Jesus Messieh Fellowship
Light To The Nations
Antinomianism
By G. Reckart, Pastor
In Defense Of The Sovereign Grace Of God Without The Deeds Of The
Law
Romans
3:28
What then? shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God Forbid (Romans 6:15).
The anticharis (anti-grace Law keepers) have made statements that those who believe in the Romans 3:28, salvation by grace through faith, and perseverance by faith until the second coming of the Lord Jesus, have rejected all of God's Laws and moral standards. These same anticharis (anti-grace Law keepers) accusers claim those who reject the Old Testament Law for salvation, righteousness, and a moral code, are anti-Law, against the Laws of God, are lawless, are not saved, and then attach the label "antinomianism" to us. Are these accusations true? Are they valid?
Encarta Encyclopedia Online renders "antinomianism" against us falsely as follows:
"Antinomianism, doctrine that faith in Christ frees the Christian from the obligation to observe moral law as set forth in the Old Testament. The insistence in the Epistles of Saint Paul on the law's inadequacy to save and on salvation by faith alone could be interpreted as a claim of freedom from the obligation to obey moral law. Thus, righteous persons might hold the doctrine but still behave in an exemplary way, not from compulsion but from a devotion higher than the law. Others, however, might interpret the doctrine as permission to disregard the moral law" (Encarta Encyclopedia Online).
First, antinomianism is not the doctrine that faith in Jesus Messieh frees Christians from observing the moral law as set forth in the Old Testament. No, that is false. It is not our faith that canceled the Old Testament Law, it was the death of Jesus Messieh upon the Cross that ended the Old Testament Covenant and ushered in the New Covenant through the blood of his Cross. Writing slick statements alleging that such Christians reject all moral laws is false!
Do we reject the Old Testament laws as our total moral law? YES! But do we reject the OldTestament laws as a schoolmaster? NO! But they never point that out to anyone. Everything moral in the Old Testament that was brought over into the New Testament is our faith and ONLY rule of practice. The antigrace Law keeprs have rejected the New Covenant to live under the Old Covenant and they want everyone to view "faith and grace" Christians as being perverse because they deny the Old Covenant is our rule of faith and practice in the New Testament Church. Thus, for the anticharis (anti-grace Law keepers) to accuse us of being antinomian, which is a term to describe the most immoral and lawless of the ages, ...is wrong.
The purpose of the name-calling is to intimidate others into Law-keeping by suggesting that there are no moral laws in the New Testament, that we must find them all in the Old Testament. This opens the door for the Concision to then preach the Law for morals, justification, righteousness, and salvation by works and deeds. That doctrine is a heresy and it is not the Gospel Paul preached. And so I double dare them to continue to preach what Paul did not preach, because if they do, ...they are acursed (Galatians 1:8-9)!
Second, how someone interprets the writings of the Apostle Paul can be true or false. The Concision, the Law-keepers, are famous for twisting Paul's writings and Gospel to turn his whole preaching of faith and grace back into Law-keeping, something he clearly taught ended at Calvary. For the Encarta editor(s) to say that someone could "interpret" Paul's writings against Law keeping to be freedom from all moral laws, is false. If anyone did as Encarta editors suggest, they are reprobate in any case and not saved whatever the claims of the person who is New Testament lawless. A reprobate in his or her apostasy because of a false interpretation will not change the truth that the Laws of the New Testament reign supreme over Old Testament Law. They will destroy what Paul wrote, preached, and held as the faith of the New Testament Church.
Third, anyone who accuses those who believe in Acts 2:38 salvation by grace and faith of being antinomians or lawless, or not subject to the law of God and therefore carnal and lost (Romans 8:7), are twisting the facts. They do not tell others that we believe the Laws of the New Testament stand alone as a New Covenant apart and without the Old Testament law. They do not tell the feeble minded and those who are silly enough to believe them, that those who believe in the morals of the New Covenant have a higher moral code than that of the Old Testament. Five state troopers in their squad cars will do more for obedience to traffic laws than all the writing on signs posted along the highway. So, twelve Apostles of Jesus preaching the New Testament are worth more than all the Ten Commandments posted all over the world. Law keepers want everyone to think we who are under the "grace of God" reject God by no longer living under the laws of a dead Covenant. That is falsehood.
The Apostle Paul believed in both morals and also laws. His letter to the Corinthians would suffice to settle all dispute about that matter. He however is clear, the New Testament laws are not under the jurisdiction of the Ten Commandments and the Old Covenant. What about the Law of the Spirit in Romans 8:2? In Romans 3:27 he mentions the Law of faith. And then he mentions the Law of Christ in Galatians 6:2 (which are the Commandments of Christ--see John 14:15 and verse 21). Jesus said he loved those who kept his Commandments not those who kept Moses Commandments. What about the perfect Law of Liberty in James 1:25? The "Law of Liberty" is not the Old Testament because it is called the "law of bondage" (see Galations 2:4). In this text Paul's liberty is grace and his bondage is the law of the Old Testament. These four laws of the New Covenant are supreme over all Old Testament laws. Does Grace teach any man to sin? No, Paul ask the question: shall we sin because we are not under the law BUT UNDER GRACE? Then replies to his own question "God forbid." Anyone who who says grace permits sin is teaching contrary to the Gospel preached by Paul. Such a person is preaching another Gospel and this will damn their souls (Read Romans 7:4--Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit (children) unto God."
In many other places Paul mentions things that were commanded by the Lord Jesus. In Revelation 22:14, we are to keep the Commandments of Jesus Messieh to enter the New Jerusalem. So, let it be known to the whole world, and let the anticharis false accusers be rebuked: the New Covenant assembly of believers in the true faith, have a Law of God in the New Covenant, but it is not the Old Testament Law! So, to make the accusation that we are "antinomian" or against or opposed to all the laws of God is a false accusation. We have both a Law of God and moral codes as taught in the New Testament.
Now, if a person rejects these New Testament Laws and attempts to find justification, salvation, and righteousness, through Law keeping and observing Old Testament moral codes, then these are the true "ANTINOMIANS." They have rejected the Laws and moral code within the New Covenant of Jesus Messieh to live under the Laws and moral code of the Old Testament which were abolished upon the Cross and REPLACED!
There are those who are without doubt sinners of the most ungodly sort who reject the Laws of God and moral code found in the New Testament. These in fact refuse to abide by the natural laws of Kingdom government. These are true antinomians: that is without a law of New Testament moral accountability. To take these perverts without all law and make them one and the same as those believers who follow the Law of Christ (Messieh) and not the Old Testament Law, is wrong. It is error turned into a false accusation, and it is a lie. No New Testament believer can live without the Law of Christ and be saved. No one can be saved who rejects the New Testament moral codes. A person can be saved without fully understanding or complying to this Faith of Jesus. But once they are saved by grace through faith, their new faith and the grace of the Lord Jesus will lead the new Convert into all righteousness within the New Testament. This new path of righteousness is an automatic new moral code and following whatsoever Jesus has commanded (Matthew 28:20). So we are not antinomian! We have a law, but it is not the Old Testament Law! What we observe as our MORAL CODE is the life of Messieh and the Messianic Commandments are the true laws for all New Testament sons and daughters of God!
Those who attack Messianic believers because we believe in justification by faith and not works of the Law, do so because they believe there is salvation through the works of the Law. They attack and hate we faith people because we place our full hope of a future promise of eternal life upon the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Messieh, without any of the deeds of the Law. These are then "anticharis," that is they are for keeping the Laws of Moses for salvation and a moral code and AGAINST THE SOVEREIGN GRACE OF GOD. Anticharis means against the grace of God for salvation.
The word "antinomianism" is from two words: 1.) anti= against or opposite of; and 2.) nom= law. It really means "against the law." What is projected into this interpretation is that those against the Old Testament Law for salvation and a moral code are somehow against God and moral codes. This is false. Thus, from a bigoted point of view, antinomianism means "anti-law" or "anti-moral."
A person can be "anti-law" in the sense of salvation through Jesus Messieh by grace through faith, but this does not mean they are anti-moral. It means instead that we are Pro-New Covenant. It means the New Testament and what it contains is the moral code for Christians, not the Old Testament or its moral code.
The real antinomians are those who reject the New Covenant and its exclusive moral code and want to abolish that and go back under the Old Testament Law for salvation, works, legalism, and righteousness. That is rebuked by the Apostle Paul in Galatians 2:21 and the Concision and Law-keepers hate him for this.
The warped and twisted interpretation given by the Concision and the Law-keepers to the word antinomianism blasphemes the New Testament Covenant, the New Testament moral truths, and the Apostle Paul.
Who said that morality was confined to the Law Covenant given at Mt. Sinai? Who said that a moral code can only be found in the Law? Before the Law what was the code of moral law placed upon the human race by God the Creator? The error here is to assume that the Law is the beginning and the end of all moral codes. That is incorrect and far from the truth. There was a moral code before there ever was a Law Covenant given at Mt. Sinai and that moral code is the basis of the moral code of the teachings of Jesus Messieh. That the Law Covenant incorporated these basic moral codes does not mean a person must subscribe to the Law.
Jesus Messieh in his New Covenant delivered to the Apostles, set forth the moral code for Christians. The New Testament is our rule of faith, doctrine, and practice. It is our moral code and replaces for us the moral code in the Law Covenant. While the codes in many respects may be the same, it is the New Covenant moral code that is the rule of faith and practice for Christians (Messiehians). It is error and false to claim that the Apostle Paul or some other Christian has rejected morality because they no longer embrace the moral code of the Law Covenant but instead embrace the moral code of the New Covenant.
The interpretation of the word "antinomianism" then is slander against those whose faith is in the moral code of Jesus Messieh. It tends to make a person think and believe that the Law Covenant is the only moral code for mankind upon the earth. That is false! It tends to make a person think or believe that the Apostle Paul and his rejection of observance of the Law Covenant, was somehow releasing converts to live lives of sin and evil, since they suppose that Paul has destroyed the moral Law of the Old Testament, and did not replace it with a new moral code. This is pure antichrist. The Apostle Paul was the foremost Apostle in setting forth the moral code for Christians. The letter to the Corinthians would more than serve to prove this point and fact.
Antinomianism as interpreted then amounts to a false accusation that if Christians do not subscribe to the Law Covenant for a moral code that they have none.
Antinomianism as defined in present day dictionaries and encyclopedias is not only misleading and leads to a false conclusion of the New Covenant being absent of a moral code, it tends to stigmatize Christians who live by faith and grace that they are without a moral code and therefore are perverted. This leads to the theory that Christians who reject the Law Covenant are perverted and allow perversions because they reject the one and only moral code, the Law Covenant. This is false!
Jesus Messieh is our moral code. The Holy Spirit is our moral instructor. The New Covenant is our moral salvation. And would it not stand to reason that if the blood of Jesus is preached for the remission of sins, that the purpose of this atonement is to abolish immorality and produce changed lives to then live morally after the pattern of Jesus Messieh?
Some would say then: "that sin is transgression of the law, the law is the Ten Commandments, and so a person becomes a sinner by breaking the Commandments, because there are no other laws of God a person could break and be labeled a sinner." That is false. For the Jews and Israel the Law was the code that identified sin. But Gentiles were not included within the Law Covenant. There remained among the Gentiles those ancient laws and moral codes of God that were given to Adam and subsequent generations of Gentiles prior to the birth of Israel as a nation and prior to the Ten Commandments given at Mt. Sinai. God's moral laws are not confined to the Ten Commandments alone or any of the other 603 commandments or precepts of the Law. The Ten Commandments do not mention many hundreds of moral sins: fornication, prostitution, and bestiality being only three.
Those anticharis who are against the grace of God for salvation, must repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Messieh for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38). They must stop their false accusations. They must quit trying to take sincere men and women back under the Law for salvation through deception and false interpretations of the Scriptures. The anticharis will not win. For them to fight against the grace of God for salvation, is certain damnation. If you are one of these anticharis trying to force law-keeping and observance of the Sabbath, then repent. If you refuse to repent and you continue to be anticharis against the grace and mercy of the Lord, you will be destroyed by the judgments of the Almighty God.
Let we who follow Jesus Messieh follow also his moral codes and teachings as they are subsequently taught and preached by the twelve Apostles. We do not need any of the Old Testament for salvation, ...not one letter, one verse, one chapter, or one book. It is all in Jesus, the walking WORD OF GOD: not two stone tablets, not the old scrolls, and not in the old rituals and codes. Our book, our faith, our code of moral ethics is the New Covenant.
Anyone who accuses us of being antinomian is a false accuser, a liar, and all liars will have their part in the Lake that burneth with fire and brimstone. Flee from the Concision, the Law-keepers, and trust fully in Jesus Messieh for salvation. Acts 2:38 shows us how grace and faith unite in our hearts to being sons and daughters into the Kingdom of God.