I agree that the paradigm is highly valuable and, indeed, critical to a proper understanding and experience of the Christian faith. My problem was only with it being used in the wrong way and at the wrong time, turning it into something of “blunt instrument” to assault blameless texts. But I think we’re probably in agreement on that.

So you plan to publish your Sasse and Giertz translations? Two of my favourite Lutheran writers!

Thanks for helping me to more clearly understand the proper uses of the law/gospel paradigm as it relates to how biblical passages should be understood.

As I’ve said before, this stuff can(at least for me)be a little confusing.

Here’s not only what I have been taught, but with each passing day I see it to be more true in my own life and in others’ insomuch as I’m able to observe:

More than a grid laid over scripture for it’s distinctions(I’m sure there are those that employ law/gospel that way, especially early in their awareness of it), I’ve found that it is a force that God uses(on me)to bring about His will.

I think that’s what Bror (forgive me Bror) and I are arguing is that when the distinctions are blurred, trouble is sure to follow.

For example, Jesus washes us to show He comes as a servant and that is what He expects us to be. Do we as followers of Christ, indwelled by His spirit,not know that servanthood is our calling?
We know what we should do. The law is written upon our hearts. We just will not to do it… except for the odd tip o’ the hat every now and then.

So when we recieve instruction on how we ought act, think, or feel, from a particular passage of scripture, can this instruction ever make us better Christians, in light of Jesus’ telling us that we have already been washed (by Him)? I say No. We can’t become, or do we need to become better Christians, and since all our righteous deeds are as filthy rags anyway, the point is amplified. Jesus’ washing of us, on the cross and in our baptisms, is enough.

So what then of our washing the feet of others?

It is strictly for the benefit of others.

When we read passages in isolation from law/gospel we make princilples out of them and principles are another term for law and the law kills. St. Paul calls the Ten Commandments, “the ministry of death” (2nd Corinthians)

Around these parts, you’ve got preachers all over the place running around calling the gospel the law and the law the gospel.
“If you wanna be a better Christian, you do this…” “It says right here in 1st Smithsonians 7 that if you’re gonna be what Jesus wants you to be than you’d better stop doing this…”

When a person enters a church door, he is on fire..with the self (what he’s done, or is doing, or what he will yet do… ).
Instead of putting the fire out with the proper use of the law (to kill him off to the self), the preacher throws gasoline on the fire by using the law as biblical principles for living. “Do this and…”. The onus has now shifted back to you.

The imperative should crush us. Unless of course, it’s softened or watered down to.. “try your best, or as much as humanly possible.” “yada yada yada”.

If you think you’re “doing alright” with an imperative then you haven’t been sufficiently crushed. How then, is the gospel to go to work on you? You’re forcing God to paint on a used canvas. God wants to kill you!

“A new commandment I give you, love one another, as you’ve been loved”

That tells me what to do (as if I didn’t already know it). More than that, it puts out my fire, and brings to bear…His fire.

Thanks Michael!
(I promise no more comments on this subject…for awhile)

- Steve

Nor do I think the law/gospel distinction is one of using different coloured highlighter pens to mark off the verses which are “law” and the verses which are “gospel”.

Rather, as I see it the law/gospel distinction operates as follows:

1. Law and gospel are two great overarching themes, two great overall messages, of Scripture. The Bible as a whole teaches law and proclaims the gospel.

2. Law and gospel are, supremely, concerned with the pastoral application of Scripture. That is, once we have worked out what the Bible says, we then need to understand how it is to be used: namely, to proclaim a message of “repentance and the forgiveness of sins”.

But that means we can still be sensitive to the subtleties of what any particular text is saying. We don’t need to say, “Ah! An imperative! Right, that would be ‘law’ then, so the speaker/writer’s intention is to crush people with the terrors of the law before comforting them with the gospel”. It’s quite likely the speaker’s aim was nothing of the sort, as I’m sure is the case with Jesus in John 13.

However, in terms of how that passage is applied in pastoral practice, the wider message of law and gospel has great value. Jesus’ aim in the footwashing episode was not to thunder the law in its “second use”. However, in pastoral practice people will either be, or need to be, aware both of their failure to live up to Jesus’ words, and of his continuing love and forgiveness for them. But that’s a conclusion we reach after interpreting the text on its own terms, not before.

I am a relative newby when it comes to this law and gospel stuff. Less than 10 years (a Lutheran).
But I can say this; just when I think I’ve got a handle on it, my old Adam rears his ugly head and blows the whole thing all to hell.

More than a paradigm for reading scripture, I think it is a tool of God to actually do to us what His Word wills.

I’m reminded of St. Paul when he says in 1st Corinithians “that for those of us who are being saved…”

The dying (to self) that the law accomplishes, and being raised to new life by the gospel, is a life long process that God does to us by this means of Law and Gospel.

For me, it is really not something that I can understand and then move on to some other theological concept. I’ve got to live in it. And die in it. But the best part of it (if you can even look at it that way) is that God handles it all from His end. His Word does not return void, but accomplishes that for which it was intended.

I do find myself doing exactly what you said, saying to myself, “Is this law, or is it gospel?.”
If you are constantly left with only a list of actions and or feelings that you ought be mustering up, then there will be no gospel there, and hence no freedom and no life.

Thanks for your comments Bror. It’s nice to get another’s perspective on it. Ninety five percent of the nice folks in our small congregation don’t care one wit about this stuff one way or the other, so it’s good to find someone who knows what I’m talking about… even if I don’t!

- Steve