Summary
Law or Gospel?
Martin Luther famously said that anyone who can rightly distinguish between law and gospel deserves to be called a doctor of theology. The Lutheran Confessions echo this, because the ability to tell these two words of God apart is what enables us to read the Scriptures rightly and to communicate their message faithfully. Confuse them, and the witness of the church becomes muddled.
A common but mistaken shortcut equates the Old Testament with law and the New Testament with gospel. That won't do. Both testaments contain both. When Paul writes in Romans 6:23 that "the wages of sin is death," that is law in the New Testament. When Isaiah declares that "the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all" Isaiah 53:6, that is gospel in the Old. The distinction runs through the whole of Scripture.
A simple way to keep them straight is the mnemonic SOS. The law Shows Our Sin. It functions as a mirror, exposing what we are and what we do, holding us accountable to God's command to "be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" Matthew 5:48. The law says, "Do this," and it threatens, because all of us continually fall short—in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. Without this work of the law, we would never recognize that we need a Savior. The gospel Shows Our Savior. It does not command but announces—this is what God has done for you in Jesus Christ.
The encounter in Mark 12:28-34 puts this distinction on display. After two failed attempts to trap Jesus, a scribe asks which commandment is greatest. Jesus answers from Deuteronomy 6:4-5—love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength—and then from Leviticus 19:18—love your neighbor as yourself. He binds the two tables of the Decalogue together: love for God and love for neighbor cannot be separated, as 1 John 4:20 also testifies. The scribe agrees wholeheartedly, even adding that such love is greater than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. Then Jesus says to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."
Is that word law or gospel? It is law. "Not far" is not "in." The scribe understood the Scriptures rightly, but he had not yet confessed Jesus as the Messiah. The mirror of the law reveals precisely what is missing—faith in Christ. One can stand close to the kingdom and still be outside it. That is a hard word, and it is meant to be “Law or Gospel?” 3-27-22.
Left to ourselves, the law is all we would have, and the law alone can only condemn. But God does not leave us to ourselves. The Son of God takes upon himself every sin of thought, word, and deed, every omission and failure, and bears the just wrath of God in our place. From the cross he announces, "It is finished" John 19:30—the debt paid, redemption accomplished, the empty tomb proving the sacrifice accepted. The law says, "Do this," and we cannot. The gospel says, "Christ has done it," and credits his perfect life to us. The law threatens; the gospel assures. The law brings sorrow over our falling short; the gospel brings joy in what God has done. To distinguish these two rightly—both in Scripture and in our own daily life of faith—is to live not under guilt but in the freedom of being God's beloved children, claimed in baptism and kept by his grace.
Video citations
- “Law or Gospel?” 3-27-22 — Would you open up your Scriptures, please, to this portion of God's holy word, Mark the 12th chapter, if you're using a Pew edition of Holy Scripture, you're going to find that on page 42, Mark the…