Tag Archives: preaching

Ok, who gets what?

20 Friday Aug 2010

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Part 8 of a series discussing C. F. W. Walther’s important treatise Law and Gospel: How to Read and Apply the Bible.

So far, we’ve enumerated five differences between law and gospel.  They are,

  1. Law and Gospel differ as to how they were revealed to us.  The Law was written on our hearts and can indeed be found in other religions, but Christianity is the sole steward of the Gospel.
  2. The contents of the Law and Gospel are different.  The Law demands…the Gospel takes nothing but only gives.
  3. The Law and Gospel give us different promises.  The Law offers us salvation, but doesn’t give us any means to lay hold of it.  The Gospel tells us that Someone has laid hold of that salvation in our place.
  4. The Gospel does not threaten us; indeed it removes the believer’s desire to sin.  The Law, on the other hand, is nothing but threats.
  5. The effects of the Law are threefold.
    • The Law tells us what to do, but gives us no way to carry that out, instead prompting us in an unwillingness to keep the Law.
    • The Law uncovers a person’s sins, but offers the sinner no help to free himself from sin and hurls him into despair.
    • The Law creates feelings of contrition by showing terrors of hell, death and the wrath of God, but it never offers one drop of comfort to that sinner.  If the Law is the only teaching applied to people, then they must all despair, die and perish in their sins.
  • The effects of the Gospel are threefold.
    • What the Gospel demands (namely, faith), it provides.
    • The Gospel does not rebuke sinners.  Instead, it takes all terror away from them, filling them with peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
    • “The Gospel,” as Walther says, “does not require people to furnish anything good–neither a good heart nor a good disposition nor an improvement of their condition, neither piousness nor love–whether toward God of men.  The Gospel issues no orders. Rather, it changes people.  It demands nothing, but gives all.”

The sixth and final difference between Law and Gospel relates to the persons to whom each must be preached.  The Law must be preached to secure sinners and the Gospel to those who are alarmed in their sin.

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Only the Law, Ma’am

04 Wednesday Aug 2010

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In part 6 of my ongoing series on C. F. W. Walther’s  Law and Gospel: How to Read and Apply the Bible, I said:

…if the only teaching applied to people is the Law, then they despair, die and perish in their sin.  More on this in a future post…

Here is that future post.

This statement is one side of a coin.  Some people grow up, live and die under all-law preaching and never have this melt-down I’ve described, or better put, never realize that this is what’s ticking under their hood.

The other alternative is for a person to be crushed under the weight of the fact that they don’t love the Lord with all of who they are…and to not let themselves off the hook because they realize that they do not keep the law perfectly.

Obey! No exceptions! This is the demand of the Law.

Teaching people that “it takes more than faith to really please God” is, in reality, extremely cruel.  To those who are convinced of their own righteousness, it pushes them on in their odious good works.  Telling the ones who despair of their sin such a thing drives them further and further away from the Gospel…that Christ has obeyed perfectly in their place all that the law demands.

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You’re Having an Effect On Me

27 Tuesday Jul 2010

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Part 6 of a series discussing C. F. W. Walther’s important treatise Law and Gospel: How to Read and Apply the Bible.

The Law tells us what to do.  It doesn’t give us the strength to carry out its demands; instead, it urges us on in an unwillingness to keep the Law.  When the Law has forced its way into the heart, the heart rebels against it (against God himself) and becomes furious at the idea that God would demand such impossible things from him/her.  This even leads to them cursing God and wishing Him dead.  “The effect of preaching the Law, then, is to increase people’s lust for sinning,” says Walther.

Second, the Law offers the person no means to free himself from sin and throws him into despair.

Third, if the only teaching applied to people is the Law, then they despair, die and perish in their sin.  More on this in a future post…

Come on, Dave you may say.  Where is THIS taught in Scripture?

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I Have to Divide the Scriptures?

23 Friday Jul 2010

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Another instrumental lecture I’ve encountered (albeit more academic in nature) was given by Dr. Rod Rosenbladt and was aired on Chris Rosebrough‘s program, Fighting for the Faith. If you wish to listen to this important lecture, you may do so by clicking here…but you may need to give it your undivided attention as he gets fairly technical at times.

The Pastor and the Pulpit

10 Saturday Jul 2010

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Chris Rosebrough, of Fighting for the Faith, published this wonderful article in October, 2009 on the distinction between Law & Gospel:

In order to preach the saving Word in its truth and purity a careful and thorough distinction between Law and Gospel is indispensably necessary. The distinction between these two doctrines is the key to the Bible. Any man who does not know that the Bible contains these two distinct doctrines will not and cannot understand its teachings; the Bible will appear to him a book full of contradictions. When the Lord says, “Do this — love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and your neighbor as yourself, — and you will live,” Luke 10:27-28, and the apostle writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works” Eph. 2:8-9, these two words cannot but seem contradictory to him who does not know that they belong to two distinct systems of teaching. It is not possible that a preacher who has himself not learned to distinguish doctrines could present the plan of salvation in its proper order. A sharp distinction between Law and Gospel alone will teach the pastor where each doctrine belongs and in what connection it must be preached.

To continue to read, click Safe Harbor Dispatch for October 23, 2009.

But You Promised!

07 Wednesday Jul 2010

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Part 4 of a series discussing C. F. W. Walther’s important treatise Law and Gospel: How to Read and Apply the Bible.

If you’re anything like me, you have (or have had) people in your life who will make promises contingent on something you do.  “If you do this, then I’ll do that.”  This is precisely what the Law does to us.  Both the Law and the Gospel promise eternal life and salvation, but the Law gives conditions which must be satisfied prior to those items being obtained: namely, perfect obedience to its demands.  Says Walther,

…the greater the promises of the Law, the more disheartening they are.  The Law offers us that food, but not close enough for us to reach it.  The Law offers us salvation in about the same manner as refreshments were offered to Tantalus in the hell of the pagan Greeks. …[The Law] always adds: “All this you will have, but only if you do what I command.”

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What’s the difference?

06 Tuesday Jul 2010

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Part 3 of a series discussing C. F. W. Walther’s important treatise Law and Gospel: How to Read and Apply the Bible.

So what’s the difference?  Law or Gospel, it’s all God’s word, right?  Isn’t it hard enough to find pastors who will just preach the WORD?

Yes, it certainly is all God’s Word.  And it is tough to find pastors who will open a text and preach it instead of their own opinions.  It’s even tougher to find pastors who can tell the difference between the text and their opinions to start with! Law and Gospel are, however, fundamentally different in terms of their content.  Says Walther:

The Law tells us what to do. No such instruction is contained in the Gospel.  Rather, the Gospel reveals to us only what God is doing.  The Law speaks about our works, whereas the Gospel speaks about the great works of God.  In the Law we hear the ten-fold summons [that is, the Ten Commandments]: “You shall.”  Beyond that, the Law has nothing to say to us.  The Gospel, on the other hand,  makes no demands whatsoever. (pg. 14)

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The Law Written on Their Hearts

05 Monday Jul 2010

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Part 2 in a series considering Law and Gospel: How to Read and Apply the Bible by C. F. W. Walther.

The law of God is written on the hearts of all mankind.  It was created along with us.   It is what God demands of us as people.  When the Law is preached to even ungodly people, their conscience will tell them that what they’re hearing is true.

The Law is Written On Their Hearts

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