Random Law and Gospel things

1. Hosea

Reading Hosea 1 last night I was painfully aware of my whoring after other gods. That I didn't believe Jesus was the source of all good and went looking for it elsewhere. That word of judgment felt so real, and so final, because I could see that the rest of my life I would just not stop repeating. But then God said "I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People 'You are my people'" (2:23). That word would have no comfort if you were not called Lo-ruhama ('No Mercy'). If God has mercy on you before then there is no word of mercy for you now. That is law and Gospel in action.

2. The cross drawing threads together

One thing that has always struck me about the OT is the finality of many of the pronouncements of punishment. So often it seems that this is not just discipline, this is judgment. It is not a warning of what may happen, but it is a dark promise of what is going to happen. And yet contradictions to these dark words always surface. This has always caused me a little bit of a problem. The doctrine of law and Gospel has helped sort this out for me. Mark Seifrid tends to put it better than most when he comments that there are different and contridictory words from God in the bible to us, but no resolution of them apart from in the event of Jesus' death and resurrection. For example in commenting on the Sander's characterisation of Second Temple Judaism as Covenantal Nomism he argues that Sanders' has actually reduced Second Temple Judaism to Covenantalism without the Nomism. In contrast in the past scholars have focused on the Nomism without the Covenantalism. "In other words in the rabbinic materials, 'covenantalism' (Sanders' 'covenantal nomism') stands alongside 'nomism' without the overarching synthesis which Sanders has proposed". "Rather than striving to produce a system in which all contradictions were eliminated, the rabbis view salvation from (at least) these two independent perspectives". Only in Jesus is there synthesis when "the election of Israel and the demand of the Law meet in Christ, the crucified and risen. The tension within early Jewish thought between grace and demand was resolved in an event, not a higher idea" (pp. 5-6, 'The "New Perspective on Paul" and Its Problems', Themelios, Issue 25-2

3. Law and Gospel as uses or effects

Something that has also helped me understand the doctrine of law and Gospel is the realisation that the same words in scripture can function as both. Stephen D. Paulson provides some helpful examples in a great essay (if you can get hold of it):

The two classic examples of this in Luther are his use of the first commandment and the proclamation of the cross and resurrection. "I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me" produces both fear and love, and in one word or phrase gives both law and gospel grammatically. Its function will depend upon the receiving of faith or the hearing apart from faith. One hears the "I am" as the basis for the "you shall," and the other vice versa.

By the same token, the proclamation of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, though one sermon or word, has very different effects. When Peter says, "let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified" (Acts 2:36), the hearers "were cut to the heart." A short time later, and in very different circumstances, the same sermon is preached and, "While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word" (Acts 10:44), and the hearers were heard extolling god in tongues.

(p.174, 'Law and Gospel: Two Preaching Offices", Dialog, Vol 39, No.3, Fall 2000)

4. Barth's Gospel-Law

One thing I have gathered in my limited reasoning is that Barth famously reversed the traditional order of law and Gospel. I have for the first time come across a hint of why, in his brilliant little book Dogmatics in Outline that I am reading:

Gospel and law are not to be separated; they are one, in such a way that the gospel is the primary thing, that the glad tidings are first in the field and, as such, include the law. Because God is for us, we may also be for Him. Because He has given Himself to us, we may also in gratitude give Him the trifle which we have to give. (p.19)

So the reversal comes from one of Barth's primary concerns that God reveals himself to us, and before that we can have nothing to do with him. God is gracious to reveal himself and so obviously before he does that the law doesn't come into it.

I am glad that I have the first inkling of what Barth was trying to get at.