We may speak of the moral necessity of obedience as a consequenceof our salvation but not as a condition unto salvation. With these distinctions we have avoided both the errors of the nomist and the antinomian and set ourselves on a path toward the Christian life as understood by the Reformation churches and, we dare say, our Lord and his apostles.

The Problem of Antinomianism

Repeatedly in the history of Christianity there have been two competing, damaging impulses regarding the moral law of God. One of those impulses is known as “antinomianism.” This view denies the abiding validity of the moral law for the Christian. It argues that because Christ fulfilled the moral law for the Christian it can no longer norm the Christian life. Proponents of this view emphasize the the fact that the Ten Commandments (Ex 20; Deus 5) were given under the Mosaic or Old Covenant. They note that they Old or Mosaic Covenant has expired with the death of Christ and that we are in the New Covenant now. They point to biblical contrast between being “under the law” versus being under “the law of Christ” (e.g., 1 Cor 9:20–21). It is assumed that the moral law entered history at Sinai and has expired with that covenant. Then there is practical antinomianism, where the moral law is formally affirmed but practically ignored. Often in such contexts the moral law is not distinguished from the Old Covenant judicial laws and ceremonial or religious laws. Since the ceremonial and judicial laws are abrogated in the New Testament (e.g., Mark 7:19; Acts 10:15; 11:9). Evangelical Christians often take the attitude, “that [the moral law] was then, this is now.” As a practical matter few Christians are willing to say that Christians are free to commit idolatry, adultery, theft, murder, etc but it manifests itself most frequently in the denial of what the Reformed number as the fourth commandment:

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy (Ex. 20:8–11; ESV).

Whether formally or informally the abiding validity of the fourth commandment is widely rejected.

There are those, however, who will argue that anyone who makes a profession of faith of any sort, i.e., who walks the aisle in response to an evangelistic invitation, who prays a prayer during an evangelistic conversation, or who perhaps responds to a television preacher is a Christian simply by virtue of that response. This version of antinomianism argues that no matter what that person says or does after responding, they must be regarded as a Christian and that sanctification, i.e., being conformed to Christ, the gracious, gradual work of the Spirit in putting to death of the old man and making alive the man in the believer, is a second blessing. This view argues that those who have responded thus to the gospel, even if they are impenitent for their sins, must be regarded as Christians is a form of antinomianism.

These denials of the abiding validity of the moral law are serious errors. First, they do not understand that the moral law was not first given at Sinai. The Ten Commandments are simply another expression of the moral law given in the garden to Adam and Eve encapsulated in the one command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:17). In that one command was embedded the two tables of the moral law: love God and neighbor. Our Lord Jesus summarized the entire moral law thus:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets (Matt 22:37–40; ESV).

Read More