In this study, we
will seek to understand antinomianism. As in
previous studies, we will look at
definitions, scriptures, commentary evidence
and confessional support for the glorifying
of God in how we live.
“Shew me thy ways, O
LORD; teach me thy paths.” (Psalm 25:4)
Definitions from two sources:
Antinomianism:
A name for several
views that have denied that God’s law in
Scripture should directly control the
Christian’s life; the belief that obedience
to God’s moral law is not necessary
for the Christian. *
Antinomianism:
The word
antinomianism comes from two Greek words,
anti, meaning “against”; and nomos,
meaning “law.” Antinomianism means “against
the law.” Theologically,
antinomianism is the belief that there are
no moral laws God expects Christians
to obey. Antinomianism takes a biblical
teaching to an unbiblical conclusion.
The biblical teaching is that Christians are
not required to observe the Old
Testament Law as a means of salvation. When
Jesus Christ died on the cross, He
fulfilled the Old Testament Law (Romans
10:4; Galatians 3:23-25; Ephesians
2:15). The unbiblical conclusion is that
there is no moral law God expects
Christians to obey. **
The Evangelical
Dictionary of Theology states, “In fact, it
was Luther who actually coined the
word antinomianism in his theological
struggle with his former student, Johann
Agricola.” (1)
Scriptures against
Antinomianism:
“The law of the LORD
is perfect, converting the soul: the
testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise
the simple.” (Psalm 19:7)
“Think not that I am
come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I
am not come to destroy, but to
fulfil. For verily I say unto you, till
heaven and earth pass, one jot or one
tittle shall in no wise pass from the law,
till all be fulfilled. Whosoever
therefore shall break one of these least
commandments, and shall teach men so,
he shall be called the least in the kingdom
of heaven: but whosoever shall do
and teach them, the same shall be called
great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew
5:17-19)
From Charles Spurgeon’s
commentary on
Matthew 5:17-19 we read:
Verse 17, “He [Jesus]
took care to revise and reform the laws of
men; but the law of God he established
and confirmed.”
It is noteworthy that
Spurgeon says that Jesus came, “established,”
and “confirmed.”
This was his understanding of “fulfilled.”
Spurgeon continues in
verse 18, “Not a syllable is to become effete
(exhausted of energy; worn
out). Even to the smallest letters, the dot
of every ‘I’, and the crossing of
every ‘t,’
the law will outlast the
creation” Verse 19, Spurgeon says “Our King
has not come to abrogate the law,
but to confirm and reassert it.” (2)
“What shall we say
then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had
not known sin, but by the law: for
I had not known lust, except the law had
said, Thou shalt not covet.” (Romans
7:7)
“Wherefore the law is
holy, and the commandment holy, and just,
and good.” (Romans 7:12)
Know ye not that the
unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of
God? Be not deceived: neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,
nor effeminate, nor abusers of
themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor
covetous, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit
the kingdom of God. And such were
some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are
sanctified, but ye are justified in
the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the
Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians
6:9-11)
“But we know that the
law is good, if a man use it lawfully.” (1
Timothy 1:8)
“Whosoever committeth
sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is
the transgression of the law.”(1
John 3:4)
Antinomianism or LAWLESS from the International
Standard
Bible Encyclopedia:
lo'-les (anomos):
While occurring but once in the
King James Version (1 Tim 1:9), is
translated in various ways, e.g. “without
law” (1 Cor. 9:21); “unlawful” (2 Pet 2:8
the King James Version); “lawless” (1
Tim 1:9); “transgressor” (Mk 15:28; Lk
22:37); “wicked” (Acts 2:23 the King
James Version; 2 Thess. 2:8 the King James
Version). When Paul claims to be
"without law," he has reference to those
things in the ceremonial law,
which might well be passed over, and not to
the moral law. Paul was by no means
an antinomian. Those are “lawless” who break
the law of the Decalogue; hence,
those who disobey the commandment, “Honor
thy father and thy mother,” are
lawless (1 Tim 1:9). The civil law is also
the law of God. Those breaking it
are lawless, hence, called “transgressors.”
Those who are unjust in their
dealings are also “lawless”; for this reason
the hands of Pilate and those who
with him unjustly condemned Jesus are called
“wicked (unlawful) hands” (Acts 2:23 the
King James Version). The most notable
example of lawlessness is the Antichrist,
that “wicked (lawless) one” (2 Thess.
2:8). William Evans Bibliography Information
(3)
The next essay explains the
various
manifestations of antinomianism:
Antinomianism: We are
Not Set Free to Sin by J. I. Packer:
“Dear children, do
not let anyone lead you astray. He who does
what is right is righteous, just as
he [Christ] is righteous. - 1 JOHN 3:7
Antinomianism, which
means being “anti-law,” is a name for
several views that have denied that God’s
law in Scripture should directly control the
Christian’s life.
Dualistic
antinomianism appears in the Gnostic
heretics against whom Jude and Peter wrote
(Jude 4-19; 2 Pet. 2). This view sees
salvation as for the soul only, and bodily
behavior as irrelevant both to God’s
interest and to the soul’s health, so one
may behave riotously and it will not matter.
Spirit-centered
antinomianism puts such trust in the Holy
Spirit’s inward prompting as to deny
any need to be taught by the law how to
live. Freedom from the law as a way of
salvation is assumed to bring with it
freedom from the law as a guide to
conduct. In the first 150 years of the
Reformation era this kind of
antinomianism often threatened, and Paul’s
insistence that a truly spiritual
person acknowledges the authority of God’s
Word through Christ’s apostles (1
Cor. 14:37; cf. 7:40) suggests that the
Spirit-obsessed Corinthian church was
in the grip of the same mind-set.
Christ-centered
antinomianism argues that God sees no sin in
believers, because they are in
Christ, who kept the law for them, and
therefore what they actually do makes no
difference, provided that they keep
believing. But 1 John 1:8–2:1 (expounding
1:7) and 3:4-10 point in a different
direction, showing that it is not possible
to be in Christ and at the same time to
embrace sin as a way of life.
Dispensational
antinomianism holds that keeping the moral
law is at no stage necessary for
Christians, since we live under a
dispensation of grace, not of law. Romans
3:31
and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 clearly show,
however, that law-keeping is a
continuing obligation for Christians. “I am
not free from God’s law but am
under Christ’s law,” says Paul (1 Cor.
9:21).
Dialectical
antinomianism, as in Barth and Brunner,
denies that biblical law is God’s
direct command and affirms that the Bible’s
imperative statements trigger the
Word of the Spirit, which when it comes may
or may not correspond exactly to
what is written. The inadequacy of the
neo-orthodox view of biblical authority,
which explains the inspiration of Scripture
in terms of the Bible’s
instrumentality as a channel for God’s
present-day utterances to his people, is
evident here.
Situationist
antinomianism says that a motive and
intention of love is all that God now
requires
of Christians, and the commands of the
Decalogue and other ethical parts of
Scripture, for all that they are ascribed to
God directly, are mere rules of
thumb for loving, rules that love may at any
time disregard. But Romans
13:8-10, to which this view appeals, teaches
that without love as a motive
these specific commands cannot be fulfilled.
Once more an unacceptably weak
view of Scripture surfaces.
It must be stressed
that the moral law, as crystallized in the
Decalogue and opened up in the
ethical teaching of both Testaments, is one
coherent law, given to be a code of
practice for God’s people in every age. In
addition, repentance means resolving
henceforth to seek God’s help in keeping
that law. The Spirit is given to
empower law-keeping and make us more and
more like Christ, the archetypal
law-keeper (Matt. 5:17). This law-keeping is
in fact the fulfilling of our
human nature, and Scripture holds out no
hope of salvation for any who,
whatever their profession of faith, do not
seek to turn from sin to
righteousness (1 Cor. 6:9-11; Rev. 21:8).” (4)
Protestant Reformer John
Calvin on
Antinomianism:
“Some unskillful
persons, from not attending to this [the
third use of the law], boldly discard
the whole law of Moses, and do away with
both its Tables, imagining it
unchristian to adhere to a doctrine which
contains the ministration of death.
Far from our thoughts be this profane
notion!
Moses has admirably
shown that the Law, which can produce
nothing but death in sinners, ought to
have a better and more excellent effect upon
the righteous. When about to die,
he thus addressed the people, “Set your
hearts unto all the words which I testify
among you this day, which ye shall command
your children to observe to do, all
the words of this law. For it is not a vain
thing for you; because it is your
life,” (Deut. 32:46, 47.)
If it cannot be
denied that it contains a perfect pattern of
righteousness, then, unless we
ought not to have any proper rule of life,
it must be impious to discard it.
There are not various rules of life, but one
perpetual and inflexible rule;
and, therefore, when David describes the
righteous as spending their whole
lives in meditating on the Law, (Psalm 1:2,)
we must not confine to a single
age, an employment which is most appropriate
to all ages, even to the end of
the world.
Nor are we to be
deterred or to shun its instructions,
because the holiness which it prescribes
is stricter than we are able to render, so
long as we bear about the prison of
the body. It does not now perform toward us
the part of a hard taskmaster, who
will not be satisfied without full payment;
but, in the perfection to which it
exhorts us, points out the goal at which,
during the whole course of our lives,
it is not less our interest than our duty to
aim. It is well if we thus press
onward. Our whole life is a race, and after
we have finished our course, the
Lord will enable us to reach that goal to
which, at present, we can only aspire
in wish.” (5)
The next passage is cited
again for its
importance and clarification of the law in
the life of the Christian.
“But we know that the
law is good, if a man use it lawfully.” (1
Timothy 1:8)
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
comments on 1 Timothy 1:8 explain Paul
correctly:
“If a man use it
lawfully; for if it is used in order to
obtain life, righteousness, and
salvation by the works of it, or by
obedience to it, it is used unlawfully: for
the law does not give life, nor can
righteousness come by it; nor are, or can
men be saved by the works of it; to use the
law for such purposes, is to abuse
it, as the false teachers did, and make that
which is good in itself, and in
its proper use, to do what is evil; namely,
to obscure and frustrate the grace
of God, and make null and void the
sufferings and death of Christ. A lawful use
of the law is to obey it, as in the hands of
Christ, the King of saints, and
lawgiver in his church, from a principle of
love to him, in the exercise of
faith on him, without any mercenary selfish
views, without trusting to, or
depending on, what is done in obedience to
it, but with a view to the glory of
God, to testify our subjection to Christ,
and our gratitude to him for favours
received from him.” (6)
Contemporary
theologian, Sinclair Ferguson’s assessment
is perceptive as a conclusion to
this study:
“Within the matrix of
legalism at root is the manifestation of a
restricted heart disposition toward
God, viewing him through a lens of negative
law that obscures the broader
context of the Father’s character of holy
love. This is a fatal sickness.
Paradoxically, it is this same view of God,
and the separation of his person
from his law, that also lies at the root of
antinomianism. The bottom line in
both of these -isms is identical. That is
why the gospel remedy of them is one
and the same.” (7)
Westminster Shorter Catechism
Question
89 is important:
Q: How is the word
made effectual to salvation?
A: The Spirit of God
maketh the reading, but especially the
preaching of the word an effectual means
of convincing and converting sinners, 1
and of building, them up in holiness and
comfort through faith unto salvation. 2
1.Psalm 19:7. The law
of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul:
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple.
Psalm 119:130. The
entrance of thy words giveth light; it
giveth understanding unto the simple.
Hebrews 4:12. For the
word of God is quick, and powerful, and
sharper than any two edged sword,
piercing even to the dividing asunder of
soul and spirit, and of the joints and
marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart.
2.1 Thessalonians 1:6.
And ye became followers of us, and of the
Lord, having received the word in
much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost.
Romans 1:16. For I am
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it
is the power of God unto salvation
to every one that believeth; to the Jew
first, and also to the Greek.
Romans 16:25. Now to
him that is of power to stablish you
according to my gospel, and the preaching
of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation
of the mystery, which was kept
secret since the world began.
Acts 20:32. And now,
brethren, I commend you to God, and to the
word of his grace, which is able to
build you up, and to give you an inheritance
among all them which are
sanctified.
“Study to shew
thyself approved unto God, a workman that
needeth not to be ashamed, rightly
dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy
2:15)
Notes:
1.Walter
A. Elwell, Editor, The
Evangelical
Dictionary of Theology, (Grand Rapids,
Michigan, Baker Book House), p.58.
2.Charles
Spurgeon, The
Gospel of the Kingdom,
Commentary on Matthew, (Grand Rapids,
Michigan, Revell, 1987 reprinted
1995), p. 52-53.
3.James
Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor, International
Standard
Bible Encyclopedia, Definition for “LAWLESS,” (Grand Rapids,
Michigan, Eerdmans, 1915), p.1859.
4.J.I.
Packer, Concise
Theology, (Wheaton,
Illinois, Tyndale, 1993), pp. 178-180.
5.John
Calvin and Henry Beveridge, Institutes
of
the Christian Religion, vol. 1
(Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society,
1845), p. 419–420.
6.John
Gill, Exposition
of the Old and New
Testaments, 1 Timothy, 9 Volumes,
(Grace Works, Multi-Media Labs), 2011, p.
12.
7.Sinclair
Ferguson, The
Whole Christ: Legalism,
Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance―Why
the Marrow Controversy Still Matters,
(Wheaton, Illinois, Crossway, 2016), p. 85.
Mr. Kettler has
previously published articles in the Chalcedon
Report and Contra
Mundum. He and his wife Marea attend
the Westminster, CO, RPCNA Church. Mr.
Kettler is the author of the book defending
the Reformed Faith against attacks,
titled: The Religion That Started in
a Hat. Available at:
www.TheReligionThatStartedInAHat.com