There can be good days ahead for the American evangelical church, but one thing it depends on is whether our members rightly distinguish the freedom associated with the doctrines of grace from the liberty that leads to licentiousness.

Sanctification has rightly been identified as an area needing improvement among American evangelical churches. Given the abundance of resources available to Christians and churches today, sadly it’s not unusual to see examples where the personal maturity and sanctification of believers or the corporate witness and reforming power of today’s church are relatively weak.

Where will the solution be found?

Renewing and transforming believer’s minds by replacing licentious thinking and behaviors with the biblical understanding and responses which flow from the doctrines of grace can prove an instrumental beginning to correcting deficiencies and setting the church on a holier and healthier course for the future.

Historically the evangelical church. rising doctrinally from the Protestant Reformation with the purity of the gospel and emphasizing justification by grace alone through faith alone, has by and largely distinguished between faith and works in regard to salvation as well as guarded against the thoughts and practices of legalism following salvation.
The doctrines of grace however are not only opposed to and correct the practices of legalism but also licentiousness which has crept in through various ways in today’s evangelical church.

While church members today would quickly condemn the licentious practices of many in the past like drunkenness, orgies, having church prostitutes, etc., many believers today still either unknowingly or uncaringly misapply the freedom associated with justification by grace in certain situations to mean (or at least suggest or defend that) we can live as we please.

Luther’s writing on Galatians 5 helped me see this clearly, particularly as it applies to the mindset and practices of many church members today.

Is the freedom associated with justification by faith supposed to result in our “becoming more cold & negligent in handling the Word, in prayer, in well-doing, & in suffering adversities?” Is Christian liberty meant to justify or defend our laziness? Does it relieve us of our responsibilities to poor, the helpless, the friendless, etc.? Does it give us the right to overly concern ourselves with ourselves? Is it meant to be an excuse for gorging ourselves with entertainment or selfishly lavishing and consuming ourselves with comfort? Does the present mantra of “let no on judge my words or actions” or “let there be no correction or discipline” tell us anything?

The church today in larger part than normally thought, misunderstands and misapplies the doctrines of grace to twist Christian liberty into meaning something Scripture and the gospel never intended.

As one author has put it, “freedom is not to be interpreted as merely the removal of restraint or unlimited license.” Rather it is to be as another put it a “responsible freedom” wherein “man is free and enabled by the Spirit to love God and to love his fellow man.”

The church today needs to hear the words of Paul again which say “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.”

We need the more of Christ’s Spirit in the church today! I say this literally and on the personal level. Frank Gabelien points out “ It is only through the Spirit, and by the Spirit’s power that the Christian can live for God and not fulfill the desires of his sin nature.”

Misuse and abuse of our Christian freedom and liberty will continue to weaken the witness and power of the church and not only lead to bondage but prove destructive in the lives and relationships of believers until this distinction is communicated, understood, embraced and applied.

Having been justified by Christ, Christians have three choices. By living inconsistent with the doctrines of grace we can give ourselves to either legalism or licentiousness, OR we can live consistently with the grace and calling we have received by demonstrating the freedom we have by exercising faith expressing itself through love.

Hendriksen sets forth a caution stating “It is so easy to interpret liberty as the right to sin, and to construe freedom as the privilege to do whatever one’s evil heart wants to do, instead of looking upon it as the Spirit-imparted ability and desire to do what one should do.”

Our mindset should be no other than what Calvin states saying “If we serve one another in love, we will use the grace of God to his honor and to the salvation and edification of our neighbor.”

There can be good days ahead for the American evangelical church, but one thing it depends on is whether our members rightly distinguish the freedom associated with the doctrines of grace from the liberty that leads to licentiousness.

Timothy G. Muse is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America and serves as Senior Pastor of Brandon Presbyterian Church in Brandon, Miss. This article first appeared on his blog, All Things Reformed, and is used with permission.

[Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced in this article is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]