Don't Mix the Law with the Gospel in Proverbs

Law and Gospel: Command, Obedience, and Good News

First of all, we need to clarify. If you are new to Reformed theology, if you're new to theocast, and you hear a law gospel distinction, you are probably asking yourself, I think I know what that means, but I'm not.

Sure.

It's imperative for you to properly understand Scripture, to understand that there are ways in which the Bible presents itself. A law is God's commandment for you to obey, and then if you do that, you are then accepted in His eyes, and if you do it perfectly, you're accepted in His eyes and considered righteous and shall live, do this and live.

Just for sake of example, it's very obvious, the Ten Commandments, do not, do not, or do, and the obvious of those is you're acceptable in the eyes of God. The gospel has no do, and it has no should, because that's not good news.

So the law is always do or should. The gospel is always done, receive. So the gospel is good news that Jesus has accomplished the law, not only has accomplished it, but did it on your behalf, and that's what we receive.

We receive as the good news, one, forgiveness of our failure of the law, and two, we receive the righteousness of Christ. That's gospel. So when we say a law gospel distinction, when you read Proverbs, you have to have that in your mind, because what we will do is we think, if I do this, God will accept me.

That's actually law, and you have to be careful there. You cannot turn that into good news.