That's from the title of a book by Martin Luther in 1539 to combat the heresy of his student Johann Agricola (who denied a place for the Law in the believer's life) that you can actually take advantage of your salvation and live according to your own rules, making them up as you go along. This issue wasn't resolved about the purpose of the Law until the Formula of Concord in 1577. Antinomianism means "against the law" or "anti-lawism (also called libertinism)." Their "distaste for the law" was proclaimed in the slogan: "Freed from the law, O blessed condition: I can sin all I want and still have remission." They believed that since we are not "under the Law" that we have the "right" to be a law unto ourselves and live according to whim or our own standards. Scripture says in Rom. 6:1: "Do we then make the law void through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law." This is what God accused Israel of during the theocratic days of the judges when "every man did what he saw fit" (Judges 17:6, NIV) or "what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25, NIV).
The Bible never sanctions believers to do what is wrong or what is right in their own eyes or to do what is wrong, and right and wrong are absolutes that never change since we believe in absolute and not relative values and standards. Our conscience is curtailed by that of our brother's. And we are to do what is right in the eyes of all people, and just like Paul said, "I strive to have a conscience void of offense toward God and man." Christ is to be the "Stumbling Block and Rock of Offense," not us--we don't want to be "offensive" Christians. Our freedom is indeed limited freedom and not absolute in that we make up our own rules and are "lawless." We are given freedom in Christ according to Galatians 5:13 but we are not to take advantage of it as an opportunity for the flesh, but to be able to serve the Lord. We are free from sin, not free to sin, you could say!
If we are walking according to the Spirit we will not bear the "fruits of the flesh." Real freedom is given in three modes in our common salvation: we are free from the penalty of sin at the moment of salvation; we are free from the power of sin during our Christian life; and finally, we are free from the presence of sin in eternity. We never do have an absolute free will in the sense that we can do what we want--in heaven, for example, we will not be free to sin and we cannot say, "From now on I will be good." However, we don't want to and that is freedom in the ultimate degree. God is not free to sin, but it is not His nature and He doesn't want to. We are only free to act according to our nature as God's creatures (He is the Potter; we are the clay--"woe to him who quarrels with his Maker" says Scripture in Isa. 45:9). We did not choose our nature no more than a dove chose to eat seed and vulture carrion (i.e., we may be born choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine, melancholic, bipolar, extroverted, etc.). We have to play the deck of cards we're dealt!
And so, we are free to overcome sin, not to sin; this means that when we sin we are proving our slavery, not demonstrating our freedom. If we do approve of something that is doubtful or questionable and the Bible is not clear on the subject, we are to keep it to ourselves and as private as possible--not to flaunt our freedom and make a show of it so as to offend a weaker brother, who thinks we are sinning. We don't eat meat offered to idols, as it were, in front of a vegetarian. The weaker brother does indeed need to grow in knowledge, but the stronger one in love!
In summation, Christianity is not a system of ethics or praxeology, but a living relationship with the living God through Jesus Christ and not involving a given set of dos and don'ts or list of rules to keep--therefore we do not have the right to judge our brother in what he approves or to make him comply with our standards, and if God has convicted us of something, that is between us and God and let the Holy Spirit do the convicting--it's His job. "Who shall bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies" (Rom. 8: 33). But we live by a higher law: The law of love; we do not want to displease God, but to obey His commandments willingly, not because we have to, but because we want to. We are not afraid God will hurt us in some form of punishment because He never does (He disciplines and prunes us instead), but the motive is that we don't want to hurt Him! Soli Deo Gloria!
The Bible never sanctions believers to do what is wrong or what is right in their own eyes or to do what is wrong, and right and wrong are absolutes that never change since we believe in absolute and not relative values and standards. Our conscience is curtailed by that of our brother's. And we are to do what is right in the eyes of all people, and just like Paul said, "I strive to have a conscience void of offense toward God and man." Christ is to be the "Stumbling Block and Rock of Offense," not us--we don't want to be "offensive" Christians. Our freedom is indeed limited freedom and not absolute in that we make up our own rules and are "lawless." We are given freedom in Christ according to Galatians 5:13 but we are not to take advantage of it as an opportunity for the flesh, but to be able to serve the Lord. We are free from sin, not free to sin, you could say!
If we are walking according to the Spirit we will not bear the "fruits of the flesh." Real freedom is given in three modes in our common salvation: we are free from the penalty of sin at the moment of salvation; we are free from the power of sin during our Christian life; and finally, we are free from the presence of sin in eternity. We never do have an absolute free will in the sense that we can do what we want--in heaven, for example, we will not be free to sin and we cannot say, "From now on I will be good." However, we don't want to and that is freedom in the ultimate degree. God is not free to sin, but it is not His nature and He doesn't want to. We are only free to act according to our nature as God's creatures (He is the Potter; we are the clay--"woe to him who quarrels with his Maker" says Scripture in Isa. 45:9). We did not choose our nature no more than a dove chose to eat seed and vulture carrion (i.e., we may be born choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine, melancholic, bipolar, extroverted, etc.). We have to play the deck of cards we're dealt!
And so, we are free to overcome sin, not to sin; this means that when we sin we are proving our slavery, not demonstrating our freedom. If we do approve of something that is doubtful or questionable and the Bible is not clear on the subject, we are to keep it to ourselves and as private as possible--not to flaunt our freedom and make a show of it so as to offend a weaker brother, who thinks we are sinning. We don't eat meat offered to idols, as it were, in front of a vegetarian. The weaker brother does indeed need to grow in knowledge, but the stronger one in love!
In summation, Christianity is not a system of ethics or praxeology, but a living relationship with the living God through Jesus Christ and not involving a given set of dos and don'ts or list of rules to keep--therefore we do not have the right to judge our brother in what he approves or to make him comply with our standards, and if God has convicted us of something, that is between us and God and let the Holy Spirit do the convicting--it's His job. "Who shall bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies" (Rom. 8: 33). But we live by a higher law: The law of love; we do not want to displease God, but to obey His commandments willingly, not because we have to, but because we want to. We are not afraid God will hurt us in some form of punishment because He never does (He disciplines and prunes us instead), but the motive is that we don't want to hurt Him! Soli Deo Gloria!
let's find out where we are on this antinomianism. the Mosaic law prohibits tatoos. Under the Mosaic law getting a tat is a sin. Are Christian believers free to get tatoos or not? If it was a bad thing to do then, itn't it still bad now? Don't we often cite similar places in the Mosaic law when we explain that homosexual behavior is sinful?
ReplyDeleteTattoos are not reiterated in the NT nor even implied, but seem to be part of the laws that identified the Hebrews as God's chosen and to protect them like port eating and Sabbath observance. We are not Jewish and don't have to become somewhat Jewish to be sanctified or saved. Tattoos appear to be in the vein of "ceremonial" or "social" law and not "moral" law like homosexuality, which is a perversion of human nature, not according to God's plan and intention, and also mentioned several times in the NT. I do not believe in living in the OT but only using it to give light on the teachings of Jesus. Where in the NT are we told to obey the Law?
ReplyDelete