Law/Gospel

God's Word has two parts-the law and the gospel-and 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." Equally God's Word, both are good, but God does different things through them.

In the widest sense, the law is everything in Scripture that commands, and the gospel is everything in Scripture that makes promises based solely on God's grace to us in Christ. But in a narrower sense, the gospel is 1 Corinthians 15:3-4: "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day pin accordance with the Scriptures." The content of the gospel is the announcement that Christ was crucified and raised for our salvation in fulfillment of the Scriptures. At the same time, the gospel includes God's gracious fulfillment in Christ of all of the promises related to the new creation. That's why Paul can answer his question: "Shall we then sin that grace may abound?" with more gospel: union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection, so that we're no longer under sin's dominion. The gospe; isn't just enough to justify the ungodly; it's enough to regenerate and sanctify the ungodly. However, only because (in the narrower sense) the good news announces our justification are we for the first time free to embrace God as our Father rather than our Judge. We have been saved from condemnation and tyranny of sin. Both are essential to the "glad tidings" that we proclaim.

We can also speak of the law and gospel in the redemptive-historical sense, as the covenantal principle of inheritance. The history of salvation moves from promise to fulfillment, from shadow to reality. In this sense, the law is not opposed to the gospel.

Yet when it comes to how we receive the gift-how redemption is applied to us by the Spirit-we are saved apart from the law. Law and gospel are completely opposed in this sense, since they are two different bases of principles of inheritance. We are saved by Christ or by our own obedience, but we cannot be saved by both. Interestingly, Paul includes both senses in Romans 3:21: "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law [justification in order of salvation], although the Law and the Prophets [i.e., the Old Testament writings] bear witness to it."

Finally, Lutheran and Reformed traditions distinguish (without separating) three uses of the law: the first (pedagogical), to expose our guilt and corruption, driving us to Christ; the second, a civil use to restrain public vice; and the third, to guide Christian obedience. Believers are not "under the law" in the first sense. They are justified. However, they are still obligated to the law, both as it is stipulated and enforced by the state (second use) and as it frames Christian discipleship (third use). We never ground our status before God in our obedience to imperatives, but in Christ's righteousness; yet we are also bound to Christ, who continues to lead and direct us by his holy will.

Michael Horton, Pilgrim Theology