The Law has 1 major purpose. It is to kill. The Law takes something, binds is, holds it in place, and then slays it. The Law is the electric chair, it is the firing squad, it is death.
The Gospel has 1 major purpose. It gives life. The Gospel takes the life and salvation that is Christ's, and it gives to a person, breathes it into a person, and then they live.
The Law is good. We need to be killed. We need to be bound. My pride - it needs to be bound and killed. My sinful flesh - it needs to be bound and killed. My sinful desires - it needs to be bound and killed. But if we stay there, we simply remain dead.
The Gospel, though is better, for it creates. The Gospel takes the man slain by sin and rises Him to new life now. The Gospel takes the flesh doomed to die on account of sin and makes it to live pure and perfect forever. The Gospel makes man to be again what Christ is.
This is what your preaching shall do, oh preacher! Do not dither. When you preach the Law, it is to bind and kill and you had better make sure you have the right would and bind the wound that needs binding; you had better make sure you have the right target and kill only what needs killing. Anything else than binding, anything less than killing is no longer Law but self-congratulatory self righteousness which pretends that the dying shall live.
When you preach the Gospel, you are to preach Christ and His life into people. This shall not be mixed - it shall not be Christ and your works, for that doesn't give life. It shall not be Christ and sappy sentimentality, because sentimentality doesn't make dead bones to live again. If it is not utterly and totally Christ, is becomes no longer Gospel but sanctimonious palaver which kills anyone who is honest enough to know they aren't the pollyanna your preaching described.
Be blunt. Preach the Law in its sternness, preach the Gospel in its Sweetness.
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