The Moral Law and the Believer: Gratitude and Obedience in Westminster Larger Catechism Question 97

In our last devotional, we considered the sobering use of the moral law for the unregenerate. For those outside of Christ, the moral law awakens the conscience, exposes sin, and drives sinners to flee to the Savior — or else leaves them without excuse under God's judgment. But what about those who have already fled to Christ? If believers are saved by grace and not by law-keeping, does the moral law still have anything to say to them? That is the question the Westminster divines take up next. Question 97 of the Westminster Larger Catechism asks: "What particular use is there of the moral law to regenerate people?"

And it answers: "Although those who are regenerate and believe in Christ are delivered from the moral law as a covenant of works, so that they are neither justified nor condemned by it, yet besides the general uses of the law common to them with all people, it is of special use to show them how much they are bound to Christ for his fulfilling it and his enduring the curse of it in their place and for their good. By this they are provoked to more thankfulness and to express it in their greater care to conform themselves to the moral law as the rule of their obedience."

In short, the moral law no longer stands over the believer as a judge, but it still stands before the believer as a guide. And between those two truths lies a wellspring of gratitude.

Delivered from the Moral Law as a Covenant of Works

The catechism begins with a glorious "although." Believers are "delivered from the moral law as a covenant of works, so that they are neither justified nor condemned by it." Notice what is and is not being said. We are not delivered from the moral law itself, as though God's standard of righteousness had been abolished. We are delivered from the moral law as a covenant of works — as a system by which we might earn life or incur death.

Paul makes this clear in Romans 6:14: "For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace." And again in Romans 7:4 and 6, he tells us that we "have died to the law through the body of Christ" and now "serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code." How did this happen? Galatians 4:4-5 answers: "God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law." Christ was born under the very covenant of works that condemned us, and He kept it perfectly on our behalf.

This is why the moral law can no longer condemn the believer. Romans 8:1 rings out: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Nor can the moral law justify us — it never could, for "by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:20). The believer stands entirely outside the courtroom of the law, clothed in the righteousness of Another.

The Moral Law Shows Us How Much We Owe to Christ

So what special use does the moral law have for the regenerate? The catechism's first answer is striking: it shows believers "how much they are bound to Christ for his fulfilling it and his enduring the curse of it in their place and for their good."

Every time we read the Ten Commandments, we are reading a description of what Jesus did for us. He fulfilled every command we broke. And He endured every curse we deserved. Galatians 3:13-14 puts it unforgettably: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us — for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree' — so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles." Romans 8:3-4 adds that God, "by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us."

For the believer, then, the moral law is no longer a bill of debt. It is a receipt marked "paid in full." The higher the standard, the greater the payment — and the greater our wonder at the One who paid it.

The Moral Law Provokes Thankfulness

The catechism presses further: by seeing Christ's fulfillment of the moral law, believers "are provoked to more thankfulness." That word "provoked" is wonderfully strong. Gratitude is not a mild afterthought in the Christian life; it is stirred up, kindled, driven.

This is exactly the note Zechariah strikes when he prophesies over his son John: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us... that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days" (Luke 1:68-69, 74-75). Redemption produces service, and service flows from thankfulness. Paul echoes the same movement in Colossians 1:12-14, calling believers to give "thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light... in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

Perhaps no one models this provoked thankfulness better than Paul himself. After crying out, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" he immediately answers his own anguish: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:24-25). The moral law showed Paul his wretchedness — and then pointed him straight to his Deliverer, and his heart overflowed.

The Moral Law as the Rule of Our Obedience

But thankfulness that stays in the heart is not yet the thankfulness the catechism describes. True gratitude expresses itself "in their greater care to conform themselves to the moral law as the rule of their obedience." This is what theologians have long called the third use of the law. Freed from the moral law as a covenant, the believer embraces it as a compass.

And here is the miracle of regeneration: the believer actually wants this. "I delight in the law of God, in my inner being," Paul confesses in Romans 7:22. The new heart loves what God loves. So we are "transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God" (Romans 12:2). Grace does not lower the standard; grace trains us to meet it with joy. As Titus 2:11-14 says, the grace of God is "training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age" — as a people "zealous for good works."

Living Gratefully Under the Moral Law

Take a moment for honest reflection. When you read the moral law, what do you feel? Dread, as though God's acceptance still hangs on your performance? Indifference, as though the law no longer matters? Or gratitude — the deep, provoked thankfulness of one who sees in every commandment the finished work of Christ?

The regenerate heart looks at the moral law and sees a Savior. He fulfilled it. He bore its curse. And now He hands it back to us, not as a ladder to climb, but as a lamp for our feet. May our obedience this week be nothing less than thankfulness in motion.

Soli Deo Gloria