The Theological Dictionary: God’s Two Words—Law and Gospel
God acts by speaking.
Toni Zenz, Der Hörende (“The Listener”), bronze, 1957, Pax-Christi Kirche, Essen, Germany
“The word of God is living and active” (Heb. 4:12). This is the starting point for law/gospel theology. God acts by speaking. He says, “Let there be light” and the sun shines. He says, “Lazarus, come out” and “Little girl, get up” and the dead are raised. God’s words are actions, they do what they say. And what God does with words is condemn and forgive (Rom. 3.19-24; 11:32), kill and make alive (1 Sam. 2:6). The theological name for God’s condemning and killing speech is law. The theological name for God’s forgiving and life-giving speech is gospel. Both words are good; both words are God’s word. But they are distinct; they have different jobs. By encountering sinners with his holy demands—by telling sinners what they must do—God reveals that he is God and they are not, simultaneously exposing sin and condemning the sinner. By encountering sinners with his gracious promise—by telling sinners what Jesus has done, is doing, and will do—God forgives sin and creates new life. God’s word is “divided” by this double-action, by these “two-words” (Jer. 33:14): God accuses and kills sinners by speaking law; God acquits and resurrects them by speaking gospel.
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So how would you “balance” it? The Law allows no wiggle room, it is either perfection or failure and we have all failed. Therefore the Law condemns and kills. The Law is good and perfect. The problem is not with the Law but with me. Thank God the Law is not God’s last Word! When the Law has done its condemning/damning work I am more than ready to hear and believe the Gospel. These two words work together, but they are not “balanced”. Full blown Law and full blown Gospel; not 50% law and 50% gospel or some sort of blending of the two together which only negates them both.
Amen to that! We simply cannot wiggle ourselves out of the condemnation of sin. Sin is dreadful and the Law makes it even more obvious. Knowledge of how utterly sinful sin is, is what will drive us to the Savior.
Jono
‘The theological name for God’s condemning and killing speech is law. The theological name for God’s forgiving and life-giving speech is gospel.’
Given the paradigm from which you are coming this is a good definition. However, I am not convinced it is wholly satisfactory. It’s weakness is it fails to take account of redemptive-historical realities. Law is firstly an historical covenant with a temporal identity rather than an ahistorical abstraction.
However, I congratulate the nuancing that resists the simplistic and quite mistaken view that all command is law.
John Thompson,
I’m curious how it fails to take into account redemptive-historical realities? Could you comment a little further on that.
I think Galatians covers quite nicely the law’s redemptive-historical reality. It shows how the law was used through history up until Christ came. I was just curious on your perspective.
John,
Thanks for your comment. I hope this series will both introduce some of the basic ideas that inform LIBERATE’s message and provide a space for conversation about these topics. I share your concern that “command = law” can be a problematic equation and my emphasis on God’s verbal action is an attempt to avoid that. I would have to hear more about your particular account of salvation-history, but in general terms I would want to join you in stressing that the law is not an “ahistorical abstraction.” That Paul can date the arrival of the law (430 years after the promise to Abraham) makes it clear that he means something concrete. I’ll say more in forthcoming posts on the *content* of the law and perhaps that will help us some.
One thing I would want to say, however, is that many “salvation historical” construals of the law work with an overly realized eschatology. What I mean is that they are too quick to transplant the Christian and the church into an era free from the force and function of the law. One of the keys to understanding present reality is to remember that the time between Jesus’ first and second comings is a time defined by the word “simultaneously” : Christians are simultaneously in the old age (in themselves) and in the new creation (in Christ); simultaneously sinners (in themselves) and righteous (in Christ). I think we would probably agree that the law is for the old age and the old Adam (1 Tim 1:8-9); what I would want to stress is that the law is therefore for Christians too this side of the resurrection insofar as in themselves they remain sinners.
Thanks again,
Jono
Jono and Bill
I suppose I come from a position very similar to New Covenant Theology and I guess Jono considers this somewhat ‘over-realized’.
Bill, I agree that Galatians places the law in a redemptive-historical context and as Jono points out this places ‘law’ (a covenant of works) in the old age and addressed to the old Adam. Where I am likely to demur is in Jono’s inference that because we ‘new age’ believers still live in the ‘old age’ we are in some way still regulated by ‘law’. In my view, Paul’s constant urge is for believer’s to recognise by faith their new position in Christ (as no longer in Adam and no longer therefore related to law) and live in the light of it and by the principles of this new relationship (living by the Spirit and faith working through love). We are no longer ‘under law’ or answerable to it in any way. As Christ in resurrection and ascension now lives a life beyond law so too do all who are ‘in Christ’.
It is of course here that a definition of what the principle of what ‘law’ in the old age meant becomes important. Let me repeat, it is not simply commands or obligations. Obligations flow from relationships and our new position in Christ has relationship obligations. Jono’s definition was careful to avoid any suggestion that law is merely command. Law, as I understand it, was a specific covenant that promised life upon obedience. It did not assume life to exist (thus, …this do and live’) but assumed a people in the flesh (albeit God’s covenant people) and not ‘in the spirit’ (an eschatological reality that arrives in Christ). Addressed as it was to people ‘in the flesh’ it could only condemn and kill. It promised life but could not deliver. Indeed it equally promised death upon disobedience. It is therefore, as Jono says, killing speech; it made demands without supplying enabling grace and condemned all who failed.
I suspect, however, that Jono sees the law as still having a killing function in the life of the believer; I suspect he sees it as God’s instrument to kill the flesh.. If so, it is here I demur. To live by faith, is to recognise that we are already dead. It is to live in the faith reality of the cross and then ‘by the Spirit’ (not law) put to death the deeds of the body.
I do not say, of course, we cannot learn from the law (the OT covenant), we can, just as we learn from all of Scripture when we read it in its redemptive-historical context. However, I do not think the gospel ever sends us back to the law to put the flesh to death instead it calls upon us to grasp the realities of the age to which we belong, our death and resurrection in Christ, and to live in these and by these.
I look forward to further definitions.
Incidentally, I really enjoyed Jono’s post on Luther some time ago on TT’s blog. I found it most helpful and feel sure that I will find this series helpful.
John,
Thanks for responding, I appreciate it. This gives me some things to look at.
You say that law is “God’s condemning and killing speech” . As Kyle has said, this is not biblically balanced, but skewed. Paul says the law is “holy, and just and good”. And every believer is bound by God’s word to keep his law.
“If ye love me, keep my commandments”
Kyle and Tom,
I think I know what you mean when you say that this definition of “law” is not balanced. It certainly is not an attempt to add up all the times the Bible uses the word “law” and then write a definition as a sum of all those parts. So I hear you.
It’s important to remember, however, that one of the central insights of the Reformation as it relates to the question of “law” is that it is not enough to say what the law “is;” we have to say what the law “does.” In terms of its content the law is, of course, holy, and righteous, and good. But when the question is one of function rather than form, Paul says that the law reveals sin (Rom 3), works wrath (Rom 4), increases the trespass (Rom 5), shows the sinfulness of sin (Rom 7), and, in the hands of Sin, kills (Rom 7). I’ll do a post in a couple of weeks on the “uses” of the law that might help. I will stress, like you, that the law is good and right, but it will also explore the way God uses his good law in his encounter with sinners.
Thanks for your comments,
Jono
The problem is not with the law but with us. We are unable to keep the law and because we cannot keep it perfectly all it produces is death. We are not spiritually sick people in need of a cure. We are spiritually dead people in need of a resurrection!
There is a secondary spiritual function of the law that informs and corrects the life of the redeemed, but in this life it will always be a secondary function. This is part of what the Reformers called the 3 uses of the Law, which may “balance” what we are talking about here.