The biblical concept of “gospel” does not just refer to Jesus work on the cross or one of the first four books of the NT. The gospel or “good news” is about God’s kingdom, his sovereign power and authority breaking into history in the person and work of Jesus Christ not only to bring us forgiveness from sin but to break sin’s reign over us and to free us so that we might become slaves of righteousness unto God!³ Just as the Bible doesn’t reduce the concept of “the law” to rules or regulations or commandments, so too the Bible doesn’t reduce the concept of “gospel” to the story of the cross or the promise of forgiveness.

The biblical teaching on “the law” and “the gospel” is massive. And contrary to what some may think, these concepts are fairly complex. They can’t be reduced to a plaque on the wall with the Ten Commandments or a paper tract with Four Easy Steps on how to become a Christian. Instead, law and gospel each have a fairly expansive range of meaning. Broadly considered, they overlap and are interrelated. More narrowly viewed, they’re distinct. In Part 1 of our study, I’d like to examine these concepts more broadly and show how they’re related. Then we’ll narrow our focus in Part 2, noting the ways in which law and gospel are distinct.

Law and Gospel: The Big Picture

According to Michael Horton, “Everything in the Bible that reveals God’s moral expectations is law and everything in the Bible that reveals God’s saving purposes and acts is gospel.”¹ So the “law” is what God expects us to do, and the gospel is what God plans and accomplishes on our behalf.

We’ll come back to this definition when we consider law and gospel in narrow focus. For now, I want to suggest that Horton’s definition of “law and gospel” is much narrower than the picture given us in Scripture. In reality, the concepts of law and gospel are much broader and more flexible concepts.

A Biblical Portrait of the Law

In Scripture the term “law” (Hebrew: תורה/Greek: νόμος) is used in several different ways. For example, it may refer to the Decalogue:

The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction” (Exod 24:12).

When used in the plural, “laws” can refer to the many “legal stipulations or codes” found especially in books like Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (see Lev 26:46). Sometimes “law” is used synonymously with the term “covenant” (Ps 78:10). The term is also used to refer to the Five Books of Moses as a combined group of writings (Luke 24:44).

As the reader can see, the concept of “law” as used in the Scripture is much broader than Dr. Horton’s definition of “law” as God’s expectations. Think for a moment of the “Law of Moses.” Certainly, the “Law of Moses” includes the Ten Commandments and many other legal stipulations. But it also includes lots of history and narrative. For example, the Book of Genesis is part of the Law, and it mainly consists of historical narratives. Exodus and Numbers have a good deal of historical narrative too.

What’s more, the Law of Moses or the Pentateuch contains many redemptive promises. Think of God’s first promise to Adam and Eve of an offspring who would crush the head of the Serpent. Think of the many promises to Abraham and to his descendants. As a matter of fact, the Law of Moses not only reveals God’s moral expectations of us, but it also contains, to use Horton’s definition of gospel, a record of God’s “saving purposes and acts.” This is why Jesus could say to the Jews, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me” (John 5:46).

From this evidence, we should dispel from our minds the idea that the Old Testament is all “law” in the sense of “dos and don’ts” and the New Testament is all “gospel.” That certainly wasn’t the view of Jesus. Nor was it the view of the OT saints! Listen to the Psalmist:

The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple (Ps 19:7 ESV)

Keep me from deceitful ways; be gracious to me through your law (Ps 119:29 NIV)

In Psalm 119, the term “law” is really a synonym for God’s written revelation – what would have been the Psalmist’s entire Bible in his day. It’s referred to by other terms like “word,” “promise,” “statute,” etc. So it’s obvious that the biblical concept of “law” cannot simply be reduced to rules or regulations or commandments.

Sometimes it has that more narrow meaning. But in other cases, it’s used in a much more broad sense to include the totality of God’s revelation to mankind. In that sense, we can say the “law” includes the gospel.

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