In order to understand how the law and the gospel work practically in the Christian life, we need to understand what we might call their threefold motion. This threefold motion involves law, then the gospel, and then gospel (or evangelical) obedience. Sometimes this threefold motion has been called “guilt, grace, and gratitude.” These three movements align with the three big biblical covenants about eternal life. The covenant of works, or law covenant, brings guilt. The covenant of redemption, or gospel promise, brings redeeming grace. And the covenant of grace, or gospel covenant, brings gratitude and results in faithful gospel obedience.
Consider how the law and the gospel are related to or found in all three of these big covenants. Adam broke the law in the covenant of works, which means we need the gospel. Christ kept the law in the covenant of redemption, which is the gospel, strictly speaking. Christ promises life to us in the covenant of grace and gives us His law as our rule of walking, which is the gospel covenant.
To illustrate the importance of these three motions of law and gospel, consider the following example. Imagine a person who speaks angry words in their marriage. This could be a husband or a wife, but in our example, we will go with the husband. He is told: Christ’s law commands you not to angrily murder your wife with your words. Ephesians 4:31-32 says, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” You deserve to go to hell for your anger, and on top of it, you are ruining your marriage. He feels guilty for his sins. He is afraid of the consequences of his sins. Someone counsels him: You must stop speaking such evil words to your wife, and start speaking words that build her up. You need to put on kind words that are constructive and loving. Ephesians 4:29 says, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Out of fear of the possible consequences, he starts to practice putting off destructive words and putting on kind words. When he starts to make some progress, he feels less guilty because he is doing better. Sometimes he slips up and the old angry words come out again. Still, he feels much better about himself because at least he is improving.
What is the problem? In one sense, the effect of the counsel he received is good because at least he is speaking fewer angry words to his wife. The first use of the law restrains evil. But on the other hand, something is still off. The reforming angry husband feels that he deserves some credit for being a little bit better. Don’t I get any credit for doing better? He is looking for approval and righteousness based on his modified behavior. He also thinks his improved behavior is overcoming his guilt. He seems to want to minimize his remaining sin because at least he is getting better. He was really bad before. Now he is less bad. Why are you getting on my case for one outburst of anger? I am much better than I was.
Before God, this angry man has fallen into a great sin. He is trying to overcome guilt by modifying his behavior. He thinks he deserves credit for his good works. Something is still deeply wrong. He has not yet come to understand the fullness of God’s law or the great grace of the gospel. Consider the three motions of law and gospel in the heart of an angry spouse.
The Law
Angry words in marriage break God’s law, but the sin of anger has roots that run deep within a sinful heart. The same heart that is angry is also covetous, breaking the tenth commandment. It selfishly loves its own comfort and pleasure more than Christ and others, and it is angry when others do not give them what they want. An angry heart is trying to achieve paradise, to return to the Garden of Eden, through its anger.
Some people express anger to kill their feelings of shame. A person with an angry heart reasons, “If I can accuse someone else and prove that they are at fault, then I am not guilty, and I do not need to feel shame.” Rather than deal with his sinful heart and guilt before the Lord, he lashes out and condemns others, making himself feel more righteous than his spouse. He looks upon his wife with self-righteous scorn. His anger is an attempt at self-justification. The other person is guilty, not me.
This kind of anger is a lie, and breaks the ninth commandment, because it refuses to admit its own sinfulness, but instead, it delights in pointing out sin in others. The lie an angry person tells himself is that he is justified, and the other person is guilty. That is the essence of pride. I am better. I am deserving, and I am righteous.
God’s law demands that the angry husband do far more than stop speaking angry words and start speaking more kind words to his wife. Rather the law of God requires that he change all the way down in his heart. He has to see himself for what he is: deeply wicked, selfish, deceptive, proud, murderous, covetous, etc. And the law insists that the angry husband put on perfect faith in Christ, perfect love for his wife, perfect humility, and perfect words of kindness and truth and grace with no exceptions. The law as a covenant threatens eternal condemnation in hell to this husband for his sins. The law of God is inflexible, which means that he has no hope of feeling righteous or justified under the law. The true law of God can never be obeyed in its full and true sense, not even for a moment, which leaves the angry husband with no hope whatsoever before the law. He has no hope of righteousness in behavior modification.
The Gospel
There is great hope, however, if God graciously works so that the angry husband comes under conviction of the fullness and rigor of God’s law. He will realize that he has no hope of changing his behavior to justify himself. He will find himself agreeing with the law that he deserves to be condemned, and he will not think he deserves any mercy or grace from God or anyone at all, no matter how much he has reformed his outward behavior.
But having graciously come under the conviction of the law, he now needs to see Jesus Christ in the gospel. Christ suffered horribly at the hands of angry men. Wicked people, like this angry husband, spat upon Jesus. They beat a crown of thorns down into His head. They dressed Him in a purple robe and they mocked Him. They reviled Him, while He hung upon the cross, saying, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matt 27:40). The angry husband, under grace, will see that he is among Christ’s accusers. But though Christ was reviled, He never reviled in return (1 Pet 2:23). Instead, He prayed for His murderers, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34).
And in dying upon the cross, Jesus suffered the fullness of God’s wrath, not only in His body but in His very soul. He endured an eternity of hell’s torments in the moment of His death as a substitute for angry men. In that way, He paid the just penalty for the sin of anger.
If the angry husband looks to Jesus, then his anger was laid upon Christ, where Christ accomplished the forgiveness of his sins. There is no condemnation in Christ, even for an angry man, if he looks to Jesus. Jesus clears away the guilt of the believing husband. Jesus alone declares this believing man to be righteous by grace through faith alone and not by any works, not by a reformed life, not because the man is doing better. Based on the gospel’s promises, this husband can personally believe that Jesus forgives him completely, accepts him freely, and loves him truly. He can and must personally believe that Jesus put the Holy Spirit into his heart so that he can put off his anger and grow in love more and more.
Gospel Obedience
Finally, in light of all that Christ has done, the believing husband will seek to keep Christ’s law under grace by faith. He can trust in Christ because Christ has proven His love for them. He can love Christ from the heart because Christ loved him first. And looking to Jesus, he can hate and forsake his proud and murderous heart and put on sincere and true love for his wife. When a man is changed by Christ’s love, he begins to look at his wife differently from his heart. He adores her. He cherishes and honors her. Because of Jesus, he wants to love her and to do her good for the rest of his life.
Through the gospel, he is coming to understand that because he is righteous in Christ alone, he does not have to make himself appear more righteous than his wife because Christ has robed him in His perfect righteousness. If the husband ever speaks angry words to his wife, he can quickly recognize what he did, admit his terrible sin, calling it by its biblical name. “I murdered you in my heart and with my words.” There is no threat of condemnation in confessing sin because Christ has already paid for that sin. And then the man can ask for forgiveness. “I do not deserve your forgiveness, or God’s forgiveness, but will you please forgive me for murdering you with my words?” Now the man can commit to grow in love and words of love. “I am committed to loving you and to speaking words that are good and gracious, just like the words that Christ speaks to me.” He can remember the words of Scripture and learn to obey them from the heart. Proverbs 12:18 says, “There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” Proverbs 16:24 says, “Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.”
Under grace, this repenting spouse is now willing to be held accountable. Rather than defending himself when he is angry, he wants to be held accountable to God’s law when he sins with his words. He hates his sinful anger for its own sake because it is ugly in itself, and he longs to put it off and to put on Christ’s likeness for His glory and to love his wife. He has a deep desire to continue to love, honor and respect his wife because Christ bought him with a price. Jesus loved him in his unloveliness.
The believing husband, who is dying to his anger and learning to put on love, knows that living a life of repentance and growing in grace and obedience to God’s law is the best way to live. He has to live in the light, tell the truth about himself, and fight to love his spouse from the heart because of Christ’s great love for him. He is learning that faithfulness to love Christ and his wife is the way to grow in communion not just in his marriage but with Christ Himself.
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