What is Law/Gospel Distinction? | Theocast Clips

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Many people think that the law and gospel distinction is a Lutheran category only, and that is false.

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The distinction between the law and the gospel is also a reformed doctrine and a reformed category.

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You can read any number of people, William Perkins, John Calhoun, I could name many others, right, who articulated these things,

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Theodore Beza, etc, etc, etc, that articulated what we are about to say. The distinction between the law and the gospel is spoken relatively simply as this, that in the

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Old and New Testaments you have law and gospel in both. So there's law and gospel in the

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Old Testament, there's law and gospel in the New. Whenever we read of what God requires of mankind for righteousness, that is law.

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Do this. Any kind of imperative, you need to do this for righteousness, that's law. Anytime we read of what

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Christ has done that is then given to us, that we receive by faith, that's gospel.

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So, simple ways to remember this in your mind. Do is law.

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Done is gospel. Do this and live. Leviticus 18 .5,

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Jesus in Luke 10, a number of other places. Paul picks this up in Galatians 3. We could go on there. Do this and live, that's law.

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Christ has done it. Now live in him, that's gospel. Remember this too, that everything

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God requires in his law, he gives in his gospel. Last one, and then

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I'll throw it over to you. The law demands everything and gives nothing. The gospel demands nothing and gives everything.

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The law's standard is one of perfect, perpetual, personal obedience at a spiritual level.

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Nothing else will meet its righteous requirements. And so it is all or nothing. Whereas in the gospel, the covenant of grace, right?

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So when we say law, we mean covenant of works, do this and live. When we say gospel, we mean covenant of grace, receive.

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When it comes to the gospel piece, we don't do anything. We simply receive with an open hand what

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Jesus has done and are thereby saved. If you don't get the law and the gospel correct, then you're going to misinterpret a lot of scripture.

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And it happens, Justin. We try and point this out quite often in our podcast. For instance, when someone comes up to Jesus and says, what must

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I do to enter the kingdom? Jesus tells them what they must do.

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He does not give them the good news of what he's about to do. He's like, if you want to know what you need to do, that's fine.

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If you come and ask me what I'll do for you, that's a whole other answer. Now, all of the prostitutes and all the tax collectors came and asked

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Jesus that. What are you going to do for me, Jesus? He's like, I'll save you. Well, he came knowing that they didn't have righteousness.

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That's right. He couldn't achieve it, right? But the righteous came judging him saying, who are you to say what we can and cannot do in the kingdom?

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Because he's like, because I am the king is why. So the law and the gospel. Jesus was the greatest preacher of the law.

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And it's really hard. For instance, I'm not going to answer this to you now, but we answered it in the Law Gospel podcast.

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When Jesus says, pick up your cross and follow me, that's not the gospel. We'll explain to you why.

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But these definitions are important. It's a debate going back hundreds and hundreds of years.

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It goes back to Rome. This is where Rome collapsed the law and the gospel. This is what

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Martin Luther and the Reformers saw and have been fighting to rip it apart and put it on either side. Both are holy.

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Both are necessary. Both honor and glorify God. But one condemns you and one saves you.