The following is from David P. Scaer, Law and Gospel
and the Means of Grace, pp. 4-5 (The Luther Academy: St. Louis, 2008).
According to a confessional Lutheran understanding, the
law lays down God's requirements or regulations in such a way that sinful people
by themselves cannot fulfill them. Those who understand the law's message in
this way are aware they face eternal death for which there is no relief. Such
preaching of the law leads them to repent of their sins with sorrow and
contrition. In what appears to be a contradiction God offers in the gospel the
sweet hope of salvation in Jesus Christ. The gospel creates faith, which in turn
lays hold of Christ who is present in this proclamation, and by this faith the
believer accepts the promises of eternal bliss with Him. Law and gospel are as
complementary as they are dissonant. To use Fagerberg's words, 'Both cooperation
and tension are found to exist between law and gospel.' Preaching the law
without the gospel leads to despair and hopelessness. Without the prior
proclamation of the law, the gospel cannot be appreciated or its terms
understood, and therefore cannot accomplish its intended purpose. However, their
mutual dependence on each other does not erase their contradictory messages,
namely, that what one demands the other gives. Law confronts human beings in the
condition of their sins and alienation from God, and gospel offers a completed
salvation in Jesus Christ. Both are equally valid words of God, which when
preached in tandem make Christians aware that they are sinners and God's
redeemed children at the same time. This is known in Lutheran theology as the
simul iustus et peccator, "at the same time justified and sinner." Only
death relieves Christians from the agonizing contradiction that they find within
themselves. In the same moment they are condemned by the law and forgiven by the
gospel. Since the law and the gospel penetrate our inner being and uncover who
and what we really are, no other Christian doctrine is as existential as this
one. By it we learn not only about the God who condemns and saves, but about
ourselves as accountable to God and still redeemed by Him. In addition it sets
the terms for how all articles of the Christian faith are to be preached and
believed.
From this we glean that, in the theological meanings of the
words "law" and "gospel", we are confronted by:
-
two equally valid words of God
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two words that are
-
contradictory, disonant, in tension
-
complementary, mutually dependent, cooperating
-
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law
-
undoable
-
condemnation
-
death without relief
-
exposure
-
sinners
-
-
gospel
-
gift (what the law demands, the gospel gives)
-
hope of salvation
-
faith created by God acting in his word, not by any power of ours
-
eternal bliss with God
-
saints
-
So on this side of the grave we are sinner-saints,
continually in existential tension under the two words, and understanding all
other words in the light of these two words.
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