INTRODUCTION

"He will magnify the law and make it
honorable." (Isa. 42:21)

Two STATEMENTS MADIE IN MY HEARING have had a profound influence on me, giving me an insatiable desire to know the relationship between the Ten Commandments (the moral law) and the gospel of Christ. They have to do with the proper connection between law and gospel, how each is meant to serve and establish the other. (Historically our Christian fathers, as well as the great creeds and confessions of the faith, have referred to the Ten Commandments as the "moral law." I will often do likewise.)

One statement was from an old Southern Baptist evangelist who has since gone on to his reward. He said, "The first message of the cross is the law of God."

The other statement came from the late Professor John Murray, who related to me the following story: He was visiting his closest ministerial friend in Canada, a very reserved man who never raised his voice in the pulpit. On this particular communion Sunday, however, when the normally quiet minister came down from the pulpit to stand by the communion table, he raised his hands in ecstasy and cried out, "O Calvary, whose base is eternal justice and whose spirit is eternal love."

After many years of seeking to understand the relationship between the law and the gospel, I have come to understand just how profound these two statements were.

As I approach the topic of the law and the gospel, the words of Elihu found in Job 32:18-19 best describe my feeling: "I am full of words; the spirit within me compels me. Indeed my belly is like wine that has no vent; it is ready to burst like new wineskins." I have before me forty manila folders full of notes and excerpts from many books, confessions, catechisms, and commentaries. I am indeed "ready to burst."

I claim no original thinking for the ideas in these studies but have received help from these and other sources—some acknowledged and some not. I believe the material set forth here to be true biblical teaching. The positions expressed fan within the framework of the teaching summarized in the great historic creeds of the church, such as The Heidelberg Catechism, The Westminster Confession, and The Old Baptist Confession of 1689 (London Confession). There is nothing novel here, and the insights in this book may be used by others without credit.

My motives for these studies on the law and the gospel are to promote conviction of sin and misery in the conscience of the unconverted and true holiness in the heart and life of the Christian. It will be my constant endeavor to render this subject easy and intelligible to serious and devout readers. These studies are meant not for theological giraffes but for ordinary sheep in God's flock who sincerely hunger for the truth.

My principal method will be to convince the reader's mind, not to irritate the emotions, lest while seeking to serve grace, I promote sin, or endeavoring to lead men and women to holiness, I stir up their corruptions. I will seek to address principles, not attack persons.

It is my earnest desire that what is here plain to the eye, the God of truth will make evident to the heart—that He would give the reader sound spiritual judgment. It is also my unfeigned desire that this feeble attempt to promote true faith and holiness may obtain the approval of our matchless Redeemer, and, by His blessing, be used for the glorious cause of evangelical truth in the world.

Law and Gospel: Distinct yet Inseparable

To blend or confound the law and the gospel has been a fatal source of error and division in the Christian church, and has embarrassed many believers not a little in their exercise of faith and practice of holiness. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, that great preacher and soul winner, said, 'There is no point upon which men make greater mistakes than upon the relationship which exists between the law and the gospel" (The New Park Street Pulpit [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1963], 1:285). In another sermon entitled 'The Perpetuity of the Law of God" he stated, "The man who knows the relative position of the law and the gospel has the keys of the situation in the matter of doctrine" (The Metropolitan Tabernacle [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1971], 28:277).

There can be no true evangelical holiness, of either heart or life, unless it proceeds from faith working by love; and no true faith, of either the law or the gospel, unless the main distinction between the one and the other is spiritually discerned. The law and the gospel are set before us in the Bible as one undivided system of truth; yet an unchangeable line of distinction is drawn between them. There is also an inseparable connection and relationship between them.

Many leaders of the past have acknowledged both this distinction and relationship. J. Gresham Machen, the great Princetonian and principal founder of Westminster Theological Seminary, wrote,

A new and more powerful proclamation of that law is perhaps the most pressing need of the hour; men would have little difficulty with the gospel if they had only learned the lesson of the law....So it always is: a low view of the law always brings legalism in religion; a high view of law makes a man a seeker after grace.  Pray God that the high view may again prevail. (What Is Faith? [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1946], 141-42)

The great Apostle Paul put it succinctly: "Do we then make void the law through faith?  Certainly not!  On the contrary, we establish the law" (Rom. 3:31).

Charles Bridges has noted,

The mark of a minister "approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed," is, that he "rightly divides the word of truth." This implies a full and direct application of the gospel to the mass of his unconverted hearers, combined with a body of spiritual instruction to the several classes of Christians. His system will be marked by Scriptural symmetry and comprehensiveness. It will embrace the whole revelation of God, in its doctrinal instructions, experimental privileges and practical results. This revelation is divided into two parts—the Law and the Gospel—essentially distinct from each other; though so intimately connected, that no accurate knowledge of either can be obtained without the other... (The Christian Ministry [London: Banner of Truth, 1967], 222)

for the enforcers thereof]. I did not come to destroy but to ful- fill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled" (Matt. 5:17-18). True, the Christian is not under the law as a covenant of works, nor as a ministration of condem- nation, but he is under it as a rule of life and an objective standard of righteousnessfor all peoplefor all times. nings and the sound of a trumpet, and they were the only parts of Divine Revelation so spoken-none of the ceremonial or civil precepts were thus distinguished. Those Ten Words, and they alone, were written by the finger of God upon tables of stone, and they alone were deposited in the holy ark for safe keeping. Thus, in the unique honor conferred upon the Decalogue itself we may perceive its paramount importance in the Divine government. (The Ten Commandments [Swengel, Pa.: Reiner, 19611, 5) Not only the wicked, but also followers of God need an ob- jective, fixed, absolute standard of right and wrong. A devo- tional life cannot exist without regard to morality. We cannot separate devotion from duty. After all, what constitutes a de- vout person? Someone who is seeking to do the will of God, someone who is instructed in sanctified behavior. And, again, in what does that behavior consist? In doing the will of God as summarized in the Ten Commandments.

The subject of these studies, law and gospel, is most iinpor- tant both to saints and to sinners. To know experientially the re- lationship between them is to "be wise unto salvation.' To live habitually in that knowledge is to be at once holy and happy. It will keep one from verging toward self-righteousness, on the one hand, and licentiousness, on the other. A clear and distinct understanding of the law and the gospel enables one to assert both the absolute freeness of sovereign grace and the sacred in- terests of true holiness. Without a living knowledge and an un- feigned faith of the law and the gospel, a person can neither ven- erate the authority of the one nor esteem the grace of the other.

Scripture is a declaration of things obscure, or future, connected either with the law or the gospel, or with both. And there is not one admonition, reproof, or exhortation in the sacred volume, but what refers to either the law or the gospel, or both.

If then a man cannot distinguish the law from the gospel, he cannot rightly understand so much as a single article of divine truth. If he does not have spiritual and just apprehensions of the holy law, he cannot have spiritual and transforming dis- coveries of the glorious gospel. And if his views of the gospel are wrong, his notions of the law cannot be right.

Besides, if the speculative knowledge that true believers themselves have of the law and the gospel are superficial and indistinct, they will often be in danger of mingling the one with the other and they will, in a greater degree than can be con- ceived, retard their progress in holiness, as well as in peace and comfort. But if they can distinguish well between the law and the gospel, they will thereby, under the illuminating influences of the Holy Spirit, be able (1) to discern the glory of the whole scheme of redemption, (2) to reconcile all passages of Scripture that appear contrary to each other, (3) to try doctrines as to whether they are of God, (4) to calm their own consciences in times of mental trouble, and (5) to advance resolutely in evan- gelical holiness and spiritual consolation.

Thus the law and the gospel are the center, the sum, and the substance of the whole Bible. How important then is it to prop- erly relate and distinguish the two? The closer we get to a clear view of the difference between the law and the gospel and the connection between them as they serve to establish each other, the more we will understand the Holy Scriptures and thus the will and mind of God, and the more useful we will be in His service.

Charles Spurgeon, in a sermon on Romans 5:20 (New Park Street Pulpit, sermon 37 [Grand Rapids: Zondervani, 1:286), de- clared,

tionship which exists between the Law and the Gospel.... some put Law instead of the Gospel, some modify the Law and the Gospel and therefore preach neither Law nor Gospel.

If men blend the Law with the Gospel or Faith with Works (which is the same thing), especially in the area of Justification, they will obscure the glory of redeem- ing grace and prevent themselves and others from hav- ing the real joy and peace in believing. They will also retard their progress in holiness.

Ah! but if men, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, are able to see the glory of the whole plan of Redemption-if they are able to reconcile the passages of Scripture which seem contrary to each other (and there are some) they would advance in true holiness and spiritual consolation.

To see the glory of the whole would be a means to calm the conscience in times of mental and spiritual trouble. You see, a troubled conscience cannot be prop- erly quieted unless the Gospel is rightly distinguished from the Law; on the other hand, there will be no trou- bled conscience to be quieted without the Law.

5. What is the proper relationship between God's law and God's love?

6. What are some of the rules or principles for a right un- derstanding of the commandments?

7. What is the relationship between Moses and Christ?

8. What is the relationship between the law and the Sav- ior?

9. What is the relationship between the law and grace? 10. What is the gospel and its relationship to the law?

. It will be proper to consider the difference between the law and the gospel as well as the agreement between them. The es- tablishment of the law by the gospel, or the subservience of the gospel to the authority and honor of the law, will be addressed. The believer's privilege of being dead to the law as a covenant of works, and the necessary consequences will also be a topic.

I do not wish to be unduly polemical. I am more anxious to set out and establish what I conceive to be the truth than to dis- sect the minute and laborious details of the false. For this rea- son I have omitted personal references to recent advocates of other current views, except where necessary.

 GOD SPOKE ALL THESE WORDS, SAYING: