The Proper Distinction

The Proper Distinction

The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity – 8/23/2026

2 Corinthians 3:4-11

Rev. Dr. Christopher W. Brademeyer

That portion from God’s holy Word for consideration this morning is our Epistle lesson from the Second Epistle to the Corinthians in the third chapter with special emphasis on verses four through six which read as follows:

“Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

Thus far the Scriptures.

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The most central distinction we can know as Christians is that between God’s holy Law and His saving Gospel. If we do not know it, we will confuse these two. And if we confuse them, we will lose both of them, most especially, we will lose the Gospel. That is to say, if we do not understand this fundamental difference, we will never know the comfort and peace that comes by knowing the forgiveness of sins nor will we know the depth of our need for forgiveness or God’s will which the Law reveals. C. F. W. Walther, the very first president of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, wrote that, “to rightly distinguish Law and Gospel is the most difficult and highest Christian art.” It is fundamental to our Christian understanding and, as such, a matter we must place a good deal of attention toward. 

The Law

As you recall from your confirmation instruction, the Law of God is given to us to do

three things. Firstly, it is a curb against sin. Secondly, it is a mirror that shows us our sins. Thirdly, it shows us the Christian life. Each of these is a good and holy thing. Each of these is the will of God for your life. Each of these is part of what it means to be a Christian. Without this Law of God, we would be lacking in Christian piety and life.

The first function of the Law of God is to provide for good order. This “curb” serves to ward off sinful behavior in our individual selves. However, it does not only do this. It governs the structures and authorities we encounter outside of ourselves. God does not simply rule and order individuals by His Law, He also orders and rules groups of people. We need the discipline of a good and God-pleasing order and structure to protect what is right and good and to restrict what is evil and wrong.

The second function of the Law of God is to reveal where sin has taken root. It makes us ask a simple, but uncomfortable question: “What do I see when I look into the mirror of God’s Law?” Each of us has fallen short of God’s Law and will for our lives. Each of us has broken the Ten Commands in God’s Law. Each of us has sinned. However, we are often unaware of our sins. Like a person who is ill but unaware of what is wrong, we need to have the matter properly diagnosed. The Law reveals our sin. The Law reveals to us where we have gone astray. We must have this diagnosis so that we can know to seek the cure. 

This use of the Law is for our purposes here in the Church the most important because it is the one that breaks unrepentant, stony hearts to ready them for the Gospel. It is the means by which God breaks all our efforts to try and bandage over the wounds of our sins. The Law here is meant to leave us no other alternative than to fling ourselves into the mercy of God, crying out that He might deliver us who are deaf, blind, dumb, and even dead in our sins and trespasses.

The third function of the Law is where God instructs us in the shape of the Christian life. Depending on your age, this is the ‘rule’ or ‘guide’ function you remember from learning the Catechism. But we must be careful with our language. The Law rules us as a measuring stick, showing us the standard we ought to live up to, not as a master who enables us to do right. Similarly, it is a guide like a sign that points the way to God’s will for how we live, not a helpmate that links arms with us to skip into Christian living. What does God want from you? How should you live in this life that He gave you to live? What does He expect for you to do for your neighbor?

In other words, the Law can merely show us what God expects, it does not enable us to achieve it. Through the saving Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit gives us new hearts and saving faith, and through that faith He enables us to do the good works God commands. 

The problem, so to speak, with the Law of God is that it can reveal sin, but not absolve it. It can give us the reason we need a Savior, but it does not save. It can show us what God expects, but it does not give us the power or ability to accomplish it. The Law tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves, but it also reveals that none of us has done this as perfectly as God would have us. 

The Gospel

This is why our Lord grants us an utterly distinct teaching from His Word: the holy Gospel. The Gospel is the saving proclamation of the work of our Lord Jesus. It centers on His substitutionary death which earned for you life and salvation, but includes all of His life and resurrection. Further, this Gospel is utterly distinct from the Law. This is not because they are unrelated, after all, there is one Word of God, but because once we ignore this distinction, we lose the unique work of our Lord Jesus. He saves us entirely alone with no effort or contribution on our parts.

This saving reality is certain because it rests in the Lord. His death is applied to you through Word and Sacrament and is received by faith and His righteousness is accounted to you as your own. And from this salvation, applied to each of you Christians, comes certainty of the mercy of God, forgiveness of sins, everlasting life, the promise of the resurrection of our bodies, redemption of our souls, and every blessing that lasts into heaven and the resurrection to come.

We Cannot Confuse the Law and the Gospel

These cannot be confused. If we blend the Gospel with the Law, we must carve away some part of the work of Christ to replace with our works. And when we do this, we lose the certainty of salvation that comes from knowing that salvation is entirely the work of the Lord alone. Besides this, we can fall into the errors of legalism, where strictly following the Law of God and, usually, church customs is seen as the way into the mercy of the Lord, or antinomianism, which teaches that Christians are free to do whatever they wish, regardless of what God says in His Law. Both of these lead to ruin, a shipwrecking of the faith by trusting in a false freedom in antinomianism or an overinflated sense of one’s own righteousness in the other.

Conclusion

Instead of these things, we must keep Law and Gospel distinct so we do not lose the unique qualities of each. The Law must bite, even terrify us when it is preached. It should make us uncomfortable from time to time in church when it strikes close to home. The Gospel must be presented entirely as the merciful work of Christ from top to bottom, with no room for the uncertainties that come with our efforts. And when we keep this distinction clear, we know how God wishes us to live, our need for a Savior, and, above all, the great and everlasting mercy of God in giving His Son, Jesus Christ, for you and your everlasting salvation.

In the Holy Name of + Jesus. Amen.

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.