Category Archives: Law and Gospel

The Law and the Gospel

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Dr. John MacArthur:

Transcript:

Well tonight we’re going to turn to a very, very important subject, the Law and the Gospel…the Law and the Gospel. In the general picture out there of evangelicalism today, there is certainly much said about God’s love, much said about God’s mercy, much said about His grace. There is a great emphasis on the fact that God forgives, that He empowers. Almost nothing is said about the Law of God, about the judgment of God, about the heinousness of violating His Law, and the just consequences of such a violation.

And so, in a sense the gospel which means the good news is stripped of what it is really good because people don’t know what is really bad, which makes the good news such good news. The bad news is that all people are under the Law of God, they’re under obligation to obey that Law. They are all violators of that Law, therefore they come under true guilt and with guilt comes condemnation and with condemnation comes punishment, and that punishment is everlasting. The Gospel cannot be understood as good news, until people understand what it is that the Gospel delivers them from, namely the bad news of eternal punishment which is a just punishment on a truly guilty sinner. People are trying to get other folks into heaven while at the same time avoiding telling them they’re on their way to hell. Trying to get them to accept what is good for them, without understanding the truth about what is so bad for them.

And were you to ask the question to people out there as they looked at evangelicalism and listened to the general message that Christians give, if you posed the question…What does Jesus save you from?…they might say, “loneliness, depression, poverty, lack of purpose, lack of meaning, lack of fulfillment, etc.” cause they do not understand guilt, condemnation that comes because of a violation of His Law.

Scripture, however, is very clear that anyone who is to grasp the greatness of the gospel must first grasp the greatness of judgment of sin. Salvation by grace means little to those who know nothing of damnation under the Law.

So, the divine order is Law, then Gospel. And there is a reluctance on the part of evangelical people today to talk about the Law of God because it makes people feel bad and they think it makes the Gospel less attractive, when, in fact, it is necessary to make them feel bad, really bad because that generates the true attraction to the gospel. We understand that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, Ephesians 2:8 and 9. We understand that salvation is never by works but always by grace through faith. All who are saved from eternal damnation at all times in redemptive history are saved by faith and grace apart from the Law. This is the repeated testimony of Scripture. In the Old Testament, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. Or Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Or in Habakkuk, the just shall live by faith. This is not a New Testament truth, this is a universal truth throughout all of redemptive history. Salvation…deliverance from condemnation, eternal punishment comes by God’s grace through faith. Continue reading →

The Inflexible Schoolmaster

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The Protestant Reformers were so certain of the importance of this doctrine (of Law and Gospel) that they declared that without it no one would be able to make sense out of Scripture. Martin Luther even declared of the person ignorant of this distinction that “you cannot be altogether sure whether he is a Christian or a Jew or a pagan, for it depends on this distinction.” – Hermann Sasse, Here We Stand: Nature and Character of the Lutheran Faith, trans. by Theodore G. Tappert, (New York: Harper & Bros., 1938). p. 114. Elsewhere Luther wrote, “Whoever knows well this art of distinguishing between the Law and the gospel, him place at the head and call him a doctor of Holy Scripture.”

“The true knowledge of the distinction between the Law and the Gospel is not only a glorious light, affording the correct understanding of the entire Holy Scriptures, but without this knowledge Scripture is and remains a sealed book.” – C.F.W. Walther, The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel.

Theodore Beza said that “confusion of law and gospel is one of the principal sources of the corruptions in the church.” Ursinus, primary author of the Heidelberg Catechism, said the same. The Bible will be an impenetrable mystery as long as we are confused about this.

The Law Keeping Redeemer

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OldTestamentNick Batzig is the church planter of New Covenant Presbyterian Church in Richmond Hill, Ga. Nick has written numerous articles for Tabletalk Magazine, Reformation 21, and is published in Jonathan Edwards and Scotland (Dunedin, 2011) In addition, Nick is the host of East of Eden: The Biblical and Systematic Theology of Jonathan Edwards. He writes:

One of the most important of all the statements about the birth of Jesus is that He was “born under the Law” (Gal. 4:4). The one who gave the Law on Sinai was, “in the fulness of time,” born under the Law. Of course, in making this declaration the question is raised, “Why was the One who gave the Law born under the Law?” After all, there was no Divine necessity for God to become man and to be made subject to His own Law. The answer comes on the heel of the statement when the Apostle explained that it was in order that Christ might, “redeem those who were under the Law.” In short, Jesus’ law-keeping was an absolutely necessary component of our redemption. Consider the following ways in which this plays out in the Gospel record:

1. At His Birth

At eight days, Jesus was circumcised according to the Law. He took to Himself the covenant sign–a bloody sign that pointed to His death on the cross. Circumcision promised the cleansing of the heart of sinful man by a bloody cutting away. The One who had the sign of circumcision was promised covenant blessings and curses. Either he would have the filth of his heart cut away by the bloody judgment that would fall on Christ or he would be cut off from the land of the living in the judgment of God. Though Jesus had no sin, and therefore had no need of the promise of the cutting away of the filth of the heart, he took to himself the sign because He would become the sin bearer for us. Paul tells us that, for Jesus, the cross was a bloody circumcision. Christ took the sign to himself as a boy to fulfill the demands of the law and to have a constant reminder that he was the one who would bear the curse of the law for His people.

At forty days, Jesus was brought into the Temple and was present to the Lord according to the custom of the Law. Mary came and sacrificed to set apart her son to the Lord. He was sanctified by the offering that pointed to Himself (though he needed no sanctification because of personal sin) because he was the sin-bearing substitute of His people. Isaac Ambrose captured this idea so well when he wrote:

There was no impurity in the Son of God, and yet he is first circumcised; and then he is brought, and offered to the Lord. He that came to be sin for us, would in our persons be legally unclean, that by satisfying the law, he might take away our uncleanness. He that was above the law, would come under the law, that he might free us from the law. We are all born sinners; but O the unspeakable mercies of our Jesus, that provides a remedy as early as our sin: first, he is conceived; and then he is born, to sanctify our conceptions and our births: and after his birth, he is first circumcised, and then he is presented to the Lord; that by two holy acts, that which was naturally unholy might be hallowed unto God. Christ hath not left our very infancy without redress, but by himself thus offered he cleanseth us presently from our filthiness.1

2. As a Boy

We are told that Jesus, at age 12, stayed behind in the Temple where He was “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.” Continue reading →