Law, Gospel, and Jesus (w/ The Pactum) | Theocast

The Law and Gospel Distinction in Its Simplest Terms

It has been said that Jesus is the greatest teacher of the law. Many would come to him and say, how can we enter into your kingdom? We assume Jesus would give them gospel, but if you read these passages it sounds like law because he tells them to obey the law and live.

Today's episode is a discussion about the law gospel distinction with our good friend Pat Ebendroth from the Pactum. You're going to want to stay tuned for this because we tackle a lot of the hard passages in both the Old and New Testament.

Stay tuned. If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word. It's called pietism. Have you ever felt like the Christian life is a heavy burden versus rest and joy? That you wake up worrying about how well you're going to perform instead of thinking about what Christ has done for you.

It's dread versus joy, really. That's pietism. Pietism causes Christians to look in on themselves and find their hope not in what Christ has done, but what they're doing. And we have a little book for you.

It's free. We want you to download it and we're going to explain the difference between pietism and what we call confessionalism, reform theology, really. How it is that we walk by faith, seeing the joy of Christ, and when Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest, what does that look like?

You can download it on our website. Just go to theocast .org. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. Conversations about the Christian life from a reform, pastoral, confessional.

Justin, we've got to get a shorter list. Reform perspective. Today, your hosts are Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina. And I'm John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reform Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

And Justin, this is pod number two today, but it's a fun one. And I'm excited. I'm going to let you tell us why it's going to be a fun one today.

You know, only the Lord knows how many descriptors are going to be in our intro here in about five years, right?

We'll pray about that.

But yeah, today's episode is going to be a fun one. Oh my goodness. So we have a friend back on today. Is it possible to have too much of a good thing? That's a real question that we need to ask our audience because we have our friend, Pat Abendroth, back on with us today.

So two weeks ago in your podcast feed, we would have done an episode with Pat on the active obedience of Christ, but effectively salvation by works that Jesus is better. And so if you haven't listened to that one, we encourage you to go back and check it out.

But our friend Pat Abendroth, who is the pastor of Omaha Bible Church in Omaha, Nebraska, and is also known as The Pactom.

Justin Perdue. Amen.

Amen. I'm on Theocast two times. This might be over-realized eschatology, guys.

Justin Perdue. Oh, there you go.

It's a whole lot of already is what it is.

Justin Perdue. The reason the Biblicists are saying, can we do a shout out?

We're all riffing on it. Yeah, go ahead, John. Shout out to whoever you want.

I was going to say, maybe give a shout out to the Baptist Broadcast, who was originally supposed to be with us.

Justin Perdue. Yeah, our friend Josh Sumner was originally supposed to be with us on today's episode, Baptist Broadcast. And he's just had some circumstances that have hindered him from being able to be a part of this.

And so Josh, shout out to you, man.

Josh Sumner. So go listen to his stuff. Justin Perdue. Great stuff.

Josh Sumner. We love you, Josh.

Justin Perdue We were riffing on Biblicism before we recorded today, which just means that you're probably gonna have to stay tuned for an upcoming episode with Theocast and the Pactum again on Biblicism.

So we'll see that and maybe cross-centered antinomianism. And is that a thing?

Justin Perdue I think we can work both of those in today somehow as we talk about long gospel.

Justin Perdue. So the occasion for today's conversation, though, shout out to our friends at Reformation Heritage Books. So recently they made John Cahoon's volume, A Treatise on the Law and the Gospel, available for free.

And we're sending out... Pat, do you know the final statistic on how many copies were sent around?

Patrick Shepherd. I think we broke the internet. So I got an error page when I tried to find the book yesterday. It's just it's broken. So so many copies given away.

Justin Perdue. So praise the Lord for that.

Patrick Shepherd. Okay, yes.

Justin Perdue. Still get the PDF for free, and you certainly can order copies of the book from Reformation Heritage Books.

Justin Perdue And I think you can find it.

Anywhere else you want to order it.

Patrick Shepherd. Yep, sorry. They've done a great thing by getting it out again. So what a great work.

Justin Perdue Yes.

Make the law and the gospel great again. And so we are taking this opportunity to have a long gospel conversation today. But yeah, we commend the volume to you. I'm going to go ahead and just because we are on video as well as audio.

So this is beautiful. This is not the way that the free one looks. But this is a nice hard copy version.

Patrick Shepherd. This is the way the original non-original one looked and it looks really bad. Yours looks so much better because Reformation Heritage Books has done much better.

Justin Perdue. That's right, they did.

And I'm going to go ahead and just shamelessly.

Patrick Shepherd. They sent us hard copies. Thanks for doing that.

Justin Perdue. They did. I'm going to go ahead and shamelessly plug another RHB resource talking about John Cahoon. So offering and embracing Christ, the marrow theology of John Cahoon. I'm about three quarters of the way through this.

Really encouraging to me as a pastor. The more I learn of the marrow controversy and the men who kind of followed in that tradition, the more at home I feel. And I'm thankful for men who have gone before and have aimed to preach Christ and preach the law and the gospel the way that the three of us are meaning to in our generation.

So thank you to Reformation Heritage Books for the wonderful resources you guys are publishing. It's a help to pastors and to lay persons alike. And so that's the reason we're getting together today.

Well, and speaking of good books, can we just mention Pat Avendross' Active Obedience of Christ. Go to Amazon and get it. There it is.

John Cahoon Talk about breaking the internet, Pat.

Patrick Shepherd. It's a show and tell is what it is.

Justin Perdue. You know what? Everybody needs a good book. John Cahoon. John, what did you bring?

Justin Perdue.

John, what did you bring?

Patrick Shepherd. Oh, ouch.

Justin Perdue. Headphones, there we go.

Patrick Shepherd. And I think if I set the Active Obedience of Christ on top of the Cahoon book, maybe my book will transfer into Scottish. And it'll have an accent just like Cahoon had.

John Cahoon. It could.

Patrick Shepherd. Well, yeah. Or all the Presbyterians are hoping that you'd become Pato. You never know.

John Cahoon. There you go.

Patrick Shepherd. Good job sprinkling that in.

John Cahoon. All right. Justin, get us started, bro. This is out of control.

Justin Perdue. We need to get this thing on the rails because this train is about derail before it even leaves the station. So here we go. Let's start off softball. Question to both of you. I want to hear answers from both, and then I'll happily pile on if that's even necessary.

So kind of like we said a few weeks ago, here's the scenario. Somebody who is brand new to this has never heard of the law and gospel distinction ever in their life, and you're sitting down for a cup of coffee or a beer or whatever it is, and you're going to have this talk.

Pat, what is the law and gospel distinction in its simplest terms? And then, John, you can answer the same thing.

Oh, I thought you were going to ask me the chicken and the egg question. I was going to say chicken. But anyway, all right. So what I would say if we hope you guys have a good editor because I can't talk.

John Cahoon. You're good.

Patrick Shepherd. This is raw, brother.

This is raw.

John Cahoon Speaking in public is how that goes. I would say when we go to burial room company once again, I would say in Asheville, I would say the law is what God requires. The gospel is what God graciously provides.

And unpack it from there. So what he requires, what he provides, the law is that and the gospel is that. Pretty simple. We can unpack it. We can look at Bible verses. But there's my answer. I'm sticking to it.

John Cahoon Yeah, excellent.

Yeah, I think what I do in a class when I teach it is helping people understand really news versus obligation, right? So the law is here's an obligation to be met, and there's a result that comes from it.

Let's do this. And the gospel isn't a proclamation of what was already done because news is always past tense, right? So it's what has happened. So it's done versus do in the simplest. When you read a passage of Scripture, are you reading about what was done for you by Christ or are you reading about what you must do?

And that's the simplest way of thinking about the law is requirement and the gospel is the announcement of what has been done.

John Cahoon Justin, we want to hear your answer as well.

Justin Perdue. You guys have covered it all. I don't know that there's a lot to say. If I'm going to maybe get a little bit further down the road, I would say that in Old or New Testament, law is anywhere we read of what God requires for righteousness, and then anywhere in Old or New Testament where we read of what God gives us in His grace that we receive by faith, the works of another, then that's gospel.

And simple paradigms that are helpful to me, do is law, done is gospel. So that's simple.

John Cahoon. I appreciate the fact that you said in either Testament, right? Because so much of this conversation ends up being helping people to undo wrong thinking.

Justin Perdue. Correct.

John Cahoon. So we've been all super simple and clear, but there's so much baggage because, oh, what about the dispensation of law and the dispensation of gospel? No, we're not talking about that. What about the fact that the Old Testament is law and the New Testament is gospel?

No, we're not talking about that. There's so many factors like that. So I love your clarity as far as in either Testament, because there's grace in both. There's gospel in both, and there's law in both.

So hats off.

Justin Perdue. I'll give an example of that. When Paul says the gospel was preached to Abraham, and he believed, that's a great example of in the Old Testament is clearly the gospel.

John Cahoon. Well, Jesus in John 8 says that Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad. He saw it by faith, right? I mean, amen. I think continuing to give people some simple paradigms that, again, are helpful to me, and maybe because of how my brain works, not only that do-done distinction, but the law says do this and live, Leviticus 18 .5.

The one who does these things will live by them. The gospel says Jesus has done it. Now live in him, right? Or here's one that has gotten me shot at on social media, and you brothers can help clean this up so that I'm not misunderstood.

Wait until we do an episode on Memphisism.

Oh, my God.

It's going to happen.

The law demands everything and gives nothing. The gospel demands nothing and gives everything. What we mean by that, so the law demands everything and gives nothing. It's an exacting standard. It's all or nothing.

It's perfect or you're ruined. The gospel demands nothing of us, meaning we don't do anything, and it gives us everything that we need for forgiveness and righteousness and eternal life. That gets people really worked up when you start to say things like, the gospel contains nothing in it whatsoever that we are to do.

What about the demands of the gospel, guys? I'm getting ahead of myself. We'll save that maybe for later. Other thoughts that you brothers have about the distinction?

People might be tempted now. Yeah. It's important that we acknowledge that we're not simply saying gospel, gospel, gospel. When we talk about the law gospel distinction, we're emphasizing, yes, we're emphasizing the gospel, and we would happily say we're gospel-centric or something like that, but we're all for emphasizing the law as well.

Using it lawfully.

Using it lawfully, which means strongly. It requires perfect, exact obedience, and so we want to be committed to both and being clear with both. We think that's what the Bible models. It's what the Protestant Reformation was about covering, and when you blur the two, you ruin both, and so if it's, well, the gospel has all of these demands, and you have to obey all of these things, you're just blurring the two, and you've ruined the gospel because it should come to us freely by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone, but you also ruin the law, and somehow you've made the law gracious, and it's not.

Gracious.

It's exacting. It's about obeying, and so that's why we like to joke and say, I think, you know, probably Kim Riddlebarger probably came up with it according to my sources, but I learned it from my court in, you know, Gospel.

Gospel is a bad move. It's a bad look, and it sounds bad, and because it is bad. So, law and gospel, don't blur the two, but emphasize the two, is how I would want to.

Say it.

Yeah, I would, if you guys don't mind, I'm going to be a little bit biographical here. In my discovery of law and gospel, I grew up in dispensationalism, went to a dispensational college and seminary, and I can remember thinking that I was really upholding the law in my understanding of preaching and teaching, but I really wasn't, in that I made the law achievable in my preaching and teaching.

And what it ended up doing is putting an unbearable burden upon me and everyone else that was around who I was, because I

Imperatives.

Yeah, and I thought, man, we need to, you know, the world wants to shy away, and they want to downplay obedience, and the Bible emphasizes obedience, and so we need to emphasize and preach obedience to the law, and that's really what my preaching and teaching was.

Yeah, gospel, of course, and grace. We are saved by grace alone, but what I didn't understand was I really saw the gospel as means of removal of sin, and it was a half gospel, which is why your book, another plug for Pat's book, Active Obedience of Christ, is a part of the gospel, right?

It's a part of the good news of what Christ accomplished, not only passively receiving our punishment, but also actively earning our righteousness. So what ended up helping me was that the law got put back where it belonged, where the fence was no longer climbable.

I couldn't get over the wall because no one can get that high. And the law, when I remember that, when I first understood the concept of the law crushing me, that's when I realized, oh, I have to have the gospel, and there's nothing in the gospel that I can't do because the gospel relieves the crushing blow of the law.

That's when Jesus' words, when he says, come to me, all you who are heavy laden, I understood what he meant. Like, ah, I feel the weight of the law now. And he kept trying to put the weight of the law, like on the rich man, he would put the weight of the law on people, and they were like, I can carry it.

Then you have half a law, you don't have the whole law.

You know, it sounds blasphemous and awful, and it is blasphemous and awful. I think Martin Luther, you know, was just told by his mentor again and again, he had all this guilt and, you know, just love God, love God, love God, which is the law according.

To Jesus.

That's to the point where the first table, right?

Yeah.

Luther got to the point where he said, I don't love God. I hate God.

I hate him.

And yeah, that's terrible. But the reality is, all of a sudden now things are starting to click. Things are starting to make sense because he really was grasping the fact that he didn't love God appropriately as he must.

And that's what led him to desperation to then eventually see Christ. So I like, I like the story. I just want to add it to your journey, John, telling us about your journey.

Well, that's what made me fall in love with a lot of Reformation theology and writers was because they would beat you brutally with the law. I mean, just pound you. And then they're like, are you done?

Are you exhausted? Great. Because now you're ready for the gospel and the gospel becomes sweet and you learn to live by the gospel and not live by the law. And when I make statements like that, people think, you know, you're antinomian.

It's like, well, no, there's a difference of I walk by faith in Christ and therefore obey versus I walk by faith in the law because I think obeying the law produces righteousness, right? My faith must be in Christ.

And that's why the distinction matters. Because if you think about it in this way, I remember the first time I started understanding the covenant of works. And I remember I wish I knew who the author was.

I totally give him credit right now. But he was reading Genesis 315, you know, first mention of the gospel. And he says, what demands are in this description of God's promise of restoration? And I was like, oh, wow, there's nothing.

He never tells them anything. He says, this is what I'm doing. And then from our understanding, they just went forward believing that, right? There was a declaration of what would be done. And that's so important to understand.

They did break the law. Don't eat of the fruit. They did do that. And then what was going to restore it? It was the works of Christ, not the work of Adam and Eve. Sorry, I've been talking a lot, but that for me just biographically really helped me understand you really have to keep these apart because if you collapse them, you actually are without hope now.

So we're already doing this anyway.

Destruct, you'll be self-destroyed or self-righteous.

Yeah, we're already doing it anyway. We're talking about why the distinction matters. I mean, so let's just let's continue along these lines. Why is it that keeping the law and the gospel appropriately distinct?

Why does it matter in particular, not just for pastor type guys who like to nerd out on theology, but why does this matter for the proverbial person in the pew that, hey, they're getting up on a Wednesday morning.

Maybe they're going to listen to a podcast, but they're on their way to work. They're taking the kids to school. Things might be going well. Things might be going really, really badly this week. Why is it that this law and gospel distinction matters for our souls on a day over day, week over week basis?

You know, there's a great quote in the book, the Kahun book. It's brief to the point, but it answers that question. He says troubled consciences cannot ordinarily be quieted unless the doctrine of the gospel is rightly distinguished from that of the law.

And, you know, troubled consciences are a problem, right? For each of us. And so how can we quiet that troubled conscience where we need to know what the law requires? And then we're going to even be more troubled.

And then we need to have the balm, if you will, to use the old language of the gospel to soothe us and to give us comfort and joy and assurance. And it's I know it's why it's why each of us preaches every week.

And we each want to preach the law to let people know they should be more troubled than they are, but also to preach the gospel so that they can be more encouraged than they ever otherwise would be. So it's so vital.

We got this email. This is a very common email that we get. I won't read all of it just to kind of protect them. But this line caught me when I read it. They were just talking about their experience before understanding the gospel distinction and resting in Christ.

They said there is a constant fear and dread and a struggle with a rebellious heart and unbelief. That's when you don't have a clarity of where truth comes from and there's a mixture. That's where you are.

You're in a constant fear and dread because I can't live up to the obligations of the law and I'm being told to. That's where I think this conversation is so important. And you're talking about the practical nature of it, Justin, is that if you're reading a book, listening to a podcast or listening to preaching, and the preacher calls you to obey the law, he needs to call you to obey it.

And it's an exacting form so that you don't think it's achievable. Fear and dread comes in when you think you can do it.

Including motives, right?

How am I not going to live?

Heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Yeah.

There's something in me. It's sinister, I know, but there's something in me that has this preaching fantasy about preaching just strict gloves off law someday and then not saying amen and just walking away from the pulpit and driving out of the parking lot.

Just, you know, not to be mean, but to kind of make a point.

But to prove a point.

Yeah.

And it would be bad news and it would feel terrible and awful. But I obviously don't do that because it's not our calling. We're called to preach law and gospel. But for effect, I think it would be effective.

Yeah.

Well, brother, have you, I'm sure in your old days, older, early days, you probably heard this statement of like, wow, we really needed to be beat up today. We just thank you for it. And you're like, wow, what do you mean beat up?

Because that's how it feels. We get beat up by the law. Then we go home and build ourselves up with our own righteousness. So that's what they mean.

Speaking to that matter, John, someone, no, not too long ago, you know, greeted me after the service and it was after it was gospel. I mean, I don't know what the text was, but it was super assuring and it was pretty much all gospel once I talked about the law.

And the person came up to me and they're like, oh, pastor, that was so convicting. And I thought you must have been checking your texts or your emails or something. But I knew enough to know that the person, you know, loved Paul Washer and Paul Washer kinds of sermons.

And they were kind of trained to have that be the best compliment you can give. You know, when someone has preached something that robs you of your assurance that it's somehow good. And I thought, yeah, you didn't hear what I said.

You should be saying, pastor, thank you for encouraging me and comforting me.

That's right.

Jesus is a wonderful savior.

Yeah, I think that quote that you read earlier, Pat, about troubled consciences is really the thing. Because if Christians are going to have any joy and peace in believing, like that's a biblical category, right?

So that you might have joy and peace in believing. Well, you can't mix the law and the gospel then. Because as soon as you start to weave works into the fabric of our standing before the Lord now or in the future, you've given it all away.

Because any sane person is going to assess his or her life and say, yeah, I mean, even if there's some fruit, even if there's some evidence, even if there's some love, like I could love a lot more. And hey, yeah, maybe I don't engage in things that I used to engage in, but I could send.

A lot less.

And you know that there is no way that what you're abstaining from or what you're doing could ever earn you something before the Lord because you know him. He's holy and he's righteous and he's altogether good.

And so how could this end well for me, right, is the question. And so that troubled conscience piece, you're robbed of all joy, you're robbed of all peace, and then doubt and fear and dread are introduced back into the equation.

And we functionally undo the adoption that the Lord has given us. I mean, like this is a Romans 8, 15 thing. We've not been given a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but we've been given a spirit of adoption by whom we call God Father.

And I think all of those things are jeopardized when the law and the gospel are collapsed. Not only do you lose the law and all of its holiness and you can no longer use it lawfully, first use to show us our sin and drive us to Christ, second use to restrain corruption, third use to guide our living in Jesus.

You can't do that well, but you've given the gospel away because you now are preaching a gospel of sincere obedience, not a gospel of Christ for you, for your forgiveness and your righteousness and your eternal life.

And that makes all of the difference on a Tuesday morning when I'm tying my shoes, man, getting ready to go do whatever it is I'm about to do. If I know in spite of the ups, downs, trials, and travails, it doesn't matter if my week is devastatingly bad or if every time I pull the lever, it's trip sevens.

Doesn't matter. It's like I know that I'm safe and secure and that moves the needle in my heart.

Right.

Hey guys, real quick. Some of you are listening to this and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions. So where do you go? How do you interact with other people who have the same questions and share resources?

We have started something called the Theocast Community and we're excited because not only is it a place for you to connect with other like-minded believers, all of our resources there, past podcasts, education materials, articles, all of it's there and you can share it and ask questions.

You can go check it out. The link is in the description below.

Law and Gospel in the Reformed Tradition

What do you guys say to people who object to the law gospel distinction and they say that's just a Lutheran doctrine?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Can I make a historical nerd observation first, John? You say something edifying and then I'll say something nerdy.

We'll do law gospel. Yeah, I think that we can give credit to where there might be some people who help bring some clarity, but that's like to say Athanasius is the only one who ever really understood or taught the Trinity.

That's not necessarily true. He was helpful in arguing for it in a time that was necessary. But I would say that if you read the confessions of the Westminster and the Latin Baptist, it's very clear that they hold to a law gospel distinction.

The reformers, they understood this distinction.

Belgic confession as well. Three forms of unity.

This is why there's three uses of the law, because we understand that there's a distinction between the law and the gospel. So that would be my response is that, you know, maybe the way in which it's worded law gospel distinction might be very Lutheran, but the practice is very reformed in.

But I mean, William Perkins.

I mean, he's he's going to say, right.

Oh, my goodness. So William Perkins is reformed and he's going to say, I mean, says verbatim that this is not a Lutheran doctrine. This is a reform doctrine, meaning it's reformed as well. Theodore Beza, you know, who is obviously a student of Calvin's, writes on this on this issue.

And then you have, obviously, in the tradition of the Merrow men, you've got Cahoon and others. I mean, Thomas Boston writes beautifully on law and gospel and covenant of works and grace and things of this nature.

So through history in the reformed tradition, there have been many who have affirmed the law and gospel distinction. It's not exclusively Lutheran, though we rejoice over the fact that we have this in common with our Lutheran brothers and sisters, because we all Lutheran or reformed alike, we hail from the Reformation.

And so there's much that we have in common, certainly.

You know, that's good.

And I mean, our Lutheran friends have helped many of us better understand this distinction and thank God for that. I mean, Rod Rosenblatt just very recently went to be with the Lord, and I think he's helped many think well about law and gospel.

Yeah, he did.

Biblical Foundations for the Law and Gospel Distinction

So guys, is it in the Bible? I mean, we've been talking about this. We've been waxing eloquent for, you know, 20 some odd minutes. Is this even a biblical category, law and gospel distinction? How would you respond?

I wonder how many commands are in the Bible. I'm sure someone's done the research.

You haven't tallied them up, Pat?

I haven't done it. I haven't done it. Not only have I not done them obediently, I don't even know how many of them there are. I realize there have been Jewish historians that say there's 600, you know, plus requirements.

But regardless, we know Jesus boils it all down when he, in Luke chapter 10, you know, we've talked about it before, but it is do this and live. It is love God with heart, soul, mind, strength, love your neighbor as yourself.

And the context in the discussion is what must I do to gain eternal life? So he's not talking about how to be more successful or how to be more fulfilled. How do I gain eternal life? And it is by obedience.

It is by law. And then to go to John's point earlier, which is so important, Jesus has come to me and I will give you rest. And he's talking about Sabbath, ultimate rest, because the law, the law is so exacting and devastating.

And then you even have the self-righteous Jewish leaders of the time. You know, burden upon burden upon burden. And so where is it in the Bible? I'm at least going to start in those two passages.

Yeah, there is there's an ongoing debate, which hopefully it's healthy and it's honoring to each other, glorifies the Lord between our Reformed and Dispensational brothers in that, you know, sometimes they say that this is a hermeneutic placed upon the text, that it doesn't come from the text.

And really, that's what we're trying to argue from here is that it really does come from the text. I'll give you an example where we do this all the time. We have to, where as we read the whole entire story, we learn theology.

We learn about the aspects of the truth of the nature of God and the nature of men that helps us understand interpreting passages that can be complicated at times. So when we do this with the Trinity, you know, we understand that in Genesis 1, we don't know about the Trinity, but by the end of the book we do.

And so we go back and realize that Christ was the one who created the heavens and the earth, even though we don't know that in Genesis 1. We can say I'm not putting the hermeneutic of Jesus on the text in Genesis 1 because John says that Jesus says he was the creator and sustainer of the world.

So later in the text, I could come back and not reinterpret the Bible, but it brings illumination and it brings clarification. And so we would say the law gospel distinction must be put upon the text because there are things about the law later on, specifically in the Old Testament that says the law was designed to expose us to the holiness of God, but also the sinfulness of man.

And then later on, we learn that the law was designed to produce righteousness because we know that Jesus is the one who ends up producing the righteousness that no one else can produce. Therefore, the gospel becomes the good news of what was done.