LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1977, Page 91

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ESSAY AND BIBLE STUDY 91

Peter 5:8). This warning is especially appropriate when
discussing the subject of faith and works. It is so very
easy to go astray in our thinking at this point. Like Law
and Gospel, faith and good works are intimately related
to one another. They must never be separated from each
other, but great care must be taken that they are related
to each other in such a way that both the Law and the
Gospel retain their proper functions.

Before speaking of faith and works, therefore, it will
be helpful to review the basic relationship which exists
between the Law and the Gospel. In some ways the Law
and the Gospel have much in common. For example,
both Law and Gospel are God’s word. Both are
necessary for everyone, both are taught in the Old and
New Testaments, and both have as their final goal
man’s eternal salvation.

But it is also true, as Luther once said, that in many
ways Law and Gospel are “perfect opposites.” The Law
and the Gospel each have their own special purpose and
function. The Law is the teaching of God’s Word through
which the Holy Spirit convinces sinners of their sin. It
reveals our fallen condition before God and pronounces
judgment. The Gospel is the teaching of God’s Word that
reveals and promises nothing but grace and forgiveness
in Christ. The Law causes the sinner to cry out, “God, be
merciful to me, a sinner.” Like a schoolmaster it leads
the despairing sinner to Christ and the forgiveness
which has already been won for him through His
suffering and death on the cross.

This means that it is necessary that the preaching of
the Law and the Gospel takes place in the proper
sequence. The Lutheran Confessions state: “‘The
preaching of the law is not sufficient for salutary
repentance: The Gospel must be added to it.’ Thus both
doctrines are always together, and both of these have to
be urged side by side, but in order and with the proper
distinction” (FC SD V, 15). Dr. Walther puts it this way:

The Word of God is not rightly divided when the Gospel is

preached first and then the Law; sanctification first and

then justification, faith first and then repentance; good
bia first and then grace.” (Walther, Law and Gospel, p.
89

The preaching of the Law must come first, otherwise no
need will be felt for the Gospel, and its preaching will
have no effect. First comes Moses, then Christ, first
John the Baptist’s preaching of repentance, then the
preaching of forgiveness. “Repent and believe in the
Gospel” (Mark 1:15)—this is always the sequence which
must be followed.

But when this order is followed, there comes a time
when Law and Gospel meet in the heart ofa man. Luther
describes vividly what takes place:

Now when both Lawand Gospel meet, and the Law declares
me a sinner, accuses and condemns me; the Gospel,
however, says (Matt. 9:2): “Be of good cheer; thy sins be
forgiven thee,” “thou shalt be saved;” and both are God’s
Word; which am I, then, to follow? St. Paul tells you. “But
after faith is come,” he says, “we are no longer under a
schoolmaster,” the Law has come to an end. For as the
lesser word it should and must give way and place to the
Gospel. Both are God’s Word, the Law and the Gospel, but
the two are not equal. One is lower, the other higheer; one is
weaker, the other stronger; one is lesser, the other greater.

en now they wrestle with each other, I follow the Gospel
and say, Good-bye, Law! (St. L. IX, 808)

This is not to say that the Law has no relevance for
the Christian. Like the apostles Peter and Paul, also all
Christians continue to sin. With St. Paul we must all
confess: “For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I
practice the very evil that I do not wish” (Rom. 7:19). So
long as we live in this world, we continue to need the
mirror of God’s law to expose our sin.

Moreover, even after we have been born anew
through the power of the Holy Spirit, we need God’s law
“to give instruction about good works,” as the Lutheran
Confessions put it (FC SD V, 18), lest under the pretext of
the Holy Spirit’s guidance we set up our own standards
regarding what is right and God-pleasing and what is
wrong (FC SD VI, 20). The Scriptures tell us, “You shall
not do every man whatever is right in his own eyes... . Be
careful to heed all these words which Icommand you....
You shall not add to it nor take from it” (Deut. 12:8, 28,
32).

The instruction of God’s law is especially needed by
Christians in such a time as today. We live in a world
and in a society which thinks and acts as if it knows
better than the Creator what is right and wrong. For
example, in this day and age which calls a life-style
“gay” which the Scriptures condemn as immoral and
perverse, at a time when the union created by God
between one man and one woman in holy matrimony
with the express command that it not be put asunder is
increasingly trivialized and disregarded, as evidenced
by a spiraling divorce rate and all manner of ex-
tramarital relationships, in a country in which the
highest court of the land has removed the protection of
the law from the prenatal life with the result that over
1,000,000 unborn human beings are legally killed each
year through abortions, surely the instruction of God’s
law as expressed in the commandments of God’s law is
needed as never before, lest even we Christians become
confused as to what God’s will is. Let no one misunder-
stand us at this point—we dare never say “good-bye” to
the guidance of God’s law in the area of sanctification.

But the fact that the Gospel is God’s last and highest
word does mean that we dare never let the Law, that is,
good works, enter into our faith relationship to God. Just
as the preaching of the Law must precede the preaching
of the Gospel, so faith must come before good works.

Let’s look at this critical point in this way. Two
thousand years ago Jesus Christ, true God and true
man, fulfilled the Law perfectly in our stead, and Hedied
on the cross to pay the penalty our sins had earned.
When Jesus from the cross said, “It is finished,”
forgiveness was won for the whole world. This is an
objective fact attested to by Christ’s resurrection from
the dead. This means that every sin which has ever been
committed was at that moment paid for in full.
“Through one act of righteousness” says St. Paul, “there
resulted justification of life to all men” (Rom. 5:18).
There is no sinner for whom Christ did not die, and there
is no sin for which he has not already atoned.

The Gospel is the Good News that “God was in Christ
reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). The
question at issue is: How does the forgiveness which has
already been won for us now become ours? Scripture
gives us the clear answer: “God so loved the world that