Law & Gospel

Introduction

Last time we were together, we talked about what it looks like to actually believe the gospel.

How we have to not only believe, but actually live, as if our righteousness comes from Christ and not from anything that we could ever do.

But, we not only have to anchor our righteousness in Christ, we must also fix our identity in Him as adopted sons and daughters of God.

As we continue to process what it means to live a Gospel-Centered Life, we are going to consider what our relationship with the law of God should look like.

A casual glance through a Bible would lead anyone to the conclusion that God’s Word is full of commands, prohibitions, prescriptions, and expectations.

Often, these laws can seem to get in the way of faith.

Non-believers brush of Christianity as a religion that’s “just a bunch of rules and regulations.”

Faithful Christians can struggle to understand how the law of God is relevant to their lives as they are living under the grace that Christ has afforded them.

There is a lot of misunderstanding in this world about the relationship between the law of God and the gospel of God.

Tonight, we want to address these misunderstandings as well as give us the tools we need to answer common questions revolving around law and gospel.

What is the law?

What is the purpose of the law?

How does the law help me to believe the gospel? and...

How does the gospel help me to obey the law?

Law, Legalism, License, & Liberty

Everyone has some basic understanding of law.

The law of the land governs us and, at the very least, penalizes someone who refuses to live within the accepted and established moral code.

The law of God however consists of the commands, regulations, and statutes laid out in Scripture that the people of God are meant to use in regulating their lives.

When we think of God’s law, most of the time we think of Moses or the 10 Commandments.

These moral imperatives were the bedrock of Israelite society.

They instructed God’s people on how to interact with Him and with each other.

And, before Christ, it was an impossible taskmaster.

It can remain that way for many, but our relationship with the law this side of Christ is not meant to be daunting and unfeasible.

Our approach to God’s law most often takes on one of 3 forms...

Legalism

License

Liberty

Let’s break down each one.

First, we see...

Legalism: Living under the law while dismissing grace.

Legalism is defined by Webster as “strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious or moral code.”

It is the belief the somehow God’s approval is dependent on our right conduct.

It plays into what we talked about 2 weeks ago where we attempt to build upon our own righteousness so that the Lord will accept us.

We often make the word “legalism” synonymous with the term “Pharisee” referring to the religious leaders of Christ’s day and their additions to the law, the fence within the fence of what God commanded them to do.

But they weren’t truly keeping the law.

It was used as a prop to show off their righteousness.

Christ, Himself, had no time for this rancid approach to the law.

He quoted the prophet Isaiah in calling them out...

Matthew 15:7–9 ESV

You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”

We often fall into this same trap.

In legalism, we end up lowering the standards that God has placed us so that we can attain obedience by our own strength.

These are the commandments of men that are taught as doctrine that Christ is referring to.

We have to dumb things down so that the law becomes attainable.

For example...

If Scripture says, “Thou shalt not lie”, you try your very best and try with all your might not to lie.

Because you cannot not lie, exceptions must be made.

Standards must be lowered.

Little white lies, fibs, become acceptable in your code of conduct.

Paul wrote letters to combat the legalistic approach to the law.

He wrote to the Galatians...

Galatians 3:1–9 ESV

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

It is bewitching to live as if it is the law, and not Christ, that justifies us.

Paul is saying, “If you’re living this way, you’ve been hoodwinked! You’re living in deception!”

It was accepted as fact that the Spirit works through faith, not through the law.

So, If you believe that the Spirit began the work of transforming your heart and orienting your affections towards Christ, how dare you think that you can come in and improve upon that work by keeping the law!

From the very beginning, continuing through God’s covenant with Abraham where He chose a man, a people, to covenant with, it was His plan to save by faith!

This hasn’t changed because a new covenant in Christ has been established.

The new builds upon the old and makes clear that Jew and Gentile alike are called, regenerated, led to repentance and faith, justified, sanctified, and glorified through faith.

If we aren’t meant to live under the law and dismiss grace, we have to guard against the pendulum swinging to the other extreme as well...

License: Living under grace while dismissing the law.

This is the idea that if we live under grace by faith, God’s rules don’t really matter that much.

License to sin, whether it is lowering the standards of God’s law or disregarding them completely, is never acceptable.

Once again, Paul wrote a portion of his letter to the Romans dealing with this very attitude.

Romans 6:15–19 ESV

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

If you look back at the first couple verses of this chapter, you see that we are not to wallow in sin so that grace can abound in our lives!

He has blotted out our transgressions through the blood of Jesus and sees Christ’s righteousness as our own.

But, He has not granted us permission to disregard His standards.

We cannot become more like Him if we are acting less like Him.

This is one of the most basic areas where our sanctification can be seen.

Instead of seeing how close to the line we can get, we measure how our proximity to the line reflects on our Savior.

This is where the fence within the fence becomes helpful!

Setting up personal boundaries that keep us from the mindset of license.

An alcoholic might have to stay away from any scene that offers a drink.

A man with a porn addiction (or even propensities towards lust) might have to downgrade his phone and set up additional measures surrounding technology.

A woman prone to gossip might have to regulate her friend groups and text threads.

However, these parameters are not one size fits all.

It is here where (many times) our conscience can either...

lapse into legalism in our own hearts...

or be confused with legalism in others’ perspectives.

Stay away from the pendulum of legalism and license, Christian!

Stay within the boundaries that Scripture give you.

Don’t fraternize with the enemy!

Flee from temptation!

But don’t seek to hold others to the extra standards that you have placed upon yourself in order to avoid temptation.

If legalism (living under the law while dismissing grace) and license (living under grace while dismissing the law) are majorly missing the boat, what should be our relationship with the law as children of God?

We should cling to...

Liberty: Living under grace while embracing the law.

If we go to the end of Galatians 3, we see this.

Galatians 3:21–27 ESV

Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

The law imprisoned everything under sin so that Christ could liberate us.

In Christ, there is no freedom from the law to be found.

Instead, there is freedom in the law for us!

We don’t need the law to guard us any longer. We have Christ.

We don’t need guardrails to keep us in righteousness. We have the love for our Savior that compels us to pursue it.

Legalism and license are self-focused.

A Christian living a Gospel-Centered life turns the focus away from self and puts it on Christ.

Then, and only then, can we obey God’s law out of love, not obligation or duty.

This changes our perspective, the lens we view the law through from constraint to freedom, from we have to obey to we get to obey.

And the law that bound us, illuminating our sin, and highlighting our inability to bear up under the crushing weight of its expectations points to Christ so that we can delight in our obedience.

Remember our chart from weeks past? It’s on your handout.

The law accomplishes both the bottom and the top lines that should be growing at all times!

Every command grows us in the awareness of our own inadequacy (bottom line)

While also magnifying the good and holy nature of God (top line)

Resulting in an ever-widening expanse that is filled by the cross.

The end, the goal, the point of the law is to drive us to Jesus.

Romans 10:4 ESV

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Not the end of the law, mind you.

The end of the law for righteousness.

We are freed from looking to the law for our righteousness.

Now we are free to obey the law out of love for the Lord.

To quote Martin Luther’s commentary on Romans...

The law, rightly understood and thoroughly comprehended, does nothing more than remind us of our sin and slay us by it, and make us liable to eternal wrath… the law is not kept by man’s own power, but solely through Christ who pours the Holy Spirit into our hearts. To fulfill the law… is to do its works with pleasure and love… [which are] put into the heart by the Holy Ghost.

- Martin Luther

To fulfill the law is to do its works with pleasure and love!

Just knowing what God requires is not enough.

But, in the same vein, so is obedience if it is not driven by faithful, loving, pleasure-filled devotion to the Lord!

In order to truly keep the law, we must obey God out of pleasure and love because the Holy Spirit within us compels us to do nothing else.

Conclusion

How do we become the kind of people who love God and delight in His law?

Through the gospel working in our lives!

First, we see that it is through the gospel that we become aware of our disobedience to God’s law.

I often have food drip or get caught in my beard.

I can’t feel it.

I don’t recognize the problem.

Until my wife lovingly tells me that there’s an issue with my face.

I excuse myself, go to the bathroom, and look in the mirror to confront the mess that I’ve made of myself.

The law is the mirror we hold up to recognize our mess.

To keep us referring to Galatians 3....

Galatians 3:10 ESV

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”

And James 2 reminds us that any infraction in the law of God condemns us.

James 2:10 ESV

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

But praise be to God that the gospel of Christ rectifies our standing with God.

Secondly, because of Christ’s work on the cross, we are freed from the curse of the law.

Jesus justified us.

He declared us “not guilty” in God’s sight.

The law no longer stands in judgement over us.

Romans 6 says...

Romans 6:14 ESV

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Thirdly, it is through the gospel that we receive the Holy Spirit who lives in us, transforms our hearts, and enables us to truly love God and others.

Because we are justified...

Romans 5:5 ESV

and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Because God loves us, He poured into us a new capacity to love and delight in Him.

Jesus prayed this for us!

John 17:26 ESV

I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

These truths work together to ultimately show us that the law is all about Jesus.

And that revelation opens our eyes to the fact that every command points to Him because He is the one who fulfills them for us.

The law drives us to Jesus and Jesus frees us to obey the law.