R is for Right

as in keeping Law and Gospel in Right relation to one another.

Jerry Burce

Consider now, two very different articles by Jerome Burce: the first one written on the theme of the "Law of God and the Vocation of Teachers and Pastors," addressed originally to those he serves at Messiah Church and School, and the second one written on the "Peace of Christ," a homily given at a Hymn Festival. By the titles, it is readily apparent that the first is speaking about the first Pentecost, the gift of the law of God, and the second about the second Pentecost, the gift of the Spirit, peace in Christ. Yet, as you will note, in the first article Jerry cannot speak about the theme of the law without reference to the gospel and in the second article he cannot speak on the theme of the gospel, Christ's peace, without reference to the law. The law and the gospel, therefore, are not rightly understood when they are simply rightly divided, but only when they are also, once again, rightly united.

Jerry is the Pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church and School in Fairview Park, OH, a member of the Crossings Board of Directors, a former missionary to Papua-New Guinea, and the author of the book Proclaiming the Scandal.

steven kuhl

Preliminary Observations

1. In what's fast becoming my standard annual reminder: we insist at Messiah Church and School on rightly dividing the Word of God. We do this to the considerable bemusement, consternation, and even displeasure of other Christian traditions, almost all of which favor views of the Word of God which are more or less unitary in character. We beg cheerfully to disagree with such an outlook.

   We do this for at least three reasons a) We are self-consciously, even fiercely Lutheran, which means above all else that we are determined to teach, preach, and otherwise talk about the Christian faith in keeping with the insights of the Lutheran confessors of the 16th century. Of these insights none are more central than the recognition, lifted directly from St. Paul, that God has two distinct ways of speaking to people, the outcomes of which are precisely antithetical, the one culminating in death, the other in life. b) Far from committing ourselves arbitrarily to this Lutheran manner of thinking and speaking, we have tested it in our own engagement with reality and found it to be true. c) The most critical piece of that engagement with reality has involved learning to recognize the distinctive ring of gospel that really is Good News, unalloyed with bits and pieces of stuff that is not so good. (Those who have spent any length of time listening to Lutheran teachers and preachers doing their jobs well typically discover their knowledge of that distinctive ring when they stop hearing it.)

2. By "Word of God" we mean-finally, and above all else-"what God is saying to us, now." This of course is rooted in what God once said to others, then. The latter we find in the Holy Scriptures, which serve as rule and norm for what you or I are obliged by our calling to assert as the former. Again, it is the former that ultimately matters.

3. By "dividing the Word of God," we mean recognizing the aforementioned difference in character and outcome of the things God is saying to us, now. Those things fall into two broad categories. One we call Law. The other we call Gospel-"good spell" to translate literally from the Old English, which itself is a literal rendering of the Greek evangelion (In the development of English, "spell" eventually turns into "tell.")

4. What God says is good. Period. Yes, the Gospel is good. So is the Law-a matter sometimes too poorly communicated by Lutheran theologians, particularly when they're mounted on their high horses with visors down and lances at the ready, awaiting the latest crypto-Calvinist onslaught.

5. Yet while Law and Gospel are both good, Gospel is infinitely better-at least so far as law-breaking sinners are concerned.

6. The Law is both temporal-having to do with the time and age in which we now live-and temporary. The Gospel is eschatological-having to do with the age to come, the age for which we are destined in Christ as St. Peter points out so robustly in the first chapter of his first letter. The Gospel is also forever. The Law is the engine (so to speak) of the old creation, Genesis 1. The Gospel is the engine of the new creation, 2 Corinthians 5.

7. As teachers and preachers of the Word of God, we are required to teach and preach both Law and Gospel because a) both are God's Word, and b) in the absence of the former the latter will not be heard by dying sinners, but only despised. This, however is a matter for another discussion at another time.