⁶ 5. The word “Gospel” is not used in a single sense in Holy Scripture, and this was the original occasion of the controversy. Therefore we believe, teach, and confess that when the word “Gospel” means the entire doctrine of Christ which he proclaimed personally in his teaching ministry and which his apostles also set forth (examples of this meaning occur in Mark 1:15 and Acts 20:24), then it is correct to say or write that the Gospel is a proclamation both of repentance and of forgiveness of sins.

⁷ 6. But when the law and Gospel are opposed to each other, as when Moses is spoken of as a teacher of the law in contrast to Christ as a preacher of the Gospel, then we believe, teach, and confess that the Gospel is not a proclamation of contrition and reproof but is, strictly speaking, precisely a comforting and joyful message which does not reprove or terrify but comforts consciences that are frightened by the law, directs them solely to the merit of Christ, and raises them up again by the delightful proclamation of God’s grace and favor acquired through the merits of Christ.

⁸ 7. Now as to the disclosure of sin, as long as men hear only the law and hear nothing about Christ, the veil of Moses⁷ covers their eyes, as a result they fail to learn the true nature of sin from the law, and thus they become either conceited hypocrites, like the Pharisees, or they despair, as Judas did, etc. Therefore Christ takes the law into his own hands and explains it spiritually (Matt. 5:21–48); Rom. 7:14). Then “?God’s wrath is revealed from heaven” over all sinners⁸ and men learn how fierce it is. Thus they are directed back to the law, and now they learn from it for the first time the real nature of their sin, and acknowledgment which Moses could never have wrung from them.

⁹ Therefore the proclamation of the suffering and death of Christ, the Son of God, is an earnest and terrifying preaching and advertisement of God’s wrath which really directs people into the law, after the veil of Moses has been removed for them, so they now know for the first time what great things God demands of us in the law, none of which we could fulfill, and that we should now seek all our righteousness in Christ.

¹⁰ 8. Nevertheless, as long as all this — namely, the passion and death of Christ — proclaims God’s wrath and terrifies people, it is not, strictly speaking, the preaching of the Gospel but the preaching of Moses and the law, and therefore it is an “alien work”⁹ of Christ by which he comes to his proper office — namely, to preach grace, to comfort, to make alive. And this is the preaching of the Gospel, strictly speaking.

Pastor Love currently serves at the Circuit Counselor for the Grand Rapids North Circuit and has served as a contributing author and associate editor of the new Lutheran Study Bible slated for release in 2009 by Concordia Publishing House.

To read more writings by Pastor Love, please visit his blog.