A Cordial Response to the Law/Gospel Debate

This last July I taught Expository Preaching for Reformed Baptist Seminary. The seminary will often put out a lecture to garner interest in the class. One of the RBS staff released the lecture on law and gospel concerns in preaching. The goal was not to pick a fight! The lecture itself was not prepared for wide distribution but was prepared for the students taking the class. The lecture gained some attention and received several types of responses. A few responses sought to engage my arguments.[1] I believe that the feedback and criticism have helped to sharpen and clarify my thoughts.

I decided not to reply to the responses right away, but determined to reflect on the lecture and the responses, read further, and seek extremely helpful interaction with other pastors. Hopefully, what I will present here is a cordial and focused response. 

The Background and Limitations of a Lecture 

One of the aspects that was frequently missed was that this was not a lecture on law and gospel. The lecture was one of seventeen lectures for Reformed Baptist Seminary on Expository Preaching. I covered the scope of the theology of preaching, sermon preparation, and delivery. The lecture fit into a larger context of concerns about certain preaching trends. I originally raised concerns about a certain kind of law-gospel preaching in 2012 when I taught the same class for RBS. My concerns also extended to certain extreme practices in redemptive-historical preaching. The law-gospel lecture focused on what I consider to be extremes that are becoming more noticeable among some Reformed Baptists.[2] My concerns are not about the distinction between law and gospel. Nor are my concerns about all who use a law-gospel hermeneutic and apply it as their preaching paradigm. My concerns are about a certain type of law-gospel preaching that (1) is more Lutheran than Reformed, (2) is reductionistic in its application, and (3) can lead and has led to antinomianism.

My Affirmations

I believe in the law/gospel distinction (LGD) in that the law is not the gospel and the gospel is not the law. Law and gospel stand in opposition to each other as a way of justification (Gal. 2:16). In justification, faith and works are antithetical (Gal. 3:10–12). Law and gospel also stand in complementary roles to each other. The law does condemn and convict and then points us to Christ (Rom. 3:20; Rom. 10:4; Gal. 3:24). The law is also a standard of life and godliness for those saved by the gospel (Rom. 8:1–4; 13:8–10; 1 Cor. 7:19). I affirm all three uses of the law. On these things I know there is broad agreement.

Lutheran and Reformed Law-Gospel Distinctions

Tom Hicks has stated, “Sadly today, many believe that the distinction between the law and the gospel is a Lutheran distinction.”[3] I am sure there are those who believe the distinction is uniquely Lutheran, but both Lutheran and Reformed traditions make a distinction between law and gospel. However, there is a real difference between Lutheran and Reformed law-gospel distinctions. These are not imagined differences, nor are they insignificant differences. Beeke and Jones have noted,

Thus the representative theologians from the Lutheran and Reformed tradition have stressed the importance of the law-gospel distinction. However, while there were obvious points of agreement, especially on justification by faith alone, Reformed theologians usually employed this distinction differently from Lutheran theologians, particularly as Reformed theologians elaborated this distinction in the context of covenant theology. One should be careful not to generalize from isolated statements made by Reformed theologians without appreciating the different ways in which they understood and used the terms “law” and “gospel.”[4] 

Richard Muller is helpful here as well:

There is one major distinction between the Lutherans and the Reformed in the discussion and application of the usus legis: the Reformed lay heavy stress on the tertius usus legis on the assumption that faith must spring forth and bear the fruit of good works, as defined by the law in its normative function. The Lutherans, however, see here the danger of works-righteousness and insist that the usus normativus ultimately returns the believer, who remains simul iustus et peccator (q.v.), to the usus paedagogicus and from there again to Christ and his grace as the sole source of salvation. The law, for Lutheranism, can never become the ultimate norm for Christian living but, instead, must always lead to Christ who alone is righteous. This difference between the Lutherans and the Reformed arises out of the dialectical relationship of law and gospel in Lutheranism as opposed to the simple distinction of law and gospel within the one foedus gratiae (q.v.) held among the Reformed.[5]

Confessionally, Lutherans hold to the third use of the law. However, what often happens is that the third use is collapsed into the first use, as conviction or condemnation to drive us to Christ. As the law-gospel distinction forms the controlling principle of hermeneutics, it becomes the controlling principle of homiletics. Law-gospel becomes the structure of the sermon.[6]

Additionally, there is a difference between the law-gospel distinction (LGD) and a law-gospel hermeneutic (LGH). The LGD is made by those who reject the works of the law as a means of justification and assert that it is only in the meritorious work of the Lord Jesus that the sinner is justified before God. This distinction, as noted, is true and necessary for a correct understanding of salvation (2 Cor. 3:7–11). We could aptly call this a covenantal distinction between law and gospel. But the LGH is far more extensive than the LGD. Lutheranism codified the LGH in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession (article 4). Mark Garcia notes concerning the hermeneutic that it is,

an interpretive method by which Scripture is filtered out either as moral demand (law) or promised redemption (gospel). The Bible, we are told, has two antithetically opposed words or “moods,” law and gospel, and it is necessary that we distinguish them in everything we read in Scripture… If we encounter a command, it is said, we should read that command as “law”; whereas if we encounter a promise or a gift, we should understand that as “gospel.” Imperatives are law, pure gifts and promises are gospel. Conditional passages in Scripture are examples of law; unconditional ones are examples of gospel.[7]

The LGH is so pervasive that some say it is the very grammar of the Bible. Indicatives are gospel. Imperatives are law. I would argue that this “Law-Gospel grammar” is reductionistic and is not a sufficient “grammar” to understand the whole Bible. 

The issue over hermeneutics is not whether we can find a Reformer or Reformed orthodox theologian who would agree with the LGH.[8] The question is whether the Bible gives us warrant to make law-gospel the controlling hermeneutical principle for everything in the Bible? If someone were to ask me to give biblical warrant for understanding the whole Bible as the record of redemptive history that centers on Christ, there would be several passages that could be marshaled to support such a hermeneutic. However, I remain unconvinced that somehow the LGH finds its ground in Scripture. Although I am convinced that a covenantal framework provides the fundamental LGD, I am also unconvinced that somehow the Covenant of Works and Covenant of Grace provide a biblically based LGH that interprets every text.

Law-Gospel Reductionism

It is certainly commonplace to hear the assertion that everything falls under law or gospel. Colquhoun opens his justly famous work by stating, “The law and the gospel are the principal parts of divine revelation; or rather they are the center, sum, and substance of all the other parts of it. Every passage of sacred Scripture is either law or gospel or is capable of being referred either to one or the other.”[9] Ernest Reisinger makes the same statement, “The law and the gospel are the principal parts of divine revelation; or rather, they are the center, sum, and substance of the whole. Every passage of sacred Scripture is either law or gospel… The whole Bible is either law or gospel, that is, the law and the gospel are the principal parts of divine revelation.”[10] Both sweeping statements seem to be very clear: every passage goes into one category or the other. Michael Horton affirms this position when he says, “Everything in the Bible that reveals God’s moral expectations is law and everything in the Bible that reveals God’s saving purposes and acts is gospel.”[11] But the categories are not nearly as neat as some advocates would make them. Colquhoun himself states one page after the previous quotation, “And there is not in the Sacred Volume one admonition, reproof, or exhortation but what refers either to the law or the gospel or both.”[12] Reisinger again says the same, “All warnings, whether in the Old Testament or in the New, are warnings of either law or of the gospel. Every promise is either of one or the other… And there is not one admonition, reproof, or exhortation in the sacred volume, but what refers to either law or the gospel, or both.”[13]

In other words, law and gospel do not provide two baskets (or words) in which every verse must fit neatly. The law warns, threatens, but also promises. The gospel promises, commands, and warns. John Owen states,

My meaning is, that the word, the gospel the doctrine of Christ, in the preceptive part of it, is so the rule of all our obedience and holiness as that all which it requireth belongeth thereunto, and nothing else but what it requireth doth so; and the formal reason of our holiness consists in conformity thereunto, under this consideration, that it is the word, the doctrine of Christ. Nothing belongeth unto holiness materially but what the gospel requireth it; and nothing is so in us formally, but what we do because the gospel requireth.[14]

Samuel Rutherford notes, “The Gospel (saith he) persuades rather than commands. But say we, it both commands, (as the Law doth) and with a more strong obligation of the constraining love of Christ, beside the authority of the Lawgiver, and also persuadeth; so here be no differences at all.”[15]

The gospel message is indeed the great declaration of what God has done in Christ Jesus. The gospel is God’s great indicative. The gospel is not the law, “Do this and live.” It is the good news of “Done. Now live and do.” The gospel message, however, also requires obedience in that there is the command to repent and believe (e.g., Mark 1:15; John 3:36; 2 Thess. 1:8; Heb. 5:9). To obey the gospel does not collapse the gospel into law. 

Does the law contain grace? The law as a Covenant of Works is not gracious except in God’s condescension to enter covenant with man. However, the law contains provisions and promises of grace. Furthermore, law as Torah is instruction, which is not mere command, but rather is gracious promise and instruction. “And grant me Your law graciously,” or “Be gracious to me and teach me Your Law.” (Ps. 119:29). By “gracious,” I do not mean the law provides the power to obey, but I do mean that law is not mere command/condemnation. The law as revelation certainly speaks to the righteousness of faith (Rom. 3:21–22; 10:5–8). My point is that a reductionistic approach really cannot account for the fact that both law and gospel have promises, threats, warnings, and grace. Mark Jones notes, with a little sarcasm woven in, “The list of Reformed theologians who affirm a gospel that commands, threatens, and promises is large. Whether their supposed conflation of law and gospel owes to a Barthian influence is something worth considering, but I suspect such a study might not get very far.”[16]

Treating the law-gospel distinction as merely grammatical and applying that hermeneutic woodenly across the board is reductionistic. I am not accusing every law-gospel advocate of denying that the law and gospel both contain promises, threats, warnings, and conditions. My point is that a reductionistic LGH puts everything in absolute categories, so that the law is not gracious, nor does the gospel command or threaten.

My concern is that some Reformed pastors/preachers have taken this more Lutheran approach to the LGH in a way that, while affirming the third use of the law, rarely applies it. The problem, as I see it, is that the third use is collapsed into the first use, to drive us to Christ. It is important to note that I do not think that everyone committed to a law-gospel paradigm for interpretation and preaching is doing this. But there are several examples in Reformed Baptist pulpits where this happens. By adopting a LGH we are adopting a schema that shapes the sermon. Every sermon becomes a law-gospel sermon, and when that happens it can truncate sanctification, obedience, repentance, and good works. 

Is Antinomianism a Potential Threat in This LGH Approach?

I did not claim that law-gospel preaching inevitably leads to antinomianism; I said that it “tends towards antinomianism.” I believe the early Lutheran controversies with John Agricola and George Major demonstrate this tendency. In other words, the distinction itself is not what leads to antinomianism; it is a justification-centered view of salvation coupled with a more extreme law-gospel hermeneutic which minimizes or neglects the third use of the law that can lead to an ethical antinomianism. I do not believe that sound doctrine automatically leads to a holy life. Nor do I believe that subpar doctrine leads to sin. I have known many Christians who lived better than they believed and have known many others who have held to confessional Reformed Christianity and were wretches. But I have also known men who used antinomian teaching to cover and avoid their sins. In Tullian’s case, it seemed convenient for him to move to a radical law/gospel kind of preaching that did result in antinomianism. Tullian’s moral failures were notorious. I do not know how his doctrine fits in with his thinking and conduct. But to fail to see that antinomianism does sometimes emerge from a strict dichotomy of law and gospel which says the law requires all doing and the gospel requires no doing is to miss a significant issue in both church history and the present time.

We should avoid both legalism and antinomianism at all costs. Both pervert the gospel. I have no doubt about our own inherent legalism and pride. I am also against preachers preaching people out of assurance. Self-examination on occasion is good, but in our circles that has been overdone at times to the detriment of Christ’s sheep. In our efforts to avoid both gospel-subverting errors, I propose two perspectives that will help us avoid both errors. The first is seeing our union with Christ as the salvific center. Union with Christ is the fountain of the double grace of justification and sanctification. The double grace or double benefit eases the tension between justification by faith alone and the necessity of sanctification for those who believe. So instead of sanctification being reduced to “getting used to your justification,”[17] there is a healthy resting in Christ for us and a healthy progressive growth because of Christ in us, by His Spirit.

The second is a more comprehensive application of the indicatives and imperatives. Instead of seeing indicatives as gospel and imperatives as law, we should see them in a broader perspective. For instance, indicatives can be about the character of God, with corresponding imperatives as responses to such indicatives. The indicatives ground, motivate, and empower the imperatives.[18] 

Ephesians 5:25 illumines the use of the indicatives and imperatives: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” To say the imperative here is law or legal would be incorrect in my judgment. This is a gospel command to believers. Can this gospel command function to bring me conviction for my failure and drive me to Christ (first use)? Of course. But it does not leave me there. The imperative is based squarely on the indicative: “as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself up for her.” Will there be conviction for Christian husbands? Yes. But there will also be grounds, motivation, and empowerment to obey the imperative rooted in Christ’s sacrificial love.

Instead of seeing law-gospel as some kind of grammar (imperative = law, indicative = gospel), we should see law-gospel covenantally, and as we do, we see there are commands that are truly gospel commands. We could say that the most basic sense of the gospel is what God has done for us in Jesus Christ (the great indicatives of the gospel). But the gospel is not good news unless we are told what we need to do to benefit from the gospel, so there are the commands to repent and believe. When we repent and believe (empowered by the Spirit), we are beneficiaries of the gospel, but also beneficiaries of gospel truths—that is, truths that flow out of the gospel. Those gospel truths also contain ethical implications for those who are now in the Covenant of Grace. They are truly gospel commands, always grounded in gospel indicatives.

Final Thoughts

The law-gospel distinction is very important, and I embrace it and teach it. I wholeheartedly embrace all three uses of the law. I embrace the first use of the law in exposing our sin and crushing self-righteousness and driving us out of ourselves to Christ. I believe it continues to operate this way, even in the life of the believer. It keeps us running to Christ and looking to Christ and His obedience unto death as the ground of our acceptance. 

Nevertheless, we must not collapse the third use of the law into the first. In Christ the law is not only a means to crush us and condemn us and drive us to Himself but, by faith in Christ, also becomes one of the means God uses to move us as His children to obedience. As recipients of the New Covenant promises, we have His law written in our hearts; therefore, we have a new attitude toward the law and a new power to obey it. We delight to do His will as His law shows us what He desires from us.

To avoid a reductionistic law-gospel approach to preaching, we must maintain the centrality of union with Christ as the source of the double grace of justification and sanctification. This allows for a robust doctrine of both justification by grace alone and the necessity of sanctification. We must also employ a broader Indicative-Imperative paradigm for gospel ethics.

May God help those of us who preach to preach the Christ-centered, whole counsel of God. May we preach the law which shows us our sin. May we preach Christ’s gospel which is the only remedy for our sin. And may we preach the power of union with Christ, that the church may grow in obedience and holiness, to the glory of God.

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[1] Justin Perdue, “A Response to Brian Borgman on Law/Gospel Preaching” (August 19, 2026), Tethered: https://tethered.org/a-response-to-brian-borgman-on-law-gospel-preaching/.

[2] I have several examples that illustrate my concern, and since the posting of the lecture, several people have sent me other examples. I am not interested in “naming names.” The reaction to me not naming names has been criticized by some. But I have also been criticized for slandering good men.

[3] Tom Hicks, What is a Reformed Baptist (Founders Press: 2024), 130.

[4] A Puritan Theology (Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 321–322.

[5] Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology, (Baker Books, 1985), 321.

[6] Of particular interest is the work of Adam C. Koontz who has pointed out that a narrow law-gospel approach to preaching was not the common approach in the early development of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod but became the standard so that law-gospel is now the standard by which every sermon is judged. Adam C. Koontz, “Speak as the Oracles of God: Reinhold Pieper’s Classical Lutheran Homiletic,” CTQ 85 (2021): 23–36. Koontz observes, “Under application is also found Pieper’s only explicit discussion of law and gospel, now often the sole criterion for good preaching among Lutherans. For Pieper, law and gospel are not a sermon outline. They are discussed after the fivefold use as a way of applying the Scripture with psychological acuteness” (30). “The distinction between law and gospel is not an overarching homiletical dynamic nor the sermon outline that it sometimes is with us. It is one of the pastor’s tools for aligning the text’s teaching and applications with his hearers’ needs” (31). “Law and gospel functions fruitfully within the field of sermonic application rather than swamping all other rubrics for interpreting Scripture, whether in the study or in the pulpit” (35). Koontz’s work focuses on the lost influence of Pieper in LCMS preaching. Pieper was a student of C. F. W. Walther, famed author of The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel. Koontz asserts that the present preoccupation with law-gospel preaching is a departure from both Walther and Pieper. He points to Walther’s sermons, which are largely untranslated and Pieper’s fivefold use of Scripture as the homiletic paradigm.

[7] Mark A. Garcia, “Sic Et Non: Views in Reviews: Westminster Seminary California Distinctives? Part III. Law and Gospel,” The Confessional Presbyterian Vol 10 (2014), 173.

[8] “The frequently noted example of Theodore Beza is a legitimate one” (Garcia, 173).

[9] John Colquhoun, A Treatise on the Law and the Gospel (Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2009), xxv.

[10] Ernest C. Reisinger, The Law and the Gospel (P&R, 1997), xix, 34.

[11] Michael Horton, Christless Christianity (Baker Books, 2012), 109.

[12] Colquhoun, xxvi.

[13] Reisinger, xix–xx; see also 35.

[14] John Owen, The Works of John Owen, Volume 3 (Banner of Truth), 507–508. Thanks to Mark Jones for both the Owen and Rutherford references.

[15] Samuel Rutherford, A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist (London, 1648), 2.121; accessed on Post Reformation Digital Library. The “saith he” is John Saltmarsh.

[16] Mark Jones, Antinomianism: Reformed Theology’s Unwelcomed Guest (P&R, 2013), 50, footnote twenty-three.

[17] See Christian Spirituality: Five Views on Sanctification (IVP, 1989).

[18] An example would be Psalm 100. The Psalm is built on several imperatives (shout, serve, come before Him with joyful singing, know that the LORD Himself is God, enter His gates with thanksgiving, give thanks). These commands are not legal; they flow out of the indicatives of the Psalm, indicatives that reveal the character of God (He Himself is God, He made us, we are His people, the sheep of His pasture, the LORD is good, His lovingkindness is everlasting, His faithfulness to all generations). Although there are gospel truths embedded in these indicatives, these indicatives reveal who God is and what He has done. The imperatives flow out of these truths.