And the Tenth Commandment, closely connected to the Ninth: Thou shalt distinguish properly between Law and Gospel. A soul is either estranged from God -- under the Law -- or reconciled with Him by the Gospel. The very worst thing you can do to a man is give him the wrong part of the Bible at the wrong time. A murderer and a suicide need to hear different Scriptures (the suicide needs hope, not hopelessness, condemnation and further strait jacketing of his options -- he needs to hear about the love of God, not the fires of hell.)
When a man is indifferent to the state of his soul or secure in his sins, then the flames must roar and hell burn hot beneath him. But when he has been crushed by the sledge of the Law, and his conscience is in agony, then the fire must be put out, or he will either die in despair like Judas or harden his conscience against such terrors. At that time Jesus, the Healer, must come forth to bind up his wounds and speak to him tenderly of the love of God. He who can distinguish between the Law and the Gospel deserves the doctor's gown, as Luther says.
At this time you cannot do better to follow the Tenth Commandment than reading Walther's Law and Gospel, available from any Lutheran bookstore or from Northwestern Publishing House, PO Box 26975, Milwaukee WI 53226-0975. You may think, ``That's just another book and I don't have time to read the books I own already.'' That's what I used to think. But one of my classmates at the seminary told me, ``If you don't read Law and Gospel, you don't belong in a Lutheran pulpit.'' I thought that was a overly strong statement at the time. Then I read Law and Gospel. He was wrong. Unless you have read Law and Gospel, you don't belong in any pulpit, of any denomination. Because knowing the difference between law and Gospel is the essential difference between Christianity and paganism.
All religions except that of Christ boil down to the same formula: ``Keep the rules, and you will be rewarded.'' It doesn't matter what religion you are talking about, all promise some kind of reward for keeping the rules. The only difference lies in what the rules are and what the reward is. Moslems worship on Friday for entrance to a hashish harem; Jews on Saturday for possession of Palestine, and misinformed ``Christians'' think their keeping of Sunday is a rule that guarantees them a place in heaven. All three are equally wrong.
Oh, yes, Christians have their rules. And while I believe those rules are superior to the rules in other religions, we don't keep them for a reward. In fact, we have barely kept them at all, and are threatened with a righteous punishment for that, rather than any sort of reward. That's the doctrine of the law.
The Gospel is not found in any other religion. This is the message of God's love, a love so great that it sent someone else to be our Substitute in punishment for failure to keep the rules. His sweat and his blood are put on our account; He filled what we can rightfully call the Treasury of Merit, properly understood; therefore He was punished and we are rewarded, for no other reason than the kind heart of God.
Where is the rule-keeping, then? We don't do it for a reward. We do it out of gratitude to God and Christ, who loved us and did so much to help us.
Nor is this a mere squabble about terms, even though some readers may think that Christianity is like the others, having rule keeping on one side and benefits on another. That's almost like saying prostitution and marriage are a mere squabble about terms, just because a transfer of money and sexual relations are involved in both. In prostitution as in worldly religions, the transactions are essentially selfish ones. In Christianity as in marriage, the transactions arise out of love.
To summarize, then:
The Law tells us what we must do to be saved; it shows us our sin and the wrath of God. Keeping the Law cannot save us no matter how much we try to keep it. It demands that we be perfectly righteous, but gives us no strength for leading a godly life.
The Gospel, on the contrary, tells us what God has done through Christ to save us. It shows us our Savior and the grace of God. It therefore saves us by grace through faith. It declares us righteous juridically before God, and then gives us strength to increase our actual, personal righteousness by living a godly life.
Table 1 should help make it clear. The brilliant idea of separating the two columns with a Cross comes from the sainted Siegbert W. Becker, late of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary.