Forgive me if I appear to be challenging you. I don't desire that. But I feel compelled to exalt the gospel over the law. I have an old Adam too, who would love to become so conceited and boast that my good living by the law working as a guide or rule merits me something before a holy and just God.

If you were all new man recreated in perfect love, you could live by the simple rules "Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself." But now we don't always know what real love is because our sinful nature tries to disguise its selfish desires as sin. "Isn't it more important to be loving than to rebuke sin or false doctrine." "Is adultery or pre-marital sex really that bad if it is done in a loving relationship and doesn't hurt anyone." To counter such dangerous notions God's law tells us what real love is.

If we had no sinful nature, we would understand that there is no difference between what love requires and what God’s law requires. The content is identical. God’s law requires us to warn against error or sin. Love requires us to warn against error and sin. God’s law requires us to separate from persistent errorists. Love requires us to separate from persistent errorists. God’s law warns the homosexual or immoral person against his or her sin. Love warns the homosexual or immoral person against his or her sin. But because the sinful nature is so clever at disguising its selfish desires as love, the Christian person still needs God’s law to tell him what real love is (Romans 13:10).

Though the Christian no longer lives under the law with its curses and threat, he does not live without God’s law but he lives in Christ’s law: 1 Corinthians 9:20,21, “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law, though I myself am not under the law, so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am without God’s law but am in Christ’s law, so as to win those not having the law.” [Note that the NIV is not very precise here. It does not clearly distinguish the three prepositions--under, without, and in.]

The gospel does not provide the guide for Christian conduct. It provides the motive and the power. The law does not provide the motive for Christian conduct. It provides a guide.

There is no sanctifying power in the law, but it does provide steady, sure direction. The law is like a set of railroad tracks, rigidly leading to the right place. But railroad tracks, like the law, have no power in them to produce movement. The power that propels the “engine” of faith is the gospel of Christ. Trying to promote Christian sanctification without the law is like racing a train where the tracks have been ripped up. Trying to promote sanctification without the gospel is like trying to push the train down the tracks by your own power without an engine. We need both the law and the gospel, but the law serves the gospel.