Getting the Gospel Right | Theocast (w/ NoCo Radio, The Pactum, and The Heidelcast)

Welcome and Podcast Introduction

Hey guys, this is John, and today on Theocast, we have a special and long episode for you. Justin and I were just in California at the Westminster Seminary Faculty Conference, and we had a great time connecting with other pastors there, but we also got invited to participate in a podcast—there's four podcasts that got together—and recorded on the gospel, and it was a lot of fun.

And so on this episode, you guys will get to hear from Dr. R. Scott Clark, who's part of the Heidelcast, Pat Abendroth and Mike Grimes, who are a part of the Pactum, and then Mike Abendroth, who is the host of NOCO Radio.

And the four podcasts got together, and we covered subjects like Sola Fide, Assurance, Law Gospel Distinction, and Covenant Theology. I know we kind of mashed it all in there, but it was a lot of fun.

We hope you enjoy. It's full of the gospel, it's full of hope, and I'm pretty sure you're going to laugh as well, so enjoy.

A simple and easy way for you to help support Theocast each month is by shopping at Amazon through the Amazon Smile program. When you make a purchase through Amazon Smile, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to our ministry.

To learn how to sign up, just go to theocast .org slash give.

The Gospel, Law and Gospel Distinction, and the Uses of the Law

Getting the gospel right with Theocast, Heidelcast, No Compromise, and the Pactum. Gentlemen, thank you for agreeing to do this, and thank you to Westminster Seminary for hosting us. The plan is to talk about Sola Fide, Law Gospel, Assurance, and Covenant Theology as advertised, things that make us tick.

We have four rounds, hopefully no knockout rounds, but we have four rounds, and so what we're going to do is allow each of the different podcasts to kick off one of the different rounds. And so what we're going to do is we are going to draw questions from a hat.

I want you to know it is a Pactum hat. It is. Shameless plug. Shameless plug right there. But anyway, what we're going to do is we're going to draw from... Someone take that from him. Each of the podcasts is going to draw a question, and the questions are directed toward another podcast.

And when that happens, if you are on the receiving end of the question, what we want you to do is begin to answer the question, but then we'll kick it around amongst us. But at least it gives us a little rhyme or reason.

Mike Grimes is our sergeant at arms. I've got a timer. I'll cut you off. So if... Move it along, fellas. If Mike says, time to pass the hat, it means, okay, hurry up, Scott. Are we taking an offering?

We're taking an offering, apparently, after you. After 67 stances of just as I am, we'll take an offering. So now, Mike came on an airplane, so he's probably not armed. There's probably only one local guy who is armed, but we won't talk about that.

It might be fake news. Okay. With that in mind, who wants to draw first? Justin. Justin. All right. Here we go. We're going to pass that down. And if you draw your own, you've got to pick a different one.

Yeah. I knew you were going to do it. I knew you would. He actually drew his own. We did. I did draw.

Take one in four shots. Justin likes some Justin. Yes, he does. Dang. All right. Here we go. I'm going to read it as written. All right. Mike Abendroth of No Compromise. We are asking you about law and gospel.

Come on. What is law and gospel? And isn't it merely Lutheran? Isn't it something extra biblical imposed upon the Bible? And why do so many seem to have an allergy against it? How many questions was that, Bob?

Hey, I did not write these. Yes, no. Yes, no. Just talk to us about the law and the gospel. Yeah. All right. Well, in Massachusetts, it's the law and the gospel. The law. That's right. So we have law enforcement people there that pull you over if you're going too fast.

Lots of times people will say, oh, law and gospel distinction is simply Lutheran. Or it's Lutheran. Sometimes they don't even say simply or merely. And kind of the fleshly Mike Abendroth wants to say, that's just really a stupid statement.

But I kind of know how to carry myself once in a while, and so I know my wife will check up on me. So I'll just say, well, what do you mean by that? But here's what I would say. Of course law and gospel is Lutheran.

It's not Roman Catholic. Robert Bellarmine didn't come up with it. It's not, you know, the popes don't teach it. And so it's Lutheran, but it's not only Lutheran. It is Reformed as well. So you can look at Luther with law and gospel distinction.

You can look at Beza, or as we like to say at home, I know it's, I've said it twice now, but Theodore Beza. He teaches that. Olivianus, shout out to Olivianus. Okay. He teaches it. William Perkins taught it.

And so it's not simply Lutheran. I think sometimes they want to shut us down and say, oh, it's a Lutheran thing, therefore Lutheran's bad, and they don't want us to talk about it. I think underneath everything, though, is if we begin to say law and gospel is essentially covenant of works and covenant of grace.

They don't like the covenant language, and so that's what they're afraid of. That's what they're allergic to. Law is simply do. It's a command. It's something that God requires, and gospel is something that God has done.

There are no demands in the gospel. There's nothing to be done in the gospel. It's something that God himself does. And so law and gospel looks at the Scripture and says, is this something God has done, or is this something I'm supposed to do?

And then you can kind of break it down even farther when it comes to law. There are three kinds of law, right, moral, civil, ceremonial, and there are uses of the law. And the uses of the law to the unbeliever, it shows them their sin, right?

It's like a mirror, right? Perfectly love God. Love God and love your neighbor. The hardest thing that you could ever do, Calvin said, to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And it exposes their sin so they could look for a Savior.

It also restrains society, both believers and unbelievers. But the main issue with law, gospel, and evangelical circles, in my opinion, is the denial of the third use of the law, right? So God is holy, righteous, and just.

The law is not floating around outside of him ethereally, abstractly. It's a reflection of his character. Therefore, since God is immutable, he never changes. His law doesn't change, but our relationship to the lawgiver changes.

That's the key with all this. When you hear preaching on TV, the radio, your favorite celebrity preacher, do they handle the law that way? Preaching from the Father to guide or to steer the Christian into holy living and obedience and striving and sweating.

And so the law is to guide. It doesn't animate. It doesn't help us obey. It just tells us, right or wrong, stay on target. Here's how I'm going to guide you. It's good for you. It glorifies God. And it is the personal work of the Lord Jesus sent by the Father that gives us the animating power to obey the gospel.

So law is due. Gospel is done. Lutherans and Reformers taught law, gospel. Don't forget who's giving you the law. My son here is Luke, and I don't say to him, if you disobey me one more time, you're no longer going to have my last name.

I tend to find out that most parents are nicer to their children than they portray God because they don't have the right law, gospel distinction and law from the hand of Christ from the Father, which the Marrow man talked about a lot.

So what happens when people confuse law and gospel, like in preaching, or what would be an example, a common example of confusing? Well, maybe one easy example, not even in preaching, is we talk about living the gospel, right?

We're going to live the gospel. And only one person lived the gospel, and he told you not to live it. He told you to preach it, right? Because he knew you couldn't live it. And so we're going to live the gospel.

What does that mean? That's even a command there, live the gospel. The gospel is historical. It's outside of us, something Jesus did. Whether you lived or died or were never born, Jesus was on earth. That's why if you go to Israel, you see the little plaque outside, the stone outside, Caesarea Philippi, and it says something about Pontius Pilate.

I love to take the pilgrims over to that area and say, why did we love this section here about Pontius Pilate? And then I read the creed. Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified dead, and was buried.

Because this is history. Machen said every good theologian is a historian first. We're talking about real time and space, real person, and so we don't want to live the gospel. That would be one way that we could mess it up.

Okay. Love God is law or gospel? It is law. Okay, good. So you go to churches, and you have a banner in front of the church, and they're advertising their church. Sometimes in the Midwest, it might be turkey squirrel boils, and they have free squirrel.

Everybody can come at five o 'clock. Yeah, yeah. Maybe in North Carolina. No. No, Justin. Don't put that on us. Definitely not in Tennessee. You've never seen that in Nebraska. Squirrel boils. Squirrel boils.

We have in New England bean suppers. So if you want a free bean supper, you can come to church, and we might talk to you about the law. And so we advertise our churches, and so when I see a church that says we're all about loving God and loving neighbor, I just say to myself, usually out loud, law.

Law church. Law. Law church. They're all about the law. We love the law, but you want to know what our church is about? It's about the proclamation of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's right. T. David Gordon said, bring somebody from Tibet in your church that's never been to church ever.

They know nothing about Christianity. Let them listen to the sermon and ask them the question, what is Christianity all about? And inevitably, they will say, do, be good. And so that's law. That's not gospel.

We want to talk about the person and work of the Savior.

I think it should be a topic he was excited about. Yeah, no kidding, right? That's right. Right.

I hope that everybody actually really listened to that. So honestly, this is from my heart. If you don't take anything else tonight home with you, right, take that. That's right. Right? What he just gave you, that's hard-won stuff.

Yeah. You won't hear that very many places. And you won't hear it articulated that well. From a Baptist, no less.

Hey, I'm going to say amen to that. And that came from no caste. That's right.

From no account caste. Oh, man. You will not hear it articulated that well, that concisely. Right? That's the whole Reformation right there. And anybody tries to take that away from you, you just tell them, get thee behind me, Satan.

Right? That's the truth. That's God's truth that you just heard. Amen.

So then, Mike, why do people call you an antinomian? You know, you used to stick up for me.

You're nine years older than me. Notice how he didn't take a dig at your age.

Mike would go after the bullies to protect his younger brother. And now sometimes I want to protect my older brother, because he's called an antinomian. Are you an antinomian, and why do people call you that?

Well, of course you know the word anti is against, anti-Christ, against Christ, and anti-nom, anti-law, where we're against the law. In my little five-minute description, did I sound like I was against the law?

No. No, but I'm against using the law unlawfully and trying to put people back under the covenant of works if it were possible to use your line.

In order to gain acceptance with God. Right. We love the law now because we have been accepted by God for Christ's sake alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, which leads us then to love the law.

If somebody after justification, logically after, says, well, I don't have any place for the law, well, that's a problem. That's antinomianism. That person needs to repent, and if they're persistent, then we say, listen, you need to repent and believe in Jesus.

That's right. Because if you really believed in Jesus, you would love his law, but not in order to be accepted with God. Again, that's the whole fight that Paul was having with the Judaizers. It's the whole fight that we had in the Reformation, and it's the fight we're having with the nomists today, and there's a lot of nomists.

Well, we try to get people to obey, so what do you do? If you just tell them, this is the God who loves you and has sent his son for you, maybe they don't think they'll obey out of gratitude that way.

So then we try to put people under the law and to say, if you don't obey, you're going to be condemned. If you don't align yourself with God, then somehow you're going to be condemned. And so that's not what we do.

That's not how we treat our own children, and that's not how God treats us. All your sins are forgiven, right, Christian? Every single one. We believe in justification by faith alone. All of our sins have been paid for, past, present, and future.

Our name's written in the book, but our deeds are not because they're paid for by Jesus. And so since he's done that, we want to obey, and I want to encourage you to obey, but not to increase your standing like Scott said, not to keep your standing, but because of your standing.

If somebody would love you like that, what would you do in response? Hopefully you'd say, I want to honor you. And when you don't say that, we say, please forgive me. I'd like to honor you more. I repent.

But in answer to your question, I'm not an antinomian. But when a neonomian calls me that, I'm happy. Romans 6, right?

That's right. So they set up a test where if you're not a gnomist, in other words, if you're not using the law as your way of gaining favor with God, or gaining final acceptance or final salvation. By the way, anybody talks to you about final justification, final salvation?

Again, run away. There's only one. And either you have it or you don't. And you have it by grace alone. So if you're justified now, if you're saved now, you are as justified and saved as you will ever be.

You're either in Christ or you're not in Christ, right? Amen. So the idea that then you're initially justified, but you're going to finally gain approval or finally be delivered from wrath through your law keeping, again, that's not from Jesus.

No. That's from someplace else. And I don't care what famous preacher says it. I don't care how big his church is. I don't care how big his social media following is. If anybody, an angel, an apostle, right?

Some big Eva star. Even if they're from Nebraska? Even if they're from Nebraska. He has a killer mustache. Tells you, right, that there's a final stage. You're provisionally right. You're out on bail, right?

Mike knows about being out on bail.

Hey, hey, hey, this is my segment. Come on down. I'll just add one thought to that.

When you do collapse the law and the gospel, and you've had a heavy diet of that, this is one of the things that I learned from Scott early on years ago, is that when you decide to pull the gospel out of the law, that's when you start getting accused of being an antinomian.

And when it comes to the gospel, we are antinomians. We pull the law as far away from the gospel as we can. But when it's been glossable for so long, and you say, no, no, no, you've got to separate the law, it's at that moment they're like, well, you're an antinomian.

It's like there cannot be any law in the gospel. So when it comes to the gospel, I am an antinomian.

But in one sense, oh, no, you didn't. Right? Because you're not, John, because you know Christ fulfilled the law. That's right. So the law is actually there. That's right. See, this all works together because preachers are going to preach about the law one way or the other.

And they're either going to focus on Jesus, the law keeper, and Jesus, the one who paid for the law breakers. Are they going to focus on the congregation's obedience? That's right. He will talk about obedience one way or the other.

Sure. So Reformed Pastor, a good book? No. No. Because it says the opposite of what we've been saying, right? And what the gospel teaches.

And people may not know that, but you should tell them who the author of that is.

So Richard Baxter was against John Owen, and they had it out because Owen was standing for justification sola fide. Yeah. And Baxter thought somehow it was faith and works. And so when somebody says read Richard Baxter, I would say run.

Run. Not helpful at all. It's the anti-Reformed Pastor.

Not helpful. Baxter wrote, published aphorisms on the doctrine of justification. And you can find those. Those are available. You can read those. I've written about them at length on the Heidel blog. I've written about everything at length, I know.

But if you look, for example, at the heidelblog .net slash resources, and there's a whole resource page on justification and essays on Baxter, he's an enemy of the gospel. And all these people out there promoting Richard Baxter.

It's like, really? It's like if you were worried about arson, would you promote an arsonist? Say, you know, yeah, he was an arsonist. Or he's a mass murderer, but, you know, in the other parts of his life, he was great.

Really? He never stole anything. Seems to me like being an arsonist or a mass murderer is kind of a defining characteristic, sort of disqualifying for the rest of what you have to say.

Well, what happens too, Scott, is, as you know, it crushes people's assurance. Intentionally. Yeah, and I don't want to steal the assurance talk tonight, but it's just like it's so And even as a seminary student, we were required to read Reformed Pastor by Baxter.

Oh, yeah. And I thought, I could never do this. And then the first few years when I didn't do it, I thought I felt so bad because I never measured up. You were a failure. But what Baxter was doing is going house to house to make sure they were keeping the laws of the Bible plus the extra laws that the celebrity pastor Baxter from Kidderminster gave so everybody would do the right thing.

How much do I have to obey? Whatever the celebrity says. And in order to gain acceptance with God. And keep it. That's good. Right. Mike, how are we doing? You guys are doing good on time. I'm just watching.

You've got like a minute left. Oh. Oh. Hey, you know. I'm surprised. Shocked, really. All right. Make sure this translates law gospel into even parenting because we're built with the law, and so there's nothing wrong with telling your children, sit down, be quiet, shake your hand.

Shake the hand firmly. No running in the church. Don't eat with your mouth full. No elbows on the table. Push your chair in afterwards. Tell mom, thank you for the dinner. Help clean off the plates. Law, law, law, law, law.

That's all fine. But we need to make sure we parent our children like God fathers us. It's law and gospel. Not just to get it in, but also as God sanctifies us. And so it's law and gospel, the motivation.

So I love you. I hear a book coming. Gospel parenting. It's 20 ,000 words done. Oh, good. Very good one. And so... So don't forget, that's how we deal with our spouse. If we're not careful, all law. We give them a honey-do list.

And it's not, here's what I think you are and how I love you, et cetera. So don't forget in your daily lives. See, this is my practical, relevant, K-love moment. Don't forget about law and gospel. With a blouse.

And your love, man. And your parenting and your marriages. That's good. We need a honey-done list.

I know. There you go. I tried to patent it. All right. Anything else anybody wants to say about law and gospel, we're going to wrap it up. I'm sure we'll have other opportunities. I'm sure we will too.

It'll come. Okay. We'll just come down the row here.

Assurance of Salvation and the Ground of Christian Peace

If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called Faith vs. Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest. And if you've struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a Reformed confessional perspective.

You can get your free copy at theocast .org slash primer.

John Moffitt, Justin Perdue of Theocast. We're asking you about assurance of salvation that already kind of came up, but what is the biblical basis for assurance? What kind of Christian deserves to have assurance and why?

Did you hear that? Repeat that one more time. What kind of Christian deserves to have assurance and why? Yeah. And why do so many seek to rob Christians of assurance? Talk to us about assurance.

I mean, it's a simple answer. If you just make Jesus Lord of your life, you can have assurance. There it is. That's right. Oh. Yeah. Sorry. This is not a Pisces episode? That's Pisces. That's Pisces. I'll let you start.

All right, so assurance. What kind of Christian deserves assurance? Well, none of us deserve it. That's right. Right? Nobody could ever earn it before the Lord. We were talking about the law and the gospel just a minute ago.

One of the most provocative things that we can ever say is that the gospel contains nothing in it whatsoever that we are to do. It's completely what Christ has accomplished, and we receive what Christ has done completely by faith.

And so no one deserves assurance, but we have it because of the Lord Jesus Christ and because of Him alone. We talk a lot on Theocast. You guys talk on your podcasts about these things as well. One of the things that occurs often in churches across this land, lamentably, is Christians are pointed back in on themselves somehow.

We're pointed to Christ, at least in part, believe the gospel, trust in Jesus, maybe even for your righteousness and your acceptance before God, but then somewhere the law is slipped back in, and it's not slipped back in as a guide, in a good sense, the third use of the law, but it's brought back in as a piece of our standing before the Lord.

And then any thoughtful, sane human being, anyone with a tender conscience is going to examine himself or herself and say, I don't meet the test, which is why many, many people in churches all over the place really don't have assurance, because they hear things like final justification, that I'm going to need to do enough to supplement what Christ has done, or even if they're told Christ has done it all, I'm still going to need to do enough to prove myself a legitimate follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then when we press in and say, well, how much obedience? How many good works? What kind of works? No one can define that. It's very amorphous. It's very ethereal. Or when people will say to us, you need to not live a life characterized, because they collapse the law in the Gospel, in passages like Galatians 5 or whatever, we need our first John, a letter that's meant to comfort the saints, is often turned into a litmus test of, are you legitimate or not?

We take passages and people will say, instead of preaching the law and the Gospel rightly, the first use of the law as we should, well, you shouldn't live a life, you can't live a life characterized by A, B, C, or D, you need to see a certain kind of trajectory in your life, a certain kind of improvement in your life in order to have peace with God.

And again, we say, well, how much improvement? That's right. What exactly does that trajectory need to look like? And no one can tell you.

These are common things. John, go ahead. No, that's good. One of the things I think that helps me is that we disassociate assurance from the affections of God, the love of God towards us. We love because He is the one who set His love upon us.

And so what I love about this is that John sets this up, right? God loves you not based upon His reaction to your love, you're reacting to His love. And the question is, how good are you at loving God?

Well, if you come to the conclusion that everybody should come to, I'm not really good at it, Paul then says, there's nothing that's going to separate you from that love you're enjoying. And it's important to understand that our responses to God and our obedience to God is grounded in our assurance.

I mean, I don't know how else you read Romans and not walk away with going, God loved me so much He did not leave me in my state. The thing that would cause further separation and anxiety in my own heart, He took on Himself in His Son, and then guaranteed that there is nothing that can remove this.

We were talking about final justification. When Jesus is on the cross and He says, it is finished, that which could separate you was completed on the cross. Therefore, your sin and required righteousness is all granted to you by the love of God in His mercy and in His grace.

Like, you see the love of God in His mercy and in His grace. And then how is the Bible described? How does it describe the love of God? It's boundless. How does it describe the grace of God? It's an ocean that you cannot dry.

So when we think about assurance, I think what frustrates me the most, and obviously Theocast has really kind of built its ministry around this, is that it's hard—just now we're literally having this conversation in the car today— it's hard if a soldier doesn't know which side he's on, he doesn't know where to point the gun.

So he often points it at himself like, well, I'm just going to take myself out of this. And what's so comforting about Scripture is that we have this firm and solid foundation of Christ our Rock, and we have every reason to realize it's not my performance, what I do right or wrong, which is not a justification to go do something wrong, but it's the love of God that comes and it fuels me so I know where I'm supposed to run, where I'm supposed to go, because I know what side I'm on.

I'm on the side of my Father who adopted me, unconditionally loves me, and will take care of me to the very end. So what happens with an assurance is that we emphasize what we're doing, those who deserve it.

You'll never do—if you're trying, like, okay, I'm going to do this list of things to assure myself that I know I'm right with God, it'll never happen. But if you can say, well, this is what Christ did, this is how God fulfilled these promises, and this is how I know it's true because I believe these, I have every reason then to go produce fruit because it's based upon the confidence of Christ versus my own work.

So it's rightly said that the Reformation was a recovery of the biblical doctrine of assurance. Good. And that's not something that John Calvin or Martin Luther or anybody else came up with. They're getting this from Scripture.

I mean, think about beginning in Romans 5. We were talking about final justification in a moment. I don't know what you do with Romans 5, 1 and 2, or even Romans 5, 1 to 5, if you're going to argue for a final justification perspective because Paul says, having been justified by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we now have peace with God.

And then he says, he gives this very forward-looking language of we now rejoice in a number of things, including the hope of the glory of God. So it's very clear that if we have been united to the Lord Jesus Christ and presently justified, we will be finally saved.

Book it. It's done, right? And then Paul continues to talk about the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, which I'm sure we're going to talk about more later, and how it's legitimate that Jesus represents us all.

We're going to talk about covenant theology later. That's what Romans 5, 12 to 21 is about. Adam clearly represented us all in the garden. It's legitimate then that Christ would represent everyone who's united to him.

But then there's this question, all right? If where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more, and if we're counted righteous on account of Christ, well, we can just sin then. That's right. And Paul says, by no means, but it's interesting how he answers that question.

He does not go to the law immediately and say, well, remember what the law says. He says, no, saints, you have been united to Christ. You've been baptized into Jesus. You've been set free from the tyranny of sin, and you're no longer under the law for your justification, for your standing, but you're under grace, and you've now become obedient from the heart.

But then we get Romans 7, which are some of the most true words ever penned. We all resonate with it, that the law is good and holy. There is nothing wrong with the law. But the law, for a sinner, it shows us the depth of our corruption, and it shows me how horrible sin is.

And so now I have to look outside of myself for righteousness. But then Paul acknowledges that even as a Christian, I am often finding myself in this position where I want to do good, and I'm not doing good.

I want to flee from evil, but yet I find myself doing evil things. And he cries out like we all do, wretched man that I am, I delight in God's law and my inner man, he says. Which, by the way, you can't say that.

You can never say I delight in the law and my inner man if the law is still your death sentence. No one rejoices in what is his or her death sentence. Only a person that's been justified, forgiven, and absolved could ever say such a thing.

But then we cry out, wretched man, wretched woman that I am. But then what is our peace? What is our stay? Thanks be to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. And there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

And we learn that what God meant to do and did do through the Lord Jesus Christ was something that the flesh could not accomplish because it was weakened by sin. And now, through Christ, the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in us, which John Calvin says in his commentary in Romans 8, 3 and 4, that people who even point to Romans 8, 3 and 4 and say that what's being depicted, there is our spirit-empowered obedience.

That person is introducing a gloss that is foreign to the Apostle Paul. What Paul is talking about there in the early verses of Romans 8 is the imputation of the righteousness of Christ who has fulfilled the law for us so that by faith in the Lord Jesus, it is as though we have been as perfectly obedient as he was.

This is the bedrock of assurance.

And I talk for a long time. You know what, Justin? Are you preaching at your church on Sunday? I'm traveling. You just got your sermon out, man. That's right, man. He got it out.

We're local. This is good. We should have multiple... Get preachers behind the microphone. It's dangerous, man. There you go.

You guys, tell us a little bit about heavy-handed, law-only preaching when it comes to assurance driving either to despair or self-righteousness. That's right.

You know, they're going to give you the gospel. Most, if they're evangelical, you're going to hear, well, no, you're saved. You're saved by grace alone. But what ends up happening is that they're worried about you being lazy or they're worried about you not doing your part.

And, you know, like any other parent that maybe has not been introduced to the gospel, you use fear tactics to manipulate people. And that word is a very strong word, but it's true. You use fear tactics to manipulate people, then to act righteous.

As if God's love is not enough to motivate us, we're going to use God's law and the dread of God's law instead. I'll give you an example. I would love to see someone who's a heavy-handed law preacher preach Genesis 3 right after Eve and Adam fall.

What obligation does God give them? None. None. He's describing what he's going to do, and Eve is realizing, hey, this might be the... She's looking for something outside of her... Her eyes are not on her...

They don't walk out of the garden thinking, I need to garden well, I need to love my... No, they're looking for the promise of God to be fulfilled. They're looking for the promise. There was no question of what God was going to do.

And so I think you can look at the first gospel mission, which comes from God to Adam and Eve, and their hope is outside of themselves and the assurance of that. And every gospel message that's going to come after that is not law-based.

It can't be law-based. But yeah, I mean, all of us around this table have experienced at one point either preaching, unfortunately, law-heavy sermons or been under those teachings. And if you walk away and you think to yourself, I must do this in order for God to do that, you need to ask yourself why.

And if the answer is not for his glory and not my gain, that's fine. But if it's for me to gain assurance or it's for me to... If it has anything to do with my standing or affections or blessings from God, it's wrong, and that's heavy law preaching.

And unfortunately, there's too much of it in the United States.

Sure. I think you get a lot of law preaching in places John touched on this because underneath every holiness movement in the history of the Church is the fear that if we tell everyone that literally everything you'll ever need now and in the future to be right in God's sight, for God to look at you and pronounce, just, Christ has accomplished it.

If we tell people that, then there will not be appropriate skin in the game and people will not be properly motivated to pursue holiness. That's underneath a lot of it. And we would say, well, you know, if this was a human endeavor, you might be on to something.