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3:24, and that the Epistle to the Hebrews represents the law, not as standing in antithetical
relation to the gospel, but rather as the gospel in its preliminary and imperfect state.
Some of the older Reformed theologians represented the law and the gospel as absolute
opposites. They thought of the law as embodying all the demands and commandments of
Scripture, and of the gospel, as containing no demands whatsoever, but only unconditional
promises; and thus excluded from it all requirements. This was partly due to the way in which
the two are sometimes contrasted in Scripture, but was also partly the result of a controversy in
which they were engaged with the Arminians. The Arminian view, making salvation dependent
on faith and evangelical obedience as works of man, caused them to go to the extreme of
saying that the covenant of grace does not require anything on the part of man, does not
prescribe any duties, does not demand or command anything, not even faith, trust, and hope in
the Lord, and so on. but merely conveys to man the promises of what God will do for him.
Others, however, correctly maintained that even the law of Moses is not devoid of promises,
and that the gospel also contains certain demands. They clearly saw that man is not merely
passive, when he is introduced into the covenant of grace, but is called upon to accept the
covenant actively with all its privileges, though it is God who works in him the ability to meet
the requirements. The promises which man appropriates certainly impose upon him certain
duties, and among them the duty to obey the law of God as a rule of life, but also carry with
them the assurance that God will work in him “both to will and to do.” The consistent
Dispensationalists of our day again represent the law and the gospel as absolute opposites.
Israel was under the law in the previous dispensation, but the Church of the present
dispensation is under the gospel, and as such is free from the law. This means that the gospel is
now the only means of salvation, and that the law does not now serve as such. Members of the
Church need not concern themselves about its demands, since Christ has met all its
requirements. They seem to forget that, while Christ bore the curse of the law, and met its
demands as a condition of the covenant of works, He did not fulfil the law for them as a rule of
life, to which man is subject in virtue of his creation, apart from any covenant arrangement.
2. NECESSARY DISTINCTIONS RESPECTING THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
a. As was already said in the preceding, the distinction between the law and the gospel is not
the same as that between the Old and the New Testament.
Neither is it the same as that
which present day Dispensationalists make between the dispensation of the law and the
dispensation of the gospel. It is contrary to the plain facts of Scripture to say that there is no
gospel in the Old Testament, or at least not in that part of the Old Testament that covers the
dispensation of the law. There is gospel in the maternal promise, gospel in the ceremonial law,
and gospel in many of the Prophets, as Isa. 53 and 54; 55:1-3,6.7; Jer. 31:33,34; Ezek. 36:25-28.