LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1962, Page 19

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DOCTRINAL-DEVOTIONAL ESSAYS 19

improves on it. There follow Absalom’s rebellion, then
murder, then death —— enough to break a father’s heart.
Then Joab to torment him and Ahithophel to plague
him.

When our gracious Lord forgives a sinful man, He
effects a joyous reunion of the sinner with Himself.
The forgiving Father does not only cover the disobedi-
ence of His wayward son; He takes him back into His
home with full privileges of sonship. So forgiven David
can hear the consequences of his sin with grace because
he is under God’s grace. While the sinner may bear
the consequences of his immoral choices, by faith in this
gracious God who has restored him to sonship he can
see God’s purposes in his sufferings and not rebel
against Him.

This, then, is the voice of God crying by His Spirit
to men everywhere: “Thou art the man!” “Behold the
Man!”

It is Law. It is Gospel. It is the message of sin and
grace. What Holy Scripture says, our Lutheran Confes-
sions affirm. “All Scripture,” says the Apology of the
Augsburg Confession (IV,5), “should be divided into
these two chief doctrines, the Law and the promises.
In some places it presents the Law. In others it presents
the promise of Christ.” “These are the two chief works
of God in men: to terrify, and to justify and quicken
the terrified. One or the other of these works is spoken
of throughout Scripture. One part is the Law, which
reveals, denounces, and condemns sin. The other part
is the Gospel, that is, the promise of grace granted in
Christ.” (Ap. XI, 53)

Evangelical Lutherans affirm in the Formula of Con-
cord, Solid Declaration (V,1): “The distinction be-
tween Law and Gospel is an especially brilliant light
which serves the purpose that the Word of God may
be rightly divided and the writings of the holy prophets
and apostles may be explained and understood correctly.
We must therefore observe this distinction with particu-
lar diligence lest we confuse the two doctrines and
change the Gospel into Law. This would darken the
merit of Christ.” The “Law is a divine doctrine which
reveals the righteousness and immutable will of God,
shows how man ought to be disposed in his nature,
thoughts, words, and deeds in order to be pleasing and
acceptable to God, and threatens the transgressors of
the Law with God’s wrath and temporal and eternal
punishment” (V,17). “The Gospel, however, is that
doctrine which teaches what a man should believe in
order to obtain the forgiveness of sins from God, since
man has failed to keep the Law of God and has trans-
gressed it, his corrupted nature, thoughts, words, and
deeds war against the Law, and he is therefore subject
to the wrath of God, to death, to temporal miseries,
and to the punishment of hell-fire. The content of the
Gospel is this, that the Son of God, Christ our Lord,
Himself assumed and bore the curse of the Law, and
expiated and paid for all our sins, that through Him
alone we reenter the good graces of God, obtain forgive-
ness of sins through faith, are freed from death and
all the punishments of sin, and are saved eternally.

For everything which comforts and which offers the
mercy and grace of God to transgressors of the Law
strictly speaking is, and is called, the Gospel, a good
and joyful message that God wills not to punish sins
but to forgive them for Christ’s sake.” (V, 20, 21)

To observe the distinction between God’s purposes
in His Law and in His Gospel is at the same time to
recognize their relationship to each other, to understand
that God’s Law is given by Him to prepare the way for
His Gospel. The Gospel is God’s proper message to
mankind. “The Word of God... leads us to Christ,
who is ‘the Book of Life.’ ” (Epit., XI, 7)

“Christ is the essential content of the Scriptures.
Take Christ out of the Scriptures, and what have you
left? . . . The whole Bible bears witness to Him:
‘To Him bear all the prophets witness, that through His
name everyone that believeth on Him shall receive
remission of sins.’” (Sasse, p. 115)

We hold in the Formula of Concord, as Sasse com-
ments (p.18): “It is true that Christ can also preach
the wrath of God in His teaching, His sufferings, and
His death. It is equally true that, according to the lan-
guage of the New Testament, the sum total of His mes-
sage can be designated with the word ‘Gospel.’ But
Jesus’ proclamation of the wrath to come ‘is still not
properly the preaching of the Gospel, but the preaching
of Moses and the Law, and therefore a “strange work”
of Christ, whereby He attains His proper office, i.e.,
to preach grace, console, and quicken, which is properly
the preaching of the Gospel.’” (Epit., V,10 [Jacobs tr.])

We confess in the Smalcald Articles (III, iii, 2,4) that
the Law “is the thunderbolt by means of which God
with one blow destroys both open sinners and false
saints. He allows no one to justify himself. He drives
all together into terror and despair. ... To this office
of the Law the New Testament immediately adds the
consoling promise of grace in the Gospel.”

And by way of summary, Dr. Walther states: “The
true knowledge of the distinction between the Law and
the Gospel is not only a glorious light, affording the
correct understanding of the entire Holy Scriptures,
but without this knowledge Scripture is and remains
a sealed book.” (The Proper Distinction Between Law
and Gospel, Thesis IV)

But the Evangelical Lutheran Church is the church
not of the sealed book but of the open Bible. It main-
tains that while it is the highest theological art to dis-
tinguish between Law and Gospel, this distinction is not
a mechanical principle but a method by which the
Scripture is interpreted to achieve God’s purposes in
giving it to men. God’s Spirit uses God’s Word to
achieve God’s goal: to save men from their sins. (See
2 Tim. 3:15)

The distinction between the Law and the Gospel
cannot be made mechanically or according to standards
set by human reason. There is no red-letter edition
of the Bible which prints the Gospel in red and the
Law in black. The gift to distinguish is a gift of the
Spirit, the very gift of the mind of Christ, the living
and incarnate Word of God. It is not merely much use