Law and Gospel- Response to Brian Borgman part 1

Welcome to No Compromised Radio Ministry. I have not said those words in about six weeks. Welcome, my name is Mike Avendroth, and in the studio today—is this called a studio? What is this? It's a room, it's an office, it's a study.

Austin Hobbs. Austin, welcome back to No Compromised Radio Ministry. Hey, Mike. Well, I'm glad to be back. So some churches, they have an assimilation pastor, associate pastor, a children's pastor, senior citizen's pastor.

I've seen some websites, Austin, where they have a resident theologian on their website. Have you seen those? I have seen that, yeah. So I think maybe that's going to be your new title, resident theologian.

I said many times this summer when people ask about my new assistant, Austin Hobbs, I said, he's probably the smartest guy I've ever met, theologically-wise. So anyway, don't let me down.

Okay, I'll try not to. Thank you, Mike.

The Air We Breathe and Christianity's Cultural Influence

Resident theologian, Austin Hobbs. What'd you learn this summer? Anything in terms of studying? And before we get into our topic today, did you learn anything great? Did you read any great books? What's the latest theologically with you?

Ah, well, this summer, me and Corey—he's an elder at this church, we got to teach a Sunday school series on—the theme was The Air We Breathe, based upon a book by Glenn Scrivner. Basically how Christianity has influenced what we believe as normal, as Western people, if you're not a Christian.

Things like equality, compassion, consent, enlightenment, science, progress. So we had to teach lessons about that. Like, where did these values actually come from? But how has our post-Christian culture perverted these values?

Religious Liberty and the Relationship Between Religion and the State

Also, we got to add some more topics. I had a topic on religious liberty this summer. So I read a really good book by John D. Wilsey. He's a professor at Southern Seminary, church history guy, but he wrote a book on religious liberty, a conservative primer.

So he just went through these various aspects of being conservative, blaming religious liberty. His main contention is that we need to preserve both the spirit of liberty and the spirit of religion in America.

Both are essential to the flourishing of America, but they need to be kept distinct and not have a state-established faith.

All right, sounds good. That's above my pay grade, but I'd just tell you to distill it for me, and then I can figure it out. Sure. We talked a little bit about the book on Genesis written by the Nine Marks guy.

What's his name? Alex Duke? Yeah, yeah, Alex Duke. And I just saw, Austin, that he has finished his book on Exodus with the same kind of theme and writing style and everything else. So I've been reading that, been reading Fesco's Covenant Theology book, looking forward to the Pactum conference in October.

I'm trying to remember all the speakers. Harrison Perkins, Harrison Ford... On solo. Yeah. Fesco's going to be there, Dennis Johnson, Pat, and then I get the brother card, so that's good. So today on the show, I have Austin in the studio, obviously, to talk about drumroll, law and gospel.

You're like, why do you keep talking about law and gospel? Well, it's one of those things where if we looked at Beza—I have Beza's Little Systematic Theology here somewhere, the Christian faith, is that right?

What's it called? The Christian faith. And he said, these are the two words, right, that summarize all of Scripture, law and gospel, what God requires and what God has provided, simply stated. And it seems to me that law and gospel is back in the news again.

Why do you think that's true?

Law and Gospel as a Defining Reformation Distinction

Well, law and gospel, it's a perennial issue for being a Reformed Protestant, being Lutheran, but Protestant in general, I mean, that's the animating factor of the Reformation, already justified by God's grace alone or partly by something that we do.

Is it wholly what Christ has done, or is it somewhat partly what we do? So that's always been an animating factor in the Reformation, even the legalism, antinomianism controversy of the 17th century among the English Protestants, Puritans especially.

So it's always been an important issue, and it's going to be an important issue until the day we die and Christ comes again.

And we want to encourage you to read not only the Bible, of course, but also if you want to read issues behind law, gospel, and some key writers. Edward Fisher, we think, wrote The Marrow of Modern Divinity.

You could start there with Thomas Boston's notes. I think that's, is that E .P. Press, or is that Reformed Reformation and Heritage? I think it's Christian Focus. Oh yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. And you can read Thomas Boston, Covenant of Grace, Covenant of Works, Edward Lee, John Cahoon.

Who else would you read? Oh, Sinclair Ferguson on The Whole Christ. And, I mean, I just put together a little primer on law, gospel, and probably should update it, but Tom Hicks, I believe, is writing or did write on law, gospel.

Pat Abendroth just signed a contract on law, gospel, an introductory kind of a pocket guide, I think it's called. And who else is—there's somebody else writing a law, gospel book. I know they gave the John Cahoon book out for free, Reformation and Heritage did, so when I hear law, gospel publications, I'm happy about it.

Aren't you? Oh, I'm very happy, yeah. I was trying to think the other day, Austin, as we were talking off air, if I had to describe Bethlehem Bible Church or No Compromise Radio, I was trying to do the one, two, three, four.

One, Christ, right? You want to have Christ-centered preaching. Of course, when I talk about Jesus, it's not excluding the Father or the Spirit, because it's the Father who's sending the Son. You think of one, you think of the three, the one, Gregory would say that.

Two, law, gospel, the two words of the Bible. Three, covenant of redemption, covenant of grace, covenant of works. What can we use for four? Four? Oh, let's see. How would we describe No Compromise Radio slash Bethlehem Bible Church ministry?

So we've got Jesus, law, gospel, three covenants. What else would we do with four? Duplex grapheo? What's the word for four? We got duplexes, too. What do we have for four? The four graces. The four graces.

Four-fold sense of Scripture. That might get us in trouble.

What do you call it again? The quadria? The quadriga? Quadriga? Is that it? Quadriga?

Well, that might get us into trouble, but that's all right. And five, what would we use for five? I guess the five solas. Five solas, yeah. Five points. Five points, five solas, doctrines of grace. We need listeners number four.

What would we do with number four? Well, today we're talking a little bit about law gospel, because it's back in the news, and we're happy for that. There's a man named Brian Borgman, and he did a lecture—I don't think it was a real sermon—he did a lecture on law gospel and has criticized some of the sermon from Matthew 7 not that long ago, and he kind of riled up some feathers in a certain wing of the Reformed Baptist Church, and so I think that's kind of started this all.

Thanks a lot, Steve. I appreciate that. I just was with Steve in Sacramento preaching, so that was good. I made sure, Austin, that I didn't make any errors on the doctrine of God. Oh, that's important with Steve.

And so today we want to talk a little bit about that lecture, Borgman's lecture. Justin Perdue, our friend, has written a response—I don't know, 15-point response or something like that—that you can find online, and we want to talk about all that today.

So, Austin, you watch the lecture. First thoughts, general thoughts, before we dive in deeply, specifically.

Yeah, so it seems like Brian Borgman, he is seeing this movement of, like, law gospel preaching becoming very popular, especially in Reformed Baptist circles, but also he's seeing this, how may this be an error?

So he's kind of responding also to the Tulian-to-Vision controversy, and he feels like a lot of law gospel preaching is too much like Tulian and too Lutheran, and he wants to see that with a Reformed perspective on law gospel, maybe a little bit different.

So Borgman, he actually mentioned in his lecture that he likes the Cajun book, Law and Gospel. So, I mean, there's that. So it just seems like he's cautioning against, perhaps, abuses of law gospel. That seems to be his heart behind this, I think, to put it in the most positive way possible.

Evaluating Appeals to Tullian Tchividjian as an Argument Against Law-Gospel Preaching

Well, let's talk about that a little bit. I think that's a good analysis to start. The Tulian thing comes up all the time, where you say, well, this guy believed law gospel, he fell, he wanted to have that kind of theology so he could live a certain lifestyle.

And it's like we pick the worst example to say, well, this guy did something bad and he believed this. Now, don't you think, Austin, we could do that? And I think Tulian's wrong on his views, but I don't like that kind of way to start, because we can find any—I mean, we can find people who are Presbyterian and they've ran off on their wives, and therefore Presbyterianism is wrong.

That's a wrong way to think about it. No, I think you're right, Mike. I mean,.

Sin is pervasive, it distorts everything we do, and anybody can fall to that temptation.

So, Tulian, I'm sure he didn't stress the third use of the law enough. I think that's provable. Austin, tell our listeners a little bit about the nuance between Lutheranism and Calvinism, that is, Lutheran and Reformed, when we come to stress first use, third use of the law,.

And even what are the uses. Right, right. Well, we can begin by the three uses of the law. Sometimes people label them differently. Sometimes in Lutheran, like, they'll say the first use of the law is like the civil use of law to restrain sin, to promote kind of a general virtue.

Some Reformed people may use the first use to say this is the theological use of the law, where God condemns us, that we're shown the greatness of our sin. So if you number them differently, at least know the categories.

Like, there's one use of the civil use of the law to restrain sin, another use of the law to show us our sin. And the third use, which both Lutherans and Reformed label as the third use, is the law as a rule of life.

The law is a norm that guides.

Our Christian living. So that's where we can begin. Good. Well, we want to make sure that we preach the third use of the law. People will say, oh, you're law gospel, you're Lutheran. And of course, that's objectively false, because you can look at law gospel, as we said earlier, with Beza, with Calvin, with Perkins, with Cahoon, with Boston, with all these different people.

And so if anyone tells you, hey, law gospel's Lutheran only—they don't say only, but hey, law gospel's Lutheran, they mean Lutheran only—we respond, that's not true. It's a Reformed view as well, right?

That's correct. That's correct. Can you think of anybody else that you love who is patently law gospel back in the Reformation day? I mean, Calvin, there's Luther, I mean,.

All the—I think all the Protestants are pretty strict on law and gospel as they.

Are responding to Roman Catholicism, so. All right, good. So he, Borgman, talks about Tullian, and here's a bad example. He had bad theology, law gospel's kind of wrong in the sense, at least Tullian's version, and I would agree with that.

Grace as the Motivation and Power for Sanctified Obedience

Do you think Borgman understands deep down that grace motivates? He doesn't talk about this, but isn't that what we're really after? Don't we all, Austin, want Christians to live godly lives, holy lives, to say no to sin, yes to righteousness?

Don't we all want that? The question is, how do we get there?

Yeah, exactly. I think, you know, Borgman, it seems like, you know, when he gives an illustration on Philippians about how, well, the main point really is to rejoice, and that's obviously something we should do, and he, of course, tried to qualify it as like, well, you know, we shouldn't do it apart from Christ, you know, we shouldn't just do it by self-willed effort.

So I think that's a good starting point if we were to talk to Brian. It's like, hey, well, that is grace. That is gospel. The gospel is to motivate our keeping the third use of law, and not only.

Motivates, it also empowers at. Right. So that gets back to when you talk about duplex gratia, the four false sins of the law. It's Christ for pardon, justification, standing before God, acquittal, forensic, courtroom language, imputation, etc., alien righteousness credited.

And then it's Christ for power, that is, Jesus gives us His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, so we're enabled to do things. Don't you think, Austin, that's kind of the missing component in our talk, where we forget about it's not just Christ for pardon, but Christ for power?

I think we don't talk about that enough.

Yeah, that's very important, because the gospel, what Christ has done to be resurrected from the dead, to crucify the power of sin, that is essential for our sanctification, and that's something that we have done.

We have not crucified the power of that. We have not been raised, like, ourselves raised ourselves to walk in the news of life, but we're raised with Him to walk in the news of life. We are crucified with Him to die to sin and to live in righteousness.

And to Borgman's credit, he does talk about justification and sanctification and union with Christ and the duplex gratia. But I bring this up because I think, and this is Borgman aside, what motivates a Christian to obey?

What empowers a Christian to obey? And if the answer is more law, third use of the law, guidance, just, you know, direction, here's how you should live, then I think that's where we've dropped the ball.

Law cannot motivate. Law can show you God's righteousness, His holiness. It teaches us about God's nature, because God's law and His nature are not somehow distinct, or the law of God is not floating around there abstractly.

No, it's a reflection of God and His character, 1 Timothy 1, Romans 7. But what motivates a Christian? That to me is the key, and it has to be grace, it has to be Jesus, it has to be who God is, and out of gratitude or motivated.

So wax on guilt, grace, gratitude for me for a minute.

Guilt, Grace, and Gratitude in the Christian Life

Oh yeah, guilt, grace, gratitude. So we have to see the greatness for sin, even far surpassing greatness of the grace of Christ, and then like we move on to gratitude, how we ought to live in obedience to Christ.

And so we have to, we can't live our lives, our Christian lives, if we're still under the penalty of sin. You know, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So if you don't live like you are free, that you are indeed a son of God, you're not going to obey.

Really, what 1 John says, that we love because He first loved us. So to the degree that you believe that He first loved you, and He has saved you, is the degree that we will obey. And then conversely, to the degree we fall short of that, or believe that we're under the hatred and wrath of God, how could we ever live worthy of the gospel if we don't believe it?

So we have to receive that fact that there's now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, and now we're freed from the penalty of sin, free from the power of sin, to go and live in righteousness, live an obedient life.

Mike Abenroth with Austin Hobbs, No Compromise Radio. You can write us, info at nocompromiseradio .com. We have a website that we're working on, and the church website's been updated, so feel free to check those things out.

You can go to Amazon, and if you want to pick up any books, if you want to have 10 or more 40 off, just email me. Talking about law gospel, Brian Borgman's lecture, he says something about Proverbs and James.

Preaching Proverbs and James Through the Lens of Christ's Wisdom and Resurrection

If you have a law gospel view of Scripture, how can you preach James and Proverbs? How would you preach James and Proverbs? To me, it's just a false thing. I do not have a hard time preaching James and Proverbs.

How would you preach James and Proverbs? Right. I mean, Proverbs and James,.

There's a lot of commands, a lot of law. Law's not a bad thing. We have to keep that clear. Law's not a bad thing, but we need to make sure we're not using the first use of law on Christians, those who are members of good standing, those who have a clear profession of faith, a credible profession of faith.

We have to keep the first use of law and the third use of law distinct. Of course, we do want to encourage. We want to motivate people to obey, but we also can't preach these things as if they're still under condemnation.

Moreover, both Proverbs and James, they're both centrally about wisdom. We need to understand that Jesus, he is the wisdom of God. He's the way in which God's purposes find fulfillment. His word finds fulfillment.

We have to understand all the commands in Proverbs and all the commands in James can only be understood in light of the resurrection of Jesus. We can't preach these passages. We can't teach these passages or live out these passages as if Jesus has not been raised from the dead.

All of that has to be in light of the fact Jesus has revealed to us the very wisdom of God to.

Inaugurate the age. Amen. What you said about the resurrection is so important, Austin. When you look at James, let's say, for sake of argument, it is the first New Testament book written. I think it is.

Some argue for Galatians. And so let's say it's 45 AD, and obviously Jesus has been raised from the dead and ascended at 30 AD, 33 AD. You pick a number. So 15 years later, 12 years later, about a decade later, James is written.

Nothing else has been written, although the facts, the historical facts, have happened. That is, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have happened, but now we get the first book. And so what do we do in light of Jesus fulfilling all the types and shadows?

What do we do regarding Jesus, that He's ascended, He's been raised from the dead, ascended, and He'll come back? How do we live as scattered people? And so, in light of the resurrection, guess what? You count it all joy.

Chapter 1, verse 18, talks about how God, in verses 17 and 18, God has monergistically made us alive. It talks about the glory of Jesus in chapter 2, the glorious one. And so even though there are 54 imperatives in James, in 108 verses, if memory serves, it's in light of the resurrection.

So it's easy to preach commands, third use of the law, in light of who Jesus is and what He's done on earth, and now as He makes intercession for us in heaven. So to me, James is an easy one to preach.

Proverbs, it's also easy, because as you said, Austin, Jesus, the wisdom of God, and some argue about Proverbs 8, but how about even this? Proverbs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Again, if memory serves, they all start off with either my son or my sons are pretty close to starting off with the first verse, my son.

So here is Solomon telling his son what to do. In light of who you are, son, in light of who I am, what I've done, humanly speaking, this is good for you, and it'll honor me. What a great picture. How easy is that now to extend to the spiritual realm, to say, we are adopted into the family of God, and now we have third use of the law, third use of wisdom, if you would permit me to say that.

How do we live a life as Christians that gives honor to the triune God, is good for our neighbor, and good for us? The answer is the Proverbs. I would talk about Jesus and the Godhead all the time. Here's how God wants you to live in light of who you are in Christ.

Amen, that's right. Doesn't that make sense? Oh, yeah. All right. Well, let's talk a little bit about another thing that Borgman says, and that is, if you have the law gospel paradigm, that can easily lead to antinomianism.

Law-Gospel Preaching and the Charge of Antinomianism

I mean, we've heard that false canard over and over and over, but Austin, what do you think about that?

Well, you know, people have perhaps may use law and gospel to promote antinomianism, but I think what Sinclair Ferguson or even the Merrimont of Divinity says that both legalists and antinomians have the same impulse, that there's no real reason to obey the law unless there's fear of punishment.

So for legalists, they say, oh, there's still fear of punishment, you have to obey. But the antinomian says, well, there's no more fear of punishment, therefore you don't have to obey. But for the Merrimon, for the evangelicals, the law still remains, but it no longer is a law as a covenant, but a law as a rule of life.

You know, the law of God, God's righteousness transcends each covenantal administration. So ultimately, the law can no longer condemn, but it's still present. It's simply as a guide to a rule of life.

But at the end of the day, also, we can't preach the law as if there is no gospel either. So maybe there's these pastors who preach a lot of practical sermons, how to be a good friend, how to be a good husband or mother or father, and it's all maybe good things, all he may not be like bludgeoning you with, oh, you may go to hell, but and that's all of his preaching.

And maybe he has a one-minute gospel presentation at the very end for unbelievers. It's very easy to get very moralistic in your faith. So we still have to have like both law and gospel even in the Christian life because we still fail to live up to God's law.

And we always have to go back to our justification that we are indeed forgiven, that if anyone does sin, God is faithful just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from any unrighteousness, and that we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.

So we do have to go back to that, 100 percent. But then we have to obey the law in light of the fact that we are forgiven. We're not trying to earn heaven. We're not trying to avoid hell. So the gospel always has to be we always have to live by faith in the Son of God who loved.

Us and gave himself for us. Yeah, I know that, Austin. But how are you going to preach Philippians 4, Rejoice in the Lord Always? That's what Borgman says. If you have a law gospel hermeneutic template paradigm, if you see the two words law and gospel, do and done, how hard is it to preach Rejoice in the Lord Always?

How would you preach Rejoice in the Lord Always?

Well, Rejoice in the Lord, that's not the first use of law. He's not saying rejoice or else you're going to be condemned, but it's rejoice because your citizenship is in heaven. Jesus Christ, you don't have a righteousness of our own, but a righteousness that comes from faith, that he is going to keep you and present you blameless in the day of Jesus Christ.

It is both God to will and to work for his good pleasure. And yeah, there's just so many gospel indicatives that there's a day coming that you will rejoice and be forever in the presence of Jesus. So no matter he's writing that in prison.

The church may be facing persecution. So the reason why they can rejoice is because Jesus has been raised from the dead. He has given them all of his grace and love and benefits, and that's called for rejoice.

And so, of course, yeah, it's third use of the law, but that's rooted in the fact that Jesus has saved us.

Philippians 4 in Context: Gospel Indicatives and the Call to Rejoice

And is it not rooted in the fact that this is Philippians chapter 4, and there's a lot of information in Philippians chapters 1, 2, and 3 that give us both the ground of our joy, and I think Justin in his article talks about and gives us the fuel for our joy, right?

What's the motivation to rejoice? And if we're rejoicing in the Lord, Philippians chapter 4, I'm not going to discard and I don't think Borgman would say this but I'm not going to discard chapters 1, 2, and 3, and citizenship is in heaven, and the great passage about the humility of Christ in chapter 2, and gospel talk in chapter 1.

I'm going to just preach it in context, and I'm going to give them the third use of the law and explain it and call them to obedience. Can we call Christians to obey? Dear Christian, you must obey and rejoice in the Lord always.

Can we say that? Amen, that's right. Absolutely. I preached this last Sunday on Jesus, how He encouraged the disciples. Did I or did I not, at the end, give the third use of the law and say, since Jesus, the perfect man, was a great encourager, why don't we obey these commands in New Testament for encouraging one another?

BBC, we need to be a better encouraging church. Did I not do that? Amen, you did, yeah. Did some people probably feel uncomfortable when I said, when's the last time you encouraged somebody here at church?

Perhaps, yeah, yeah.

Is that okay to do? Yeah, that's okay, that's okay. And we do so the fact, hey, Jesus has comforted you, He has encouraged you, therefore you can go out and do it.

Amen. So today we're talking a little bit about law and gospel. Anything else you want to say as we're wrapping up the show about law, gospel, and maybe not just Borgman, but other people, how they think it's a false dichotomy or how it produces antinomianism?

Or do we want to talk about assurance? I'll let you...

Justification, Union with Christ, and the Order of Salvation

Well, something that Borgman said was very interesting about how the law of gospel preaching justification is centered and sanctification is marginalized. So he's saying that the doctrine of justification is not the doctrinal center of the doctrine of salvation, that's union with Christ.

So in one sense, yes, all the benefits of Christ come by virtue of our union with Christ. However, we can't collapse all those benefits into one. We can't confuse justification and sanctification. Well, because, oh, well, it's union in Christ.

It's all one thing. Well, no, there's actually an order of salvation. There's an order to these things. So justification, we still have to keep it primary in our understanding of union with Christ. That's our federal union because Jesus, by his perfect obedience, God raised him from the dead.

That was his justification. God declared him righteous and he raised him from the dead. That's a righteous reward for obedience. So that justification is given to us as a free gift. And so just as Jesus, you know, by his obedience, he entered into new creation, age to come.

So when we're declared righteous, we too, that's the inauguration of that new creation. So that's the foundation of our sanctification and that's the foundation of our glorification. We'll be glorified because we have been justified.

Because justification is the final verdict handed down in the present. So final salvation is not based upon partly on your works. You know, that's out of the era of John Piper because he doesn't see how justification is so central.

And Mike's showing me that the final justification is a lie. It is. I have that t-shirt on today. Right, right. Because.

We, there's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Of course at the very end of the age there's going to be condemnation for sinners. But now Paul says right now that final verdict has been brought forward to right now for those who are in Christ Jesus.

So we can't for the sake of claiming union with Christ just collapse all the benefits or make as if there's no order to these benefits, you know. Justification is still going to be primary. And so we have to make sure to keep that central in our preaching and in our discipleship because it's central for our understanding of union with Christ, too.

Thanks for listening today. My name is Mike Ebendroth with Austin Hobbs. We're just talking generally. We don't have any kind of footnotes and quotes per page or per second or anything. Just generally talking about this so that you can get another perspective and to bolster your view of law gospel and what was our other purpose today?

Encourage. That's right. Yes, we want to encourage you to hold fast to law gospel and seeing the scriptures with those two words law, do, and gospel, done. Thanks for listening.