Works of the Law vs. Antinomianism
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
This illustration provides a fairly good definition of "Works of the Law" or legalism vs. disregarding all laws and norms or "Antinomianism." In my previous essay "Works of the Law vs. Good Works" I emphasized the idea that the incorrect reaction against Works of the Law, that is, scrupulously observing the ritual Law of Moses, is to disregard the necessity for Christians to do good works: caring for the poor, widows and orphans, etc. Yet, there are some people who claim to be Christians but who label such good works as "the social Gospel" and instead focus only on winning souls for Christ, studying the Bible, etc.
But there is an even more extreme and incorrect reaction against Works of the Law, which is called "Antinomianism" - a fancy theological term that means being against all norms and laws. These people consider that our freedom in Christ means being free to disobey civil authorities at will. They take parts of verses such as "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29b) and "For you are not under law, but under grace" (Romans 6:14b) to be licenses to disregard all human norms, laws and regulations such as speed limits and other traffic laws, import and export tariffs and other taxes, copyright laws, etc. I've known some who claim to be Christians but they commit fornication, smuggle electronic equipment across borders for their own personal use, they cheat on their income taxes, regularly violate speed limits and run red lights, reproduce copyrighted Christian literature without permission and many other sins and crimes.
What do the Scriptures tell us about this? Here's what St. Paul wrote in Romans 6:1-4 -
"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism to death, that just like Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life."
It's an enticing argument: "If I sin, God will extend His grace and forgive me, so the more I sin the more grace will abound." Paul's response is - "God forbid!" (in the King James Version). We were baptized into Christ's death, so we should be dead to sin! But temptation is strong and we humans sometimes prove to be too weak to resist. Today, however, we have the expressions - "If it feels good, do it!" and "Whatever turns you on!" St. John wrote in Revelation 2:19-22 what the Angel of God said to the church in Thyatira -
"I know your works, your love, faith, service, patient endurance, and that your last works are more than the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate your woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. She teaches and seduces my servants to commit sexual immorality, and to eat things sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her into a bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great oppression, unless they repent of her works."
Yes, it is possible to even do "good works" such as service to the poor, helping widows and orphans, etc. but at the same time yield to sexual temptation, led into sin by women preachers and politicians who speak fancy words that seduce people into sexual immorality. The modern mantra is - "What you do in private doesn't matter, it's only what you do for society that's important!" - as if fornication, adultery, abortion, and homosexual acts have no effect on society. How foolish! When we have broken families with poverty-stricken and/or messed-up children, fatherless boys who grow up with no self-worth or any idea of how to become a man, tens of millions of dead babies, and worldwide plagues of HIV-AIDS and Ebola... yes, it does matter what people do in private!
Greed: Modern capitalism is based on the distorted idea that accumulating wealth is the most important thing in life, so that it becomes for many people a fixation or a compulsive-addictive behavior - an addiction - "greed is good." A fancier, more "theological-sounding" word for greed is covetousness. In Luke 12:15-21 we read how Jesus gave us the parable of the rich man -
"Beware! Keep yourselves from covetousness, for a man's life doesn't consist of the abundance of the things which he possesses." He spoke a parable to them, saying, "The ground of a certain rich man brought forth abundantly. He reasoned within himself, saying, 'What will I do, because I don't have room to store my crops?' He said, 'This is what I will do. I will pull down my barns, and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. I will tell my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, be merry."' "But God said to him, 'You fool! Tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared -- whose will they be?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
Envy: This is greed turned inside-out. Instead of simply striving for more and more fame, success, money and things for myself ("He who dies with the most toys wins" - how foolish!), envy looks at what other people have and, while secretly wishing to grab those things for myself, I outwardly condemn "the rich" for having so much wealth and not sharing it with "the poor" (that is, with me). This makes me appear very righteous and selfless, but it's actually a mirror-image of greed. If greed is the main sin of capitalism, envy is the main sin of socialism: Dorothy Sayers says it well - "Envy is the great leveler: if it cannot level things up, it will level them down... rather than have anyone happier than itself, it will see us all miserable together."
Gluttony: - Quoting from chapter 11 in my book The Ministry Driven Church, pages 79-80 -
Deut. 21:20-21 places the death sentence on drunkards and gluttons, and Prov. 23:20-21 tells us drunkenness and gluttony lead to laziness and poverty. In the New Testament we read: "But give attention to yourselves, for fear that your hearts become over-full of the pleasures of food and wine, and the cares of this life, and that day may come on you suddenly, and take you as in a net" (Lk. 21:34); "For we have spent enough of our past time doing the desire of the Gentiles, and having walked in lewdness, lusts, drunken binges, orgies, carousings, and abominable idolatries" (1 Pet. 4:3); "Let us walk properly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and lustful acts, and not in strife and jealousy" (Rom. 13:13); and "Now the works of the flesh are obvious, which are: … envyings, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God" (Gal. 5:19a and 21). Here we see that gluttony ("orgies," "carousings" or "reveling") is on the same level as drunkenness, and the last passage cited tells us, "those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God."
Time does not permit me to quote the Scriptures about Noah and the depraved nations that brought the Lord to despair of all humanity; of Lot and the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, then Lot's incest with his daughters; Abraham looking for a wife for Isaac but not from the surrounding immoral pagan nations - Genesis 24:7-8; Isaac looking for a wife for Jacob but not from the surrounding immoral pagan nations - Genesis 28:1-2; but the prophet Hosea being commanded to take a prostitute as a wife for a parable of Israel's whoring after other gods and committing sexual immorality - Hosea 4:6-14. All of these things and more in the Old Testament are given to us as negative examples of what we should not do as Christians - "Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted" (1 Corinthians 10:6).
When Jesus sent out His Apostles to preach, He told them - "Whoever will not receive you nor hear you, as you depart from there, shake off the dust that is under your feet for a testimony against them. Assuredly, I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city!" (Mark 6:11). Even worse than the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah is rejecting the Gospel of Christ, the Good News of salvation and sanctification from all sin.
The meaning and purpose of life is not to do "whatever feels good or turns you on" - that is slavery to sin, to compulsive-addictive behaviors that will maim and kill you. The true purpose of this life is to prepare for the next, to strive for theosis, becoming partakers of the divine nature: "Pursue peace with everyone and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14).
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!
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