You Can't Preach That, It's Law!

There is a lot of that mentality out there. They say we can't preach "law" because some have been hurt in the church by legalists in the pulpit. The objection is that people have been emotionally hurt by "hell-fire and brimstone" preaching and people always being told they are not good enough in their behavior to be a Christian. While that is very tragic and true that many men in the pulpit have turned the grace of God into sheer legalism, we cannot let personal experience determine what we preach. After all, we are called to preach the whole Word of God-every whit of it. And if I went by the model of preaching that is determined by people's experiences I would be left to preach another gospel. Namely an Emergent gospel that is so prevalent in my community. People have stated they have been emotionally scarred by all the talk about sin, judgment and hell growing up. What they say we need, is only the "love" of God and how much "grace" he gives to us.

If I was left to my using my experience to be effective in ministry, then I would have to adopt that kind of a different gospel. But it is not chiefly about my experience that determines what I preach on. I make it my aim to proclaim the Gospel and not move from it. Yet I'm called to preach the Word of God and there are plenty of times where the imperatives will be preached. It's not my decision for it is God's Word, not mine. Furthermore, experiences differ. Many will differ from mine in that they are in a more Pharisaical environment that teaches people that they are saved by what they do. In all truth I can make the case (and have) that the Emergent theology is also a form of legalism, albeit a liberal legalism, but whose experience trumps whose to prevail on when and how the imperatives should be preached? The answer- none. It's not about our experiences that determines if we should preach the Law or not. As the bible is open before us we preach every jot and tittle of it.

I've said enough for now so I'll turn to more learned men (Stott, Owen, Lloyd-Jones) than I:

Individual or personal morality was taught in the Old Testament by prophets, priests, scribes and wise men, who sought to draw out the implications of the Ten Commandments. John the Baptist was the last representative of this honourable tradition, before Christ came. He not only exhorted the people to ‘bear fruits that befit repentenance’, but spelled out what this would mean to different people, instructing the tax-gatherers to collect no more than was appointed them, and the soldiers to rob nobody, accuse nobody falsely, and be content with their wages. (Luke 3:8—14) Similar teaching in personal ethics is given in the New Testament letters, sometimes in the general commendation of Christian virtues (‘the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control’ Gal. 5:22, 23), and sometimes in a particular requirement like the control of that unruly organ and ‘restless evil’, the tongue. (Jas 3:1-12) To me the most striking example, however, is to be found in the second chapter of the Letter to Titus. Here Titus is told to give detailed ethical instruction to different groups in the congregation: the older men are to be temperate, serious and mature; the older women are to be self-controlled and to teach the young wives their responsibilities to husband and children; the younger men are to learn self-mastery; Titus himself is to set a blameless example; and slaves are to be submissive, hard-working and honest. More impressive even than these particularities is their grounding in Christian doctrine. For the paragraph begins with the command to ‘teach what befits sound doctrine’ and ends with the statement that good behaviour will ‘adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour’. There were, then, two parts to Titus’ pedagogical responsibilities. On the one hand, he was to teach ‘the sound doctrine’ (the apostolic faith which, like the human body, is an integrated whole). On the other, he was to teach ‘the things which befit it’ (the ethical conduct which is appropriate to it and will ‘adorn’ it or display its beauty). It is of the utmost importance that we follow the apostles by keeping these two together in our preaching ministry and by refusing to divorce them. When we proclaim the gospel, we must go on to unfold its ethical implications, and when we teach Christian behaviour we must lay its gospel foundations. Christians need to grasp both that their faith in Christ has practical consequences and that the main incentive to good works is to be found in the gospel. God’s saving grace in Christ is actually personified as our moral teacher, ‘training us to renounce irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober, upright and godly lives in this world’. (Titus 2:11, 12)...these sentences about violations of the brotherhood. It is already quite evident that, although good behaviour is an inevitable consequence of the good news, it is not ‘automatic’ in the sense that it does not need to be taught. The apostles who proclaimed the gospel gave clear and concrete ethical instruction as well. The law and the gospel were thus related in their teaching. If the law is a ‘schoolmaster’ to bring us to Christ, placing us under such discipline and condemnation as to make Christ our only hope of salvation, Christ now sends us back to the law to tell us how to live. Even the purpose of his death for our sins was not only that we might be forgiven but that, having been forgiven, ‘the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit’. (Rom. 8:3, 4) There are many pastors today who, for fear of being branded ‘legalists’, give their congregation no ethical teaching. How far we have strayed from the apostles! ‘Legalism’ is the misguided attempt to earn our salvation by obedience to the law. ‘Pharisaism’ is a preoccupation with the externals and the minutiae of religious duty. To teach the standards of moral conduct which adorn the gospel is neither legalism nor pharisaism but plain apostolic Christianity.*

 This was seconded by an observation of some men’s dangerous mistakes, who of late days have taken upon them to give directions for the mortification of sin, who, being unacquainted with the mystery of the gospel and the efficacy of the death of Christ, have anew imposed the yoke of a self-wrought-out mortification on the necks of their disciples, which neither they nor their forefathers were ever able to bear. A mortification they cry up and press, suitable to that of the gospel neither in respect of nature, subject, causes, means, nor effects; which constantly produces the deplorable issues of superstition, self-righteousness, and anxiety of conscience in them who take up the burden which is so bound for them.

What is here proposed in weakness, I humbly hope will answer the spirit and letter of the gospel, with the experiences of them who know what it is to walk with God, according to the tenor of the covenant of grace. So that if not this, yet certainly something of this kind, is very necessary at this season for the promotion and furtherance of this work of gospel mortification in the hearts of believers, and their direction in paths safe, and wherein they may find rest to their souls...The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin.*

God sets us apart as his peculiar people, and because of this we must be a holy people: ‘Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy,’ says God (Lev 19:2). So that we are to be holy because we are holy, and that is the great New Testament appeal for sanctification. So this second meaning is that God does a work within us, a work of purifying, of cleansing, and of purging, and this work is designed to fit us for the title which has been put upon us. We have been adopted, taken out of the world and set apart, and we are now being conformed increasingly to the image, the pattern, of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that we may in truth be the people of God: in reality as well as in name. So this is obviously a progressive work. The first is something that is done once and for all, and it is because we are set apart that we are justified. God has looked upon his people from all eternity and has set them apart—we dealt with that at great length in verses 6, 7 and 8. He sanctified them before the foundation of the world, and it is because of that, that they are justified, and, again, because of that, they are sanctified in this second sense.
So the question is, which of these two meanings is to be attached to the word in the seventeenth verse? It seems to me that there is only one adequate answer to that: obviously both meanings are involved. Let me put it like this: as his followers we are separated from the world—‘They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world’—they are separated for God’s special service, to represent him in the world. For he says in verse 18, ‘As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.’ He has already said that he is to be glorified in us and through us; we have been set apart for this special task of glorifying Christ, of bearing the message to an unbelieving world; and because we have been set apart for that, we must be fitted to do it. We must be kept from the evil, and from the tarnishing effect of the world. We must be fit to represent the Father, to proclaim his message and to glorify his dear Son. In other words, this petition is that we should become more and more the special people of God. Our very task and calling demands that we must be a holy people since we cannot represent a holy God unless we ourselves are holy.
Therefore, we are obviously here face to face with the great New Testament doctrine of sanctification. Now I shall not use this as an occasion for giving a full-orbed description and account of that doctrine—although in a sense I shall be doing so, because I shall be dealing with fundamental principles—but at this point we shall deal with the subject solely in terms of what we are told about it in these three verses.
So then, let me give you the divisions as I understand them. We shall not deal with them all in this study, but let me give you the complete outline. Our Lord here deals with three great matters with regard to this subject of our sanctification. First: Why does our Lord pray for our sanctification? And a complete answer is given here to that question. The first answer is that he does so because that is the way in which we are to be kept from the world and from the evil. He also prays for it because of the task which has been allotted to us (v. 18), and thirdly, he prays for it because the whole object of his going to the death of the cross is that we might be sanctified—‘And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified … ’ (v. 19).
The second great matter which is dealt with here is the method of sanctification: ‘Sanctify them,’ he says, ‘through thy truth’—in thy truth—‘thy word is truth.’ The way in which God sanctifies us is obviously vitally important, and our Lord deals with it here, we are to be sanctified in the truth.
And the third subject with which he deals is the question of what it is that ultimately makes our sanctification possible: and again he gives the answer in verse 19: ‘for their sakes I sanctify myself.’ Without that we never could be sanctified, it would be quite impossible. So the whole basis of sanctification is ultimately our Lord’s action and work on our behalf, supremely upon the cross.*

Soli Deo Gloria!

For His Glory,
Fernando

*Stott, John R. W. (1994-01-01). Between Two Worlds: The Challenge of Preaching Today (p. 156- 158). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. Kindle Edition.



*Owen, J. Vol. 6: The works of John Owen. (W. H. Goold, Ed.) (3,7). Edinburg: T&T Clark.

*Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (2000). The assurance of our salvation : Exploring the depth of Jesus' prayer for His own : Studies in John 17 (354–356). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.