LAW AND GOSPEL

Here’s an issue that will surprise a lot of Christians. Can the Bible give us moral rules for life? Most Christians answer, well of course it does. Yet there are a growing number of Christians who reject such a use of Scripture. The roots of this attitude are in a view called “antinomianism” (against the law). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church defines antinomianism as “the view that Christians are by grace set free from the need of observing any moral law.”  Some form of antinomianism crops up within Christianity every so often, but it was really in Lutheran Reformation that a battle over it took place.

The issue arises because of a fundamental belief that people are saved by grace through faith. It is based on the writings of Paul, for example Galatians 2:16: “we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.” At first this sounds antinomian, but it can’t be if taken with the whole of Paul’s theology. For example, Romans 7:12 says: “So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.” That doesn’t sound anti-law at all. What’s going on here?

The question is how we are put right before God. Human beings sin and cannot rescue themselves from sin. They must receive forgiveness from God as a free gift. No one can do anything to deserve this gift. As a matter of fact, if we think we can do anything to deserve God’s forgiveness, we make our condition worse because we depend upon ourselves and not God. That is the root of sin.

This understanding of the law is evident in Jesus’ teachings. He shows again and again how those think they are keeping the law are deluding themselves. Take for example murder. Most people can say they haven’t murdered anybody, and therefore have kept at least that part of the law.  But then there is Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire” (Mat 5:21-22).  Given that interpretation, no one has kept the command against murder and therefore everyone deserves to be judged. A person’s only hope is in Jesus Christ which is what Paul was saying: “a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.”

If, then, we can’t be saved by our own obedience to the law, is the believer free to disregard all moral constraints?  Of course not! Once again a quote from Paul. “Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?  Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin” (Rom 6:1b-6).


This brings us to another important concept, the distinction between Law and Gospel in the Scripture. Here is how the Epitome of the Formula of Concord explains the difference. “We believe, teach, and confess that the Law is properly a divine doctrine, which teaches what is right and pleasing to God, and reproves everything that is sin and contrary to God's will” (V.3). “But the Gospel is properly such a doctrine as teaches what man who has not observed
the Law, and therefore is condemned by it, is to believe, namely, that Christ has expiated and made satisfaction for all sins, and has obtained and acquired for him, without any merit of his [no merit of the sinner intervening], forgiveness of sins, righteousness that avails before God, and eternal life” (V.5).  So the Law points out what we should do and therefore shows us our sin. The Gospel is the Good News of Jesus Christ that tells us that we are forgiven and have received eternal life from God.

Classical Lutheran teaching is that we need both Law and Gospel. First, the Law tells us how to run civil society. It says things like it wrong to murder or steal. Second, it shows us our sins. That helps us to see how great God’s mercy is in forgiving us when we don’t deserve it. It seems obvious to me that without this use of the law, we would go about thinking we’re doing just fine and don’t really need forgiveness (or much of anything else) from God.  But then comes the controversial third use of the law.

“We believe, teach, and confess that, although men truly believing [in Christ] and truly converted to God have been freed and exempted from the curse and coercion of the Law, they nevertheless are not on this account without Law, but have been redeemed by the Son of God in order that they should exercise themselves in it day and night” (VI. 2). The Law shows how those believe in Christ are to live. It doesn’t do it by threatening punishment (that’s the second use), but shows us what we willing do.

I agree with the orthodox Lutheran position that both Law and Gospel are necessary. Yet increasingly I hear versions of Law and Gospel that seem to turn the two against each other. The Gospel is regarded as the only thing worthwhile in Scripture while the Law is some nasty leftover to be ignored, like that stuff in the back of your refrigerator that turned fuzzy blue-green long about New Years Day. Those who buy into that version of things condemn as legalists and fundamentalists anyone who looks for the Scripture to condemn sin or to show what a Christian life should be like are.

I find this turn of thinking deeply troubling. It isn’t surprising, however. I keep hearing remarks from Christians, even Lutheran clergy, that the Bible is just a book of stories. I heard a remark made at a Synod Assembly that we shouldn’t be guided by some book thousands of years old. I am saddened, but not surprised.

I believe with all my mind and heart that people are saved solely by the grace of God. I also believe that receiving that grace in faith means we are changed. I ought to live as a different person. As Paul instructs the Romans: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom 12:2).  Scripture is the rule and guide for that new life in Christ. Both Law and Gospel are necessary lest we arrive at the condition H. Richard Niebuhr described in Kingdom of God in America “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”

Lord, have mercy.

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne





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