This is a follow-up to The Law as Restraint, Revelation, and Order, and another next step in the argument: the proper distinction between Law and Gospel is the proper distinction between Law and Gospel narrowly defined. For there is no law of the New Testament but the Gospel, widely defined. The Kingdom, narrowly defined, is the Son of David incarnate. Everything He said was Gospel, the Gospel, and that is the wide definition of the word gospel in the Bible. And so the proper distinction between Law and Gospel, being narrow as it is, ought not be used as a hermeneutical key in any realistic way when doing exegesis. It is dangerous.
The proper distinction, as presented in the Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration V, is not that the words law or gospel are a particularly glorious light, but that the distinction between command and promise is a particularly glorious light. To confuse this with the words law or gospel, permanently replacing the wide sense with the narrow sense of these Biblical words, is a devious error.
Two Levels of Discourse
The distinction between Law and Gospel is proper precisely because it is narrow. Its purpose is to distinguish what the divine Law demands, reveals, and accomplishes from what the Gospel promises, bestows, and accomplishes through Jesus Christ. But the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not narrow.
The Gospel, broadly understood, is the proclamation of the Kingdom of God in the incarnate Son of David. It includes His teaching, His commandments, His judgments, His parables, His miracles, His death, His resurrection, and His reign. Everything Jesus Christ said belongs to this Gospel in its broad, biblical sense, even when a particular utterance functions as Law in the narrow, dogmatic sense.
The distinction therefore concerns two different levels of theological discourse. The narrow distinction identifies the respective operations of Law and Gospel within the proclamation. The broad meaning identifies the proclamation itself, the coming and establishment of the Kingdom in Jesus Christ. To impose the narrow distinction upon the broad proclamation as its governing hermeneutical principle risks subordinating the words of Jesus Christ to a theological classification that was developed to serve those words. The distinction is a servant of exegesis, not its master.
The Confession Already Grants the Premise
The strongest evidence for this argument is not merely biblical. It is explicitly confessional. The Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article V, paragraphs 3–6, recognizes the two meanings of Gospel. It states that Gospel in its broad sense encompasses the entire teaching of Jesus Christ, including the explanation of the Law and the proclamation of divine grace. In its strict sense, Gospel refers specifically to the proclamation of grace and forgiveness.
This establishes something important: the Formula itself recognizes a legitimate use of the word Gospel apart from the strict Law–Gospel distinction. This argument therefore need not dispute the confessional distinction. It challenges an exaggerated application of that distinction which neglects the Formula's own explanation of its scope.
Article V also calls the distinction a brilliant light. That light is the distinction between command and promise. The error is to fuse that light to the words law and gospel, so that the narrow sense of gospel permanently replaces the wide.
One Level Further
The previous article established that the Law is not exhausted by accusation. It restrains evil, reveals evil, and teaches good. In the regenerate, its instructional use describes the ordering of a life already made free by Jesus Christ. This argument advances one level further. If Law itself has multiple uses, and Gospel itself has a broad and narrow definition, then a hermeneutic that begins by sorting every statement into two mutually exclusive categories risks flattening both.
Consider the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus Christ teaches, commands, judges, promises, blesses, and reveals the character of His Kingdom. The narrow distinction can illuminate the operations of particular statements. But it cannot, by itself, account for the meaning of the sermon as a unified proclamation of the King. The exegete must first hear what Jesus Christ is saying, to whom He is speaking, within what covenantal and historical circumstances, and toward what end. Only then can the narrow theological distinction properly illuminate the text.
The same principle applies to the apostolic writings. Their exhortations are not intrusions of Law into an otherwise Gospel-free territory. They belong to the apostolic proclamation of the Kingdom and its life, even where the Law is properly distinguished within that proclamation.
The Deeper Principle
This proposal identifies a potential reversal of theological authority. Exegesis gives rise to doctrine. Doctrine subsequently helps preserve the interpreter from error. But doctrine must never replace the actual hearing of Scripture. A confessional distinction can become a hermeneutical presupposition so comprehensive that the reader no longer permits the text to determine its own categories.
In that situation, the interpreter does not merely distinguish Law and Gospel. He begins to interpret everything as an instance of the distinction. The Kingdom becomes secondary. The incarnation becomes a premise. The commandments become problems requiring classification. The promises become answers to those problems. And the actual words of the King can disappear beneath the interpretive machinery. That is the danger.
Classification and Revelation
One further line of inquiry is especially significant: the distinction between a hermeneutic of classification and a hermeneutic of revelation. Classification asks whether a particular statement is Law or Gospel. Revelation asks what Jesus Christ is making known. These are not incompatible questions. But they are not equal in scope. The latter must govern the former, because Jesus Christ is the subject of the revelation, not the product of our classification.
The proper distinction between Law and Gospel is the distinction between Law and Gospel narrowly defined. This article is not a denial of the distinction. It is a defense of its proper limits.
For the Gospel, broadly defined, is the entire proclamation of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of David, concerning the coming and establishment of His Kingdom. It includes His commands, His judgments, His instruction, His promises, His death, His resurrection, and His reign. The Gospel in this broad sense is not reducible to the Gospel in its narrow, dogmatic sense.
The Formula of Concord explicitly recognizes both usages. It therefore provides its own warning against the unwarranted expansion of the narrower distinction into an exhaustive system of biblical interpretation.
The distinction between command and promise is indispensable for distinguishing what God demands from what God gives, what condemns from what forgives, and what instructs from what creates the new life.
But this does not make the words law and gospel, in their narrow sense, the governing hermeneutic of Holy Scripture. For Scripture does not exist to demonstrate the distinction between command and promise. The distinction exists to serve the proclamation of Scripture. That proclamation is Jesus Christ.
Consequently, the proper distinction must remain proper. It must not become a prior interpretive necessity imposed upon every sentence, every command, every promise, and every description of the Kingdom. The Law may restrain, reveal, and instruct without ceasing to be Law. The Gospel may proclaim the whole Kingdom without ceasing to be Gospel in its broad biblical sense. To confuse these levels of discourse is not to preserve the distinction. It is to misuse it.
The distinction must serve the Word. The Word must never be made to serve the distinction.
