Distinction between Law and Gospel: Fact or Fiction? Matters Much or Little? (Part 9)

In our discourse about distinguishing law and gospel in the covenantal framework, we must address the issues of commands and conditions existing in the covenant of grace. Many seem to see demands and conditions in the covenant of grace to then mean that there is a law conditionality in the covenant of grace just as there is in the covenant of works. Said another way, “demands to do” in the covenant of grace implies a law conditionality and or obedience conditionality in the covenant of grace. This contention brings us to our last and final point.

Understanding Commands to Do in the Unconditional Covenant Framework

The Command and Call to Faith Is Not the Call and Command to Law

In places like Acts 2:37, Peter is asked by the crowd as to what is necessary to be done. Peter does not respond by saying that there is nothing to do, but rather he calls them to do something which is to repent and be baptized. So here is the logic: there is a call to obedience in the call of the gospel, therefore there is obedience to law in the call to the gospel (in the call of the gospel there is a call to law). This is a logical fallacy as it assumes that all doing is essentially the obeying of law (all calls to do the same). We have already seen very clearly that faith and obedience to law are not the same kinds of response. They are conceptually qualified antithetically not harmoniously. Please review Romans:

Romans 3:27 “Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By one of works? No, on the contrary, by a law of faith. 28 For we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.”

And please read Galatians:

Galatians 3:12 “But the law is not based on faith; instead, the one who does these things will live by them.”

Why does all this matter? It matters because the call to believe and receive the sign of the work of Christ (baptism) is not the call of obedience to law. Or said another way, the call to reception is not the same as the call to legal conformity. ...the call to believe and receive the sign of the work of Christ (baptism) is not the call of obedience to law. Or said another way, the call to reception is not the same as the call to legal conformity. So to assume that being called to repent and believe and be baptized is a case for why in the covenant of grace there is a law/obedience conditionality is a false conclusion. Paul says that the law (principle) of works and the law (principle) of faith are different and distinct and not to be confused and confounded (Romans 3:27). You cannot see demands and conditions in the call to believe and assume that this is the conditional command of law, because it is explicitly stated to be different and distinct. The command to believe is not the command to conditionally obey the law of God; it is the command to obey the sufficiency of Christ active and passive vicarious law-keeping in a receptive/passive manner.

The Command and Call to Faith Is Instrumental Not Causal

Again often times, when we see the demand and call to salvation to involve the condition and call to faith, there is the assumption that faith is the human activity that causes or creates our redemption. Since texts in the bible tell us to believe and repent if we want to be saved, the logic is that there is a causal doing and condition meeting which exists in the covenant of grace in a similar way as there is in the covenant of law. In Paul's letter to the Ephesians:

Ephesians 2:8 “For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God's gift— 9 not from works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them.”

Note something really important here, and that is that faith is not the causal condition that saves, but simply the instrument which connects us to the work of Christ that saves. To those in the desert buckets do not save anyone, rather it is water that saves people. It is simply because the bucket is a passive-receptive instrument of a saving thing that makes it saving. It is not the condition of faith that causally saves us, rather faith is merely the condition which instrumentally connects us with Christ's work that saves in a causal sense. Faith saves us not in the sense that it is the obedient condition that causes the work of Christ to save; faith is the instrument that accompanies our salvation as it connects us to the works of Christ that save. Faith is not a work, nor is it an act of law obedience, it is an instrument that connects us to Christ's works. When people see the demand to believe as some sort of reason, to see faith as some act of law obedience which causally makes the grace of God effectual, they do so erroneously. Faith, repentance and the accompanying signs (baptism) are not the necessary conditions of obedience in the covenant of grace, rather they are the receptive instruments that connect us to the works that cause and ground our salvation, namely God's works in Christ. The faith that acts instrumentally in the covenant of grace is not the same kind of obedience in the covenant of works that is the causal instrument of our right status. Faith being a real act of obedience does not flatten it out to be a law condition which is necessary to be saved. The doings in scripture of faith to promises and obedience to law have a distinct function and meaning in the bible. Not all demands and commands are law commands simply because they are demands that call for something anymore than the call to lay on a table to be operated on is the same as the call to be the one operating on a person.

The Command and Call to Faith Surrounded by the Commands and Call to Law Does Not Mean That Calls to Law Are a Causal Condition That Ground the Covenant of Grace.

We have already used this passage before in our argumen, but I think that it proves useful to be used again here.

Genesis 17:1 “When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him, saying, ‘I am God Almighty. Live in My presence and be blameless. 2 I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you greatly.’ 3 Then Abram fell facedown and God spoke with him: 4 ‘As for Me, My covenant is with you: you will become the father of many nations. 5 Your name will no longer be Abram, but your name will be Abraham, for I will make you the father of many nations. 6 I will make you extremely fruitful and will make nations and kings come from you. 7 I will keep My covenant between Me and you, and your future offspring throughout their generations, as an everlasting covenant to be your God and the God of your offspring after you. 8 And to you and your future offspring I will give the land where you are residing—all the land of Canaan—as an eternal possession, and I will be their God.”

Here is what happens often in a text like this. We see God making his covenant promises to be received by faith and also in the same vicinity we see commands to obey the law of God. Side by side we see God's covenant commitments to us in Himself and the demand for His people to be committed. The thinking is that since God is making His covenant promises and commitments in the vicinity of making demands on us there is some sort of conditional obedience in the covenant of grace that is added to faith. That is almost like saying that since I can in the same conversation tell my child he is mine no matter what he does and conclude the conversation by demanding he do something implicitly means that doing does ground the family bond. Simply because law commands often times surround the conversation in the covenant of grace does not mean that those law commands are there to either perfect faith and or to lay out a law-keeping causality in the grace framework. Simply because law commands often times surround the conversation in the covenant of grace does not mean that those law commands are there to either perfect faith and or to lay out a law-keeping causality in the grace framework. Nowhere in Genesis 17 do we get the stated impression that Abraham's obedience is the condition necessary for the covenant bond of grace to be initiated and or kept. In actuality, if you read the text very closely God regularly claims full one-way responsibility for the covenant bond and its blessings with Abraham in the midst of God calling Abraham to godliness. Law conditions surrounding conversations pertaining to the unconditional covenant of grace does not constitute the logical necessity to create a causal conditionality to the covenant of grace. Saying that is is needed to believe it is done for you and to do as you believe does not necessarily mean that this doing is the parallel or complementary condition to the covenant bond. In the unconditional covenant of grace there is no law-keeping conditionality from the sinner which has anything to do with the ground for the covenant bond. Only the law keeping conditions of Christ ground and confirm and keep the bond. One can quote endless law commands that surround various covenant of grace conversations in the scriptures but cannot deduce from that, that in the covenant of grace there is a law condition of obedience which is the instrumental means to obtain or secure the convent bond and blessings.