The Concept of Equity in Calvin’s Ethics

Chapter 5

Chapter 5 Equity and the Law Because of the importance of the law in Calvin's ethics, a examination of equity necessarily leads us to examine its role in interpreting and applying the law of God. Before embarking on this study, it is important to have before us Calvin's general understanding of the law of God in the Christian life. God has revealed His will for humans in the law, specifically in the precepts of the law.1 Natural law reveals His will, but because sin has affected our ability to perceive it, God gives clear witness to His will in the written law of scripture.2 The whole course of human life should be ruled by the Word of God, for the law contained therein teaches what is pleasing to Him.3 The law depicts God's character and reveals His perfect righteousness; it is the perfect rule for a godly and holy life.4 Since the law of God reveals the righteousness that He requires, Calvin claims that all people are to obey it, ordering their lives accordingly.5 To do so, they must clearly understand and distinguish between the three uses of the law. In the first use of the law—the pedagogical use—Calvin views the function of the law to reveal our inability to fulfill its righteous demands. "[W]hile it shows God's righteousness, that is, the righteousness alone acceptable to God, it warns, informs, convicts, and lastly condemns every man of his own unrighteousness."6 The end or fulfillment of this first use of the law is the grace of God in Jesus Christ. "The law has been given to lead us by the hand to another righteousness. Indeed, every doctrine of the law, every command, every promise, always points to Christ."7 Through union with Him the requirements of God's law are satisfied, and believers participate in the righteousness that alone satisfies the law. The key point for Calvin is that no one can understand, submit to, or fulfill the law unless it is interpreted in and through Jesus Christ and His gracious work.8 Calvin insists : "Without Christ the law is empty and insubstantial."9 The second use of the law is its civic use. Through judicial institutions and instruments, such as statutory laws and regulated punishments, evil in soci65 66 The Concept of Equity in Calvin's Ethics ety is restrained. "The second function of the law is this: at least by fear of punishment to restrain certain men who are untouched by any care for what is just and right unless compelled by hearing the dire threats in the law."10 The constrained and forced external righteousness that results has no inward effect upon the mind or heart of the unregenerate, but it does allow some measure of civic and social life.11 The third use of the law applies only to the regenerate and gives a proper understanding of obedience to the commands of God. "The third and principal use of the law, which pertains more closely to the proper purpose of the law, finds its place among believers in whose hearts the Spirit of God already lives and reigns."12 No longer under law, but now under grace, believers are endued with the Spirit so that they may walk in all God's ways.13 The Spirit guides them in these ways by "the perpetual rule of a good and holy life."14 This rule is law, but no longer understood as 'bare law' or 'letter.' It is covenant law, law "graced with the covenant of free adoption."15 Calvin maintainsthat the law guides believers into holiness through teaching and exhortation. First, by its teaching the law 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."16 The purpose of the law is the fulfillment of righteousness by believers in order to form them in imitation of God's purity and holiness. "God has so depicted his character in the law that if any man carries out in deeds what is enjoined there, he will express the image of God, as it were, in his own life."17 The law guides believers into a life of love of God and of neighbour.18 Secondly, the law has power to exhort believers to holiness. Frequent meditation on the law arouses them to obedience...