Among the many false teachings emerging from the caldron of the Change Movement is the teaching that since Christians are under grace they are not therefore under law. If they love God and their neighbor, they have fulfilled all their obligations to their Creator and Savior. Promoters of this view see the New Testament as a love letter from God rather than a code to which Christ's disciples are amenable. Granted this is a very soothing doctrine and full of comfort to those who prefer to walk the path of their own choosing and live by their own standard. However, it is not from God! In fact it stands in clear contradiction to heaven's revealed will.
This doctrine is a revival of an ancient heresy called "antinomianism." The following quotes help put it in focus. The term derives from the words, anti (against) and nomos (law). Antinomianism is "an opposition to law, specifically, a rejection of the idea that the Christian's life need be governed by laws or rules" (Concise Diet, of Christian Theology). "It refers to the doctrine that the moral law is not binding upon Christians as a rule of life. In a wider sense it is applied to the views of fanatics who refuse to recognize any law but their own subjective ideas which they usually claim are from the Holy Spirit" (Baker's Dictionary of Theology, p. 48). John Agricola, co-worker of Luther, "taught that Christians are entirely free from the law. ... He took this ground from fear of works-righteousness, wrongly thinking that 'justification by faith alone' demanded this" (Ibid. pp. 48-49).
"The spiritualization of the law into the one precept of love to God, taught and exemplified by Jesus, encouraged some over enthusiastic devotees to believe they had been exalted to such a height of spirituality and over mastering love to God that they needed to have no regard to moral precepts or to outward conduct" (Schaff-Herzog, Vol. 1, p. 196). Almaric of Bena (d. 1204), "maintained that 'to those constituted in love no sin is imputed'" (Ibid. p. 197).
From M'Clintock and Strong's Cyclopedia we glean the following insights: "Antinomianism absolutely withers and destroys the consciousness of human responsibility" (Vol. I, p. 265). "It prophecies smooth things to the sinner going on in his transgressions and soothes to slumber and the repose of death the souls such as at ease in Zion" (Ibid. 265). M'Clintock also says, "The error in antinomianism lies chiefly in the sharp contrast which it draws between the law and the gospel" (Ibid. p. 266).
Fundamental Errors of Antinomians:
• They fail to understand that while salvation is a free gift of God's grace, God has made reception of it conditional on obedience (Heb. 5:8-9). Thus God commands repentance (Acts 17:30) and baptism (Acts 10:48).
• They fail to distinguish between the Law of Moses which has indeed been abrogated (Rom. 7:4), and the law of Christ to which Christians are now amenable (John 12:48; Rom. 8:1-2).
• They fail to understand that while we are saved by God's grace and mercy (Eph. 2:8-9) and not by a law system such as the Hebrews once struggled under, we still must be obedient to our Savior Christ (Matt. 28:20). His will for us is revealed in his New Covenant.
• They must deny the many verses of the New Covenant which speak of Christ's will as our law. "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" frees us from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:2). When we bear the burdens of others, we "fulfil the law of Christ" (Gal. 6:2). Those who are new creatures, "walk by this rule" (Gal. 6:15-16). Christians live under "the perfect law" of liberty (James 1:25). Christ has a royal law (James 2:8). Sin is transgression of the law (1 John 3:4). The words of Jesus will judge us (John 12:48). In the judgment the books will be opened and we will be judged out of the things written in the books (Rev. 20:12).
• They fail to understand that the two great commands to love God and our neighbor (Matt. 22:37-39), are illustrative of all other laws, the foundation upon which they rest. They are not the only laws. Such summaries are common in scripture (See Mic. 2:8; Ps. 15:1-5; Ps. 24:3-5; Hab. 2:4).
• Because of their faulty understanding of Christ's gospel they mistakenly embrace the errors of Calvinism; namely salvation by grace alone, enabling grace and enlightenment by the Holy Spirit.
• Because they hold a faulty understanding of legalism, they wrongly conclude that anyone who loves, honors, and obeys the Will of God is a legalist. If that were so Jesus would be a legalist (Heb. 5:8-9).
• Like religious liberals of the 19th and early 20th centuries they hold a Utopian view of humanity's ability to live by love without law. The old liberal's dream collapsed in the face of two World Wars and the horrors of Communism. The antinomian theory cannot survive the realities of human life and conduct.
• Our antinomians mistakenly think they have found something new and different, when in reality it is an ancient heresy that has deceived men in generations past.
Observers of the promoters of change will note that everything old is new again.This item originally appeared in Firm Foundation (December 2003)
