OF THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL

1] As the distinction between the Law and the Gospel is a special brilliant light, which serves to the end

that God’s Word may be rightly divided, and the Scriptures of the holy prophets and apostles may be

properly explained and understood, we must guard it with especial care, in order that these two doctrines

may not be mingled with one another, or a law be made out of the Gospel, whereby the merit of Christ is

obscured and troubled consciences are robbed of their comfort, which they otherwise have in the holy

Gospel when it is preached genuinely and in its purity, and by which they can support themselves in their

most grievous trials against the terrors of the Law.

2] Now, here likewise there has occurred a dissent among some theologians of the Augsburg Confession;

for the one side asserted that the Gospel is properly not only a preaching of grace, but at the same time

also a preaching of repentance, which rebukes the greatest sin, namely, unbelief. But the other side held

and contended that the Gospel is not properly a preaching of repentance or of reproof [preaching of

repentance, convicting sin], as that properly belongs to God’s Law, which reproves all sins, and therefore

unbelief also; but that the Gospel is properly a preaching of the grace and favor of God for Christ’s sake,

through which the unbelief of the converted, which previously inhered in them, and which the Law of

God reproved, is pardoned and forgiven.

3] Now, when we consider this dissent aright, it has been caused chiefly by this, that the term Gospel is

not always employed and understood in one and the same sense, but in two ways, in the Holy Scriptures,

as also by ancient and modern church teachers. 4] For sometimes it is employed so that there is

understood by it the entire doctrine of Christ, our Lord, which He proclaimed in His ministry upon earth,

and commanded to be proclaimed in the New Testament, and hence comprised in it the explanation of

the Law and the proclamation of the favor and grace of God, His heavenly Father, as it is written, Mark

1, 1: The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And shortly afterwards the chief heads

are stated: Repentance and forgiveness of sins. Thus, when Christ after His resurrection commanded the

apostles to preach the Gospel in all the world, Mark 16, 15, He compressed the sum of this doctrine into

a few words, when He said, Luke 24, 46. 47: Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and

to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His

name among all nations. So Paul, too, calls his entire doctrine the Gospel, Acts 20, 21; but he embraces

the sum of this doctrine under the two heads: Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus

Christ. 5] And in this sense the generalis definitio, that is, the description of the word Gospel, when

employed in a wide sense and without the proper distinction between the Law and the Gospel is correct,

when it is said that the Gospel is a preaching of repentance and the remission of sins. For John, Christ,

and the apostles began their preaching with repentance and explained and urged not only the gracious

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promise of the forgiveness of sins, but also the Law of God. 6] Furthermore the term Gospel is employed

in another, namely, in its proper sense, by which it comprises not the preaching of repentance, but only

the preaching of the grace of God, as follows directly afterwards, Mark 1, 15, where Christ says: Repent,

and believe the Gospel.

7] Likewise the term repentance also is not employed in the Holy Scriptures in one and the same sense.

For in some passages of Holy Scripture it is employed and taken for the entire conversion of man, as

Luke 13, 5: Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. And in 15, 7: Likewise joy shalt be in heaven

over one sinner that repenteth. 8] But in this passage, Mark 1, 15, as also elsewhere, where repentance

and faith in Christ, Acts 20, 21, or repentance and remission of sins, Luke 24, 46. 47, are mentioned as

distinct, to repent means nothing else than truly to acknowledge sins, to be heartily sorry for them, and to

desist from them. 9] This knowledge comes from the Law, but is not sufficient for saving conversion to

God, if faith in Christ be not added, whose merits the comforting preaching of the holy Gospel offers to

all penitent sinners who are terrified by the preaching of the Law. For the Gospel proclaims the

forgiveness of sins, not to coarse and secure hearts, but to the bruised or penitent, Luke 4, 18. And lest

repentance or the terrors of the Law turn into despair, the preaching of the Gospel must be added, that it

may be a repentance unto salvation, 2 Cor. 7, 10.

10] For since the mere preaching of the Law, without Christ, either makes presumptuous men, who

imagine that they can fulfil the Law by outward works, or forces them utterly to despair, Christ takes the

Law into His hands, and explains it spiritually, Matt. 5, 21ff ; Rom. 7, 14 and 1, 18, and thus reveals His

wrath from heaven upon all sinners, and shows how great it is; whereby they are directed to the Law, and

from it first learn to know their sins aright—a knowledge which Moses never could extort from them.

For as the apostle testifies, 2 Cor. 3, 14f, even though Moses is read, yet the veil which he put over his

face is never lifted, so that they cannot understand the Law spiritually, and how great things it requires of

us, and how severely it curses and condemns us because we cannot observe or fulfil it. Nevertheless,

when it shalt turn to the Lord, the veil shalt be taken away, 2 Cor. 3, 16.

11] Therefore the Spirit of Christ must not only comfort, but also through the office of the Law reprove

the world of sin, John 16, 8, and thus must do in the New Testament, as the prophet says, Is. 28, 21, opus

alienum, ut faciat opus proprium, that is, He must do the work of another (reprove), in order that He may

[afterwards] do His own work, which is to comfort and preach of grace. For to this end He was earned

[from the Father] and sent to us by Christ, and for this reason, too, He is called the Comforter, as Dr.

Luther has explained in his exposition of the Gospel for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity, in the following

words:

12] Anything that preaches concerning our sins and God’s wrath, let it be done how or when it will, that

is all a preaching of the Law. Again, the Gospel is such a preaching as shows and gives nothing else than

grace and forgiveness in Christ, although it is true and right that the apostles and preachers of the

Gospel (as Christ Himself also did) confirm the preaching of the Law, and begin it with those who do not

yet acknowledge their sins nor are terrified at [by the sense of] God’s wrath; as He says, John 16, 8: 13]

“The Holy Ghost will reprove the world of sin because they believe not on Me.” Yea, what more forcible,

more terrible declaration and preaching of God’s wrath against sin is there than just the suffering and

death of Christ, His Son? But as long as all this preaches God’s wrath and terrifies men, it is not yet the

preaching of the Gospel nor Christ’s own preaching, but that of Moses and the Law against the

impenitent. For the Gospel and Christ were never ordained and given for the purpose of terrifying and

condemning, but of comforting and cheering those who are terrified and timid. And again: Christ says,

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John 16, 8: “The Holy Ghost will reprove the world of sin”; which cannot be done except through the

explanation of the Law. Jena, Tom. 2, fol. 455.

14] So, too, the Smalcald Articles say: The New Testament retains and urges the office of the Law, which

reveals sins and God’s wrath; but to this office it immediately adds the promise of grace through the

Gospel.

15] And the Apology says: To a true and salutary repentance the preaching of the Law alone is not

sufficient, but the Gospel should be added thereto. Therefore the two doctrines belong together, and

should also be urged by the side of each other, but in a definite order and with a proper distinction; and

the Antinomians or assailants of the Law are justly condemned, who abolish the preaching of the Law

from the Church, and wish sins to be reproved, and repentance and sorrow to be taught, not from the

Law, but from the Gospel.

16] But in order that every one may see that in the dissent of which we are treating we conceal nothing,

but present the matter to the eyes of the Christian reader plainly and clearly:

17] Therefore [we shall set forth our meaning:] we unanimously believe, teach, and confess that the Law

is properly a divine doctrine, in which the righteous, immutable will of God is revealed, what is to be the

quality of man in his nature, thoughts, words, and works, in order that he may be pleasing and acceptable

to God; and it threatens its transgressors with God’s wrath and temporal and eternal punishments. For as

Luther writes against the law-stormers [Antinomians]: Everything that reproves sin is and belongs to the

Law, whose peculiar office it is to reprove sin and to lead to the knowledge of sins, Rom. 3, 20; 7, 7; and

as unbelief is the root and well-spring of all reprehensible sins [all sins that must be censured and

reproved], the Law reproves unbelief also.

18] However, this is true likewise that the Law with its doctrine is illustrated and explained by the

Gospel; and nevertheless it remains the peculiar office of the Law to reprove sins and teach concerning

good works.

19] Thus, the Law reproves unbelief, [namely,] when men do not believe the Word of God. Now, since

the Gospel, which alone properly teaches and commands to believe in Christ, is God’s Word, the Holy

Ghost, through the office of the Law, also reproves unbelief, that men do not believe in Christ, although

it is properly the Gospel alone which teaches concerning saving faith in Christ.

20] However, now that man has not kept the Law of God, but transgressed it, his corrupt nature,

thoughts, words, and works fighting against it, for which reason he is under God’s wrath, death, all

temporal calamities, and the punishment of hell-fire, the Gospel is properly a doctrine which teaches

what man should believe, that he may obtain forgiveness of sins with God, namely, that the Son of God,

our Lord Christ, has taken upon Himself and borne the curse of the Law, has expiated and paid for all our

sins, through whom alone we again enter into favor with God, obtain forgiveness of sins by faith, are

delivered from death and all the punishments of sins, and eternally saved.

21] For everything that comforts, that offers the favor and grace of God to transgressors of the Law, is,

and is properly called, the Gospel, a good and joyful message that God will not punish sins, but forgive

them for Christ’s sake.

22] Therefore every penitent sinner ought to believe, that is, place his confidence in the Lord Christ

alone, that He was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification, Rom. 4, 25, that

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He was made sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him, 2 Cor.

5, 21, who of God is made unto us Wisdom, and Righteousness, and Sanctification, and Redemption, 1

Cor. 1, 30, whose obedience is counted to us for righteousness before God’s strict tribunal, so that the

Law, as above set forth, is a ministration that kills through the letter and preaches condemnation, 2 Cor.

3, 7, but the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, Rom. 1, 16, that

preaches righteousness and gives the Spirit, 1 Cor. 1, 18; Gal. 3, 2. As Dr. Luther has urged this

distinction with especial diligence in nearly all his writings, and has properly shown that the knowledge

of God derived from the Gospel is far different from that which is taught and learned from the Law,

because even the heathen to a certain extent had a knowledge of God from the natural law, although they

neither knew Him aright nor glorified Him aright, Rom. 1, 20f.

23] From the beginning of the world these two proclamations [kinds of doctrines] have been ever and

ever inculcated alongside of each other in the Church of God, with a proper distinction. For the

descendants of the venerated patriarchs, as also the patriarchs themselves, not only called to mind

constantly how in the beginning man had been created righteous and holy by God, and through the fraud

of the Serpent had transgressed God’s command, had become a sinner, and had corrupted and

precipitated himself with all his posterity into death and eternal condemnation, but also encouraged and

comforted themselves again by the preaching concerning the Seed of the Woman, who would bruise the

Serpent’s head, Gen. 3, 15; likewise, concerning the Seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations of the

earth shall be blessed, Gen. 22, 18; likewise, concerning David’s Son, who should restore again the

kingdom of Israel and be a light to the heathen, Ps. 110, 1; Is. 49, 6; Luke 2, 32, who was wounded for

our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities, by whose stripes we are healed, Is. 53, 5.

24] These two doctrines, we believe and confess, should ever and ever be diligently inculcated in the

Church of God even to the end of the world, although with the proper distinction of which we have

heard, in order that, through the preaching of the Law and its threats in the ministry of the New

Testament the hearts of impenitent men may be terrified, and brought to a knowledge of their sins and to

repentance; but not in such a way that they lose heart and despair in this process, but that (since the Law

is a schoolmaster unto Christ that we might be justified by faith, Gal. 3, 24, and thus points and leads us

not from Christ, but to Christ, who is the end of the Law, Rom. 10, 4) 25] they be comforted and

strengthened again by the preaching of the holy Gospel concerning Christ, our Lord, namely, that to

those who believe the Gospel, God forgives all their sins through Christ, adopts them as children for His

sake, and out of pure grace, without any merit on their part, justifies and saves them, however, not in

such a way that they may abuse the grace of God, 26] and sin hoping for grace, as Paul, 2 Cor. 3, 7ff ,

thoroughly and forcibly shows the distinction between the Law and the Gospel.

27] Now, in order that both doctrines, that of the Law and that of the Gospel, be not mingled and

confounded with one another, and what belongs to the one may not be ascribed to the other, whereby the

merit and benefits of Christ are easily obscured and the Gospel is again turned into a doctrine of the Law,

as has occurred in the Papacy, and thus Christians are deprived of the true comfort which they have in the

Gospel against the terrors of the Law, and the door is again opened in the Church of God to the Papacy,

therefore the true and proper distinction between the Law and the Gospel must with all diligence be

inculcated and preserved, and whatever gives occasion for confusion inter legem et evangelium (between

the Law and the Gospel), that is, whereby the two doctrines, Law and Gospel, may be confounded and

mingled into one doctrine, should be diligently prevented. It is, therefore, dangerous and wrong to

convert the Gospel, properly so called, as distinguished from the Law, into a preaching of repentance or

reproof [a preaching of repentance, reproving sin]. For otherwise, if understood in a general sense of the

Formula of Concord -- Solid Declaration

entire doctrine, also the Apology says several times that the Gospel is a preaching of repentance and the

forgiveness of sins. Meanwhile, however, the Apology also shows that the Gospel is properly the promise

of the forgiveness of sins and of justification through Christ, but that the Law is a doctrine which

reproves sins and condemns.

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