Yes. A law of universal obedience written in Adam's heart, and one particular command about a tree - binding him and everyone descended from him, with life promised for keeping it and death threatened for breaking it.

This is where the phrase covenant of works comes from, and the rest of the chapter depends on it. Law does not begin as a national code handed to Israel; it begins as the terms a human being was made under, with the ability to keep them included in the making. Everything said later about the moral law binding everyone permanently rests here.

Moses wrote that if you want to be right with God by following the law, you have to keep every rule perfectly.

Romans 10:5

Confession 19.1

The law first written in the human heart, delivered at Sinai in ten commandments - four on our duty to God, six on our duty to each other. It binds everyone permanently, justified or not.

The reason given for its permanence is not that it is useful but that it reflects the authority of the creator who gave it. And the part people expect to be missing is there: Christ does not weaken this obligation in the gospel, he strengthens it.

Sometimes people who don't have the law naturally do what it says. Even though they don't have the law, they're showing that it's written on their hearts.

They show that the law is written inside them, because their conscience either accuses them or defends them, depending on what they do.

Romans 2:14-15

Confession 19.2

They were appointed only until the time of reformation, and are abrogated and taken away by Christ.

The reasoning is that they were pictures of something. Sacrifices, food laws and festivals pointed forward to Christ and to the benefits he would bring, and a signpost is not kept up once you have arrived.

Those things were just a shadow of what was coming. The real thing is found in Christ.

Colossians 2:17

Confession 19.3

They expired with the nation they were given to, and oblige nobody now by that institution. Only their general equity is still of moral use.

General equity means the principle of justice underneath the specific statute. The rule about a parapet on a flat roof does not bind anyone today; the principle that you are responsible for foreseeable danger on your own property does.

Confession 19.4

Yes. The confession says it binds everyone permanently, justified people as much as anyone else - and that Christ in the gospel does not dissolve that obligation but strengthens it.

This is the paragraph the chapter turns on and the one most often skipped over. The claim is not that the law can justify anybody; it is that being justified does not put a person outside its reach. The authority behind it is said to be God as creator, which is why the obligation does not depend on which covenant a person is under.

So does this faith cancel out the law? Not at all. Actually, it puts the law in its proper place.

Romans 3:31

Confession 19.5

Great use, as a rule of life: it tells them God's will and their duty, and it shows them the sinful pollution of their natures, hearts and lives.

Two jobs at once. It directs, and it exposes. The confession is careful that neither of those is the same as the law justifying or condemning them, which is precisely what it no longer does for them.

No one will be made right with God by following the law, because the law just shows us how messed up we are.

Romans 3:20

Confession 19.6

It shows them God's will and their duty and directs them accordingly; it exposes the sinfulness of their nature, heart and life; it lets them see more clearly what they need Christ for and how complete his obedience was; it restrains their corruption by forbidding sin; and its threats show what even their sins deserve, while its promises show God's approval of obedience.

Not one of those uses is earning anything, which is the point. The confession adds that any good which follows obedience comes from the promise and not from the law as a covenant of works - the law tells you what to do, and the reason anything good follows is grace.

Confession 19.6

No. The confession says they sweetly comply with each other.

The reason given is the Spirit. He subdues and enables the will to do freely and cheerfully what the law requires - so the law states the target and the gospel supplies the power, and they are not in tension.

I'll put my Spirit inside you and move you to live by my ways and keep my rules.

Ezekiel 36:27

Confession 19.7