John Calvin - Institutes of the Christian Religion

IV. Therefore, if we direct our views exclusively to the law, the effects upon our minds will only be despondency, confusion, and despair, since it condemns and curses us all, and keeps us far from that blessedness which it proposes to them who observe it. Does the Lord, then, you will say, in this case do nothing but mock us? For how little does it differ from mockery, to exhibit a hope of felicity, to invite and exhort to it, to declare that it is ready for our reception, whilst the way to it is closed and inaccessible! I reply, although the promises of the law, being conditional, depend on a perfect obedience to the law, which can nowhere be found, yet they have not been given in vain. For when we have learned that they will be vain and inefficacious to us, unless God embrace us with his gratuitous goodness, without any regard to our works, and unless we have also embraced by faith that goodness, as exhibited to us in the gospel,—then these promises are not without their use, even with the condition annexed to them. For then he gratuitously confers every thing upon us, so that he adds this also to the number of his favours, that not rejecting our imperfect obedience, but pardoning its deficiencies, he gives us to enjoy the benefit of the legal promises, just as if we had fulfilled the condition ourselves. But as we shall more fully discuss this question when we treat of the justification of faith, we shall pursue it no further at present.

V. Our assertion, respecting the impossibility of observing the law, must be briefly explained and proved; for it is generally esteemed a very absurd sentiment, so that Jerome has not scrupled to denounce it as accursed. What was the opinion of Jerome, I regard not; let us inquire what is truth. I shall not here enter into a long discussion of the various species of possibility; I call that impossible which has never happened yet, and which is prevented by the ordination and decree of God from ever happening in future. If we inquire from the remotest period of antiquity, I assert that there never has existed a saint, who, surrounded with a body of death, could attain to such a degree of love, as to love God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind; and, moreover, that there never has been one, who was not the subject of some inordinate desire. Who can deny this? I know, indeed, what sort of saints the folly of superstition imagines to itself, such as almost excel even the angels of heaven in purity; but such an imagination is repugnant both to Scripture and to the dictates of experience. I assert also that no man, who shall exist in future, will reach the standard of true perfection, unless released from the burden of the body. This is established by clear testimonies of Scripture: Solomon says, “There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not.”786 David; “In thy sight shall no man living be justified.”787 Job in many passages affirms the same thing;788 but Paul most plainly of all, that “the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.”789 Nor does he prove, that “as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse,” by any other reason but because “it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them;”790 evidently suggesting, and even taking it for granted, that no one can continue in them. Now, whatever is predicted in the Scriptures, must be considered as perpetual, and even as necessary. With a similar fallacy Augustine used to be teased by the Pelagians, who maintained that it is an injury to God, to say that he commands more than the faithful through his grace are able to perform. To avoid their cavil, he admitted that the Lord might, if he chose, exalt a mortal man to the purity of angels; but that he neither had ever done it, nor would ever do it, because he had declared otherwise in the Scriptures.791 This I do not deny; but I add that it is absurd to dispute concerning the power of God, in opposition to his veracity; and that, therefore, it affords no room for cavilling, when any one maintains that to be impossible, which the Scriptures declare will never happen. But if the dispute be about the term, the Lord, in reply to an inquiry of his disciples, “Who, then, can be saved?” says, “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.”792 Augustine contends, with a very powerful argument, that in this flesh we never render to God the legitimate love which we owe to him. “Love,” says he, “is an effect of knowledge, so that no man can perfectly love God, who has not first a complete knowledge of his goodness. During our pilgrimage in this world, we see through an obscure medium; the consequence of this, then, is, that our love is imperfect.” It ought, therefore, to be admitted without controversy, that it is impossible in this carnal state to fulfil the law, if we consider the impotence of our nature, as will elsewhere be proved also from Paul.793

VI. But for the better elucidation of the subject, let us state, in a compendious order, the office and use of what is called the moral law. It is contained, as far as I understand it, in these three points. The first is, that while it discovers the righteousness of God, that is, the only righteousness which is acceptable to God, it warns every one of his own unrighteousness, places it beyond all doubt, convicts, and condemns him. For it is necessary that man, blinded and inebriated with self-love, should thus be driven into a knowledge of himself, and a confession of his own imbecility and impurity. Since, unless his vanity be evidently reproved, he is inflated with a foolish confidence in his strength, and can never be brought to perceive its feebleness as long as he measures it by the rule of his own fancy. But as soon as he begins to compare it to the difficulty of the law, he finds his insolence and pride immediately abate. For how great soever his preconceived opinion of it, he perceives it immediately pant under so heavy a load, and then totter, and at length fall. Thus, being instructed under the tuition of the law, he lays aside that arrogance with which he was previously blinded. He must also be cured of the other disease, of pride, with which, we have observed, he is afflicted. As long as he is permitted to stand in his own judgment, he substitutes hypocrisy instead of righteousness; contented with which, he rises up with I know not what pretended righteousnesses, in opposition to the grace of God. But when he is constrained to examine his life according to the rules of the law, he no longer presumes on his counterfeit righteousness, but perceives that he is at an infinite distance from holiness; and also that he abounds with innumerable vices, from which he before supposed himself to be pure. For the evils of concupiscence are concealed in such deep and intricate recesses, as easily to elude the view of man. And it is not without cause that the Apostle says, “I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet;”794 because, unless it be stripped of its disguises, and brought to light by the law, it destroys the miserable man in so secret a manner, that he does not perceive its fatal dart.

VII. Thus the law is like a mirror, in which we behold, first, our impotence; secondly, our iniquity, which proceeds from it; and lastly, the consequence of both, our obnoxiousness to the curse; just as a mirror represents to us the spots on our face. For when a man is destitute of power to practise righteousness, he must necessarily fall into the habits of sin. And sin is immediately followed by the curse. Therefore the greater the transgression of which the law convicts us, the more severe is the judgment with which it condemns us. This appears from the observation of the Apostle, that “by the law is the knowledge of sin.”795 For he there speaks only of the first office of the law, which is experienced in sinners not yet regenerated. The same sentiment is conveyed in the following passages: that “the law entered, that the offence might abound;”796 and that it is therefore “the ministration of death, which worketh wrath and slayeth.”797 For iniquity undoubtedly increases more and more, in proportion to the clearness of that sense of sin which strikes the conscience; because to transgression of the law, there is then added contumacy against the lawgiver. It remains, therefore, that the law arm the Divine wrath against the sinner; for of itself it can only accuse, condemn, and destroy. And, as Augustine says, if we have not the Spirit of grace, the law serves only to convict and slay us. But this assertion neither reflects dishonour on the law, nor at all derogates from its excellence. Certainly, if our will were wholly conformed to the law, and disposed to obey it, the mere knowledge of it would evidently be sufficient to salvation. But since our carnal and corrupt nature is in a state of hostility against the spirituality of the Divine law, and not amended by its discipline, it follows that the law, which was given for salvation, if it could have found adequate attention, becomes an occasion of sin and death. For since we are all convicted of having transgressed it, the more clearly it displays the righteousness of God, so, on the contrary, the more it detects our iniquity, and the more certainly it confirms the reward of life and salvation reserved for the righteous, so much the more certain it makes the perdition of the wicked. These expressions, therefore, are so far from being dishonourable to the law, that they serve more illustriously to recommend the Divine goodness. For hence it really appears, that our iniquity and depravity prevent us from enjoying that blessed life which is revealed to all men in the law. Hence the grace of God, which succours us without the assistance of the law, is rendered sweeter; and his mercy, which confers it on us, more amiable; from which we learn that he is never wearied with repeating his blessings and loading us with new favours.