Understanding Law of Law and Gospel

It's occurred to me you guys might think I'm actually in prison. Yes? I've written some things that might give that impression. Talk of murder, sexual crime, etc. Also, my strange living conditions.

For the record, I've never been arrested in my life. Never had to show up for jail or prison time either. Never been behind bars.

I was just truly caught in a storm of spiritual, Devil-inspired warfare. My family gave me advantages as well as disadvantages. That sounds pretty generic, but the advantages were unique and the disadvantages were a bit harder than is usual in other families. I took a lot of punishment (not physical), but had total freedom and time to myself.

I don't think you get personal computers in prison. Not for as long as I use one each day, anyway.

Maybe you guys just think I'm in some insane loop, saying the same things, for now an embarrassing amount of years. Perhaps. But I could be writing solely in mathematical equations at this point. I like repeating basics. No feedback though means no school energy.

I'm as on the edge of survival as any of you all too. If we were rich we'd be worse off. Having just enough is probably ideal. Even though we have to worry about even having that.

There's the subject of LAW, as the Bible presents it, in some of this email. It's a deep subject. How the law of God, twisted and distorted by fallen man (representing the world) beats you down and ultimately kills you by ironically accusing you falsely yet still making you see, by their projecting, that there is some truth in our guilt and pollution by sin, original sin and active sin. That's that dark force, blob-like, that envelops us, controls us, and if we begin to see it it turns on us and the process begins. Then...the grace part, the Good News of the Gospel part, plays out in terms of our looking for a defense, a shelter, something to protect us. We don't start out thinking of Jesus as Mediator and so forth, but we are searching for a place to stand, at the most basic level; then for a state that we can confront all that is coming at us, and it all involves seeing things in ourselves that are not pretty, and things in the world that are not pretty, just basic understanding of all and everything.

Here's I articulated this big subject well in a previous email (it's very big to know this) -

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...this is a deep and foundational subject. The General Law. The insight I am about to give you I have written of before, but I see it clearer now. This portion of the book I referenced in the previous email helped me:

"THE PRIMARY FUNCTION OF THE LAW. Luther generally regarded the law as something negative and closely allied with sin, death, or the Devil. He believed that the dominant function of the law is to abase the sinner by convicting him of sin and driving him to Christ for deliverance.

"Calvin regarded the law more as a guide for the believer, a tool to encourage him to cling to God and to obey Him more fervently. The believer must try to follow God's law not as an act of compulsory duty, but as a response of grateful obedience. With the help of the Spirit, the law provides a way for a believer to express his gratitude."

Joel R. Beeke. Living for God's Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism (pp. 10-11). Kindle Edition.

I believe the Lutherans were more deep here than the Calvinists. Or at least Luther was. But in a way they most likely weren't aware.

Remember I wrote awhile back that the law of God has been distorted and twisted into what the Work calls the General Law. The big, black blob of accusation and guilt *projecting* that the world and the devil and human beings in general (in their sleeping state) engage in. (In fact I noticed that one way you can see that the guilt of inherent sin in all of us is real is by this projecting the world does in accusing others of sin and guilt. They project it because it is *in them.* In all of us.)

So look at the first quoted paragraph above. *This is how I experienced being driven to Christ.* It was by the General Law. The onslaught of accusing and shaming the General Law does when you are developing and moving 'out of place.' And the General Law comes at you as something *evil* like sin and death and the Devil.

Now the second quoted paragraph above has truth in it as well. But it refers to God's law *undistorted* and *un-twisted*. And that law (epitomized by the Ten Commandments) is now known as the Law of Christ, boiled down by Jesus into the two great commandments of love God and love your neighbor as yourself (and at a deeper level I submit you can see the two conscious shocks in each of those respective commands). But it's now the fruit of the spirit (our regenerated nature and new heart), not a chain about our neck making us do something we don't want to do. And Jesus said: the burden is light. Ultimately in the glorified state we're no longer even *able* to sin. That is a new state.

So the General Law *does* do a positive work. We don't want to be a part of it, but we need it to get us to turn in the only direction we can turn (because we don't want to conform to the General Law and it won't allow us to even live if we move in any other direction, so we turn to God; we wake up; and we get some protection from God as well... Another way of seeing that is when we get to a point where we have no other direction to go in life but *vertical* to higher influences. The General Law pushes us, unwittingly, in that direction. And it is in that direction ultimately that we encounter the truth of Scripture.)

The other positive thing about the General Law, potentially, is for use as needed *friction* in our development (for the Odysseus-like, 'wily' man). That is all explained in the Work sources.

So you can see this is a *big* subject. A big connection. A big insight. - C.
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This is useful. This is practical. This is deep. This is looking into the mysteries of the plan of God. To be able to see the biblical subject of Law in this practical a context puts you ahead of the game. Remember, law and gospel is a foundational subject of biblical doctrine. The Bible. Most schools of Christianity don't come close to understanding law and gospel. Lutherans and Calvinists, Reformation era Protestants in general, made the effort to really see them in Scripture and understand it as a foundation aspect of the plan of God. I forget which, but some old theologians said if you can understand law and gospel you will be a master theologian. That refers to the parts of biblical doctrine, but to understand law as it is presented above (law and general law) you are in territory most on the spiritual battlefield have never been. - C.

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A formula could be put this way: get new knowledge and see common things in different context.


A lot of the New Testament hangs in suspended animation. Theologians just are kind of silent on the meaning of much of it. For instance, why Jesus says his mother is not his mother. Who is my mother, he said. These are my family, gesturing to believers. (His mother was a believer, but you see his point.)

This is a commonly known passage. So take new knowledge (we're in the spiritual realm now as well as being under the sun now, throw in recurrence even) and see the passage in the different context of who we are connected with in the spiritual realm. Go further and see that if we are still connected with biological family in the spiritual realm then we are still in the most worldly environment that we can be in. Dead in recurrence as well. For a more stark example think of a Muslim who is converted by the Word and Spirit to the true religion and his relationship with his family NOW. Think of the change. In the spiritual realm he's no where near them.

With the Bible striving to find the higher context of what you encounter in it gives higher understanding. It goes without saying this is not the same as seeing whatever in Scripture. It will be in line with on-the-mark biblical doctrine, but the knowledge that goes farther needs to be found by seeing in different context. Higher context. - C.