Apologetics Courses

Famous Quotes on the use of the Law in Evangelism

The following list of quotes is provided as reference and as you will see, these witnesses strengthen the case in favor of the use of the Law. These men of the past are from different disciplines and may not agree on all doctrinal issues, but the main purpose for presenting this list is to show their agreement on using the Law before Grace. The numbers indicate the century as an approximate date of their quotes.

John Wycliffe (1300s) Theologian and Bible translator): "The highest service to which a man may obtain on earth is to preach the law of God.

Martin Luther (1500s, Theologian and first Protestant): In a sermon published way back in 1537, Martin Luther spoke of the Law being used as a schoolmaster the bring sinners to Christ. Listen to his words of warning:

“This now is the Christian teaching and preaching, which God be praised, we know and possess, and it is not necessary at present to develop it further, but only to offer the admonition that it be maintained in Christendom with all diligence. For Satan has attacked it hard and strong from the beginning until the present, and gladly would he completely extinguish it and tread it underfoot.”

Martin Luther: “Satan, the God of all dissension, stirreth up daily new sects, and last of all, which of all other I should never have foreseen or once suspected, he has raised up a sect as such as teach…that men should not be terrified by the Law, but gently exhorted by the preaching of the grace of Christ.”

Martin Luther: "…we would not see nor realize it (what a distressing and horrible fall in which we lie), if it were not for the Law, and we would have to remain forever lost, if we were not again helped out of it through Christ. Therefore the Law and the Gospel are given to the end that we may learn to know both how guilty we are and to what we should again return."

Martin Luther: "The first duty of the Gospel preacher is to declare God’s Law and show the nature of sin."

John Bunyan: (1600s, Writer and Preacher,): “The man who does not know the nature of the Law, cannot know the nature of sin.”

John Bunyan: "And, indeed, this Law is the flaming sword that turns every way; yes, that lies to this day in the way to Heaven, for a bar to all unbelievers and unsanctified professors … " They cannot bypass the sword that flames with the burning heat of perfect and eternal justice. It moves its sharp and fiery blade at lightning speed to cut down all who transgress its perfect precepts. As the Scriptures say, it will make sure that "every transgression will receive a just recompense of reward." (Hebrews 2:2)

Matthew Henry: (1600 / 1700s, Writer, which included Bible Commentaries, his best know work “Exposition of the Old and New Testaments”): “Herein is the Law of God above all other laws, that it is a spiritual law. Other laws may forbid compassing and imagining, which are treason in the heart, but cannot take cognizance thereof, unless there be some overt act; but the Law of God takes notice of the iniquity regarded in the heart, though it go no further.”

John Wesley: (1700s, Theologian): "Before I can preach love, mercy and grace I must preach sin, law and judgment."

John Wesley: In writing to a young evangelist instructed, "Preach 90 percent law and 10 percent grace."

John Wesley: “While he cries out, O what love have I to thy Law! all the day long is my study in it. He sees daily, in that divine mirror, more and more of his own sinfulness. He sees more and more clearly, that he is fullness a sinner in all things — that neither his heart nor his ways are right before God, and that every moment sends him to Christ. “Therefore I cannot spare the Law one moment, no more than I can spare Christ, seeing I now want it as much to keep me to Christ, as I ever wanted it to bring me to Him. Otherwise this ‘evil heart of unbelief’ would immediately ‘depart from the living God.’ Indeed each is continually sending me to the other–the Law to Christ, and Christ to the Law.

John Wesley: "It remains only to show…the uses of the Law. And the first use of it, without question, is to convince the world of sin. By this is the sinner discovered to himself. All his fig-leaves are torn away, and he sees that he is ‘wretched and poor and miserable, blind and naked.’ The Law flashes conviction on every side. He feels himself a mere sinner. He has nothing to pay. His ‘mouth is stopped’ and he stands ‘guilty before God.’ To slay the sinner is then the first use of the Law, to destroy the life and strength wherein he trusts and convince him that he is dead while he lives; not only under the sentence of death, but actually dead to God, void of all spiritual life, dead in trespasses and sins."

John Wesley: "The second use {of the Law} is to bring him unto Life, unto Christ that he may live. It is true, in performing both these offices, it acts the part of a severe school master. It drives us by force, rather than draws us by love. And yet love is the spring of all. It is the spirit of love which, by this painful means, tears away our confidence in the flesh, which leaves us no broken reed whereon to trust, and so constrains the sinner, stripped of all to cry out in the bitterness of his soul or groan in the depth of his heart, ‘I give up every plea beside, Lord I am damned but thou hast died.’"

John Wesley: "…it is the ordinary method of the Spirit of God to convict sinners by the Law. It is this which, being set home on the conscience, generally breaketh the rocks in pieces. It is more especially this part of the Word of God which is quick and powerful, full of life and energy and sharper than any two-edged sword."

Jonathan Edwards: (1700s, Preacher and Theologian, his most famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” in Enfield, CT in 1741, remains a classic sermon today, despite being 265 years old): "They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell. They do not only justly deserve to be cast down thither, but the sentence of the law of God, that eternal and immutable rule of righteousness that God has fixed between him and mankind, is gone out against them, and stands against them; so that they are bound over already to hell. John 3:18. ‘He that believeth not is condemned already.’ So that every unconverted man properly belongs to hell; that is his place; from thence he is, John viii. 23. ‘Ye are from beneath.’ And thither be is bound; it is the place that justice, and God’s word, and the sentence of his unchangeable law assign to him."

Jonathan Edwards: “The only way we can know whether we are sinning is by knowing His Moral Law.”

George Whitefield (1700s, Preacher): “First, then, before you can speak peace to your hearts, you must be made to see, made to feel, made to weep over, made to bewail, your actual transgressions against the Law of God.”

John Newton (1700s, Writer, Newton was recognized for his hymns and wrote "Amazing Grace"): “Ignorance of the nature and design of the Law is at the bottom of most religious mistakes.”

Charles Finney: (1800s, often called "America’s foremost revivalist, and was well known for his extemporaneous preaching."): “Ever more the Law must prepare the way for the Gospel. To overlook this in instructing souls, is almost certain to result in false hope, the introduction of a false standard of Christian experience, and to fill the Church with false converts… time will make this plain.”

Charles Spurgeon: (1800s, known till this day as the "Prince of Preachers"): "They must be slain by the law before they can be made alive by the gospel."

Charles Spurgeon: "The Law cuts into the core of the evil, it reveals the seat of the malady, and informs us that the leprosy lies deep within."

Charles Spurgeon: “I do not believe that any man can preach the gospel who does not preach the Law.” Then he warns, “Lower the Law and you dim the light by which man perceives his guilt; this is a very serious loss to the sinner rather than a gain; for it lessens the likelihood of his conviction and conversion. I say you have deprived the gospel of its ablest auxiliary [its most powerful weapon] when you have set aside the Law. You have taken away from it the schoolmaster that is to bring men to Christ . . . They will never accept grace till they tremble before a just and holy Law. Therefore the Law serves a most necessary purpose, and it must not be removed from its place.”

D. L. Moody: (1800s, American Preacher and Evangelist): “Ask Paul why [the Law] was given. Here is his answer, ‘That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God’ (Romans 3:19). The Law stops every man’s mouth. I can always tell a man who is near the kingdom of God; his mouth is stopped. This, then, is why God gives us the Law—to show us ourselves in our true colors.”

A. B. Earle: (1800s, American Evangelist): "I have found by long experience that the severest threatenings of the Law of God have a prominent place in leading men to Christ. They must see themselves lost before they will cry for mercy. They will not escape from danger until they see it."

J. C. Ryle: (1800s, was the first Bishop of Liverpool and was a strong supporter of the evangelical school): "People will never set their faces decidedly towards heaven, and live like pilgrims, until they really feel that they are in danger of hell … Let us expound and beat out the Ten Commandments, and show the length, and breadth, and depth, and height of their requirements. This is the way of our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount. We cannot do better than follow His plan. We may depend on it, men will never come to Jesus, and stay with Jesus, and live for Jesus, unless they really know why they are to come, and what is their need. Those whom the Spirit draws to Jesus are those who the Spirit has convinced of sin. Without thorough conviction of sin, men may seem to come to Jesus and follow Him for a season, but they will soon fall away and return to the world."

A. W. Pink: (1900s, was an Evangelist and Biblical scholar and Pastor): “Just as the world was not ready for the New Testament before it received the Old, just as the Jews were not prepared for the ministry of Christ until John the Baptist had gone before Him with his claimant call to repentance, so the unsaved are in no condition today for the Gospel till the Law be applied to their hearts, for ‘by the Law is the knowledge of sin.’ It is a waste of time to sow seed on ground which has never been ploughed or spaded! To present the vicarious sacrifice of Christ to those whose dominant passion is to take fill of sin, is to give that which is holy to the dogs.”

A. W. Pink: "Without [the preaching of the Law] the preacher is building a house which will not stand; yea, he is throwing dust in the eyes of the people, bolstering them up in a false hope. Until the Law is given its proper place in the pulpit, and is preached regularly, plainly, authoritatively, the tide of lawlessness, which has swept over this favored land (and throughout all the so-called ‘civilized nations’), will continue rising higher and higher. Well may we pray, ‘It is time for Thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void Thy law.‘"

C. S. Lewis: (1900s, Biblical Scholar and Writer, Lewis is known for his work on medieval literature, for his Christian apologetics and for his fiction, especially the children’s series entitled The Chronicles of Narnia ): “When we merely say that we are bad, the ‘wrath’
; of God seems a barbarous doctrine; as soon as we perceive our bad-ness, it appears inevitable, a mere corollary from God’s goodness…

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: (1900s, Evangelistic Preacher): "The trouble with people, who are not seeking for a Savior, and for salvation, is that they do not understand the nature of sin. It is the peculiar function of the Law to bring such an understanding to a man’s mind and conscience. That is why great evangelical preachers 300 years ago in the time of the Puritans, and 200 years ago in the time of Whitefield and others, always engaged in what they called a preliminary ‘Law work.’”

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: "A gospel which merely says, ‘Come to Jesus,’ and offers Him as a friend, and offers a marvelous new life, without convincing of sin, is not New Testament evangelism. (The essence of evangelism is to start by preaching the Law; and it is because the Law has not been preached that we have had so much superficial evangelism.) True evangelism… must always start by preaching the law."

A. W. Tozer: (1900s, American Protestant Pastor, Preacher, Author, magazine Editor) "No one can know the true grace of God who has not first known the fear of God."

John R. Stott: (1900s, Writer, Evangelist and Theologian): "We cannot come to Christ to be justified until we have first been to Moses, to be condemned. But once we have gone to Moses, and acknowledged our sin, guilt and condemnation, we must not stay there. We must let Moses send us to Christ."

John MacArthur: (2000s, an American evangelical Writer and Preacher) "God’s grace cannot be faithfully preached to unbelievers until the Law is preached and man’s corrupt nature is exposed. It is impossible for a person to fully realize his need for God’s grace until he sees how terribly he has failed the standards of God’s Law.

John MacArthur who wrote, "Grace means nothing to a person who does not know he is sinful and that such sinfulness means he is separated from God and damned. It is therefore pointless to preach grace until the impossible demands of the Law and the reality of guilt before God are preached." This is as simple as telling a patient that he is sick before telling him that he needs a cure. Why would any patient want a cure if he isn’t first convinced that he is sick? The Law must precede the Gospel to convince the sinner that he needs the Savior. Charles Spurgeon said, "I do not believe that any man can preach the Gospel who does not preach the Law."

It was the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth (1829 -1912), who warned, "The chief danger of the 20th Century will be religion without the Holy Spirit, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without Hell.

Lesson 5 Questions:

1. List at least 5 quotes which you have found interesting.