On Law and Gospel

November 17, 2017

"Love God, love people."  That's all we need to do, and that's simple enough, isn't it?  Why is it that we insist on making the Christian life so complicated?  Can you imagine, what if we actually started living this out?  What if we decided to finally take Jesus' words to heart, and genuinely put them into practice?  Think how our churches would change, how our world would change?!

The previous paragraph sounds great, doesn't it?  Any red-blooded Christian would be a fool to take issue with such sentiments.

So why did this idea bother me so much?

I couldn't figure it out.  Every time I'd encounter this mantra, I would intellectually agree, but there would be that sense of "something's off", like an itchy crumb lost somewhere in my sweater, that I couldn't quite put my finger on.  How could something be wrong with this?  Who in their right mind could possibly have a problem with the idea of "just love God and love people?"

Eventually, the irritation became strong enough that the source needed to be investigated.  Off with the sweater.  Stop and take the shoe off and locate the offending particle.  Sit down with pen and paper and Bible and start digging.  

Where to start was easy enough; I knew where the idea came from.

Matthew 22:34-40 - 

"But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

How many times had I heard these verses?  Hadn't I memorized them at least once or twice in my life?  How had I looked right past what they were truly saying?  "Love God, love people" is a summary of what Jesus taught.  And what Jesus taught is a summary of...what?  The Law.

The LAW!

BAM!  It hit me like a rock.  "Guys, guys!! I know what's wrong with this!! It's the LAW!!"

"Uh, yeah...so?  What's your point?"

What WAS my point?  Why DID it matter if what we were emphasizing was the Law?  It's in the Bible, so its biblical, so isn't that enough?  I was kind of stuck.  I knew that this was important, but I also felt like a crazy person, the only one who had any kind of a problem with this whole concept.

I would shelve it for a while, go on with life, but then every now and then I'd encounter it again, and it would pop back up, poking and prodding me with a greater intensity.  Eventually, having exhausted my resources, I enlisted the help of the only place left I knew to turn to for help: the world wide interwebs.

I had to dig a little, but eventually I found this post which put into words, and brought into clarity, the problem I'd been struggling with.  I highly recommend reading it in its entirety, but here's a snippit:

"So you see, whenever a popular 'teacher', 'preacher', 'theologian', or 'evangelist' claims to be preaching 'only Gospel' but then boils it down to 'Love God with all of your heart, soul, and mind and Love your neighbor as yourself'… well, he’s just repeating the Law. A law by which all of us, all of mankind fail to keep. No one born of man is capable of keeping the Law. Said preacher isn’t preaching any Gospel; rather, he is preaching only Law. The Gospel is the answer… THE ONLY ANSWER to the Law. God the Son, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of the Living God, fulfilled the Law and the Prophets on our behalf, so that in Him we might be found righteous, not according to any of our works, but according to His."

Relief flowed over me.  I wasn't losing my mind.  Here was someone, using large swaths of Scripture in context (see the article), who came to a similar conclusion as the one I'd reached from my own study of the Bible.  I found that encouraging.  And as a side note, when I later would turn again to the internet with other similar struggles, I would find myself wondering why the web page I'd land on would seem so familiar, and eventually realized I kept going back to this one blog, completely unintentionally.  Upon this realization, I read up on the author more closely, and in fact he was a Lutheran, as were the other sites I'd come to rely on as trustworthy.

When I decided to dive in and really give the Lutheran church a thorough examination, I discovered that one of their core doctrines is this idea of the distinction of Law and Gospel.  It was an idea I'd never really encountered anywhere else, that I could recall anyways, but it was the full answer to the conundrum I had been wrestling with.  It's like the theology version of the board game Othello:  "A minute to learn, a lifetime to master."  The concept is simple, but putting it into practice is, as C.F.W. Walther says: "...the most difficult and the highest art of Christians in general and of theologians in particular."

To again quote Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller,

"'Lutherans see two teachings from God in the Scriptures: the law and the Gospel.' The law shows us what God requires, and because we do not and cannot keep the law, it also shows us we are sinners. The Gospel, on the other hand, shows us what God has done for us in Christ, especially in His suffering and death, to win for us the forgiveness of our sins.
This distinction between the law and the Gospel stands at the heart of everything we believe, teach, preach, pray and do. It is the foundation of our worship, our church, our lives and our hope. We must then, dear saints, continue to study and learn the difference between law and Gospel When we read the Scriptures we ask, 'Is this passage law or Gospel? Is it telling me what to do (or what I have not done), or is the text telling me what Jesus has done for my salvation?'
We ask the same question when we listen to sermons and Bible lessons: 'Is this law or is this Gospel?' And even more, we listen to our daily conversations, 'Am I being told the law or the Gospel?' When we ask this question we find that most of our days are filled with law, instruction, demands, criticisms, etc., and that each of us lives in a barren wilderness in which the Gospel is rarely heard, even we Christians! That which we need to hear the most is that which is least spoken: that Christ Jesus has died for us, has forgiven us, and because of Him we are the beloved of God the Father. This promise of forgiveness for the sake of Jesus is what gives us life, salvation, forgiveness and freedom."
(from this web page)

We need both teachings.  We need the Law primarily to remind us of our sinfulness and need of a savior, and we need the Gospel to comfort us and remind us that we are forgiven.  The problems come when we do not rightly distinguish these two things, when we mix and muddle them, or leave one or the other out.  A sermon about how to love God and neighbor will accomplish what the Law is meant to accomplish - bring condemnation by revealing where we fall short.  Here's the kicker though: the Law cannot produce righteousness.  Admonitions to do better will not bring real change.  They may produce temporary behavior modification, but the Law does not have the power to change lives, only to kill.  It is the Gospel that brings life.

"What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good." 

-Romans 7:7-12

From the Lutheran confessions, in the Book of Concord:

"11] For the Law says indeed that it is God's will and command that we should walk in a new life, but it does not give the power and ability to begin and do it; but the Holy Ghost, who is given and received, not through the Law, but through the preaching of the Gospel, Gal. 3:14, renews the heart. 12] Thereafter the Holy Ghost employs the Law so as to teach the regenerate from it, and to point out and show them in the Ten Commandments what is the [good and] acceptable will of God, Rom. 12:2, in what good works God hath before ordained that they should walk, Eph. 2:10. He exhorts them thereto, and when they are idle, negligent, and rebellious in this matter because of the flesh, He reproves them on that account through the Law, so that He carries on both offices together: He slays and makes alive; He leads into hell and brings up again. For His office is not only to comfort, but also to reprove, as it is written: When the Holy Ghost is come, He will reprove the world (which includes also the old Adam) of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. 13] But sin is everything that is contrary to God's Law. 14] And St. Paul says: All Scripture given by inspiration of God is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, etc., and to reprove is the peculiar office of the Law. Therefore, as often as believers stumble, they are reproved by the Holy Spirit from the Law, and by the same Spirit are raised up and comforted again with the preaching of the Holy Gospel." ((FC-SD, VI) 

I had never realized my continued need for the Gospel.  In the past, I'd always relegated the preaching about Christ's death and resurrection to the unbelievers.  On the occasions when the sermon would turn toward the Gospel - usually at the end, before an altar-call - I would mentally tune-out, or perhaps say a quiet prayer that those who hadn't yet believed would hear and accept Jesus into their hearts.   Indeed, the message WAS usually directed at non-Christians.  Why would I need to hear it again, having been a believer for so long?  I already knew this stuff; it was old news.  They got the sweet salve of the Gospel, I needed the whip of the Law.

The first sermon I heard when I visited our new Lutheran church began with a passage of Scripture, pointed out what was being required of us in it and admonished us to good works (Law), then turned the focus to how we'd failed to do those things, and ended with the comfort of what Christ has done for us (Gospel.)  Feelings are indeed fickle and poor guides, but I will admit that I left that place with a sense of peace and refreshment that I hadn't experienced in a long time.

-M


(I am not sure I have done this justice - there is much that could be said, and much I have left out.  If you're interested in learning more about this distinctively-Lutheran doctrine of Law and Gospel, there are tons of resources out there, and I will add a link to several of them on the "To learn more" page.) 


Next post: On Vocation