If we are going to survive the onslaught of post-Christian ideologies, we need to embrace the freedom we have to love God’s Law, freedom that comes through the saving gift of the Gospel. For in knowing that Christ, who fulfilled the Law perfectly, and who is now righteousness for us, we are free to love his Law and to strive to uphold it, without fearing the consequences of the inevitable failures we bring to it.

Gospel Freedom to Love the Law

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law.
Romans 7:7

How can one stand firm in the shifting sands of a post-Christian, progressive age? How can we be equipped to discern God’s voice amongst the world’s alluring alternatives?

The answer is certainly not blowing in the wind, nor can it found by looking within. It’s actually where it has always been: The undivided, unchanging, Word of God. As Christians not only do we need to reflect on the good news of the Gospel, but also about why it is good news. That realisation can only come through a growing love for God’s “Law” and how it relates to the cross of Christ. Of course, “Law” in this sense is not to be understood as a set of rules tied to a judicial system, but rather as God’s loving instructions for life.

Any attempt to treat “Law and Gospel” as exclusive entities and not two threads intricately woven by the same divine hands, is to render the Gospel no Gospel at all. Loving the God of the New Testament but rejecting the God of the Old is a bit like believing the sun can set despite never having risen. It’s not only confusing, it’s a theological absurdity.

Salvation is by grace through faith, but does that render God’s Law obsolete? Certainly not. Grace detached from the conviction of God’s Law can become a grace accepted on one’s own terms, a grace that universally accepts sinners as they are without acknowledging the need for repentance according to God’s unchanging Law.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
Titus 2:11-14

Read More