Whether laws are contained in the Gospel.
Whether laws are contained in the Gospel.
§ 19. After setting forth these ideas, Bellarmine adds: “We contend that the Gospel contains all those things that our adversaries attribute to the Law alone, especially these three: laws properly so called, threats, and promises with the condition of obedience,” which he later confirms one by one.
We respond. All of Bellarmine’s arguments proceed from that false hypothesis that “Gospel” is nowhere used in Scripture in any way other than to mean the entire doctrine which Christ and the apostles preached in the New Testament and which is contained in the books of the evangelists and the other writings of the apostles. Above [§ 15] we have clearly shown the falseness of this hypothesis. Therefore we can avoid a more detailed response to these arguments because they prove nothing else but that the writings of the New Testament and the discourses of Christ and the apostles contain laws, threats, and promises with the condition of obedience, which we are not at all unwilling to concede. Yet nothing of our opinion—that the proper doctrine of the Gospel is the free promise of the forgiveness of sins and of life eternal for the sake of Christ apprehended by faith—falls away because of this.
Nevertheless let us see what Bellarmine has to offer. He says:
As far as concerns laws properly so called [in the Gospel], we prove it from Matthew 5, where the Lord confirms, explains, and completes the Law of Moses about murder, adultery, false witness, and other matters. For the fact that the Lord really wanted the Law to be kept as He had explained it is very clear: (1) From His manner of speaking: “I say to you,” which words properly fit a lawgiver. (2) From the fact that the Lord says that He did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it [Matt. 5:17]. For if there were no obligation to the Law in the Gospel, the Lord would have removed the old Law as well as its moral precepts. (3) Because in Matt. 7[:28–29] it is said that Christ taught as one who had power, that is, as a lawgiver who interprets the laws or changes them or adds to them on the basis of his authority, but not as an attorney who only explains a law on the basis of his knowledge. (4) From the fact that He concludes: “Whoever, then, annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches people so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven” [Matt. 5:19]. The Lord then not only explains the old Law but also commands that it be kept. (5) If the old moral Law did not pertain to Christians, why should the Lord explain and perfect it?
We respond. (1) These things are correctly published and urged against the Antinomians; but they do not harm our case at all, for who of us denies that Christ and the apostles explain, repeat, and urge the moral Law in the New Testament and that, as a result, ministers of the New Testament must also explain, repeat, and urge it? Who of us has ever declared that the moral Law does not pertain to Christians?
(2) Christ and the apostles not only preached the Gospel in the proper sense of the word—that is, the free forgiveness of sins for the sake of Christ, the Mediator, and about the public heralding of the revealed Messiah, which part of their ministry was most important—but they also employed the ministry of the Law in regard to various cases. [They] especially [did this so] that the doctrine of the moral Law might be cleansed of its Pharisaic corruptions and be restored to its pristine splendor; that people, either secure or swollen in the persuasion of their own righteousness, might be led to a knowledge of their sin and a desire for grace; that the norm of good works might be presented to the reborn, for the Law is “not destroyed by faith but rather is established by it” (Rom. 3:[31]); that they might free themselves from the false accusations of the Pharisees and false apostles, with which Christ and the apostles were burdened. I judge that these are the principal causes why, at the very beginning of His ministry, Christ wanted to lay the Law before His disciples and hearers and why the apostles faithfully followed His example: in case there had been adversaries and destroyers of the whole Law who would bring in a doctrine diametrically opposed to the Law and, in fact, one which would completely overthrow the entire shape of religious piety established by the Law and the prophets; that they might resist a perverse interpretation of the Gospel; in case some carnal license might have been introduced through this to live however one pleases, as well as the removal of the obedience due to the Law and the changing of the meaning of God as expressed in the moral Law; etc.
(3) The state of the question is being twisted, for here the controversy is not whether Christ and the apostles also taught the Law along with the doctrine of the Gospel in their ministry, but only this is asked: what is the genuine and proper doctrine of the Gospel? Christ had been sent not only for the purpose of becoming a sacrifice for sins, to fulfill the Law with His obedience and satisfaction, and to perform the other parts of His priestly office but also to take up a prophetic responsibility, to perform a ministry of teaching, and to remove corruptions from heavenly doctrine. Therefore in order to set forth the perfect form of teaching to the ministers of the church, He wanted to tie together the teaching of the Law and Gospel; in fact, He was obliged to do this, because “the knowledge of sin comes from the Law” (Rom. 3:20; 7:7). The medicine does not at all heal the one without that knowledge. Christ heals through the Gospel, but only “the contrite in heart” (Luke 4:18). He preaches forgiveness, but “to the captives,” that is, to those who acknowledge their spiritual captivity (Isa. 61:[1]). He gives rest, but “to the burdened” (Matt. 11:28). He preaches the Gospel, but “to the poor” (Matt. 11:4–[5]). But now this contrition of heart and awareness of a spiritual captivity and burden and poverty do not come except from the Law, which Christ and His apostles thus by no means neglected in their ministry. Meanwhile, the proper teaching of Christ and of the Gospel remains the joyful message of the free forgiveness of sins because of Christ, the Mediator, which has been promised to those who believe in Him, just as Christ came into the world especially for the purpose of making satisfaction for the sins of the world on the altar of the cross.
(4) Therefore we willingly admit that in Matthew 5 Christ interprets, repeats, explains, and urges the Law. But the term “perfect” [in Bellarmine’s fifth argument] is ambiguous. For if it is taken in this sense: that Christ is also teaching a more perfect Law and is prescribing more perfect works than those which have been commanded in the moral Law (something the Scholastics try to carve out of this passage)—then we deny that Christ perfects the Law in this sense. This is something that Bellarmine (De laicis, bk. 3, ch. 13) himself partly admits, for he writes as follows: “The Lord who says, ‘You have heard that it was said in ancient times: ‘An eye for an eye,’ etc. [Matt. 5:38], does not censure the old Law, nor does He forbid a magistrate to inflict a punishment commensurate with the crime. Instead, He rebukes the corrupt interpretation of the Pharisees and forbids the desire for revenge from private [citizens],” etc. In De monachis (bk. 2, ch. 9) he concedes: “Christ’s words about offering the other cheek to the one who strikes [Matt. 5:39] contain a command which should yet be understood as the preparation of one’s heart.” Also, when he collects his arguments from Scripture in the same chapter to declare the content of the evangelical counsels, he omits this word of Christ. He admits this most clearly of all where he writes (De justif., bk. 4, ch. 3): “The message of Christ was not set against the moral Law but against the corruptions of the Pharisees.” But if the word “perfect” is set against the corruptions of the Pharisees, from which Christ has vindicated the moral Law and restored it to its original perfection, we admit that He perfects the Law in this sense.
(5) Christ quite often repeats the phrase “I Myself say” [Matt. 5:22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44] both because He was the true Lord of the Law, who published it on Mount Sinai along with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and because with authority He set His authentic explanation of the Law against the corruptions of the Pharisees. But by no means did He intend to indicate that He was giving a new and more perfect Law.
(6) The expression that “Christ taught as one having authority [ἐξουσίαν]” [Matt. 7:29] is explained very beautifully by Dr. Chemnitz (Harm. evang., ch. 37), namely, that the sense of this is that: “When Christ taught, He brought with Himself a peculiar and outstanding authority and majesty in that He kept saying ‘I say to you’ not as interpreter or under another name, but as Lord, with His own authority and under His own name, because His message had a miraculous power and energy as the Holy Spirit stirred up the hearts of His listeners to repentance and faith through His words; and because He taught with a peculiar grace, great zeal, and freedom; and because He confirmed what He taught with miracles,” etc. He clearly shows that these words must be assigned not only to the repetition of the Law but also to the proper doctrine of Christ, namely, to the message of the Gospel (Mark 1:22; Luke 4:32).