Bolton on the Law

I am currently reading Samuel Bolton’s book The True Bounds of Christian Freedom, thanks to the Puritan Reading Challenge. What a great book this is as it deals with the often thorny issue of the law and how we are to interact with it as believers. I am about a third of the way done and it has already been a blessing in that it is helping me refine how to respond to those that do not see the law as applicable to the believer.

He begins with explaining how we are truly free from the law in a number of ways and then moves into how we are to relate to the law in a real and meaningful way that most glorifies God. I have more to read but I will leave you with a great quote that in many ways is how I have always viewed the law but had not thought to word it just as Bolton does. Bolton speaks of keeping the “law subservient to the Gospel” while it is the Gospel that enables us to be obedient to the law. Here is his quote:

“The law sends us to the Gospel for our justification; The Gospel sends us to the law to frame our way of life” (pg 72)