The gospel is law-shaped

I wrote an earlier post titled “No, “love God, love others” is not the Christian message”, explaining how telling people to love God and others is telling them to obey the law, which is not the message of the Christian religion at all. It is thus strange for the present follow-up to be titled as it is.

Yet the gospel is shaped in the law, by the law and for the law, and for these reasons, we must confess that the gospel, that centrepiece of the Christian message, is indeed law-shaped.

Shaped in the law

The gospel makes no sense whatsoever divorced from the context of the law. With the law, sin is identified (Rom 7:7) and transgressions increased (Rom 5:20). Only with the condemnation that the law brings, does it make sense to speak of a deliverance from this condemnation. Only after Adam sinned by transgressing the command of God, did the proto-gospel come in the form of a cryptic message: the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent (Gen 3:12). Only when we are made aware of how much the law cannot save, are we given the promise that God has done what the law could not do (Rom 8:3).

Therefore, the gospel is shaped in the law, for it is only in the context of the law hanging like a sword over the heads of lawbreakers, does salvation sound sweet and amazing, a soothing balm that proclaims the forgiveness of trespasses.

Shaped by the law

The gospel is also shaped by the law, since its crux is that the law must be obeyed for salvation, only that someone has graciously obeyed it for us. The gospel did not abolish the law as though it was unnecessary for salvation; on the contrary, it is absolutely necessary for the meriting of eternal life. What the gospel promises is that rather you earn merit for yourself by your own obedience (which is impossible if you ever disobeyed once), Christ has done it all for you.

We are saved by obedience to the law – Christ’s obedience on our behalf. Had He not so long ago stood in my place under the wrath of God due unto my disobedience, and then imputed His obedience to me when I believed in Him, there is no redemption for me. The gospel of Christ’s work for us is shaped by His vicarious obedience to the law, for without it, there is no gospel.

Shaped for the law

Most practically, however, is the fact that the gospel is shaped for the law. The law is not done away by the gospel – although it is true that we are saved by grace through faith and not of works (Eph 2:8-9), in the same breath, it is just as true that we are saved for good works that we should walk in them (Eph 2:10). In other words, the gospel that saves us by the free gift of Jesus Christ saves us for obedience to the law.

It was Bavinck who so succinctly put:

What Bavinck and all the other Reformed understood rightly, was that the gospel does not overthrow the law (Rom 3:31), but upholds it, removing it from its conditional context and making it simply a “rule of life”. The New Covenant did not involve the complete disapplication of the law in the lives of the people, but rather, the writing of the law into their hearts (Jer 31:33). The Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 19.6:

The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith (the superior confession) also uses the exact same wording in its equivalent chapter to describe the use of the law in the life of the believer. Paul calls the believer a “slave of righteousness” (Rom 6:18), one so freed from obedience for salvation, but so freed to obedience for joy.

The imperative to obey the law post-justification is so present in myriad places of Scripture (Matt 7:21; John 14:15; Rom 3:31; 6:1; 6:15-23; 13:8-14; Gal 5:22-24; Eph 2:10; Phil 2:12-13; Col 3:5; Jas 1:22; 1 John 2:17), that it was clearly unthinkable for the Apostles that a believer should be saved, and then continue to pursue disobedience.

The gospel saves people from condemnation under the law and saves them for delight in the law, for in the law the believer now sees the holiness of God reflected through it and rejoices in it. The gospel is shaped for the law, as God continues to make in His Spirit a people of lawkeepers remade in the image of the great Lawkeeper (Rom 8:29).

Love God, love others

So we have to tell people that they must love God and love others – to do so is to obey the law. But we must not tell them that without first telling them the impossibility of obedience, and the good news of a vicarious obedience wrought for them.

The gospel is shaped in the law, by the law and for the law. When we look at the gospel and just how intrinsically the law features in it, moulds it and gives it its context, it is necessary to conclude that though the law is not the Christian message, the Christian message is indeed in the shape of the law.