Clearly Ball is teaching us here that when the Law lies in the context of the Gospel, the Law is not in anti-thesis to the Gospel. Because Christ has done all we live and in living we do. It is only when the Law is embraced without the Gospel that the Law is in anti-thesis to the Gospel creating the climate of legalism. Ball teaches here that a Gospel without a law (third use) is not the Gospel.
This is consistent with the Heidelberg Catechism where in the Second part the Gospel as our Deliverance is articulated. However the HC does not end with the Second part. It goes on to the third section that unfolds how the Gospel effects a persons life by laying out for us the law in the context of the Gospel. In the third section of the catechism the law is not in antithesis to the Gospel, but is propelled out of it.
The Gospel frees us to take seriously the law using the motive of gratitude to awaken us to obedience. The law thus, in Balls words, remains a rule of life to a people in covenant directing them how to walk before God in holiness and righteousness, that they might inherit the promises of grace and mercy.
Now, is the directing of how to walk before God in holiness and righteousness limited to our personal individual ethics or does it also direct us in our ethics in the public square? Does the insistence of the Law that we should have no other God before us only mean that we shouldnt enter into idolatry in our personal lives, but does it also mean that we shouldnt tolerate or advocate political polytheism in the public square? Isnt the advocacy of some Christians that the public square be a place where all gods are invited and honored a disobedience to the first commandment? Does God really teach in natural law that the public square should be a place where the first commandment doesnt apply? Does Gods Natural law really teach that in the public square it is acceptable to have other gods competing with God?
If it does mean this then God should have been more clear in the first commandment of the Decalogue. What he should have said is
Thou shalt have no other gods before me in your personal individual lives or in the Church but in the public square you must make way for other gods and embrace polytheism.

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