Chapter I
CHAPTER I: THE CONNECTION WITH THE PRECEDING COMMONPLACE
§ 1. Our faithful Chief Shepherd, Christ Jesus, declares that He rules His flock with two sticks or staves (Zech. 11:7). The first pastoral staff is called נֹעַם, “agreeable or pleasant,” by which the teaching of the Gospel is indicated, which showers contrite hearts with the sweetest pleasantness by announcing the remission of sins (Isa. 61:1–2). The other staff is called חֹבְלִים [“binders”], which the Septuagint renders as σχοίνισμα [“portion”], for חָבַל means to bind and tie with a rope. Since this brings bothersome pain, חֶבֶל is used for “pain,” and Dr. Luther was mindful of this meaning in his German translation of this passage. Therefore the doctrine of the Law is denoted by the staff חֹבְלִים, which binds people or causes pain with the harsh reins and bonds of obedience and which stirs up great pain in people’s hearts by revealing the atrocity of their sin (Rom. 4:15).
The twin staves of our Chief Shepherd stand as an indication that both main parts of God’s teaching—namely, the Law and the Gospel—must be taught, urged, and inculcated in the church. This is proved by the clear example of the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, and, in fact, by the example of Christ Himself when He lived on earth, since all of them as one conducted themselves in all parts of their ministry so that they rightly applied the wine of the Law and the oil of the Gospel in healing the wounds of souls (Luke 10:34).
§ 2. Surely if the first parent of our race had endured in his concreated integrity, one kind of heavenly doctrine (the Law, of course) would have been completely sufficient for his salvation. In fact, he could have won the prize of eternal life by showing a complete and absolute obedience to the Law in every detail. But after he had fallen into sin, he fell into the wretched inability to fulfill the Law and began to need another aid for life and salvation, namely, the promises of the Gospel. This can be seen in the fact that God had pity on Adam and on all of us and came forth from the hidden seat of His majesty immediately after the fall in Eden to reveal the First Gospel [protevangelium] of the One who would come from the woman’s seed and bruise the head of the infernal serpent [Gen. 3:15]. Ever since that time the preaching of the Law and the Gospel have always been connected in the church, and the conjoining of both teachings is proved by the example of the actual First Gospel of God. Thus in proper order the teaching of the Gospel follows the explanation of the divine Law, since the preaching of the Gospel, like the sweetest balsam, cures and revives those whom the hammer of the Law has bruised [Jer. 23:29] and whom the thunder of the Law has terrified [Exod. 19:16; 20:18]. The Gospel declares that the obedience which the harshness of the Law demands so severely has been provided by Christ in our place. Thus we shall pass from Moses to Christ, from Mount Sinai to Mount Zion, from the disclosure of the sickness to its remedy.