When you think about the Law being necessary for us to “hear” the Gospel, this has a deep implication. The implication is, primarily, that repentance precedes faith and salvation.
But the absolute reality is this: we could conceive of right and wrong, but we could never conceive of fearfulness of holy perfection apart from the Law. Thus, without the Law we become secure sinners. Why? Because we are indifferent to right and wrong? No, not particularly that.
Rather, that if the Law does not properly declare perfection, then we will not, as sinners, miss it. If the Law does not declare paradise in its fullness, then it does not declare sin in all its wretchedness eithier. The good is connected to the bad under the Law; do this and you will live, and do it not, and you shall die.
Yet how shall we ask for mercy and appeal to the good news, then, if we do not conceive that a world greater than this might have been? How shall I be grateful for the Gospel when I do not conceive that there is a sweetness, love, and perfection greater than any I have yet perceived. When the depth of that impenetrable beauty leaves us in desire, then we can sincerely repent. Otherwise, we remain coarse and hardened sinners without desire for salvation.
Yet is that desire itself anything? Is that repentance, success? That which leaves us with nothing, leaves us having fallen short–it does not also save us. But the restoration to God’s mercy happens under the Gospel, for he so far surpasses all his creatures, that there is no good within the created world except for him and his design.
Christus Victor 