Mike Horton is up. Calvin on Law and Gospel. It's nice to follow Clark because it makes him (Horton) look moderate! It's good for the soul.

Calvin wouldn't like this conference very much because he didn't have time to talk about himself. He was too busy talking about Christ and his gospel. He was so good on the gospel.

Calvin faced a church that was semi-Pelagian. If we need a new Reformation.

Calvin's definition of the gospel, and of the law, and the relation of the two. Not everything is "the gospel." One of the themes of the "Christian vision" project. Theme: What is the gospel? Good question. In nearly all the essays published, the doing and dying of Christ was assumed but the gospel wasn't explicitly defined in terms of Christ's doing and dying for us.

Not everything good and healthy for the church is the gospel. He distinguished the gospel from its vast benefits and effects. Like Paul he had a very specific definition of the gospel: the death, burial, and resurrection of the gospel. Simple. Basic. Simple. Justification is the "primary article" of the Christian religion. Reformed folk need to hear this. No "central dogma" in Calvin from which everything can be deduced. Lots think they are Calvinists because they are predestinarians. There is no "central dogma" of Calvinism, except perhaps Christ -- God gives himself to us us through his incarnate Word.

The gospel isn't one doctrine among many but the primary article. "The main hinge on which religion turns." "The principle article...the foundation of all religion." Melancththon and Calvin influenced each other as they worked out Luther's rediscovered gospel. The "Lutheran view" was actually formulated in concert by Melanchthon and Calvin. "This righteousness consists in the remission of sins...and in this, that the righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed to us."

According to the evangelical interpretation of justification it's not a process of moral transformation. Gospel has that effect but it isn't transformation. The good news isn't that you are transformed inwardly. The objective announcement of the good news transforms us. The radical sects, for whom everything was "inner" weren't interested in the Protestant doctrine of justification any more than Rome was.

In Calvin's view, this gospel creates the faith that receives it. By hearing this good news, the Spirit gives us willing arms to embrace it. He pries our curved in fingers from our lives and gives us this gift and the faith to receive it. It doesn't "command" anything. It gives. The law commands. The gospel gives. Both are necessary but they do different things. The gospel is a "firm and sure knowledge of God's favor toward us." Revealed to our minds and sealed to our hearts. Faith is confidence in God's favor and salvation. Same view in HC 21.

Calvin on law. Inherited threefold distinction (civil, ceremonial, and moral) from Thomas Aquinas. For Calvin, the idea of re-instituting the Mosaic civil law is Anabaptist fanaticism. Civil law comes from "equity." The decalogue is the moral, natural law, written on the conscience, known by all. Love of neighbor. Civil laws may differ from each other and from Jewish law. Fine. Not a problem. Test case: usury. Medieval church had rejected interest charged by Christians of Christians. Luther inherited this (from Deut). Calvin said that the principle is love of neighbor. We're not bound to Jewish civil law. So we can't charge too much interest (usury) but we can charge interest.

Relation of law and gospel. Calvin no innovator. Calvin was conservative of the past. He followed Luther (rather than Aquinas). In the medieval church the old law was hard and the new law was easier. More grace. Love God and neighbor, as if that was easier. The gospel is not a new law. The gospel is one thing, the law is another. Two different kinds of words. They do different things.

Luther matured. In most instance law does not equal OT and gospel does not equal NT but rather the law demands (wherever it is found) and the gospel gives, where ever it is found. Calvin followed the mature Luther. Calvin wasn't thinking OT vs NT. Law is principle of works. This is how Luther came to view the law as always accusing. Melanchthon clarified. Law and gospel = commands and promises not OT/NT. Calvin continued to speak of Law and Gospel in the redemptive historical sense (OT = law and NT = gospel) and in the doctrinal sense, law and gospel as demand and promise. The OT has less light, the NT has greater light (Thomas). There is that second sense. If you conflate the doctrinal sense of law and gospel...more damnation.

Against the Anabaptists, who argued that the OT was radically discontinuous with the NT on baptism. The Reformed emphasis the continuity of the OT and NT. If we read Calvin selectively we might miss the sense in which he's speaking of law and gospel (historical v. doctrinal).

To get Calvin right we need to distinguish between the law as history and the law as principle. In both sense the law drives us to Christ but in different ways. As history it drives us to law by promises and in the latter by threats.

In his preface to his commentary on the Pentateuch, "the whole purpose of the law is to shut us up...." to drive us to Christ. Here Calvin was a Lutheran as were most Reformed theologies until very recently. He wasn't inventing a new tradition. No fundamental difference between Luther and Calvin. Otto Weber says Luther and Calvin were both following Augustine here.

In developing his apologetic for the unity of the covenant of grace against the Anabaptists, but when we're mining Calvin quotes note his nuance. Note the way he's using "law and gospel." I. John Hesselink says that, for Calvin, the law doesn't produce faith. Faith comes from the gospel.

Calvin's explicit statements on the law/gospel distinction in the doctrinal sense, as methods of justification. On the "fatherly indulgence of God," Calvin treats God the Father as a "liberal father." Spirit of bondage vs the spirit of adoption. The spirit of bondage comes from the law, the spirit of adoption comes from the gospel. Certainty of salvation appears from comparison of opposites. We're no longer bound by the servile condition of the law (doctrinal sense). The covenant of grace is contained in the law (historical sense). In the same breath Calvin moved between the historical and doctrinal senses of "law." doctrinally considered, it differs completely from the law. No graciousness in the law, doctrinally, no rigor in the gospel, in the doctrinal sense.

Paul connects fear with the law, confidence with the gospel. If we ask the law about peace with a holy God. In that case there is total opposition between law and gospel.

Melanchthon invented the threefold use of the law. Luther started talking like that. He's less nuanced. It depends upon whom and what is in view. To a legalist he sounds antinomian. To the antinomian, he sounds like a legalist. Calvin elaborates it 4 years alter than Melanchthon. The law does more than terrify. When believers rely on the law to measure their holiness, they must give no place to the law but only to the gospel. We listen to the precepts of the law but not to the terrors. It's not "law, gospel, law" -- we don't "put people back under the law." The gospel must be daily repeated.

Why is the third use the "principle use"? Because our relation to the law, as believers has changed. Calvin believed more than Luther that the law cannot condemn the believer. The only office the law has for believers is to show the life of gratitude. Out of the gospel indicatives we're given evangelical imperatives. For Calvin this is the NT pattern. Whenever preachers preach the law to believers according to the first use, this is a violation of office. That's why the third use is the principle use. Now the law guides us. It's our friend, not a terror. The precepts come to guide, lead us. That's why in Calvin's liturgies, sometimes the law came before the confession of sin and absolution and sometimes after. It's in HC 3 but the treatment of the law comes under part 3. Luther follows the same order in the small catechism.

Just as the law demands work, the gospel only that we bring faith to receive. The law speaks but it cannot reform our hearts. It makes us more culpable. The gospel does not say "do this or that" but "believe." Quotes Calvin.

Mike closes in prayer.

For more on this see Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry chapter 12. Mike also has an essay on Calvin's view of law and gospel. See also Michael S. Horton, "Calvin and the Law-Gospel Hermeneutic." Pro Ecclesia 6, no. 1 (1997): 27-42.

Ask Dr. R. Scott Clark a question about this plenary session >>