This is Bible-doctrine.  “The Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” says John (chap. 1, 17).  Here the two fundamental teachings of the Scriptures are strictly set apart the one from the other.  They have much in common:  they have the same holy Author, God; their contents are holy; they serve holy ends.  But they are differently related to sinful man:  the Law tells man what he must do, the Gospel, what Christ has done for him; the Law issues demands, the Gospel, gratuitous offers; the Law holds out rewards for merits or severe penalties, the Gospel, free and unconditioned gifts; the Law terrifies, the Gospel cheers the sinner; the Law turns the sinner against God by proving to him his incapacity to practise it, the Gospel draws the sinner to God and makes him a willing servant of God.

Paul demands of the Christian minister that he “rightly divide the Word of Truth” (2 Tim. 2, 15).  To preach the Bible-doctrine of salvation aright and with salutary effect, the Law and the Gospel must be kept apart as far as East is from the West.  The Law is truth, but, it is not the truth that saves, because it knows of no grace for the breakers of the Law.  The Gospel teaches holiness and righteousness, however, not such as the sinner achieves by his own effort, but such as has been achieved for the sinner by his Substitute, Jesus Christ.  The Gospel is not for men who imagine that they can do the commandments of God; Jesus Christ says:  “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance” (Matt. 9, 13).  On the other hand, the Law is not for sinners who know themselves saved.  “The Law is not made for a righteous man” (1 Tim. 1, 9).  Christians employ the Law for the regulation of their lives, as a pattern and index of holy works which are pleasing to God and as a deterrent from evil works, but they do not seek their salvation, neither wholly nor in part, in the Law, nor do they look to the Law for strength to do the will of God.  Moreover Christians, while they are still in the flesh, apply the Law to the old Adam in themselves; they bruise the flesh with its deceitful lusts with the scourge of Moses, and thus they are in a sense under the Law, and can never be without the Law while they live.  But in another sense they are not under the Law:  all their life is determined by divine grace; their faith, their hope, their charity, is entirely from the Gospel, and the new man in them acknowledges no master except Jesus Christ, who is all in all to them (Eph. 1, 23).

When Luther directed men for their salvation away from the Law, he did what Christ Himself had done when He called to the multitudes:  “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11, 28).  The people to whom these words were addressed had the Law of Moses and wearied themselves with its fulfilment, such as it was under the direction of teachers and guides who had misinterpreted and were misapplying