Gospel Reductionism

Newsletter article for February 2003

© 2003 by Rev. Paul A. Wolff

When is the Gospel a bad thing? This ought to be a trick question, but more and more the Gospel is being used to rationalize all kinds of things which God describes as sin in His Word. In this article I wish to teach you a new phrase which I think faithful Lutheran Christians will (regretfully) soon be hearing more often. The term is “Gospel Reductionism” and in learning what it means you will learn that the answer to the question above is that the Gospel is a bad thing only when it is misused.

The term “Gospel Reductionism” refers to a method of Biblical interpretation which ignores God’s Law and places the sole authority in the Gospel for theology and practice. I believe that this idea is peculiar to Lutheranism because only Lutheran theology has made such a sharp distinction between the Biblical doctrines of Law and Gospel. Lutherans have long known that in Christian preaching and teaching the Gospel must predominate, because although God’s Law and Gospel work together for our salvation, only the Gospel really can save us. The trouble with Gospel Reductionism is that it goes a step or two further, and is in reality a new teaching.

Now, when I say it is a new teaching I don’t mean that it is “new and improved.” In theology “new” is ALWAYS a bad thing. Any “new” teaching is false teaching because it is man-made, and not from God. The Holy Scriptures warn God’s people about the false teachings of men (see Mark 7:6-7) and it warns that the time will come when people will not put up with good, sound doctrine, but instead will gather around them teachers who will tell them only what they want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3-5). There is something about Gospel Reductionism which is attractive to many pastors, teachers and lay-people in the LCMS. I believe that I myself may have been influenced by it in ways I am only beginning to understand. As I write this I have been studying this for about a month, and I know it is not Biblical, and therefore wrong, but I caught myself giving a reductionistic answer in a recent Sunday Bible study, and I had to correct myself when I realized what I was doing.

The trouble with Gospel Reductionism is that it makes the Gospel the only authoritative part of Scripture. This wouldn’t be so bad except that God gave us His Word as both Law and Gospel. Both teachings are authoritative as God’s Word, but the reductionists dismiss the Law as something useless, or even harmful. What is more, the reductionists also broaden their definition of the Gospel to include anything which might possibly be construed as beneficial — even things the Bible says is harmful and sinful. The proponents of Gospel Reductionism claim that they are faithful to God and to the Gospel, but in truth they are faithful to neither. God gave us both Law and Gospel so that we might be saved, and if we ignore either one of those teachings then we disobey God and are in danger of being eternally lost.

There is a tension between Law and Gospel which must be maintained always in our teachings. If we lost the Gospel then we would either despair of salvation because God’s Law accuses and condemns our sin, or we would become complacent and self-righteous thinking that we could gain salvation by obeying the Law in some minimal way. On the other hand, if we don’t acknowledge the authority of the Law then we won’t see a need for a savior and so Jesus becomes meaningless to us and we will grow to despise Him.

You can identify Gospel Reductionists these days because they are the ones complaining most often about “legalism” in the Synod. True “Legalism” is a valid danger and concern, and we ought to avoid it. Legalism is the result of a kind of “Law Reductionism” where the Gospel is dismissed as authoritative in place of the Law. However the Gospel Reductionists cry “legalism” about any application of the Law, including many good God-given ways of disciplining sinners and calling them to repentance. This is actually quite clever (in a Satanic sort of way) if you can get away with it. If you don’t acknowledge God’s Law (or even a part of it) then you can do whatever you want to do and nobody can say anything contrary because that would be considered legalistic or irrelevant. The trouble with this is that although you might be able to get away with this for a little while, you won’t get very far trying to convince God about the benefits of this, and everyone will have to answer to God some day.

Lutherans have a great blessing in our traditional doctrine of the dynamic working of God’s Law and Gospel. If we would ever truly put our trust in God’s Word and use it the way He intended then there would be no stopping the Lutheran Church, though many would try. Many well-intentioned people have been led astray by this “Gospel Reductionism.” People have been complacent in their sins because they do not acknowledge the Law of God and His Word which calls on them to repent. God’s Law is a good thing, but although no one likes to be reminded of sin, it is a necessary part of the Christian life. Only in using the Law properly can we truly appreciate the salvation we have in Jesus.