36. „Security of Expectations. Reformulating the Theology of Law and Gospel“

As is well known, Luther declared the distinction between law and gospel to be the central task of Christian theology. Distinguishing between law and gospel was the “highest art in Christendom”; “all Scripture and the understanding of the whole of theology” depended on this art. On the basis of this distinction, Luther and the other Reformers defined the relationship between church and society and, indeed, defined faith’s contact with reality. The doctrine of law and gospel guided the Reformers, both in distinguishing God’s reality from human reality and God’s action from human action and in relating the divine and the human components to each other.