“Please God, let me sin!” This is the cry of the antinomian. Often those who hold to so called “free grace” teaching like to say that they are not wanting to allow for sinful living but to protect justification by faith alone. Their heart, so they say, is to protect the gospel from works and from mankind adding anything to the gospel as Paul wrote in Galatians 1:6-9.
But I find their defense rather weak. I have found that the cry of the human heart is not to protect God’s gospel (Romans 1:1) but to allow for sinning while claiming heaven as their home. Most religious people want to know that they are secure in the afterlife but still want to adapt to their home down here on earth. So mankind creates gods in their image who not only tolerate sin but sin themselves. The gods of the Greeks, for example, were often supernatural in their strengths and abilities but usually had a weakness of some kind whether it be lust, money, power, or fame. The gods of our age are no different. We find that our gods are either much like us or not like us at all (such as the Muslim view of God with Allah being completely indifferent toward humanity, wrathful, and Allah’s determinism meaning that he must micromanage all things).
Sadly, many antinomians have created a god who is outside of the Bible. The god of antinomianism tolerates sin. He doesn’t just pass over sins through His grace until judgment comes (Romans 2:16 NKJV), but He actually sent His Son to die for our sins so that we could now abide in sin! Contrary to Romans 6:1-23, the god of antinomianism ignores our sins because he has forgiven us in Christ Jesus and therefore, because he cannot lie (Titus 1:1-2), he allows for sinning in his saints.
How contrary to the God of the New Testament. Even a cursory reading of Matthew 5-7 shows that Jesus took sin seriously. The antinomian avoids Matthew 5-7 (as with all four of the Gospels and Acts) by claiming that this is historical material and not teaching material and that Jesus is speaking before the cross and thus under the Old Covenant. Since Hebrews 8:7-13, we can read the Gospels but not obey anything written in them. I can agree to a degree but nowhere does the New Testament teach that Christians should not obey the Spirit who will lead us to obey the moral Law of God that He inspired through Moses. By no means can a Christian obey the Law of God apart from the Holy Spirit, and no Christian obeys the Law to be saved but rather we obey God’s Law because we are redeemed and full of His Spirit (Galatians 5:16-17). When we walk in the Spirit, the Spirit leads us to obey God and His Word (Galatians 5:18-25). He doesn’t lead us to abandon God’s Law and live carefree, sinful lives (Galatians 5:13). We reap what we sow (Romans 8:12), and if we reap to the flesh, we will of the flesh reap corruption (Galatians 6:7-9).
The bottom line is that antinomians want to live in sin. They want to hold fast to their vices, to their weaknesses (which God calls wickedness), and to their flesh. It doesn’t matter what the sin is, from sexual immorality to lying, the antinomian wants to be rid of any idea of having to walk in the Spirit. They proclaim that they want freedom, but in reality they are leading others to bondage (2 Peter 2:19 NKJV).
Jesus sets us free from sin (John 8:31-38). Jesus came to die for our sins and to deliver His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). Robert Shank, in his book Life in the Son, points out that many today want to be called “His people” but they want to avoid the phrase, “save His people from their sins.” God’s call is clear: holiness (1 Peter 1:15-16). Jesus came to deliver us from sin and He has destroyed sin in His body on the cross (Colossians 2:15). Now we are able to be free from sin through His Spirit who leads us to be holy as God Himself is holy (Romans 8:1-4; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).
Our prayer should not be that of the antinomian, but it should be that of Paul in 1 Thessalonians 3:13 NKJV:
“So that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.”
[Link to original post and comments on Roy Ingle’s website.]
