Confirmation – Law & Gospel

Yesterday Confirmation instruction for 2008-2009 began.  In and amongst all the details about the class and helping the students to connect with each other, I taught a brief lesson on the Lutheran approach to scripture.  Lutherans assert that the entire Bible can be understood on the basis of just two over arching categories.  These categories are The Law and The Gospel.  The key in ones study of the Bible then is what C. F. W. Walther, first President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, refered to as “The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel.”  Here is a summary to help you begin to distinguish between Law and Gospel.

• The Law is all those parts of the Bible that provide commands and instructions.
• The Law is a statement of God’s wrath, judgment, and damnation.
• The Gospel, on the other hand, is the portions of Scripture that promise free salvation from God, even to sinners.
• The law condemns, the Gospel saves.
• Both the Law and the Gospel are gifts from God; both are necessary.
• The function of the law is to show a person their sinful nature and drive (draw) them to the Gospel, where the forgiveness of sin is promised for the sake of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Though it is tempting to think that the Old Testament is the Law and the New Testament is the Gospel, after all there are four Gospels included in its books (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), there is in fact both found in both.  In fact you can find books, chapters, and even verses where both Law and Gospel are present.  The key is to be able to identify which is which.

So, what, you might ask.  Why is this important to know?  Isn’t this just a silly intellectual exercise?  Why spend time on this?  If these are your concerns, let me approach it this way.  Knowledge of what the Gospel is and faith in the truth claims that are made in it, namely that salvation come through faith alone, by grace alone, in Christ alone, found in Scripture alone (look for another post explaining each of these in the near future), is what unites us with God and ensures us our place in heaven.  Doing good things is great, but there is not amount of doing that is enough to earn our way into heaven.  The Law tells us as much.

In Romans 3:23, Paul tells us that all of us have sinned.  As we examine the Ten Commandments in Confirmation class, we find out all the ways in which we fall short. God is a holy God and not able to have sinful people in His presence.  Yet He is a loving God and does not what merely to cast us out into the dark and cold of night.  That is where the Gospel comes in.  Once we see that we are sinners in need of a savior, the Gospel presents Jesus as that Savior we need. We are told that through not merit of our own (Ephesians 2:8-10), we are made holy and restored to a relationship with God the Father through the life, death, and resurrection of God the Son.   Thus the Law causes dispare and the Gospel removes that dispare.  People who are not aware of their standing before God need to hear the Law so that they understand why they might even need a savior.  People aware of sin and their standing before God need to hear the Gospel promise that through Christ, their sins are washed away.  What joy it is to know that eternal promise of God’s love for us!