Mr. Glading, You Have Pneumonia!

“The Law discovers the disease. The gospel gives the remedy.” – Martin Luther

Keep in mind that this happened before the adoption of HIPAA laws that protect the confidentiality of a patient’s medical records…

I had been feeling poorly for a few days with a low-grade fever compounded by lots of congestion and so, I went to see my general practitioner. He took one look at me and sent me across the street to the hospital to get a chest X-ray.

Within an hour I was back in the doctor’s office, but as soon as I walked into the waiting room I was met by his wife, who also served as his receptionist. Breaking every standard medical protocol – as well as common sense – she called out in a very loud voice, “Mr. Glading, you have pneumonia!”

As her words rang out, the mothers in the waiting room gathered their children close to their side in horror as if I had just been diagnosed with the bubonic plague or some other deadly and highly contagious disease. I grasped a couple of prescriptions from the receptionist’s outstretched hand and beat a hasty retreat out the door.

The point that Martin Luther is making in today’s quote is the same one that the Apostle Paul made 2,000 years ago. Without the Law, we wouldn’t have known what sin was. That’s why he referred to it as a tutor or schoolmaster in Galatians 3:24-25 (see below).

In the same way that my chest X-ray was used to diagnose my pneumonia, the Law – God’s perfect standard – is a prime indicator of just how sinful we are because we are incapable of obeying it. Keeping with the medical analogy, it took antibiotics to cure me of pneumonia, and it takes personal faith in the sacrificial and atoning blood of Jesus Christ to cure our sin disease.

Now, if someone can teach that receptionist some proper manners…

“Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.” Galatians 3:24-25 (NKJV)

- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President