MarieP
Puritan Board Senior
I saw this quoted on Facebook:
"We cry down the law when it comes to our justification, but we set it up when it comes to our sanctification. The Law drives us to the Gospel that we are justified, then sends us to the Law again to show us our duty now that we are justified" (Puritan: Thomas Boston).
I don't know where Boston says this, so the context may be helpful. But I'm a bit uneasy with the picture he paints. Surely Boston did not mean that we go away from the Gospel to the Law to be sanctified, right? Is it not the Gospel that enables us to keep God's moral Law? Is it not the Spirit in our hearts and the Law written there that drives us to obey?
I don't think Boston would disagree, but I am just a bit puzzled by the picture. What about this picture: the Law sends us to the Gospel, and the Gospel writes the Law on our hearts.
---------- Post added at 02:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:37 PM ----------
Just found this quote by Calvin:
"We cry down the law when it comes to our justification, but we set it up when it comes to our sanctification. The Law drives us to the Gospel that we are justified, then sends us to the Law again to show us our duty now that we are justified" (Puritan: Thomas Boston).
I don't know where Boston says this, so the context may be helpful. But I'm a bit uneasy with the picture he paints. Surely Boston did not mean that we go away from the Gospel to the Law to be sanctified, right? Is it not the Gospel that enables us to keep God's moral Law? Is it not the Spirit in our hearts and the Law written there that drives us to obey?
I don't think Boston would disagree, but I am just a bit puzzled by the picture. What about this picture: the Law sends us to the Gospel, and the Gospel writes the Law on our hearts.
---------- Post added at 02:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:37 PM ----------
Just found this quote by Calvin:
"Whereas the law was engraven on stones in the ministry of Moses, the Spirit in the ministry of the gospel writes the law on the hearts of men. The whole excellence of the gospel depends on this, that it is made life-giving to us by the grace of the Holy Spirit" (Calvin’s Commentaries, vol. XX, p. 187).