In ET101 Law and Gospel: The Basis of Christian Ethics, Dr. Michael Allen illustrates how the ethical life, the good life, and the moral life are reshaped and reoriented in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This course analyzes a variety of Old Testament, New Testament, and other theological sources to illustrate the ethical life the Christian is called to live. Dr. Allen offers a helpful explanation of how both grace and law work together in Christian ethics, providing biblical examples from the Ten Commandments and the writings of Paul and James.
“Who we are and who we view ourselves to be shapes how we inhabit the situation, so we must begin thinking about ethics—about good works, about the life to which we’re called—by thinking first and foremost not about doing but about being. Who are we? How does the Bible describe our nature? How is our telos, or end, shaped by our very being and identity as given by God according to His Holy Word?” (source)
“God calls us to live well before Him only after God has provided for us.” (source)
“The indicative always grounds and founds the imperative. To put it in the opposite way, the imperative is always because of or on the basis of the indicative.” (source)
“The indicative statement of what God has done and is doing always precedes the imperative statement of what God expects from us.” (source)
“he’s praying for moral transformation, and for ever greater behavior before God and amongst one another.” (source)