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33 Comments on “WHI-1117 | Understanding Law & Gospel”

1. 
   Robert Barrett
   September 2nd, 2012 at 4:32 am

   That was the most magnificent single lecture on authentic Christianity that thas ever been done in the history of the world.

2. Understanding Law & Gospel « The Misadventures of Captain Headknowledge
   September 2nd, 2012 at 8:15 pm

   [...] WHI-1117 | Understanding Law & Gospel. Share this:PrintFacebookDiggEmailStumbleUponTwitterRedditLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. Posted in: Gospel, Hermeneutics, Justification, Martin Luther, Moral Law, Radio, Reformed Theology, The Ten Commandments, White Horse Inn [...]

3. 
   Robin
   September 3rd, 2012 at 1:30 am

   Wow! Preach it, Mike! What a stunning sermon. Glory to God!

4. 
   René Mulder
   September 3rd, 2012 at 6:37 am

   Michael, I need some help with this, I think I almost got it, but not just yet.
   A few months, maybe half a year ago, I was heading towards desperation because the Law was killing me. It was Rod Rosenblad’s lecture that steered me in the right direction and further listening to WHI broadcasts helped me to understand the Law & Gospel and the relationship between them. I get that only Christ can justify me, not my works.

   As a Christian, I obviously want to live a life in accordance with Gods will and to know His will, I read my Bible. Now, how do I discern, when reading my Bible, and especially the gospels and thus the words of Jesus Christ to the Jews, which words are there to break our works-righteousness attitude, and which words are there for me to “do” because I am made righteous through Jesus Christ? For example: the part about Jesus being the true vine and I (or just the 11 disciples?) the branch has killing potential because oh boy, if you don’t remain in Him and He in you, the father will cast you into fire. So how to remain in Him? Keep His commandmends? Wait, you mean the ones I couldn’t keep in the first place? Killing me!

   At the end of Jesus’ sermon on the mount, He says He will compare a person who hears His words and does them to a wise builder. Okay, what are His words? His words are the ones that kill me, because I am not like He describes. Am I supposed to become a wise builder, or was His point to show that we were unwise builders that need a savior?

   So then, when reading my Bible, how to interpret such passages and discern, so I avoid thinking I need to DO MORE WORKS, but also avoid thinking “these passages are just meant to break you, you don’t actually have to do any of this stuff”?
   Which are things that we actually should do, and which are things that are supposed to point us to Christ for our righteousness, and how could I tell the difference?

   And in light of that, how is looking at our position in Christ helping? I mean, do I have to just really pound in my head that I have died, cruxified my old self, nailed my sins to the cross and am a new creation? That in itself can become a “works” kind of excercise… “If I could just pound my position into my brain, maybe I’ll stop sinning at last!”.
   At which point and by what means does the fruit actually come, and where lies who’s resonsibilities in “growing” those?

   Surely I reject artificial growth programs for growing “fruits”, but if I perceive that I am not actually baring any fruits of the spirit, I inevitably fall in that killer trap: “Am I actually saved? What do I need to do?”

5. The White Horse Inn – Understanding Law and Gospel | Pilgrimage to Geneva
   September 3rd, 2012 at 10:15 am

   [...] The White Horse Inn -1117 | Understanding Law & Gospel [...]

6. 
   Michael Horton
   September 3rd, 2012 at 11:15 am

   Rene, thanks. If we’re asking, “Am I actually saved?”, the law offers no hope. Every imperative, even from (especially from) the lips of our Lord, can only lead to death. Jesus is not answering that question in the Sermon on the Mount–except in the Beatitudes at the beginning, where he pronounces his gracious blessing on his people as the source rather than the goal of their justification.

   The commands in the Sermon do drive us to despair if we’re asking the “salvation” question. However, they are the good commands of our gracious King if they are understood as the rule of life characterizing kingdom living. They are not conditions for getting in or staying in; they are the new covenant commands for what we are to do now that we are in.

   Christ’s kingdom is not something that we bring about; it descends from above, as a pure gift. Through faith we are united to the King himself, co-heirs of his entire estate. In this context, Jesus then announces what this kingdom is like. It is nothing less than the in-breaking of the consummated kingdom. But it is not yet the consummated state of that kingdom. Something qualitatively new has dawned and we’re part of it. At the same time, we struggle with indwelling sin and the church, much less the world, does not yet exhibit that quality of life that Jesus sets forth in this amazing Sermon. It’s this tension between the “already” and the “not yet” that gives us the struggle.

   So, yes, we are expected to follow the Sermon on the Mount. The church is to be God’s new society, contrasting in its light to the darkness of the world. Yet the law–in this or any other form–cannot give what it commands. It is always the gospel (going back to the Beatitudes) that grounds our assurance.

   I hope that helps!

7. 
   Mike
   September 3rd, 2012 at 9:25 pm

   Michael,

   I just finished your Chrstless Christianity trilogy. Each book was great. WHI as well as your books have greatly impacted my life.

   Thank you for discipling me from a distance.

   Mike

8. 
   Roger
   September 3rd, 2012 at 11:59 pm

   Amen to Robert’s and to Robin’s comments! I will be posting a link to this message every day this week! All of American evangelicalism needs to hear this!

9. 
   David Peterson
   September 4th, 2012 at 11:39 am

   “The commands in the Sermon do drive us to despair if we’re asking the ‘salvation’ question. However, they are the good commands of our gracious King if they are understood as the rule of life characterizing kingdom living” (from a comment by Michael Horton above).

   I find the above a very helpful way of saying it. It depends on the question you’re asking.

   For the believer Christ’s commands become his promises of the life he’s made possible. Even as the paralytic arose, took up his bed and walked at Christ’s command, we arise by faith to live a new life.

10. 
    Bill
    September 4th, 2012 at 4:23 pm

    Michael Horton is without a doubt the greatest theologian of the 21st century. His messages on the White Horse Inn, his trilogy (christless christianity, the gospel driven life, and the gospel commission) recently finished, and his systematic theology written last year put him way ahead of the pack as the most influential christian in the 21st century.

    Somebody might say, wait, what about Rick Warren and his best selling 21st century purpose driven life book? Is he not a more influential christian? My answer to anybody that clams this would first be, are you kidding me? How can it possbily have a christian influence a book or author whose focus is not primarily the gospel? It simply can not.

    With regard to this message it was nothing short of brilliant. The gospel is not something that needs to be heard to “get saved”, and then we christians need to move to the important stuff “living the christian life”. No, the gospel needs to be heard every time, all the time by christians. When christians come to a Sunday service they are humbled, after a week of failures where they didn’t measure up to God’s standards / Law. Whether there is communion or not at the Sunday Service the attitutde is the same christians should be coming to receive mercy and the forgiveness of sins, in a spirit of confession and broken by their sin, killed by the law which they don’t measure up to, to be revived by the spirit given throught the gospel proclamation. This is Paul’s experience in Romans 7, this is the experience of every true christian at a Sunday Service who’s humbled by his sin which contrasts with God’s holiness. It is appalling how little resemblance a service at most evangelical churches has with what I just described. Most services extol man and don’t preach about sin, instead of showing a spirit of contrition that can only be rescued by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, they portray man as as worthy and self reliant. Instead of teaching that the main benefit of the gospel is justification and eternal life, they highlight all the benefits that we can have right here, right now. Jesus taught that in this world we will have tribulation, Paul taught (1 Corinthians 15) that if in this life only we (christians) have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most miserable or most to be pitied. We are more miserable than unbelievers Paul says if our hope is in this life, for if this is the case the apostle says, “let us drink and eat, for tomorrow we die”. Paul with this expression utterly refutes “your best life now” pseudo-christianity that teaches that the chief benefit of the gospel is in this life, when the apostle just as Jesus did clearly teaches the opposite. Lazarus is another example, and in Romans 8 Paul teaches that we groan inwardly as we await eagerly the redemption of our bodies. And yet Sunday after Sunday evangelical churches are teaching how to have our best life now or how to live a purpose driven life, this celebration of life, this love of the world (as 1 John labels it) that abounds in evangelical churches today is one of the most clear evidences that that the evangelical church is lacking in the love of God while exuding a love of man and this world.

11. 
    Jack Miller
    September 5th, 2012 at 9:58 am

    Dr. Horton,

    Thank you for this very clear and needed word.

    Jack

12. 
    Don Finger
    September 5th, 2012 at 12:19 pm

    I cannot put into words (as I write tears flow) what the ministry of everyone, especially M. Horton, of the WHI has done to this retired A/G Pentecostal pastor. After resigning because I could not make headway with 5 people who thought they knew better I descended into a wilderness unimaginable. After several years I’m on the internet and I stumble across the WHI and God uses that to pick me up and set me straight–straight to the message of grace that I have not understood all these years. I know I’v forgiven for my ill-informed ministry all those years because Jesus forgives me of all my sin. My father, an 8th grade educated Lutheran told me “you folks don’t understand grace.” He is now with the Lord. And he is delighted that the teachings coming from this endeavor have opened my eyes to finally understand the Gospel. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
    I now have a new problem. How do I find a church that preaches Jesus and grace and not the mush that is found in most all of America’s churches.
    I am overcome with so much emotion. I love you all in the Lord. Do not stop preaching this. You are saving souls, souls of Christians who have not understood grace.
    Through your ministry they do! I do. Now!

13. 
    Roger
    September 5th, 2012 at 9:21 pm

    Don Finger, you are singing my tune. I hope to meet you someday, sir.

14. 
    Brad B
    September 6th, 2012 at 9:10 pm

    Hi Don, thanks for your testimony. I think your question about finding a church was not just rhetorical, so I want to suggest that Michael would recommend a “confessional” Reformed church. Most likely he’d recommend a PCA or OPC church. I’m in a PCA church and have been very well cared for getting Word and Sacrament and solid biblical instruction by approved men [ordained and tested to prove their calling]. Even a Lutheran church may be where God wants you to be. I dont want to speak for Dr. Horton, but pray about it, seek wisdom from those God puts in you life and prove the spirits by the word of God and you’ll find a home.

15. 
    Bill
    September 7th, 2012 at 9:24 am

    Brad, actually Mike Horton is an ordained Minister with the United Reformed Churches in North America (URCNA). He’ll probably recommend a URCNA church, they adhere to the belgic confession, heidelberg catechism, and Cannon’s of Dort.

    I can’t see Mike Horton recommending an OPC or PCA church since they adhere to the Westminster standards. Although the PCA and OPC are confessional, it’s different confession from the ones Horton adheres to. And the lutheran confessions are also different from the URCNA. That said Horton is pretty open minded as far as the church somebody chooses to attend, so he’ll respect anybody’s choice as long as the gospel is being preached. An example of this is Horton has a lutheran and a baptist co-hosts of the White Horse Inn. Mike Horton embraces both the lutheran and reformed tradition.

16. 
    Eric Landry
    September 7th, 2012 at 10:14 am

    We get requests all the time for church recommendations. All the hosts of the WHI know that we can’t uncritically recommend any church just because of its label. So, Mike would agree with Brad that sometimes a Lutheran church is the best choice in a local community, even though he has strong disagreements on certain points of their doctrine. Rod, too, would urge someone to go wherever the Gospel is preached, even if that meant bypassing a moralizing Lutheran church.

17. 
    David Peterson
    September 7th, 2012 at 10:15 am

    Don Finger,
    I resonate very much with your comments.

    I was active in ministry in 2 AG churches, serving as a youth pastor in one and a student minister in another. I got to preach often. Even then I was drawn to Reformation theology and had moved away from second blessing theology and dispensationalism. This meant I was never ordained in the Assemblies–couldn’t sign on to the 16 fundamental truths.

    It took me much longer to work out my theology of grace. Even though I read Calvin’s Institutes and several Reformed systematics it was the Lutherans that taught me grace. Walther’s Law and Gospel lectures were pivotal as was the dogmatics of Mueller and then Pieper.

    My theology is a blend of Lutheran and Reformed, which is fine since I pastor a German Evangelical church. The German Evangelicals united the two confessions, focusing on the most widely accepted confessional statements, the Augsburg Confession, Luther’s Catechism, and the Heidelberg Catechism.

    If I were you I wouldn’t focus so much on denomination as on whether there is a proper understanding of Law and Gospel–keeping them distinct and not confused or separated. I hear John Pless’ “Handling the Word of Truth: Law and Gospel in the Church Today” is an easy to read explanation of Walther. It’s had an impact on the ministry of Billy Graham’s grandson Tullian Tchividjian at Coral Ridge Presbyterian.

18. 
    Joel
    September 7th, 2012 at 3:34 pm

    Hi Mike, thank you very much for this message. As much as I appreciate WHI’s usual roundtable discussion, it’s your sermons that really drive it home for me (the last one being “Grace Liberates” from a few weeks back).

    I have one question though. You say something to the effect: “The law can lead you in the right direction, but it cannot put a puff of wind into the sails of your spiritual life.” Wouldn’t Psalm 119 with its delight in the Lord’s precepts contradict such a statement?

    Thanks, and keep up the good work!

19. 
    Mike Horton
    September 8th, 2012 at 10:53 am

    Important question! We can only delight in God’s precepts because our relationship to the Giver is not that of condemned transgressor but of justified, adopted, and regenerated heir. So it’s the gospel that not only silences the threats of the law but that gives us the joy in God’s good will for our lives. Always, it’s the law that guides and the gospel that gives. By the way, in Psalm 119 God’s law—Torah—encompasses his whole Word to Israel: both commands and promises. Under the old covenant, obedience led to temporal blessing (“long life in the land”) in a way that was specific to that covenant with the nation of Israel. Therefore, we have to read Psalm 119 and similar passages in the light of the New Testament, not the other way around.

20. 
    Raine
    September 8th, 2012 at 12:11 pm

    The law concept is starting to frustrate me. When I work through so many passages in the NT the word law refers to the Mosaic Covenant. In some places it’s pretty clear that Paul doens’t only use the word “law” in this way (Romans 3:21), but looking at the context, I can’t really make heads or tails of what Paul means by this distinction. What are some Biblical passages that point to law in the general sense of “commands to be obeyed”?

21. 
    Glynne
    September 9th, 2012 at 10:17 pm

    I’ll have to pile on and say this talk was very good. I’m without word to explain what it has done to me. I’ve listened to it 4 times.

22. 
    René Mulder
    September 10th, 2012 at 11:15 am

    Michael, thanks for taking the time to respond to my dilemma.

    I just don’t see what you’re describing when I read the gospels for myself. I lack the understanding and I find that a little disturbing. I’m not reaching the same conclusions.
    Perhaps this is also due to the fact that I don’t really know where to place myself, as a gentile, within the story as told in the gospels. Maybe I’m applying too much to myself, maybe I’m applying things the wrong way. So it comes back to discerning which words of Jesus mean what, and how they relate to me.

    Are the gospels enough to get your conclusions? Or maybe I’m expecting too much out of these 4 books.
    Which Old and New Testament books would you recommend to get a better understanding of the work that Jesus came to do in relation to the bringing of the Kingdom and how that involves our justification and sanctification?

    I hope I’m making sense. Formulating the right questions isn’t easy with all this confusion I have.

23. 
    Bill
    September 11th, 2012 at 2:01 pm

    Raine, the Law refers to “commands to be obeyed” in most if not all passages of the bible. Like Calvin points out in the Institutes at length and Luther on the Bondage of the Will, God commands but man in his natural state has not the ability to obey God’s commands. This is why the apostle Paul mentions that through the law there’s knowledge of sin or that the law entered so that the transgression may abound more. The pelagian error is toassume that what God commands man is able to obey if he so wills, the problem is man after the fall can neither will nor perform what he wills. Nobody will argue whether the law is made up of commands to be obeyed, everybody agrees there, what the Reformation (and the apostle Paul centuries before) highlighted is that those commands are there to show our disobedience and inability to keep them, so that we will rely on God’s grace to supply the perfect obedience he demands. Only Jesus was able to obey God’s commands perfectly.

24. 
    Raine
    September 11th, 2012 at 5:47 pm

    Bill, thanks for the reply.

    I’ve failed to make myself clear. The law refers to “commands to be obeyed” but what I’m getting at is that in Paul it seems he’s referring to specific commands related to the Mosaic covenant when he says “law” in at least most cases, and the cases where that may not be necessarily so, I fail to understand what Paul means as a theological category. My question is more like, how do we come from “Law” in the sense of the Mosaic Covenant to law as any command whatsoever in Scripture? Here’s an example of what I’m saying which I hope will make things clearer:

    “This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void.” Gal. 3:17 (ESV)

    Paul’s law/gospel contrast here is between two covenants, not the “two words” of Scripture. I think anyone would admit this. If the contrast is between two covenants here, what’s the exegetical basis for interpreting law/gospel as the two types of speech in all of Scripture elsewhere?

    Thanks for any help in advance.

25. 
    Bill
    September 12th, 2012 at 10:42 am

    Raine, Paul refers to the whole Law in the New Testament (ceremonial law which was abolished with Christ, the laws that governed Israel’s society, but most importantly of all the moral law). So in Galatians 3:17 Paul primarily refers to the moral law which is still binding on christians (the ceremonial law being abolished with Christ and the civil law relates only to regulating the affairs of of Israel’s old testament society).

    Also when you are saying Paul’s contrast is between two covenants and not law and gospel, I think it’s just different terminology but the same meaning. The contrast between law and gospel is not unlike the contrast between the covenant of works (mosaic which encompasses the law) and the covenant of grace (Abrahamic / Christ which encompasses the gospel), basically Hagar and Sarah as Paul compares the two women with the two covenants.

26. 
    Raine
    September 12th, 2012 at 12:19 pm

    I was actually saying that Paul’s contrast is between Law/Gospel, but that in Gal. 3:17 it’s not a contrast of the two words of Scripture in a general sense, but the covenants in a more narrow sense. I understand that no aspect of the Mosaic Covenant, ceremonial, judicial, or moral is able to bring about salvation by observance for justification, and certainly that this covenant with its moral law functions to reveal sin so that we’ll be shut-up and go to Christ for salvation. Paul couldn’t be any clearer on this point than he is in both Galatians and Romans. But on a strictly exegetical level, what language in Paul or anywhere else points to law/gospel as a functioning hermeneutic for all of Scripture? I get that redemptive-historically we are under a Gospel covenant, but I can’t see how that connects to the Reformed “two words” hermeneutic yet.

    “The contrast between law and gospel is not unlike the contrast between the covenant of works (mosaic which encompasses the law) and the covenant of grace (Abrahamic / Christ which encompasses the gospel), basically Hagar and Sarah as Paul compares the two women with the two covenants.”

    This is what I need worked out. Again, the “two covenants” language is used when he contrasts Hagar and Sarah. They are two covenants, one of works (bondage) and one of grace (freedom). One’s concept of redemptive-history must contrast a works covenant and a grace covenant. From there, how does this lead to the law/gospel as hermeneutic? Are there any more explicit passages? What theological inference can be made from the passages we’ve looked at so far?

27. 
    Bill
    September 12th, 2012 at 2:24 pm

    Raine,

    I don’t think I can say anything more than:

    Covenant of Works = Law
    Covenant of Grace = Gospel

    From the contrast of the two covenants you logically get the contrast between law and gospel. Sorry I can’t think of anything else.

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29. 
    Barry
    September 26th, 2012 at 6:41 pm

    Raine and Bill -

    Everything you guys are looking into is great, but the Mosaic Covenant was part of the Covenant of Grace. God saved them unconditionally and gave them the Law (ceremonial, judicial, and moral) knowing full well they did not have the ability to keep it. He made provisions for their lack of keeping it (the ceremonial system). When you read the Psalms this is made very clear. He saved the Israelites, not because of what they did, but because He chose to. He gave them the law AFTER He saved them. He saves us today and shows us His commands – He also gives us the ability to keep them. The Holy Spirit is subduing the sin in the life of the believer. What Dr. Horton states so wonderfully in this message is that when we look at our obeying/not obeying His commands as our JUSTIFICATION before we have everything backwards. We must always LOOK to Christs work our justification. Only then can we properly view our SANCTIFICATION with the understanding that the Holy Spirit is subduing our sin and conforming us to the image of the one we are united with – Christ. “…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Phil. 2 12-13

30. 
    Pete
    September 27th, 2012 at 5:08 pm

    Good Evening Dr. H!
    Putting things in my simple perspective (being an old baseball fan), if your sermon was a well hit fly ball to deep centerfield, they’d be pulling out the measuring tape for weeks …”Out of the Park” Awesome, sir. Thanks and God Bless

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