The church in our day suffers greatly from a lack of clarity on many things, but not least issues of law and gospel. Many mix law and gospel or swing too far, thereby discounting one while thinking they are doing justice to the other. The effect is confusion in the pulpit, bewilderment in the congregation, and exasperation in human hearts. Pausing to see the richness of the doctrine of “deadness to the law” provides clarity not only for preachers, but for all who name the name of Christ.
Gerald M. Bilkes, “I am Deaf and Do not Hear You”: The Retrieval of Luther, Calvin, Perkins, and Erskine on Being Dead to the Law,” Puritan Reformed Journal 16:2 (May 2026), 167.
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Donald John MacLean
Donald John MacLean is President and Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Westminster Seminary, UK. He is a minister in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of England and Wales, and a trustee of the Banner of Truth and Tyndale House. He is married to Ruth and they have two children.
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