Distinction between Law and Gospel: Fact or Fiction? Matters Much or Little? (Part 4)

Now that we have established (1) both the case for distinguishing God's conditional law covenants and unconditional grace covenants, (2) how we are under the law of God in both but in a different way, (3) and have established the primacy of this, let us now talk about what this looks like. Does the law and gospel distinction really lead us to see the law of God rooted in God's character to be irrelevant or some negative thing to avoid while we discuss nothing but the gospel? Is this distinction the secret guise for the antinomian? Let us go into our next point.

Law keeping as it is seen in the covenant of grace

1. The law of God in the covenant of grace does not justify us positionally, nor condemn us positionally (Romans 6:14; Romans 8:1; Galatians 2:19). We can read these texts in a few ways. We could see Romans 6:14 to mean that we are not under the law at all. We can also read in the Galatians text that we are dead to having to keep the law at all. Both of these views are inaccurate since we are told to be obliged to keep the law.

So what does it mean? It means that in the covenant of grace our law-keeping cannot establish or sustain our saving position before God and also that our law-breaking cannot break or undo our position before God. We are dead to the law. We are no longer under the law in the sense of its ability to justify or condemn us positionally. ...in the covenant of grace our law-keeping cannot establish or sustain our saving position before God and also that our law-breaking cannot break or undo our position before God. As a result, when preachers use the keeping of the law as the means by which our position is validated or lost they are using the law in the covenant of grace in the manner it is used in the covenant of works. We call people to obey God's law in the covenant of grace in light of their position having already been irrevocably established by Christ's law-keeping, not ours. Obedience matters, but not as the vindicating gavel in God's court room. We obey from our position obtained unconditionally not for our position obtained provisionally (to be determined by the vitality of positional works).

2. Our law keeping in the covenant of grace is only pleasing to God because it is done on our behalf by Christ who is the perfect law keeper (Romans 12:1-2; Ephesians 2:8-10). According to these texts, our works as Christians are actually pleasing to God. How is this possible? Our best works always have a mixture of sinfulness in them and we very often move quickly from obedience to disobedience (Romans 7:13-25). In Romans, we see that it is the mercies of God which ground and found our life that is pleasing to God (Romans 12:1-2). Moreover, in Ephesians we see that it is our salvation by Christ which brings us to the doing of these God pleasing, God ordained works in verse 2:10, not our works. In the covenant of grace, it is because of our union with Christ's perfect works of obedience and sin-canceling blood of substitution that allows our imperfect and inconsistent obedience to truly be pleasing to God. It's important to clarify that they are not pleasing to God because of their quality but because we do them in and through our adoptive status in the perfect works of our covenant head in the unconditional framework.

In the covenant of grace we obey the law of God, but we see our obedience as pleasing and God glorifying not because of its qualitative value but because of its Christo-centric canopy in the family domain rather than the justifying conditional courtroom. When preachers make our law-keeping to be God pleasing and glorious in itself, by itself, they teach us to be confident and proud in the works we do, rather than in who they are done through. When law-keeping is presented to God as pleasing outside of our perfect mediator, it is nothing less than the promotion of pious rebellion.They preach to us as if we were Adam in the garden who are capable of meriting and earning law-keeping righteousness. When law-keeping is presented to God as pleasing outside of our perfect mediator, it is nothing less than the promotion of pious rebellion.

3. Our law keeping in the covenant of grace is produced by gospel faith, not faith in our capacity or confidence to keep the law (Titus 2:11-14; 2 Corinthians 3:18; 1 John 4:11). In the covenant of grace, we see ourselves to be under the authority of the law and to strive to keep it. However, the way that conformity to the law is produced is not by the law itself but by the gospel itself. This is seen in multiple ways:

• The consistent pattern of rooting law imperatives in faith indicatives. Clearly it is believing which produces doing as it is the consistent foundation of all calls to do (Romans 1-11 and 12-16; Ephesians 1:3 and 4-6).
• When scripture moves from the indicative and imperative sections, it will regularly return to the indicatives of Christ work to to be believed in the midst of the imperative section (Ephesians 5:1-2; Ephesians 4:20-24; Ephesians 5:25). Paul never seems to move on from the works of Christ in the sections about our works for Christ, but rather regularly re-circles to those gospel foundations because they are essential to obedience.
• Scripture regularly states that the cause of godliness is the gospel of grace in the believing heart. Law-keeping is not produced through faith in our ability to keep the law, but by faith in Christ's law-keeping (Titus 2:11-14; Romans 6:1-14; Galatians 5:6; John 15:1-5). This is not by inference, deduction, or the neglect of the whole counsel of God as the efficient and regular cause of law-keeping is regularly said to be faith in Christ's ‘for us’ works.
• When the question of lawlessness comes in light of the preaching of grace (that is free grace is thought to be cause of sin) the response is not the preaching and emphasis of the law, but rather the clarification of the position and power of Christ's grace-works for us (Romans 6:1-14; Galatians 3:1-3). If there ever was a place for the preacher to go into a law tangent as the efficient cause and engine of holiness, it was in the letter to the Corinthians with their loose living. However, Paul in every conversation brings the power and reality of grace into their law-breaking scenario (1 Corinthians 6:20). In the covenant of grace, lawlessness has at its root some failure to believe the grace of the gospel.
• The scripture connects law-keeping with the affections of the heart and the affections of the heart with faith in the gospel and a clean conscience before God (1 Timothy 1:5; 1 John 4:19; 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, Hebrews 9:14). Our hearts affections are grounded in our capacity to trust and receive Christ saving affections, not in our capacity to esteem the keeping of the law. Esteem of the law comes from affections for the law giver Himself and that from the faith response of His saving works. In the covenant of grace it is the affections from God that influence our affections for God and in turn create an esteem for the commands that come from God. Affection produces affection which produces willingness in the covenant of grace framework.
• Scripture tells us that God's law is rooted in God's character and that because of our sin and God's holiness we fear and do not trust His character or His will. In 1 John 5:3-4, we see God's law rightly due to our “in Christ-Holy Spirit-wrought-new birth.” Seeing the law of God not as burdensome is causality of what Christ's ‘for us’ law-keeping has done. In Psalms 130:4, it says that there is forgiveness of sins so that we, in turn from that forgiveness, may fear God. This means that unless I know that a holy God is no longer against me, I will never see His standards as good things to keep but rather horrifying things to be skeptical of. In the covenant of grace, God's character is wondrous through His reconciling work and so we see His laws from his person as good. Take the work of Christ out of this conversation and God's laws will never be seen as good things to keep. Our initial and ongoing appropriation of God's grace gives us a sense of that favorable disposition from God which enables us to see and know His goodness, which in turn enables us to see and know the goodness of His law, which in turn inclines us to obey it.
• Scripture says that the initial and continuous cause of law-keeping is gospel faith. We often think that once we are redeemed by grace, we can then be sanctified directly by the law as we now have the new creature realities that are needed. The logic is that saving grace brings new creation and then new creation generates automatic law-keeping. However, Paul says to doubting and struggling Timothy to hold onto (regularly) and be strengthened after His conversion by grace not the power of law (2 Timothy 2:1). Paul tells the church that they are to regularly walk in Christ in the same faith-fueled way they did when they received Him (Colossians 2:6). Paul chastises the Galatians for beginning with the Spirit who works through hearing with faith and then seeking ongoing perfection by works (Galatians 3:1-3). In Ephesians, Paul states that the fullness of God (his righteous character) comes about through our capacity to continuously appropriate the contours of God's cross love (Ephesians 3:18-19). In the covenant of grace we become law-keepers as we continue to trust in the saving works of Christ in more depth and in more ways. So simply because we see Christians hear the law of God regularly in the covenant of grace, it does not mean that it is the direct and efficient cause of law-keeping in our Christian life. God regular says that our initial and continuous law-keeping is regularly through the direct and efficient cause of faith in the works of Christ (John 15:1-5).

Let us summarize where we are. First, the law of God is authoritative at all times and in all covenants arrangements, but it is administered differently in different covenants. In the covenant of grace the law of God does not justify or condemn us positionally. The failure to see this often results in preachers using the law of God to justify or condemn God's people. They are failing to distinguish God's law and are preaching it as it is preached in the covenant of works to those in the covenant of grace. Second, the law of God is only pleasing to Him by an imperfect sinner when it is done under the canopy of the covenant of grace where our Father indulges and enjoys our works because they are shadowed by Christ's in the non-contingent framework. When preachers do not distinguish the law as it is under the covenant of grace they make people confident in the in-itself-value of law conformity. The law in the covenant of works tells us that unless law-keeping is always perfect it is never pleasing to God. And so, if we are going to see our law-keeping as pleasing to God we must always place it under the covenantal canopy of grace where our imperfect works are only God-centered because they are done in the nest of Christ's perfect obedience and atoning blood.

Lastly, in the covenant of grace the explicit cause for law-keeping is not the hearing of the law and confidence in our capacity to keep it but in hearing the gospel and trusting in Christ's capacity to having already kept the law vicariously. It seems that we think that God stating His law means that we simply need to believe in our capacity and necessity to keep God's law in order to conform to it. However, simply because we hear God tell us to keep the law as Christians does not mean that the efficient cause of our law-keeping is believing that our new nature can keep God's law. The ongoing and regular efficient cause of law-keeping is explicitly said to be through our faith appropriation in our positional realities through Christ works (Colossians 3:1-3; John 15:1-5).