Whether the Gospel contains threats and terrors.
Whether the Gospel contains threats and terrors.
§ 20. Bellermine asserts that the second thing contained in the Gospel is threats and terrors. He says: “What greater threat can be imagined than that which issued from the Lord’s mouth: ‘Whoever says to his brother: “You fool,” shall be in danger of hellfire’ (Matt. 5[:22])? And: ‘Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire’ (Matt. 7[:19])? Similar threats occur throughout the Gospel.”
Bellarmine sees the response: one can and should respond that these threats published in the books of the New Testament pertain to the Law just as, on the other hand, the promises of the forgiveness of sins which we read in the prophets must be assigned to the Gospel. Therefore he resists our response with the following points:
(1) It is more satisfactory to correct the definition—namely, that the Gospel is both a happy and a comforting word—than to say that the greatest share of Christ’s discourses are not Christ’s words but those of Moses and that in the Gospel Christ by no means preaches the Gospel. (2) Paul (Rom. 1[:16–18]) attributes the function of frightening people to the Gospel itself when he attributes the revelation of God’s wrath to the Gospel. In fact, in the Gospel the righteousness of God from faith is revealed so that the justified might escape the wrath of God, which the same Gospel testifies is a threat to all the wicked. Thus the same apostle speaks about that day when the Lord will judge the secrets of people “according to My Gospel” (Rom. 2[:16]). (3) On the day of Pentecost, Peter received the Holy Spirit and began to preach (Acts 2[:4, 14]). Yet his listeners were terrified and pricked in their hearts because of his preaching [v. 37]. (4) Even Paul, when he preached the Gospel, terrified people. When Felix and Drusilla were listening to Paul as he discussed righteousness and decency and the judgment which was to come, Felix trembled (Acts 24[:25]). James commands the rich to weep (James 5[:1]). Jude [vv. 14–15] writes about Christ’s coming to judge. The word of the Gospel is: “Fear the Lord and give Him honor” (Rev. 14[:7]). Yet all these preached the Gospel.
From this Bellarmine concludes: “Because Christ and all the apostles frightened people when they preached the Gospel, and because the Apostles’ Creed, which contains a summary of the Gospel, also has an article about the judgment to come,4 it is false that the proper function of the Law is to terrify and that this does not pertain to the Gospel.”
We respond. (1) None of us denies that Christ and the apostles gave out threats in their sermons, but we expressly deny that these pertain to the Gospel in the proper sense of the word. It is trifling for him to argue in this way, that the largest part of Christ’s sermons pertain to the Law of Moses, because Christ proclaimed as much Gospel as legal threats with respect to the occasion and the hearers, and in this respect notice should be taken not so much of the number as of the condition of the occasion and of the hearers. Christ wanted to begin His preaching with an explanation of the Law for the reasons noted above [§ 19 (2)], but especially that the comfort of the Gospel might find a place in the hearts of His hearers. Later, He most frequently provided truly evangelical consolation to His hearers. In the same way, as often as Christ dealt with the impenitent and the secure or even with the Pharisees and others enthralled with the conviction of their own righteousness, He taught them the Law to bring them to the knowledge of their sins. But whenever He had to deal with consciences terrified by an awareness of their sins, He provided them with the comfort of the Gospel, as is seen throughout the Gospel account.
(2) Not only does Paul never say that God’s wrath is revealed in the Gospel, but he also contradicts this and attributes it to the natural and moral Law, as the digression of the first and second chapters of Romans shows clearly. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness of men, for what can be known about God is manifest in them”—namely, through the Law of nature (Rom. 1:18–19). “All who have sinned without the Law will perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged under the Law” (Rom. 2:12). “The Law works wrath” (Rom. 4:15). In regard to the Gospel he declares the opposite: “It was promised beforehand through the prophets in Holy Scripture” (Rom. 1:2). “It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). “The righteousness of God has been revealed apart from the Law, with the confirming testimony of the Law and the prophets,” etc. (Rom. 3:21). In this sense and respect the Gospel can be called “the message of repentance that accuses unbelief,” which will be explained and expounded in detail in its own place [§§ 105–18].
(3) Peter (Acts 2[:22–23]) declares the wrath and judgment of God to the Israelites because they crucified Christ, the Son of God, which was by far the greatest and most serious sin. But now, “through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20). Peter says, “You killed Christ through the hands of lawless men” ([Acts 2:]23); but now, “sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4), the recognition of which comes only through the Law. Therefore it is by this that Peter’s audience was pricked in their hearts, and it is to such pricked hearts that he delivers the promise of the Gospel regarding the free forgiveness of sin ([Acts 2:37–]38).
(4) Paul not only taught the faith which is in Christ from the Gospel, but he also discussed the righteousness, chastity, and the judgment to come from the Law as he revealed the norm of piety and holy behavior to Felix so that the latter would not think that the Gospel gave liberty to the flesh. Let the judgment be the same concerning the discourses of James, Jude, and John. They taught both chief parts of heavenly doctrine to their hearers, both Law and Gospel in the proper sense of the word. Indeed, they had to do that, for the Law without the Gospel creates either hypocrites or people in despair, and the Gospel without the Law feeds the security of the flesh. Thus, though we must distinguish Law and Gospel carefully, yet in actual practice—in true repentance and in the true preaching of repentance—they are very intimately connected, in fact, “by a very near mathematical conjunction,” as Dr. Luther correctly writes in his commentary on Galatians 3.5 The angel does not frighten but rather has “the eternal Gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth” and announces the joyful hour of the judgment, not of that final judgment, but of that in which God will judge the Antichrist, after he has been revealed (Rev. 14:6).
(5) The article of the last judgment strikes terror in the unrepentant and unbelieving but offers most efficacious consolation to those who are truly devout and who believe in Christ, “who will not be judged”—namely, with the severe and damning harshness of the judgment (John 3:18)—neither will they “come into judgment” (John 5:24), because Christ has “freed them from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10). Thus for these people it will be “a day of redemption” (Luke 21:28), a “day of refreshment” (Acts 3:[20]), a “day of restitution” ([Acts 3:21]); these will be invited to the heavenly wedding feast of the Lamb (Rev. 19:[9]). In this respect the article of the last judgment pertains to the Gospel. But for the wicked and unbelieving it will be a day of wrath and vengeance, a day of judgment and condemnation, on which day the curse of the Law will mete out its effect on those who are subject to it.
§ 21. Before Bellarmine goes on to the third thing which he says is contained in the Gospel—namely, conditional promises—he first tries to respond to this argument: if threats belong to the Gospel, why is it called “good news”? He says: “The word ‘Gospel’ is used to indicate an office and especially the office of apostolic preaching. But it does not follow that there are not also other offices of the Gospel, though not described by this name, as a key [clavis] is so called because it locks [claudit], and yet it also opens; and the tongue [lingua] is called the instrument of licking [lingendi], though it is also the instrument of speaking.”
We respond. Although the word “Gospel” is used generally for all the preaching of Christ and of the apostles, it is certain that the title comes from the more important part of the doctrine, namely, the promise of grace. Furthermore, we have already shown [§§ 13–16] that “Gospel,” properly and specifically, is used for the joyful news of the free forgiveness of sins because of Christ, the Mediator, which [definition] we have given as something confirmed not only from the interpretation of the word alone but also on the basis of the specific application of prophetic and apostolic Scripture, and therefore on the basis of the real foundation. Therefore, though etymologies do not always express the entire nature of a thing, nevertheless the remaining arguments still prove that it is so in this example since the terrible news of the divine wrath is never called “Gospel” when it is taken up distinctly and separately.
** There is also a dissimilarity in the examples. The instrument of opening and locking is everywhere called a key, whether it opens or locks, and it is never given a distinct name by which it is called an “instrument for opening.” But there is a specific word given in addition to “Gospel” to denote the sad news of wrath and repentance, namely, the word “Law” (Meisner, Sobr. phil., part 2, sect. 1, ch. 2, q. 18). **
The points that Bellarmine adds about the accusation of unbelief through the Gospel and also about the difference between the Old and New Testaments will have their own places later [§§ 105, 111; §§ 53–63, 119–26].