence to “speed limits” was preached to you by a Lutheran pastor? Finally, when was the last time any “speed limit” sign at any time exercised any inherent power to oblige you to comply? Viewed another way, despite the energy invested in defining and debating its various uses, the law is inherently impotent.10
After Luther
When Martin Luther died on 18 February 1546, the Reformation within the Lutheran fold fell quickly into disarray. By June 1546, the Pope and the Emperor had entered into a pact to attack the Lutheran lands and to force them to return to the papal church. Against such a threat, years before the Lutheran territories had organized themselves into an alliance called the Smalcaldic League after the town of Smalcald, Germany where the agreement was drafted. Due to disunity and betrayal among some of the Protestant princes, the emperor quickly won what is now called the Smalcaldic War in late May 1547. Earlier in May 1547, Wittenberg itself was occupied, and the university was temporarily closed. In May 1548, the Emperor mandated interim arrangements to “re-papalize” the conquered Lutherans in preparation for the implementation of the final decisions of the recently convened Council of Trent. This edict became known as the “Augsburg Interim” after the city where it was decreed. Unfortunately, along with his many other failings during this period, Philip Melanchthon refused to speak against the Interim publicly. 11
Due to these events, a considerable theological vacuum developed in Wittenberg and many controversies arose, one of which is known as the Second Antinomian Controversy. Despite the peaceful coexistence of Luther’s and Melanchthon’s differing delineations of the law, in the 1550s former students favorable to one side (Genesio-Lutherans) or the other (Philippists), respectively brought Luther’s duplex and Melanchthon’s triplex uses of the law into conflict. 12 Because the former rejected a “third use” of the law, they were also dubbed “antinomians,” although in light of the eighth commandment perhaps “two-thirds nomians” would be more accurate. To make matters worse, some Philippists started to espouse antinomian positions similar to Agricola.13 To resolve these and many other controversies among Lutheran factions, the concordists compiled the Book of Concord and formulated the Formula of Concord hoping to ensure that such discord would remain just an “interim” moment of chaos. Unfortunately, in relation to Ep VI and SD VI such concord has remained elusive.
So, do you find that you are not always observing the speed limit “from a free and merry spirit” (SD VI.17)? Does the Old Adam in you sometimes have you speeding despite the threat of a ticket to coerce compliance (SD VI.18)? Do you sometimes think that going even one mile per hour under the speed limit makes you somehow virtuous or even holy (SD VI.20.21)? Are you aware that not knowing the difference between the first, second, or third use of the law is no excuse (ignorantia juris non excusat)? Wittingly or unwittingly, should any or all of the above necessarily make you dangerous and subversive (Ep VI.8), to be rejected and condemned (SD VI.26), especially by fellow Lutherans gesticulating profusely or profanely at you in your rearview mirror? In other words, is Article VI of the FC the touchstone of being faithfully and confessionally Lutheran?
Contrary to passing perceptions, the answer is not straight forward. The numerous, various, and even valiant attempts by confessionally-minded theologians to find a “third use” of the law in Luther’s theology or to marry Lutheran terminology with Melanchthonian methodology or to interpret FC VI Christologically in the hope of complying with Ep VI and SD VI, would be not only superfluous but non-existent if concord had been adequately formulated in the FC regarding Lutheran uses of the law.
Again, what does this mean? First, when the concordists included Luther’s Smalcald Articles (SA) and the FC in the same corpus of confessional writings, they (presumably unintentionally) codified discord into the Book of Concord. In SA III.II “The Law,” Luther describes only two uses: (1) “Here we maintain that the law was given by God first of all to restrain sins by threats and fear of punishment and by the promise and offer of grace and favor. But this purpose failed (ubel geraten - fell afoul) because of the wickedness which sin has worked in man, ...” (SA III.II.1), and (2) “However, the chief function or power of the law is to make original sin manifest and show man to what utter depths his nature has fallen and how corrupt it has become, ... that he neither has nor cares for God or that he worships strange gods, ... [and] is terror stricken and humbled, ..., etc.” (SA III.II.4). In contrast, following Melanchthon’s theology, the concordists in Ep VI.1 and SD VI.1 prescribe three uses: (1) “to maintain external discipline against” ... “disobedient men/people,” (2) “to lead men / bring people to a knowledge of their sin through the law,” and (3) “to give [the reborn] ... a definite rule according to which they should pattern and regulate their entire life” that “those who have been born anew through the Holy Spirit, ... [can] learn from the law to live and walk in the law.” The Ten Commandments show the regenerate “what the acceptable will of God is (Rom. 12:2) and in what good works, which God has prepared beforehand, they should walk (Eph. 2:10)” (SD VI.12.21).
Consequently, on one hand the FC itself not only considers Luther to be the foremost teacher (doctor) in the churches of the Augsburg Confession but also considers his doctrinal and polemical writings to provide the true understanding and meaning of the Confessio Augustana (CA),14 which Lutherans confess Augsburg Confession to be founded on God’s word (holy scripture) as a pure, Christian symbol.15 On the other hand, the “third use” of the law in Ep VI.1 and SD VI.1 only appears to build upon Luther’s two uses found in the SA. In reality, however, because Luther only teaches two uses of the law, his teaching in the SA and in his “other doctrinal and polemical writings” cannot escape being rejected and condemned for being “dangerous and subversive” (Ep VI.8), as being “pernicious and contrary to Christian discipline and true godliness” (SD VI.26). That is the law in FC VI, but which use is that exactly?
Augsburg Confession
Using Different Language
Second, whereas Luther and Melanchthon (and the concordists) may appear to be using the same language because they often cite the same biblical passages, due to Melanchthon’s divergence from Luther’s biblically based theology in favor of his own humanist, Aristotelian oriented approach,16 their similar language masks substantial differences. According to the FC, the “converted are freed through Christ from the curse and coercion of the law, ...” and “have been redeemed by the Son of God precisely that they should exercise themselves day and night in the law” (Ep VI.2). Likewise, “when a person is born anew by the Spirit of God and is liberated from the law (that is, when he is free from this driver and is driven by the Spirit of Christ), he lives according to the immutable will of God as it is comprehended in the law...” (SD VI.17). For Melanchthon and the concordists, the law mediates the relationship between God and human beings, and Christ is reduced to reconciling fallen humanity with God by restoring them to and reinstating them in God’s eternal, immutable law.
For Luther, by contrast, if one collects “all the wisdom of Moses, the Gentiles, [and] the philosophers, ... you will discover that before God (coram deo) these are either idolatry or feigned wisdom or, in the political sphere, a wisdom of wrath.”17 “This is because Christ is Lord of the law, to whom the people, the father’s house, and the universal law must submit. That is so because the law has been delivered by servants. Now, however, the Lord himself, the king and God, is present.”18 “Christ, then, is not a servant but the Lord Himself; not the Mediator between God and humanity according to the law, as Moses, but he is the mediator of a better Testament.”19 Because of Christ the gospel is eternal.20 Therefore, Luther admonishes here to differentiate between the Giver and the gift. God has given many gifts, like Moses, the law, etc., but incomparably to those, God, the Giver, has given himself in Christ. Consequently, everything must yield to Christ as Lord of all, including the law.21
Luther Left Out?
Finally, the strength of the FC’s assertions regarding the centrality of the law in the economy of salvation seems to rest upon the notion that the law as the expression of God’s will is not only eternal but unchangeable/immutable (unwandelbar Ep VI.6, SD VI.3.15.17). The “word ‘law’ here has but one meaning, namely, the immutable will of God according to which man is to conduct himself in this life” (SD VI.17). This seems to reflect Melanchthon’s view that the “divine order remains unchangeable” (manet immutabilis ordinatio divina).22 So conceived, the “third use” of the law found in FC VI seems unassailably established. Unfortunately, the concordists do not seem to have taken the foremost doctor in the churches of the Augsburg Confession into account. As Luther proclaims in relation to John 6:38-39, "This is a new sermon from which we want to learn what the Father’s will is and how one might do God’s will. The papists have said that God’s will is to keep his commandments. They mingle everything together and relate God’s will to good works. ... Therefore [Christ] speaks here about another will of God the Father, which pertains greatly to other matters and which is a will other than keeping the Ten Commandments or preaching the law. For the blind leaders, the papists, have invented it in their heads and purported that it is God’s will to keep God’s Commandments. They have inserted faith into the law, entirely mingled them together, and then shoved their notions and dreams into this text. They persist in this and refer to God’s Commandments as the divine will. Therefore, one should let them take a hike. ... All that [regarding the law] is his will, but how much of that is of his will? For here he does not speak of that at all, but instead here he deals with the right will of God, the heavenly Father, which does not pertain to the Commandments and the law; to wit, “Whoever believes in the Son shall not perish but have eternal life” [Jn 3:16]. Therefore, you also must not mingle these wills one in the other but [must] speak thereof as Christ himself does and as the text here states. Now, it is another article, yes, another thing than when one says, “Honor your parents.” Here he speaks of another will, and you must not brew and stew (brewen und kochen) one in the other. ... For as Christ also says in another place, “This is the will of him who has sent me, that whoever sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” [Jn 6:40]. That certainly does not mean to shove away from himself but to keep close by himself. That is another will entirely from the one which the law demands of us. One must separate such wills of God from one another."23
As Luther reminds, “[W]hoever knows well how to discern the gospel from the law should give thanks to God and know that he is a theologian.”24 In contrast, for Luther, “stewing and brewing” (kochen und brewen) God’s domains together is the devil’s work.25 The failure to differentiate gospel from the law, and the readiness to brew and stew God’s two wills together in Article VI of the Formula of Concord has, does, and will continue to create discord among Lutherans, to the devil’s delight. So, the next time that you see a fellow Lutheran gesticulating profusely or profanely at you in your “third use” rearview mirror, keep in mind that God wills there to be no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1).
Rev. Dr. Mark Menacher is Pastor of St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, La Mesa, California
Endnotes:
1See The Book of Concord, ed. Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 464-636 (hereafter as BoC). References to the Epitome and Solid Declaration are by article and paragraph(s), i.e. VI.1. See also Die Bekenntnisschriften der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche, 9th edition (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), 735-1100 (hereafter as BSLK).
2Cf., D. Martin Luthers Werke - Kritische Gesammtausgabe (Weimar: Hermann Böhlau, 1883-2009), 40,1:528,6-20 [hereafter as WA]. Unless otherwise stated, translations are the author’s. Corresponding references to the same material where existent are cited from Luther’s Works, American Edition, 55 vols., editors, J. Pelikan and H. Lehmann (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House and Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1955), 26:343-344 [hereafter as LW].
3WA 40,1:306,13-18 = LW 26:183-184. “Moreover, the spirit is freedom (libertas) from law, sin, death, curse, hell, wrath, and judgement of God, etc.” WA 40,1:455,35-36 = LW 26:293. Also, WA 40,1:672,18-21 = LW 26:447, “This is not because the conscience does not experience terrors of the law. Certainly, it experiences them, but in such cases the former cannot be condemned and driven to despair, because ‘now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” (Rom. 8:1); likewise, “if the son has set you free (liberaverit), you will be truly free (liberi),” (John 8:36).” For Luther, freedom in Christ is not a theological category but an existential reality as exemplified by changing his surname’s spelling from Luder to Luther to reflect the theta (θ = th) in the Greek word ἐλεύθερος (eleutheros) meaning “free,” see Bernd Moeller and Karl Stackmann, “Luder–Luther–Eleutherius: Erwägungen zu Luthers Namen,” in Nachrichten der Akamemie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen. I. Philologisch-Historische Klasse, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981).
4WA 40,2:433,28-31 = LW 12:385.
5WA 39,1:46,28-30 = LW 34:111.
6Cf., Friedrich Bente, Historical Introductions to the Book of Concord (St. Louis, Missouri: Concordia Publishing House, 1965), 161-171 [hereafter Bente].
7Cf., Bente, 163-168. For an excellent Latin-English compendium of Luther’s theses against the antinomians, see Holgar Sonntag, Solus Decalogus est Aeternus - Martin Luther’s Complete Antinomian Theses and Disputations (Minneapolis: Lutheran Press, 2008). N.B. Sonntag’s editing deviates from the presentation of the same in WA 39,1:359-584 and WA 39,2:122-144.
8Loci communes theologici recens collecti et recogniti in Libri Philippi Melanthonis, Corpus Reformatorum, volume 21, ed. C.G. Bretschneider and H.E. Bindseil (Brunswick, 1854), 406 [hereafter as CR].
9CR 21:717-719.
10See Gerhard Ebeling, Luther - Einführung in sein Denken, fourth edition (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1981/1990), 140-141.
11Bente, 93-99.
12Bente, 169-171.
13Bente, 171-172.
14BSLK, 983,34; 984,41 = BoC 575,34; 576,41.
15BSLK, 45,8; 830,4 = BoC, 25,8; 502,4.
16Cf., James A. Nestingen, “Changing Definitions: The Law in Formula VI,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 69 (2005), 259-270, especially 264-265.
17WA 40,2:489,38 - 490,16-17 = LW 12:210.
18WA 40,2:584,19-21 = LW 12:280-281.
19WA 40,1:494,30-32 = LW 26:319.
20WA 40,1:494,23 = LW 26:318.
21WA 40 2:584,22-36 = LW 12:281.
22CR 21:719.
23WA 33:91,42 - 92,6; 92,38 - 93,1-10; 93:20-36; 94,1-11 = LW 23:62-63.
24WA 40,1:207,17-18 = LW 26:115.
25Cf., WA 51:239,22-30 = LW 13:194-195.
