Berkhof On The Two Parts Of God’s Word
Monday, 28 February 2011 00:33
OK, I admit it. A paragraph from Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology doesn’t have the sex appeal of the latest Rob Bell kerfuffle (if you’ve been sleeping for three days and have no idea what I’m talking about, click here). But, I’m a firm believer in something Michelangelo once said: “Oftentimes the best way to critique something is to create something better”–to focus, in other words, on the things that nourish more so than the things that distract.
So, reveling in and wrestling with the things that matter most (like how to read the Bible) will inevitably protect our hearts and minds from those “passing fancies” that possess only the power to distract.
Enjoy:
The Churches of the Reformation from the very beginning distinguished between the law and the gospel as the two parts of the Word of God. This distinction was not understood to be identical with that between the Old and the New Testament, but was regarded as a distinction that applies to both Testaments. There is law and gospel in the Old Testament, and there is law and gospel in the New. The law comprises everything in Scripture which is a revelation of God’s will in the form of command or prohibition, while the gospel embraces everything, whether it be in the Old Testament or in the New, that pertains to the work of reconciliation and that proclaims the seeking and redeeming love of God in Christ Jesus.
Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, 4th ed. 1941, pg. 612)
Berkhof On The Two Parts Of God’s Word is a post from: Tullian Tchividjian
