The third and principal use, which pertains more closely to the proper use of the law, finds its place among believers in whose hearts the Spirit of God already lives and reigns. For even though they have the law written and engraved upon their hearts by the finger of God, that is, have been so moved and quickened through the directing of the Spirit that they long to obey God, they still profit by the law in two ways.
Here is the best instrument for them to learn more thoroughly each day the nature of the Lord’s will to which they aspire, and to confirm them in the understanding of it. It is as if some servant, already prepared with all earnestness of heart to commend himself to his master, must search out and observe his master’s ways more carefully in order to conform and accommodate himself to them. And not one of us may escape from this necessity. For no man has heretofore attainted to such wisdom as to be unable, from the daily instruction of the law, to make fresh progress to ward a purer knowledge of the divine will.
Again, because we need not only teaching but also exhortation, the servant of God will also avail himself of this benefit of the law: by frequent meditation upon it to be aroused to obedience, be strengthened in it , and be drawn back from the slipper path of transgression. In this way the saints must press on; for, however eagerly the may in accordance with the spirit strive toward God’s righteousness, the listless flesh always so burdens them that they do not proceed with due readiness. The law is to the flesh like a whip to an idle and balky ass, to arouse it to work. Even for a spiritual man not yet free of the weight of the flesh the law remains a constant sting that will not let him stand still. Doubtless David was referring to this use when he sang the praises of the law: “The Law of the Lord is spotless, converting souls; … the righteous acts of the Lord are right, rejoicing hearts; the precept of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes, etc…”
… These do not contradict Paul’s statements, which show not what use the law serves for the regenerate, but what it can of itself confer upon man. But here the prophet proclaims the great usefulness of the law: the Lord instructs by their reading of it those whom he inwardly instills with a readiness to obey. HE lays hold not only of the precepts but the accompanying promise of grace, which alone sweetens what is bitter. For what would be less lovable than the law if, with importuning and threatening alone, it troubled souls through fear, and distressed them through fright? David especially shows that in the law he apprehended the Mediator with whom there is no delight or sweetness.
The law is not no acting toward us as a rigorous enforcement officer who is not satisfied unless the requirements are met. But in this perfection to which it exhorts us, the law points out the goal toward which throughout life we are to strive. In this the law is no less profitable than consistent with our duty. If we fail not in this struggle, it is well. Indeed this whole life is a race; when its course has been run, the Lord will grant us to attain that goal to which our efforts now press forward from afar.
To what extent has the law been abrogated for believers? The law has power to exhort believers. This is not a power to bind their consciences with a curse, but one to shake off their sluggishness, by repeatedly urging them, and to pinch the awake to their imperfection.
The Law is to be spiritually understood and interpreted with reference to the purpose of the Lawgiver … through the law man’s life is molded not only to outward honesty but to inward and spiritual righteousness. Although no one can deny this, very few duly note it. This happens because they do not look to the Lawgiver, by whose character the nature of the law is to appraised. If some king by edict forbids fornication, murder or theft, I admit that a man who merely conceives in his mind the desire to fornicate, to kill, or to steal, but does not commit such acts, will not be bound by the penalty. That is because the mortal lawgivers jurisdiction extends only to the outward political order, his ordinances are not violated except when actual crimes are committed. But God, whose eye nothing escapes, and who is concerned not so much with outward appearance as with purity of heart, under the prohibition of fornication, murder, and theft forbids lust, anger, hatred, coveting a neighbor’s possessions, deceit, and the like. For since he is a spiritual law giver, he speaks no less to the soul than to the body. But murder that is of the soul consists in anger and hatred; theft, in evil covetousness and avarice; fornication, in lust.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion Volume I, Book II, Chapter 7, beginning in Section 12 (pg. 360, McNeil)
