Welcome to law/gospel week! We will have a series of posts every day for a week on the law and the gospel! We will also post a podcast every day for a week. Understanding the law and the gospel is something that will help you understand your salvation better, read your Bible better, guard against legalism and license, help you comfort and instruct others and your own heart, help you with assurance and give God glory. This first post will be some quotes to help us see how others who have gone before us from different eras have seen how important this distinction is and that it includes different traditions. Law/Gospel quotes “The law and the gospel are the principal parts of divine revelation; or rather they are the centre, sum, and substance of all the other parts of it.” (Colquhoun p. 4). “To know it experimentally is to be wise unto salvation, and to live habitually under the influence of it is to be at once holy and happy. To have spiritual distinct views of it is the way to be kept from verging towards self-righteousness on the one hand and licentiousness on the other; it is to be enabled to assert the absolute freeness of sovereign grace, and, at the same time, the sacred interests of true holiness.” Colqhoun p. 5, 6. The basic principle in application is to know whether the passage is a statement of the law or of the gospel. For when the Word is preached, the law and the gospel operate differently. The law exposes the disease of sin, and as a side-effect, stimulates and stirs it up. But it provides no remedy for it. However the gospel not only teaches us what is to be done, it also has the power of the Holy Spirit joined to it…A statement of the law indicates the need for a perfect inherent righteousness, of eternal life given through the works of the law, of the sins which are contrary to the law and of the curse that is due them… By contrast, a statement of the gospel speaks of Christ and his benefits, and of faith being fruitful in good works (The Art of prophesying, 1592, repr. Banner of Truth Trust, 1996, 54-55). Perkins God speaks in two words: the law and the gospel. There is a danger in either confusing or separating them. The law commands and the gospel gives. The law says, “Do” and the gospel says, “Done!” Both are good, but God does different things through them. The law is everything in Scripture that God commands. The gospel is everything in Scripture that makes promises based solely on God’s grace to us in Christ. When it comes to how we receive the promises, law and gospel are opposed, for we are saved apart from the law. The law condemns us, while the gospel is the good news that announces our justification that we are free for the first time to embrace God as our Father rather than our Judge. Lutheran and Reformed traditions distinguish three uses of the law: to expose our guilt and drive us to Christ, a civil use to restrain evil, and to guide Christian obedience. More generally, the New Testament frequently employs the terms law and gospel to refer to the old covenant distinguished from the new. Core Christianity p. 128, Horton. The Doctrine of the Divine Covenant lies at the root of all true theology. It has been said that he who well understands the distinction between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace is a master of divinity. I am persuaded that most of the mistakes which men make concerning the Doctrines of Scripture are based upon fundamental errors with regard to the Covenants of Law and of Grace. Charles Spurgeon There is no point upon which men make greater mistakes than upon the relation which exists between the law and the gospel. Some men put the law instead of the gospel: others put the gospel instead of the law; some modify the law and the gospel, and preach neither law nor gospel: and others entirely abrogate the law, by bringing in the gospel. Many there are who think that the law is the gospel, and who teach that men by good works of benevolence, honesty, righteousness, and sobriety, may be saved. Such men do err. On the other hand, many teach that the gospel is a law; that it has certain commands in it, by obedience to which, men are meritoriously saved; such men err from the truth, and understand it not. A certain class maintain that the law and the gospel are mixed, and that partly by observance of the law, and partly by God's grace, men are saved. These men understand not the truth, and are false teachers. This morning I shall attempt—God helping me to show you what is the design of the law, and then what is the end of the gospel. The coming of the law is explained in regard to its objects: "Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound." Then comes the mission of the gospel: "But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." - Charles Spurgeon from sermon Law and Grace “Clearly to understand the distinction, connexion, and harmony between the law and the gospel and their mutual subserviency to illustrate and establish each other, is a singular privilege, and a happy means of preserving the soul from being entangled by errors” - Newton The Churches of the Reformation from the very beginning distinguished between the law and the gospel as the two parts of the Word of God as a means of grace. This distinction was not understood to be identical with that between the Old and the New Testament, but was regarded as a distinction that applies to both Testaments. There is law and gospel in the Old Testament, and there is law and gospel in the New. The law comprises everything in Scripture which is a revelation of God’s will in the form of command or prohibition, while the gospel embraces everything, whether it be in the Old Testament or in the New, that pertains to the work of reconciliation and that proclaims the seeking and redeeming love of God in Christ Jesus (Berkhof combined ed Systematic Theology, 612). Beza - We divide this Word into two principal parts or kinds: the one is called the ‘Law,’ the other the ‘Gospel.’ For all the rest can be gathered under the one or other of these two headings…Ignorance of this distinction between Law and Gospel is one of the principal sources of the abuses which corrupted and still corrupt Christianity. THEODORE BEZA | The Christian Faith, trans. James Clark (East Sussex, UK: Focus Christian Ministries Trust), 40. Luther - "Hence, whoever knows well this art of distinguishing between Law and Gospel, him place at the head and call him a doctor of Holy Scripture." James Buchanan The Doctrine of Justification – “The doctrine of salvation, which is taught by the gospel, presupposes the doctrine of sin, which is taught by the law; and the two together constitute the sum and substance of God’s revealed truth.” Ralph Erskine on the law in the hand of Christ or the 3rd use. - (1.) The commands of the law, in the hand of Christ, have lost their old covenant-form, and are full of love. The command of the law of works is, Do, and Live; but in the hand of Christ, it is, Live, and Do: the command of the law of works, is, Do, or else be damned: but the law in the hand of Christ, is, I have delivered thee from hell, therefore do: the command of the law of works is, Do in thy own strength; but the law in the hand of Christ is, “I am thy strength; My strength shall be perfected in thy weakness,” therefore Do. The command is materially the same, but the form is different: the command of the law of works is, Do perfectly, that you may have eternal life; but now, in the hand of Christ, the form is, I have given thee eternal life in me, and by my doing; and therefore do as perfectly as you can, through my grace, till you come to a state of perfection. The command, I say, is the same materially …. And sure I am, that the authority of the commanding God is not lessened, or lost, that the command is now in the hand of Christ: Christ is God, co-equal and co-essential with the Father; and as God’s authority to judge is not lost, or lessened, in that all judgment is committed to the Son; so his authority to command, is not lost or lessened, in that the law is in the hand of Christ: nay, it is not lessened, but it is sweetened, and made amiable, lovely, and desirable to the believer, constraining him to obedience, in that the law is in the hand of his Head, his Lord, and his God. 17 The Law in the Hand of Christ (upper-register.com) Read the historic catechisms and confessions of the church. The Heidelberg Catechism and London Baptist Confession of 1689 in particular. Comments are closed.
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