Dear Stephen,
Thanks for your thoughts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen  The gospel does not command; it is the law that commands. The gospel drives us to Christ where we find grace to repent and obey Him. |
That's what I thought when I began researching. This is basically the Lutheran take on the law / gospel distinction. But now I think differently and that's because the reformed tradition took me back to Scripture (esp. John Owen).
Hence, in Acts 13:49 we find a call to repent in the gospel itself:
"Men, why are you doing this? We are also men, of like nature with you, and preaching the gospel to you,
that you should turn [i.e. repent] from these worthless things to the living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea ..."
And in Rev. 14:6-7 we find commands in the gospel to worship, fear God, and give him glory:
"Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the
eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people. And he said with a loud voice, "
Fear God and
give him glory, for the hour of his judgement has come; and
worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and fountains of water".
If we say that the gospel = covenant of grace, then the covenant of grace contains commands. The issue is the
context in which these commands arise. Under the gospel commands arise because one is reconciled, not to be reconciled.
In a nutshell, the gospel is about Christ as Lord (hence the demand to repent) and saviour (hence the demand to have faith).
And dear PBers once it's done I'll attempt to make it as available as possible. Australia may be far away geographically but the web makes it possible for us to be quite closely connected.
I'm off to Cambridge in a month for a 6 month Sabbatical to try and nail the thesis. Please pray for me.
Blessings.