Law and Gospel

In these Protestant traditions, the distinction between the doctrines of Law, which demands obedience to God's ethical Will, and Gospel, which promises the forgiveness of sins in light of the person and work of The Lord Jesus Christ, is critical.

[2] A specific formulation of the distinction of Law and Gospel was first brought to the attention of the Christian Church by Martin Luther (1483–1546), and laid down as the foundation of evangelical Lutheran biblical exegesis and exposition in Article 4 of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531): "All Scripture ought to be distributed into these two principal topics, the Law and the promises.

[3] The Formula of Concord likewise affirmed this distinction in Article V, where it states: "We believe, teach, and confess that the distinction between the Law and the Gospel is to be maintained in the Church with great diligence..."[4] Martin Luther wrote: "Hence, whoever knows well this art of distinguishing between Law and Gospel, him place at the head and call him a doctor of Holy Scripture.

[6] Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther (1811–1887), who was the first (and third) president of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, renewed interest in and attention to this theological skill in his evening lectures at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis 1884–1885.

[13] Zacharias Ursinus sharply distinguished the law and gospel as "the chief and general divisions of the holy scriptures" in his commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism.

The living and spiritual character of the knowledge of what God requires of men in the present moment must not be destroyed by rules and regulations.

"[19] Such theologians believe the third use leads to or encourages a form of legalism and is possibly an implicit denial of sola fide.

[citation needed] Some believe that "for Luther the pedagogic use of the Law was primary, while for Calvin this third or didactic use was the principal one; yet [historically] both the Lutheran and the Reformed traditions maintain the threefold conceptualization.

"[18] John Wesley admonished Methodist preachers to emphasize both the Law and the Gospel:[20] Undoubtedly both should be preached in their turn; yea, both at once, or both in one.

According to this model, I should advise every preacher continually to preach the law—the law grafted upon, tempered by, and animated with the spirit of the gospel.

[21] In Methodist Christianity, the moral law is the "fundamental ontological principle of the universe" and "is grounded in eternity", being "engraved on human hearts by the finger of God.

Accordingly poverty of spirit, purity of heart, and whatever else is enjoined in the holy law of God, are no other, when viewed in a gospel light, than so many great and precious promises.