Law-Gospel Preaching: Is It Dangerous?

There have been conversations in the Reformed Baptist world about law-gospel preaching and whether it is dangerous for a believer's assurance. Posts and videos have been circulating. I am not going to answer those directly.

I want to set out the historic understanding of law and gospel, then let our confession teach us how to preach assurance to the saints. Law-gospel distinction is not new, and it is not only Lutheran. It belongs to the Reformed faith. For my Reformed Baptist brothers, it is in our confession. It guides how we preach and how we read. It is not the only hermeneutic. Jesus himself uses it.

The concern I keep hearing is this. If you distinguish law and gospel, and you keep pointing people to their justification, you will never talk about obedience. People will wander. History will supply a failed preacher, and someone will say the theology produced the lifestyle.

Every movement has failed theologians. Paul already had to ask whether we should sin so that grace might abound, and he answered, "May it never be." When you preach grace as Scripture preaches it, that question comes up. Paul was not ashamed of the gospel, because he believed it was the power of God for the salvation of the entire person: forgiveness, sanctification, glorification. Not a ticket into a relationship, then a handoff to the flesh.

What We Mean by Law and Gospel

The gospel is the salvation of the whole person. He who began a good work in you will complete it. We look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Grace appeared as a person. He was sinless, so he could be our substitute. He was also righteous. God's law does not ask for a clean slate. It demands perfection, perpetual and continual. James says that if you fail in one point, you fail in all. Jesus did not fail in one jot.

Sanctification is Christ's work too. We have agency. We do the good works. When Scripture names the power, God is the one who pulls out the heart of stone, puts in a heart of flesh, and causes us to walk in his ways. The works were prepared beforehand, right after "not by works, lest any man should boast." If he began the work, he continues it. Romans 8 runs from calling through glorification. A power outside ourselves completes the whole Christian life. You see that power in good works. Good works are inevitable and wonderful. Christians can also have long seasons of obedience, and of disobedience. Our confession will say so.

The good news is that Christ is sufficient to save the whole person, and by faith that reality is yours.

The law is the requirement. I believe in the third use of the law. Once you are in Christ, the law does not come to condemn you. To the rich young ruler who asked what he must do to inherit, Jesus said, keep the commandments. That use of the law crushes us, because we cannot keep it perfectly. After the Spirit lives in you, the law remains, but your relationship to it has changed. Your inadequacies are covered by Christ. Hebrews says it is impossible to please him without faith. We seek to obey, and we do it imperfectly. Our goal is to be like Christ.

So how do we preach? Do we emphasize obedience so that people will turn to obedience? Or do we tell them who they are in Christ, then point them to obedience and say, go and do likewise?

Paul calls the first move witchcraft. Mix the law back into the gospel and you attribute the power of God to something else. You began by faith in Jesus Christ. You continue that way. You do not use law-obedience to change the heart. Fruit of the Spirit means Christ is doing the work.

John writes that what we will be has not yet appeared, and everyone who hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. The hope is in him. When the fruits are lacking in 2 Peter, Peter does not call their salvation into question. He says they have forgotten they were cleansed from their former sins. They were not in opposition to him. They were not obeying. He points them back to Christ.

Paul called the Corinthians elect brothers while he planned to come and preach the gospel to them, because that is what would straighten them out. He also gave them a great deal of law. The foundation is Christ first.

Here is the illustration I use. If I give you instructions to my house, those instructions cannot get you there. They can only tell you where to go. You need some power besides the map. Once you are a believer, Christ is the power. The law is the instructions. We do not use the law to motivate us. We use the law to guide us, because our hearts are still sinful and we have not yet been transformed.

Founded on the Blood and Righteousness of Christ

Chapter 18.2 of the 1689, on assurance of grace and salvation, says this certainty is not a bare conjectural and probable persuasion grounded upon a fallible hope, but an infallible assurance of faith, founded on the blood and righteousness of Christ revealed in the gospel, and also upon the inward evidence of those graces of the Spirit unto which promises are made, and on the testimony of the Spirit of adoption, witnessing with our spirit that we are the children of God; and as a fruit thereof, keeping the heart both humble and holy.

The framers give more than one gift. They use the word "founded" once. It is founded upon Christ, not upon the graces. If the foundation is not Christ, the house crumbles. Your involvement is not at the foundation. The way we preach should reflect that.

The other two are gifts we did not merit. The inward evidences of the Spirit include faith itself. Faith is a gift, Ephesians 2, not of works, lest any man should boast. Then the Spirit of adoption witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God. Christ covers sin and supplies righteousness. The Spirit gives faith. The Spirit testifies, you are adopted, because your faith is in that foundation. Even if you try to find assurance in your faith, your faith is not your own.

Chapter 16.3: "Their ability to do good works is not at all of themselves, but wholly from the Spirit of Christ; and that they may be enabled thereunto, besides the graces they have already received, there is necessary an actual influence of the same Holy Spirit, to work in them to will and to do of his good pleasure."

They are quoting Philippians 2:13. Galatians 5:22 calls this fruit of the Spirit. Ephesians 2 says the works were prepared beforehand. If there is fruit, it is evidence of what is already happening in you. Faith produces the fruit.

Obedience is the Fruit of this Assurance

Chapter 18.3 says it is the duty of everyone to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure, that thereby his heart may be enlarged in peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, in love and thankfulness to God, and in strength and cheerfulness in the duties of obedience, the proper fruits of this assurance; so far is it from inclining men to looseness.

The confession wants holiness. Paul wanted holiness. "May it never be" is in the Bible because grace, preached properly, raises the question. Cheerfulness in the duties of obedience is the proper fruit of assurance. Good works flow from being assured of your position in Christ. They do not flow from preaching the law as fear.

2 Peter 1:10 sits right after 1:9. You have forgotten you were cleansed from your former sins. Therefore be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. Confirm, not establish. He does not tell you to establish your election by your obedience. Verse 3 already said his divine power has granted you all things that pertain to life and godliness. Because you have that power, go produce fruit. If you are not producing fruit, you have forgotten. The cycle keeps returning to Christ, and to the evidence of Christ in you, which is faith.

Strengthen is not the Whole of 16.2

Do our good works affect our assurance? Yes. The sentence people quote is not in the chapter on assurance. It is in the chapter on good works, 16.2, and it is about what good works are for.

These good works, done in obedience to God's commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith. And by them believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the gospel, stop the mouths of the adversaries, and glorify God, whose workmanship they are, created in Christ Jesus thereunto, that having their fruit unto holiness they may have the end, eternal life.

That paragraph is not about establishing assurance. It is a list of the purposes of good works. Thankfulness. Strengthen their assurance. Edify the brethren. Adorn the gospel. Stop adversaries. Glorify God. Six. Five of them look outward. One of them is inward. Isolating "strengthen their assurance" from the rest of that list is pietistic. It matches revivalistic preaching, which is why we reach for it.

You cannot strengthen what is not there. Strengthen means it is already founded and held up by something else. When I am glorifying God, obeying him, and edifying my brothers, I am encouraged by what God is doing in me. I can feel the Spirit's power. That does strengthen my faith. It is still a work of Christ. Living a holy life is better for you, for me, and for God's glory than living an unholy life. I tell people that all the time. That is the positive use of 16.2.

The concern, though, is the person who is not obeying. Someone who objects to God's law and claims there are no consequences is not a believer. What about the person who agrees the law is right and has found himself trapped in sin? Galatians 6:1. James 5.

When True Christians Fall

Chapter 18.4: true believers may have the assurance of their salvation divers ways shaken, diminished, and intermitted, as by negligence in preserving of it, by falling into some special sin which woundeth the conscience and grieveth the Spirit, by some sudden or vehement temptation, by God's withdrawing the light of his countenance, and suffering even such as fear him to walk in darkness and to have no light. Yet they are never destitute of the seed of God and life of faith, that love of Christ and the brethren, that sincerity of heart and conscience of duty, out of which, by the operation of the Spirit, this assurance may in due time be revived, and by which in the meantime they are preserved from utter despair.

Neglect here is neglect of the foundation. We have stopped proclaiming Christ for you. If we are not feeding assurance with Christ, disobedience comes out, and it wounds the conscience. Many Christians have been there. They start to wonder if they are even his. The confession says they are never destitute of the seed of God and the life of faith, because they were never saved or sanctified by their works. The Spirit preserves them from utter despair.

Chapter 5.5, on providence: the most wise, righteous, and gracious God doth oftentimes leave for a season his own children to manifold temptations and the corruptions of their own hearts, to chastise them for former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled, and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for other just and holy ends. So that whatsoever befalls any of his elect is by his appointment, for his glory, and their good.

Oftentimes. The framers did not treat this as rare. He is talking about his own children, his elect. They are not on trial while we wait to see how the story ends. God may let a saint feel the power of the flesh so that he will depend on Christ more closely.

Chapter 17.1: those whom God hath accepted in the beloved, effectually called and sanctified by his Spirit, and given the precious faith of his elect unto, can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved, seeing the gifts and callings of God are without repentance, from which he still begets and nourisheth in them faith, repentance, love, joy, hope, and all the graces of the Spirit unto immortality. He is the one nourishing faith in them. If we are not obeying, the heart and mind have turned from what he is doing, and the fruit of assurance is not showing.

Chapter 17.3: though they may, through the temptation of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins, and for a time continue therein, whereby they incur God's displeasure and grieve his Holy Spirit, have their graces and comforts impaired, their hearts hardened, their consciences wounded, hurt and scandalize others, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves, yet shall they renew their repentance and be preserved through faith in Christ Jesus to the end.

That is what unholiness costs. Hard heart. Wounded conscience. Scandal. Temporal judgment. Notice where the paragraph lives. Perseverance of the saints. Even there, they are renewed in repentance and preserved through faith in Christ. Not through a louder sermon on fear of the law.

The law still tells them what they should be doing. They know they are not doing it. How do they get back? Look to Christ. Turning your mind off of Jesus is how you turn toward sin. That is why we proclaim Christ and all his benefits, week in and week out.

Do not be Ashamed of this Gospel

I think we have taken the supernatural out of the gospel and put the power back in the flesh. The proclaimed message, believed, is the power of God unto salvation for the entire person. I am not ashamed of that. Satan wants the emphasis on our obedience instead of Christ's. If someone is not obeying, it is a faith issue. They have put their faith, in part, on something else. Jesus told Peter he was thinking worldly, not spiritually, right after Peter confessed him as the Christ.

Titus 3:4-8: when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I wants you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.

He does not even say "for your assurance." He says they are profitable for people. That is the confession's list in 16.2.

Galatians 3:3: having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? What changes you is not a louder command to do. What changes you is what you are believing, and that empowers you to do.

Romans 1:16: I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

We need to encourage people to obey. The great commandments are to love God and love your neighbor. 1 John tells you how that love works: we love because he first loved us. You cannot remove the order. God establishes his life in you. The fruit and evidence is that you love God and love others. Obedience is the outflow of faith, which is the outflow of assurance. The confession says good works can strengthen assurance. They are not the foundation.

Let us not emphasize one phrase in the chapter on good works and set aside the chapters on assurance and perseverance, where the focus is Christ. When Paul says examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith, he is not giving an obedience inventory. He is talking to people who were entertaining another gospel than the one he preached. 2 Peter 1:10 is still sitting after "you have forgotten that you were cleansed," and after "his divine power has granted you all things." If you look at your life and see no works, go back to where the works come from. Do not send them to effort, or to fear. The foundation is Christ's blood and righteousness, through the evidences of the Spirit in you.

I want holiness in my church. I want holiness in yours. We agree more than we disagree. Let us not be ashamed of the supernatural power of the preached gospel. The preaching of Christ to the ears of the believer assures the heart. The fruit of that assurance is obedience. That is what the text says. That is what our confession has believed for hundreds of years.

If you want more, I walk through this in *The Bible According to Jesus*, including a chapter that introduces law-gospel distinction. If you need a copy, tell us. We will give you one.

Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhQjFIYWefI

Related video: [Do you keep his commandments? - 1 John 2:4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtbnooVDagg).