When we hear the word law, many of us instinctively tense up. We think of rules, judgment, or even failure. The very word can stir up shame for the things we’ve done or left undone—or pride for the things we think we’ve done well. But when John Calvin wrote about the law of God, he invited believers to see something far deeper and more beautiful: that the law, rightly understood, is a gift of grace.

In The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Book II, Chapter 7), Calvin describes three distinct “uses” of the law. Each has a purpose, and each reveals something about God and about us.

Let’s walk through them together.

1. The Law as a Mirror: Revealing Our Sin and Our Need

The first use of the law is like holding a mirror up to our souls. It shows us the reality of our hearts before a holy God.

“The law is like a mirror. In it we contemplate our weakness, then the iniquity which proceeds from this, and finally the curse coming from both.”
— Calvin, Institutes II.7.7

This is perhaps the hardest use to face. God’s commands—You shall have no other gods before me; You shall not covet; You shall love your neighbor as yourself—reflect His perfect righteousness, but they also expose how far short we fall.

Yet this exposure is not cruelty. It’s mercy. It’s the piercing honesty that drives us away from self-reliance and into the arms of Christ. Without the law, we might go on believing that we are “good enough.” With the law, we see that our righteousness must come from Another.

So when the law convicts you—don’t turn away in despair. That conviction is the Spirit’s gentle work, leading you to the cross, where grace meets guilt, and mercy triumphs over judgment.

2. The Law as a Curb: Restraining Evil

The second use of the law is what Calvin calls its civil or political use. Here the law serves to restrain sin in society.

“By fear of punishment, those who are untouched by any care for what is just and right are kept within the bounds of outward obedience.”
— Institutes II.7.10

This doesn’t mean the law changes hearts—it can’t. But it does keep sin from running unchecked in the world. It’s a means by which God preserves a measure of order, justice, and peace, even among those who don’t believe.

This use reminds us that the moral fabric of creation still matters. Laws against theft, murder, or perjury echo the eternal moral law of God written on human hearts. Even in a fallen world, the law’s presence restrains chaos and preserves space for the gospel to be heard.

It is, in that sense, another expression of grace: God’s common grace, holding the world together until Christ makes all things new.

3. The Law as a Guide: Directing the Redeemed

The third use of the law is the one Calvin loved most—and perhaps the one most easily misunderstood.

For those who are in Christ, the law no longer condemns. Instead, it becomes a guide—a lamp for our feet and a light for our path (Psalm 119:105).

“The law is to the flesh like a whip to an idle and balky ass, to urge it on; and, for the spiritual man, in whom the Spirit of God already lives and reigns, it is a lamp and a guide to life.”
— Institutes II.7.12

Here the law becomes not a prison guard, but a tutor and friend. It teaches us how to live in a way that pleases our Father—not to earn His love, but because we already have it.

In this sense, obedience is not legalism. It is gratitude. The law becomes the shape of love, describing what love for God and neighbor looks like in action.

Grace Does Not Erase the Law—It Writes It on Our Hearts

When Calvin speaks of the threefold use of the law, he is ultimately describing how grace restores what sin has broken.

Outside of Christ, the law condemns.
In the world, the law restrains.
In Christ, the law guides.

But in all three uses, the same truth shines through: God’s law reveals God’s heart. It is not the enemy of grace—it is the companion of grace. The gospel doesn’t set us free from the law; it sets us free to love the law, because through the Spirit, the law is now written not on tablets of stone but on hearts made new (Jeremiah 31:33).

So when you read God’s commands, don’t hear a harsh voice of condemnation. Hear the steady voice of your Father, inviting you to walk in the life that He has already given you in Christ.

“Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.” — Psalm 119:97

May we, like the psalmist and like Calvin, learn to say those words not with fear, but with joy.