Zwingli, who was a moralist and a Humanist rather than a truly
evangelical reformer, taught: "In itself the Law is nothing else than a
Gospel; that is, a good, certain message from God by means of which He
instructs us concerning His will." (Frank 2, 312.) While Zwingli thus
practically identified Law and Gospel, Luther, throughout his life, held
that the difference between both is as great as that between life and
death or the merits of Christ and our own sinful works; and that no one
can be a true minister of the Christian Church who is unable properly to
distinguish and apply them. For, according to Luther, a commingling of
the Law and the Gospel necessarily leads to a corruption of the doctrine
of justification, the very heart of Christianity. And as both must be
carefully distinguished, so both must also be upheld and preached in the
Church; for the Gospel presupposes the Law and is rendered meaningless
without it. Wherever the Law is despised, disparaged, and corrupted, the
Gospel, too, cannot be kept intact. Whenever the Law is assailed, even
if this be done in the name of the Gospel, the latter is, in reality,
hit harder than the former. The cocoon of antinomianism always bursts
into antigospelism.
Majorism, the mingling of sanctification and justification, and
synergism, the mingling of nature and grace, were but veiled efforts to
open once more the doors of the Lutheran Church to the Roman
work-righteousness, which Luther had expelled. The same is true of
antinomianism in all its forms. It amounts to nothing less than apostasy
from true Evangelicalism and a return to Romanism. When Luther opposed
Agricola, the father of the Antinomians in the days of the Reformation,
he did so with the clear knowledge that the Gospel of Jesus Christ with
its doctrine of justification by grace and faith alone was at stake and
in need of defense. "By these spirits," said he, "the devil does not
intend to rob us of the Law, but of Christ, who fulfilled the Law." (St.
L. 20, 1614; Pieper, _Dogm_. 3, 279; Frank 2, 268. 325.)
With the same interest in view, to save the Gospel from corruption, the
_Formula of Concord_ opposes antinomianism and urges that the
distinction between the Law and the Gospel be carefully preserved. The
opening paragraph of Article V, "Of the Law and the Gospel," reads: "As
the distinction between the Law and Gospel _is a special brilliant
light_ which serves to the end that God's Word may be rightly divided,
and the Scriptures of the holy prophets and apostles may be properly
explained and understood, we must guard it with especial care, in order
that these two doctrines may not be mingled with one another, or a Law
be made out of the Gospel, whereby the merit of Christ is obscured and
troubled consciences are robbed of their comfort, which they otherwise
have in the holy Gospel when it is preached genuinely and in its purity,
and by which they can support themselves in their most grievous trials
against the terrors of the Law." (951, 1.) The concluding paragraph of
this article declares that the proper distinction between the Law and
the Gospel must be preserved, "in order that both doctrines, that of the
Law and that of the Gospel, be not mingled and confounded with one
another, and what belongs to the one may not be ascribed to the other,
_whereby the merit and benefits of Christ are easily obscured and the
Gospel is again turned into a doctrine of the Law_, as has occurred in
the Papacy, and thus Christians are deprived of the true comfort which
they have in the Gospel against the terrors of the Law, and the door is
again opened in the Church of God to the Papacy." (961, 27.) The blessed
Gospel, our only comfort and consolation against the terrors of the Law,
will be corrupted wherever the Law and the Gospel are not properly
distinguished,--such, then, was the view also of the _Formula of
Concord_.
Articles V and VI of the _Formula_ treat and dispose of the issues
raised by the Antinomians. In both Luther's doctrine is maintained and
reaffirmed. Article V, "Of the Law and Gospel," teaches that, in the
proper sense of the term, everything is Law that reveals and rebukes
sin, the sin of unbelief in Christ and the Gospel included; that Gospel,
in the proper and narrow sense, is nothing but a proclamation and
preaching of grace and forgiveness of sin, that, accordingly, the Law as
well as the Gospel are needed and must be retained and preached in the
Church. This was precisely what Luther had taught. In one of his theses
against Agricola he says: "Whatever discloses sin, wrath, or death
exercises the office of the Law; Law and the disclosing of sin or the
revelation of wrath are convertible terms. _Quidquid ostendit peccatum,
iram seu mortem, id exercet officium legis; lex et ostensio peccati seu
revelatio irae sunt termini convertibiles_." Article VI "Of the Third
Use of the Law," teaches that although Christians, in as far as they are
regenerate, do the will of God spontaneously, the Law must nevertheless
be preached to them on account of their Old Adam, not only as a mirror
revealing their sins and as a check on the lusts of the flesh, but also
as a rule of their lives. This, too, is precisely what Luther had
maintained against Agricola: "The Law," said he, "must be retained [in
the Church], that the saints may know which are the works God requires."
(Drews, _Disputationen Dr. Martin Luthers_, 418; _Herzog R._ I, 588;
Frank 2, 272; Tschackert, 482.)