05-4 Theology of the..

8 LOGIA
selves to return to paradise. Moral necessity coupled with the
threat of death will not generate either love or trust in God.
Attempts to enlist the law to do so will only generate a false selfrighteousness
or full-scale rebellion.
The truth about us seen in the law at full strength is painfully
hard to receive. All of our pride and sense of fleshly well-being is
crushed by the verdict it pronounces. It pushes us to a level of
self-honesty that we know would spell the end to all our selfmade
“I’m-doing-O.K.” faces. It destroys all plans and pretensions
of self-justification by doing our duty. The law condemns
us! We can be easily tempted to turn away from the full impact of
the law and try to negotiate with its demands. Some popular ways
include making the demands of the law into goals as if the law is
saying, “Become the person who can love God with all heart,
mind, and soul, and neighbor as self, and you will live.” Another
is, “Make steady improvement in the art of loving and you will
live.” And, of course, there is the popular old standby, “Be more
loving then most of the people you know and you will live.”
All of these pretentious evasions deny the full thrust of the law,
which proclaims that if we have not already and always been loving
God with everything that is in us and other humans as ourselves,
then we are dead in our trespasses already. Dead people cannot
do anything; they are out of the running! This is the curse of
the law (Gal 3:10). To finally hear this chilling truth from the God
who pronounces it places the sinner under the wrath of God at a
critical juncture. Either the sinner will become infuriated or broken.
Either one will say from the heart, “To hell with the law!”
and run from God to greater levels of loveless rebellion, or God
will turn the individual down the crushing road of repentance.
Here he wants to fashion the humble, honest face that can meet
the gracious God who saves. It is a face that recognizes the need
for righteousness, love, and unconditional acceptance. God meets
these needs in the gospel by clothing our barren and sinful condition
with the righteousness of Christ and recreating our face and
our whole spiritual being into a likeness of his Son. Through faith
in Christ we now have a face fit not simply to meet our God, but
to belong to him in love as his bride forever.
THE CHEMISTRY OF LAW AND GOSPEL
Most of us who have taken Chemistry 101 in high school or college
can recall that there is an interesting polarity in chemical
substances. Some are acidic to various degrees and others are
alkaline or base in nature. Water apparently is neutral. Perhaps we
also remember what happens if we mix acid into an alkaline solution
or visa versa. Each has the effect of weakening the strength of
the other, and if enough is added, eventually it will neutralize the
entire strength of the solution. And water, as we know, is the universal
solvent. It dilutes the strength of both. I’m no chemist, but
perhaps we could say that if we need full-strength acid, alkaline
solutions are hazardous if mixed in. They will contaminate by
producing a neutralizing effect, and the same the other way
around. Moreover, if, for example, we need both full-strength
acid and alkaline solutions, water could be considered a contaminant
because of its effect of diluting the strength of both.
There are some useful contact points here for understanding
the nature and ministry of God’s law and gospel. I do not know
who the chemist was who is responsible for discovering the dual-
ity and polarity of substances in terms of base and acid and their
effects upon one another. But it was especially the insight of
Luther that refreshed western Christian thinking by the rediscovery
that God’s word is rightly understood and divided by distinguishing
between two different words or ministries of God, law
and gospel. This is the central key that unlocks the true meaning
of the Scriptures and enables us to hear the voice of God through
them aright. From Genesis to Revelation, God addresses us in
some places with a word that is law and other places with gospel.
And like base and acidic solutions, each has its own unique properties
and characteristics that God might accomplish his purposes
with us through them, yet each also has the power to contaminate
and neutralize the other if they are mixed. Kept separate and at
full strength, however, they are powerful and potent instruments
that, when properly applied, carry out all of the things that God
would accomplish in our lives for our ultimate salvation.
We know from our own experience and from history that the
right words spoken at the right time to the right people can
have amazing and powerful effects for good and ill. As the wise
proverb says, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” By the right
word under the right conditions whole nations and peoples
have been moved to accomplish what was thought to have been
impossible. Think of the famous words of John Paul Jones during
the American Revolution, or the inspiring words of Winston
Churchill during the Battle of Britain. Or think of the simple
words “I love you,” magically spoken at the right time and place,
which transformed the life of an indifferent beloved, creating a
love-relationship that everyone including the beloved thought
impossible. But now the beloved sheepishly and with much chagrin
confesses, “I don’t know what happened, but I have fallen
in love.”
We know the power of mere human words. Imagine by comparison
the incredible power that God’s word possesses. The
entire universe was created by it! The Lord tells us that it never
returns to him void, but always accomplishes the purposes for
which he sends it forth (Is 55:11). He has entrusted his powerful
Word of law and gospel to us. We would be his arms, legs, and
mouth to proclaim his Word of law and gospel, through which he
meets sinners face to face for their salvation (Mt 28:20; Jn 15:27).
The crucial thing, however, is that these words must be delivered
unmixed and at full strength, or potency is diminished, the power
is neutralized, and the true face of God as he would reveal himself
to us evaporates.
Full-Strength Law
Let’s examine this more closely beginning with law, God’s
preparatory meeting and ministry for the saving encounter
through the gospel. The law is always preliminary and preparatory.
Full-strength and pure law is the unconditional demand first
to love God with all our heart, mind, and soul. This demand, as
Luther recognized, means that we are to “fear, love, and trust in
God above all things.” Second, the law demands that we love others
when they enter our circle of nearness as we love ourselves.
This fully potent law is to be poured into the hearts and minds of
complacent sinners to produce the awareness of moral and spiritual
bankruptcy—the checkmate of “I must” joined to “I don’t
and I can’t.” Remember, God’s purpose here is to reveal his just