Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.01.2007, Blaðsíða 44

of God that restrain, guide, and shape the world. Since the Law must deal
with human sin it must have a hard edge to it. Indeed, God often wields the
Law of judgment against nations and empires, bringing them to naught. But
the Law also builds up human life, working through many agencies to create
a more humane and just world.
The Law is summarized in the Ten Commandments and carried by the
moral teachings of the church, but it is also discerned by human reason and
experience amidst the dynamics of life. The Bible contains many signposts for
recognizing the operation of God’s Law in the world, but it has no blueprint
for the complexities of modern economic, political or social life. Humans
have to work out what God demands anew in every generation. Secular peo-
ple, since they also have the gift of reason and the benefit of experience, can
contribute to this ongoing discernment of the Law, though they may not call
it God’s Law. Christians are obligated, not only to cooperate with secular peo-
ple in discerning and doing good works of the Law, but also to imagine and
initiate programs that extend human justice.
The Law of God is not salvific. All the efforts that God and humans make
in the horizontal realm of the Law may lead to human betterment but they
do not save. Rather, God has chosen a particular route to reconcile humans to
himself. That route is Christ. God has reached out to call a disobedient and lost
humanity to himself through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is
pure gift; in the realm of salvation humans are completely receptive. Their faith
in the saving act of Christ will be acted out in deeds of love, but those deeds of
love are the result of faith in God’s work in Christ, not a substitute for it.
Christians exist at the juncture of the two ways that God reigns and must
live creatively between the horizontal pressures of the Law and the call of the
Gospel. However, they must be careful not to confuse the two, i.e., to act ac-
cording to Law when they are in the realm of the Gospel or to act according
to Gospel when they are in the realm of the Law. They are to observe a tenta-
tive, though not a final, dualism.
Making tbe Law into the Gospel
This confusion is a favorite for those, mentioned above, who are tempted to
claim salvific effect for human effort. They mistake some ameliorative, but al-