The Law or the Gospel?

Sometimes, we hear a distinction made in the church about whether we’re going to preach or be concerned about the law or the gospel. Notice how I said that: the law or the gospel. When, if we look at the Scriptures, the concern there is for the law and the gospel. Law and gospel are both vitally important for the life of the church and for the individual Christian. Martin Luther once said, “Had it not been for the law, I never would have known my need for the gospel. I never would have seen the sweetness of the gospel were I not exposed to the dreadful punishments of the law.” And the cavalier attitude we have to the gospel today—our willingness to compromise it, to negotiate it or to ignore it—I believe is inseparably bound up with our ignorance of the law of God.