The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel by CFW Walther

1. The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel by CFW Walther ~ The Twenty-Eighth ~ Evening Lecture

2. Review: • The word “law” is used in both a broad and a narrow sense in the Bible. What are they? • Likewise what is the broad sense of the word “gospel”? The narrow sense? • What does Luther mean when he says, “See, then, that you do not make Christ a new Moses.”

3. 1. Sometimes a pastor may spend much effort writing a sermon (or portion of a sermon) that seems very eloquent and forceful to him. But he must throw it away and start over if he discovers what? (pg 296 middle.) • That “they contain anything that is false or that has been expressed in such a manner as to be liable to be misunderstood.” • “If the product turned out wrong, it must be cashiered. There are no two ways about this.” • “Unspeakably great damage may be caused by one false sentence spoken in a sermon.”

4. 2. A preacher should not rely on his hearers to understand his statements correctly. Rather, how must he speak? (pg 297 top) • He “must speak so as not to be misunderstood in what he says.”

5. 3. Mistakes like these can happen especially if the pastor omits what practice in preparing his sermon? (pg 297 bottom). • If he “does not pray while he is writing his sermon.” • “God may permit him to rely on his own strength in order to make him see the sorry results which he has achieved without prayer.” • “Call earnestly upon your Father in heaven to lift you out of your miserable state of mind, to give you a fervent heart, to overcome everything in you that is not godly, to let the breath of His Holy Spirit enter your heart.”

6. Thesis XVI • In twelfth place, the Word of God is not rightly divided when the preacher tries to make people believe that they are truly converted as soon as they have become rid of certain vices and engage in certain works of piety and virtuous practises.

7. 4. The Rationalists of Walther’s day taught that people could become different beings by doing what? In contrast to this, what does the Word of God teach? (pg 299 bottom). • “The essence of their religion is to teach men that they become different beings by putting away their vices and leading a virtuous life.” • “The Word of God teaches us that we must become different men first, and then we shall put away our particular sins and begin to exercise ourselves in good works.

8. 5. Trying to be saved by overcoming your own bad habits is like doing what to a river? (pg 300 top). • “It proposes to empty a great river of iniquity by continually dipping up pails of water from it and expecting to reach the bottom some time.” • “If a river of iniquity is to be dried up, the evil source from which it springs must first be stopped up, and then pure water can be led into it.”

9. 6. Walther points out that a common word for repent in the New Testament is the Greek word μετανοεῖτε. This does not mean “change your habits,” but rather what? (pg 300 middle). • “Change your mind” (true repentance and faith) • “With this word the Lord confronts the sinner, telling him that, first of all, a change of his innermost self must take place. What He requires is a new mind, a new heart, a new spirit; not quitting vice and doing good works.

10. 7. Nicodemus, a Pharisee, approached Jesus with flattering complements, expecting Jesus’ approval. What does Jesus do instead? (pg 300 bottom). • “Jesus slams the door of heaven shut in Nicodemus’s face.” • He practically says to him: “I see you wish to curry favor with Me by flattery. But if you are still in your old mind, you cannot enter heaven. You will have to become a different being,you will have to be born again.”

11. 8. What does Matthew 12:33 – regarding trees and fruit – have to do with this subject? (pg301). • “Plant a good tree, and it will bear good fruit; plant a corrupt tree, and it will bear corrupt fruit.” • “This means: Unless a person is completely changed, unless he has become a new creature, has been born anew, with a new mind, all his doings will be corrupt fruit; for by nature every man is a corrupt tree.”

12. 9. 1 Corinthians 13:3 – regarding “charity” (love) – also bears on this subject. What does Walther say is “all-important”? (pg 302 middle). • “not the works themselves, but the love from which they proceed.” • “In God’s estimate I may abound in good works, if, while I am suffering poverty according to the will of God, love awakens in me the desire to do good unto all men.”

13. 10. Why is it “blindness” to try to make people godly by urging them to do good works? (pg 302 bottom). • “A person must first becomegodly before he can perform good works.”

14. 11. Walther brings several examples of people who may cease their bad habits for a while – drunkards who stop drinking, profane who stop cursing, etc. Does the mere cessation of the bad habits make such a person a Christian? (pg 303 top). • “By no means; any godless person is able to do what such a one is doing.” • “It requires labor on the part of the minister till these persons are reborn by the Word of God.”

15. 12. If a congregation was so stingy as to withhold the pastor’s salary, he might think that they need a “sharp sermon to open their purses.” Is that what they need? (pg 303 middle). • “Opening purses by means of the Law is no achievement at all. He must preach in a manner that will rouse them out of their spiritual sleep and death.”

16. 13. Luther says that ALL works are “worthless and futile” if what prerequisite is not met? (pg 303 bottom). • “…if the person doing them has not been born again.” • “Remember, if you do not tell your people this truth, if you do not wield this trusty weapon in your ministry, you will gather about you a congregation of none but legalistic Pharisees.”

17. 14. Doing outward good works and living uprightly, Luther says, will keep you away from “Master Hans the Hangman” (civil authority). But for what purpose are good works completely worthless? (pg 304 middle). • “Your good works are worthless when you begin to put this estimate on them, that they are to earn heaven for you.” • “If you wish to get to heaven and into the Church and kingdom of Christ, you must understand that you will have to become a new man.”

18. 15. Nicodemus considered himself an upstanding and honored citizen of Jerusalem. But Jesus said that in order to obtain eternal life he instead needed to consider himself as…what? How is this done? (pg 304 bottom). • “…You must consider yourself an unborn infant, who is not only unable to do a single good work, but has not even attained to life and being as yet. That is what Christians preach.” • “The Christian doctrine teaches us that we must first become different people, that is, we must be born again. How is this done? By the Holy Spirit and by the water of Baptism.”

19. 16. Walther says that, had Adam and Eve not sinned, all their works and labor would be good and God-pleasing. But what is the situation now, because of sin? (pg 305 top). • “Now that man has strayed into sin and fallen from his first estate, nothing that he does is good; he sins in all that he does, even when he prays; for he does everything as a sinner.” • “All these things are sin because the person is evil, not having been born again; and nothing that such a person does avails him [before God].”

20. 17. But after a person has truly been born again by the power of the Spirit, even what sort of things are truly good works? (pg 305 middle). • “Even when he treats himself to a hearty meal, eats or sleeps, he is doing a good work.” • “A servant of the Law may slave and slave, but all his activities are a martyrdom that is preparing him for perdition.”

21. 18. What is Luther’s easy rule about the relationship between pious works and pious people? (pg 306 top). • “Good and pious works never produce a good and pious person; but a good and pious person produces good and pious works.” • “In every instance the person must first be good and pious before he can do any good work. Good works follow, and proceed from, a pious and good person.”

22. 19. Referencing Matthew 7:18, how does Luther restate the same truth in terms of trees and fruit? (pg 306 middle). • “Now it is evident that fruits do not bear the tree, nor does the tree grow on the fruit, but the reverse — trees bear fruits, and fruits grow on trees.” • “Man must first be either good or corrupt before he does good or corrupt works. His works do not make him either good or corrupt.”

23. 20. How does Luther restate the same truth in terms of a carpenter and a house? (pg 306 bottom). • “A good or a bad house does not make a good or a bad carpenter, but a good or bad carpenter builds a good or bad house.” • “Since works do not make men believers, they do not make him godly either. But faith, which makes men godly, likewise produces good works.” • “These are matters which are readily understood by us now, but before Luther could sing a song like this, he had to pass through many severe conflicts.”