Imagine entering the sanctuary after having fought back every inclination to stay home. You’re stressed, filled with guilt, and burdened to the brink of despair. The pastor begins the sermon and from start to finish it’s one indictment after the other. The law in all its glorious goodness is wielded well, but the good news is never proclaimed. You’re killed. You’re put on the chopping block of your own inadequacies. Now suppose that happens for three weeks in a row.

On the other hand, what if a congregant came in under the false premise that they had it altogether. Could it be that their piety left them in a hypothetical pristine condition before an Almighty God? Would only a declaration of our right standing before God bring the needed realization that they are utterly dependent on God’s mercy and grace through faith? Now suppose that person is left in their self-righteousness for three weeks in a row.

The law and the gospel are not two sides of the same coin. They do not pay equally. One required repeated offerings from priests but our great high priest sat down at the right hand of God having offered the perfect sacrifice (Hebrews 10:11-2). They both come from the same glorious God with a magnificently merciful plan. Yet, the scriptures make it explicitly clear that the law is insufficient and serves to diagnose humanity and foreshadow the cure to come in and through Christ. Scripture repeatedly emphasizes the diagnostic, killing function of the law. But it also makes it explicitly clear what it was always pointing toward.

The Law Brings Wrath (Romans 4)

As Paul elaborates on the faith of Abraham, he reminds us in Romans 4:15 that the law brings wrath. Paul is making the bigger point that God’s promise is delivered through faith and expands beyond Abraham’s descendants in the flesh. In fact, Paul says in verse 16 that the very reason it depends on faith is so that the promise may rest on grace, not on adherence to the law. It is because of justification by faith we have peace with God through Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1). The apostle will draw this distinction even more sharply in Galatians.

The Law is a Curse (Galatians 3)

Paul holds up the exemplar of justification by faith again and repetitively connects the law to the curse of humanity. How can we who received the Spirit by hearing with faith revert to thinking we are perfected by the flesh (Galatians 3:2-3)? Again his emphasis is on the expansion of the gospel to all nations to those who accept our guilty verdict under the law and look to Christ as the one who redeemed us from the curse of the law through faith. The law was our guardian for a time, but Christ came and we were set free through faith. What a blessed curse!

Good Law, Bad Sin (Romans 7)

Is the law the bad guy in our story? Absolutely not! The law is “holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12).” Yet, the function of the law is to reveal the killing nature of our sin. But the law is not sufficient to resurrect us to new life. Neither can the law produce the righteousness it demands. Our sin is ultimately disqualifying and damning. The law awakens us to this reality of sin and death and only Christ’s atoning work on our behalf fulfills the requirement of righteousness God demands for those who walk according to the Spirit (Romans 8:1-4). The law’s inability to save isn’t because it is defective. It’s because we are.

The Law is a Shadow (Hebrews 10)

The law has only a shadow of the glorious and gracious realities of Christ. In Christ, we have not a reminder of our sins but instead the forgiveness that remembers no more through Christ. The law is not merely written on stone tablets, but supernaturally on our hearts and minds even as he remembers our lawless deeds no more. As good as the law was, and it was good, it was always pointing toward something (someone) greater.

The Veil Lifted (2 Corinthians 3)

The law carved in letters on stone was so glorious that the people could not behold the face of its messenger. How much more so is the glory of the eternal logos with God’s redeeming justice carved into His very body for our salvation? When reading the old covenant and turning to Christ the veil is lifted for us to behold the invisible reality of faith. To neglect or relegate what the law was always pointing to is to put the veil back over our hearts. Let us not put blinders on or limit the hearers of God’s word from seeing the glorious reality of Christ through and through.

The Law is Good (Psalm 119)

God’s word is steadfast, powerful, instructing, steadying, encouraging, lifting, and good.

17 Deal bountifully with your servant,
    that I may live and keep your word.
18 Open my eyes, that I may behold
    wondrous things out of your law.
19 I am a sojourner on the earth;
    hide not your commandments from me!
20 My soul is consumed with longing
    for your rules at all times.
21 You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones,
    who wander from your commandments.
22 Take away from me scorn and contempt,
    for I have kept your testimonies.
23 Even though princes sit plotting against me,
    your servant will meditate on your statutes.
24 Your testimonies are my delight;
    they are my counselors.

Yes, the law is good but it is not the cure. Humans aren’t robots with bad code who need to download better data to fix our operating system. We are complex beings created in God’s image with minds, bodies, desires, and wills. We are sinners through and through. The law is the standard we are measured against because it is a reflection of the very character of our perfect God. It tells each and every one of us not just where the little problems are but that we have a bigger problem. Put another way, our problem isn’t just that we sin but that we are sinners by inheritance. When the church neglects preaching the law and the gospel week in and week out it either provides false assurance for the religious pharisee types or burdens the consciences of the broken reeds among the flock.

A Messianic Example ( Luke 24)

When the resurrected Christ opened the minds of His disciples to understand the law, it was to point toward His fulfillment of all the law of Moses, the Psalms and the Prophets said. He summed it up perfectly: “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:46-47).”

Rest in the Law of the Spirit (Romans 8)

Lest I fall into the same trap of neglecting a law and gospel approach, I hope that you’ll feel the weighty freedom that it gives as we meditate on Romans 8. You and I were under the law of sin and death. Not only are we guilty before a Holy God because of our inherited state from Adam, we are guilty because of what we’ve done today as compared to God’s character and law. But God did what the law couldn’t in sending His only Son in the flesh to fulfill the righteousness required on our behalf. We have received the Spirit of freedom in Christ, so we are told not to fall back into fear or slavery. If God is for us, who can be against us? “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).”

The law gospel distinction is often painted as a caricature of cheap grace. That criticism misses the point altogether. It’s ironically neglecting the law and gospel distinction that leads to cheap grace because it either drives us to despair or lulls us into presumption. Understanding and consistently preaching the law and the gospel in their respective slaying and resurrecting power neither coddles the self-righteous nor berates the broken. Such proclamation leans into grace, shatters any notion of merit, and provides the balm of Gilead for injured souls. We should preach the law so stringently that Paul would have to describe it as killing. We should preach a gospel so free that Paul would have to answer objections because grace is offensive.