If we compare the two doctrines with each other, we find that they have several important elements in common. In the first place, both the Law and the Gospel are the divinely inspired Word of God. This point is essential. While the function of the Law is entirely different from that of the Gospel, it is nevertheless just as much God's holy and inspired Word as is the Gospel, Matt. 22, 37-40; Hom. 3, 21. In the second place, both doctrines, the Law as well as the Gospel, pertain to all men, so that they must always be taught side by side till the end of the world. So the Formula of Concord teaches: "From the beginning of the world these two proclamations . . . have been ever and ever inculcated alongside of each other in the Church of God, with a proper distinction. . . . These two doctrines, we believe, ... should ever and ever be diligently inculcated in the Church of God even to the end of the world." (Thor. Decl., V, 23. 24.)
The fact "that the Law and the Gospel must ever and ever be inculcated alongside of each other" must be maintained against Antinomianism, which, claiming that repentance (contrition) must be preached from the Gospel, denied that the Law should be inculcated in the New Testament. John Agricola taught: "The Decalog belongs in the court-house, not in the pulpit"1; that is to say, the Law is a matter of the State, not of the Church. Modified forms of Antinomianism were advocated and defended by Poach, Otto, etc., who said: "The Law must not be inculcated upon the regenerate." The Philippists, on the other hand, claimed: "Unbelief must be reproved from the Gospel." (Cp. Triglot, Hist. Intr., p. 161 ff.) The errors of Antinomianism are adequately refuted in Articles V and VI of the Formula of Concord, which show clearly and convincingly that Antinomianism is neither Scriptural nor reasonable.
Luther rightly characterizes the ingrained folly of Antinomianism when he writes: "They want to do away with the Law, and yet they teach (divine) wrath, something the Law alone must do. Hence they do nothing but cast aside the poor word Law, but confirm the wrath of God, which is indicated and understood by this term, not to speak of the fact that they wring Paul's neck and place the last first." St. L., XX, 1618 ff.
Again: "Is it not blindness, yea, worse than blindness that he (Agricola) does not want to teach the Law without and before the Gospel? He is trying something that is impossible. How can one preach forgiveness of sins before sins are there (i.e., known)? How can one announce life before death is there (i. e., known)? ... For grace must wage war, and be victorious in us, against the Law and sin, lest we despair." St. L., XX, 1659. 1656.
Dr. Bente Triglot, Hist. Intr., p. 161 says of Antinomianism that it "was a veiled effort to open once more the doors of the Lutheran Church to the Roman work-righteousness which Luther had expelled." He writes: "When Luther opposed Agricola, the father of the Antinomians in the days of the Reformation, he did so with the clear knowledge that the Gospel of Jesus Christ with its doctrine of justification by grace and faith alone was at stake and in need of defense. 'By these spirits,' said he, 'the devil does not intend to rob us of the Law, but of Christ, who fulfilled the Law' St. L., XX, 1614."
As a matter of fact, the Antinomians, in the final analysis, based their faith in the gracious forgiveness of sins on their renewal, or sanctification, particularly on the repentance that results from true love produced by the preaching of the Gospel. In this manner they intermingled justification and sanctification and restored the Romanistic doctrine of work-righteousness (justification by means of sanctification; gratia infusa).