"Live and Do This” is Still Law
Recovering the Difference Between Gift and Demand (Part 3)
There is an expression that has been used by some that states that “the law says, ‘Do this and live,’ while the gospel, broadly speaking, says, ‘live and do this.”1
To be clear, this is in no way saying that Christians obey to be justified, and would fully agree that because they have already received life in Christ, they are now called to obey.
Nevertheless, the formula is misleading when “live and do this” is identified as gospel.
“The law says, ‘Do this and live,’ yes.
But the gospel does not say “Live and do this,” because “Live and do this” actually contains two different words.
“Live” is gospel. “Do this” is law.
The order has changed, from “Do this and Live,” but the imperative has not changed, nor should we feel compelled to make it change. Historically, we have understood that the third use of the law is given to teach us the will of God, without the threatenings that come from its first use. And this is precisely why the Marrow’s distinction between the law of works and the law of Christ is so useful.
The law of works and the law of Christ are not two different moral laws, nor is the law of Christ a newly invented law that replaces the Decalogue. They are the same moral law in substance, but they come from different covenantal forms and address persons in different relations to God.
Under the covenant of works, the law comes to man requiring perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience as the condition of life. The law promises life upon fulfillment and threatens death upon transgression. After the fall, this same covenantal form can only condemn sinners, because no fallen child of Adam can render the obedience required.
Under the covenant of grace, however, the justified believer is no longer under the law as a covenant of works. Christ has fulfilled its precept and borne its penalty on behalf of his people. Nevertheless, the moral law does not just disappear. It now comes to believers in the hand of Christ as the rule of life.
Thomas Boston describes the law of Christ as the law of the Saviour, binding his saved people to all the duties of obedience, stating that the law of Christ is the old moral law under a new incidental form.2
The distinction actually works to keep the believer from the dangers of legalism, as well as the dangers of antinomianism, because the believer remains genuinely obligated to obey God. At the same time, the believer does not stand under the law as a covenant that determines his justification.
The law of Christ is therefore graciously administered without becoming gospel. It comes from a reconciled Father through a gracious Mediator, but it remains an expression of God’s authority. The Second London Baptist Confessions explains this by stating that it reveals what love for God and neighbor requires, exposes the continuing corruption of the believer, directs the life of gratitude, and drives the believer repeatedly to the perfection of Christ.3
Calling this law “gospel largely speaking” actually diminishes the authority of the law, because it encourages us to think of Christian commands primarily as extensions of grace rather than as the comprehensive and binding expression of God’s moral will.
The commands are certainly given within grace, accompanied by grace, and fulfilled through grace, but their authority comes from God.
As has been argued previously, the strict/large construction can lower the law just as easily as it lowers the gospel. When commands are removed from the law and placed within a broad gospel, the law is no longer treated as the comprehensive rule of all mankind.
The Marrow Men resisted this reduction. Since sin is any lack of conformity to the law, unbelief and impenitence must be violations of law, and faith and repentance must be duties required by law. If the law does not require them, then it is no longer the perfect rule of righteousness.
The moral law must be broad enough to command the whole person in every relation to God. It requires faith wherever Christ is revealed, repentance wherever sin is exposed, and obedience in every sphere of life. The gospel does not need to acquire commands in order to preserve Christian responsibility, because the law already comprehends the duties required.
At the same time, the gospel must remain high enough above human response that it can give what the law demands. The law requires faith, but the gospel supplies faith’s object and warrant. The law requires repentance, but the gospel reveals the mercy from which evangelical repentance flows. The law requires holiness, but the gospel gives union with Christ and the Spirit by whom holiness is produced.
The gospel declares that Christ has fulfilled the law, borne its curse, and given life to his people; therefore, the law of Christ commands those who live in him to walk according to the will of God.
The word therefore, as explained by Edmund Clowny, joins law and gospel without confusing them.4 The imperative may be evangelical in its motivation and relation to Christ, but it remains an imperative.
This clarity is especially important in preaching. The minister must be able to tell the congregation when God is commanding. A sermon that never commands will fail to declare the full authority of God, but a sermon that calls its commands gospel will leave the conscience uncertain whether the good news is finally something God has done or something the hearer must do.
The gospel creates life, while the law directs the life created. The gospel gives the believer a new heart, while the law describes the shape that new-hearted obedience must take.
Their harmony is not secured by calling both gospel, but by preserving the proper office of each.
*For more on the distinctions within the law, listen to episode 2 of Marrowcast, “What Law Are You Talking About?”*
Tom Hicks, “The Difference Between the Law and the Gospel” (First Baptist Church of Clinton, Louisiana, n.d.), 2.
Edward Fisher, The Marrow of Modern Divinity: In Two Parts, with notes by Thomas Boston (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1850; modernized by William H. Gross, 2014), 23.
The Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, 19.6.
Edmund P. Clowney, The Message of 1 Peter: The Way of the Cross (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 42.