Are Evangelicals Collapsing Law and Gospel?

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The law demands everything and gives nothing, whereas the gospel demands nothing and gives everything.

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Whenever we read of what God requires for righteousness, in terms of what we are to do in order to be righteous in God's sight, that is law.

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And whenever we read of what Christ has done that is given to us by God in his grace, received by faith, that's gospel.

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In Lloyd -Jones, I think it was him who said, you know, when you preach the gospel, you should be mistaken as an antinomian.

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And the reason is because you're omitting your works and you're taking the spotlight off of yourself and you're throwing it completely on Christ.

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And without an understanding of the law gospel distinction, someone might jump to the conclusion that that is antinomian.

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Where's the law? Where's your duty? Where's your response? How often do we hear the objection that you can't tell people that everything is finished or they will not be motivated to pursue obedience?

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That's would be true if this was a natural process. But last time we checked, this is a supernatural reality.

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It's the work of God. So, the preaching of the utter sufficiency of Christ actually empowers sanctification.

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And what happens when there's a law gospel collapsing, it literally removes the supernatural side of it. And it basically says that the gospel is the good news, that if you do your part, then

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God will do his. In the legalist circles, all you have really is a behavioral, an external behavioral modification where if you behave this certain way, therefore, it means you're more

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Christian and you're more holy than if you don't. And it's all externals. Whereas, you know, true sanctification, we're looking to Christ and then

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Christ through his spirit works in us to produce a true obedience from the heart.

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The word sanctify means to be set apart. And there are times, Josh and Justin, that we are called to be setting ourselves apart from the world.

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We are to sanctify ourselves, like setting apart for the sake of. So, we would agree with that.

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And that word sanctification could be confusing because we would then assume that all sanctification means that, but that's not necessarily the truth.

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We are brought to from death to life by the power of the spirit. And when the spirit comes to live within us, he continues that work of increasing our faith and trust in Christ, which then gives us the capacity to repent and resist temptation.

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So, that power comes from Christ. What the covenant of works demands, the covenant of grace supplies.

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The law cannot empower. Just like when it comes to justification on the front end, we would say that the law cannot give life, it can only kill.

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Well, so it is in sanctification. The law cannot transform, it can only guide. What's interesting about this relationship that we enter into with the father is that it's not transactional.

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That's why law gospel distinction matters. The law is transactional. You do your part, you gain the reward.

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The gospel is, he did his part, you gain the reward. You are in his family by adoption.

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And so, what I find repulsive is that people who have put their faith in Christ, who've embraced the gospel, but then live the rest of their life wondering if it's true.

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God never intended that. If you are justified, you will do good works.

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True. If there are no good works, then you are not justified. Also true.

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Therefore, do good works to know you're justified. False.

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We have now woven works back into the fabric of salvation because we have collapsed the law and the gospel, rather than helping people understand that we live from our new identity and live from our new status.

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We are not chasing after something that we don't have already, but we are living like who we are now through our union with the