Grace based Holiness

 Does Gospel Clarity Lead to Antinomianism?

The answer really depends on what we mean by “lead.” Can gospel clarity be abused by sinful men? Of course. Paul himself anticipated this question when he wrote, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” (Rom. 6:1). The flesh can twist anything. It can turn law into self-righteousness and liberty into lawlessness. But that is not the real question. The real question is whether gospel clarity, rightly understood, logically produces antinomianism. Does the clear preaching of free justification in Christ tend, by its own nature, to make men careless about holiness? The answer is no. The fact that sinners can weaponize the gospel does not mean the gospel has a lawless tendency; it means sinners have a lawless tendency. The abuse of grace is not the logic of grace. The gospel does not need to be made less gracious to produce holiness. It is not too free to sanctify; rather, as Paul argues, it is the very power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16), and that salvation includes the whole work of God from justification to glorification (Rom. 8:29-30) The reason gospel clarity does not produce lawlessness is that the gospel does not give us justification apart from Christ himself. By faith, we are united to the whole Christ, and in Christ, we receive both righteousness and life. The justified believer is not merely declared righteous while left unchanged. He is united to Christ, indwelt by the Spirit, adopted by the Father, and brought under the gracious dominion of Christ. Therefore, free justification does not make holiness optional; it makes it inevitable and gives holiness its only true foundation. This is where the law must be put in its proper place. The law commands holiness, and it defines obedience, but the law, in itself, cannot create what it commands. It can show us the shape of obedience, but it cannot give us the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry, “Abba, Father.” It can tell us to love God and our neighbor, but it cannot make us love them. So the answer to antinomianism is not less gospel. The answer to antinomianism is the whole Christ. Legalism says, “Obey so that you may be accepted.” License says, “You are accepted, so obedience does not matter.” But gospel clarity says something better: “You are accepted in Christ, and now, in Christ, you are free to obey as a son and not as a slave.” To answer the original question, gospel clarity does not lead to antinomianism. Gospel confusion does.

Under Grace

 Living under the grace of God instead of under a sense of duty frees us from a self-serving motivation. It frees us to obey God and serve Him as a loving and thankful response to Him for our salvation and for blessings already guaranteed to us by His grace.

Jerry Bridges

Christ is Strong

 We gather on the Lord’s Day because Christ has not left His people to live from private memory alone.

He summons His church to hear again the public announcement of what is true in Him. The justified sinner still needs the preached Word, not because justification is unstable, but because the believer’s conscience often is. We are forgetful, accused, distracted, tempted, and slow to believe that the righteousness by which we stand before God is not found within us, but given to us in Christ. In gathered worship, the church hears one Word, confesses one faith, receives one promise, and lifts one voice to the God who justifies the ungodly. We gather as those whose standing has been secured by the obedience, blood, resurrection, and intercession of Another. We do not come together to pretend we are strong. We come because Christ is strong for sinners.

God can make the worst thing the best thing.

 “The very worst sin that’s ever been committed was the murder of the Son of God. The very best thing that’s ever happened on this planet was the death of the Son of God. And if God can make the worst thing the best thing, He can make your disappointment, even your sin, even your foolishness, work together for good.”

– Stuart Olyott

God's Love

How many millions of sins in every one of the elect, every one of which is enough to condemn them all, hath this love overcome! What mountains of unbelief doth it remove! Look upon the conduct of any one saint, consider the frame of his heart, see the many stains and spots, the defilements and infirmities with which his life is contaminated, and tell me whether the love that bears with all this is not to be admired. And is not the same towards thousands every day? What streams of grace, purging, pardoning, quickening, assisting, do flow from it every day! This is our Beloved.

John Owen

He first loved us.

 It is that gospel that will melt and renew hearts of stone. It is that sight of the Son of Man, lifted up on the cross, proving the love of His Father, that realigns affections. There we see the full gravity of our sin in what it cost Him. There our blithe hopes of self-righteousness die. And there we see a love in God's heart beyond our wildest fantasies. Where once we had dreaded God as an awful judge and delighted in sin, on the cross we see an entirely unexpected goodness and kindness in God. And it is that revelation that wins us. No longer do we shrink from Him, but seeing His fatherly love, we find our hearts welling up with love for Him in return. We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). The sin that pleased us becomes odious. The God we flinched from becomes entrancing.

Michael Reeves Preaching: A God-Centered Vision

Faith is Spirit-Given

 Faith is not self-generated but Spirit-given. Faith does not arise from fallen human nature (1 Cor. 2:14) but from the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit (John 6:63). The Spirit opens the heart, grants understanding, and creates faith through the gospel. As Calvin states elsewhere, "Faith itself is a singular gift of God." — Institutes 3.2.34

Antinomianism

 Errors of Antinomianism:

1. The law is made void by grace. Justification by faith alone renders good works unnecessary. 2. Since good works are unnecessary, obedience to the law is not required of justified persons. 3. God sees no sin in the justified, who are no longer bound by the law, and is not displeased with them if they sin. 4. God therefore does not chastise justified persons for sin. 5. Nor can sin in any way injure the justified. 6. Since no duties or obligations are admitted in the gospel, faith and repentance are not commanded. 7. The Christian need not repent in order to receive pardon of sin. 8. Nor need he mortify sin; Christ has mortified sin for him. 9. Nor ought he be distressed in conscience upon backsliding, but he should hold fast to a full assurance of his salvation in the midst of the vilest sins. 10. Justifying faith is the assurance that one is already justified. 11. The elect are actually justified before they believe, even from all eternity. 12. Therefore, they were never children of wrath or under condemnation. 13. Their sin, as to its very being, was imputed to Christ so as not to be theirs, and His holiness is imputed to them as their only sanctification. 14. Sanctification is no evidence of justification, for assurance is the fruit of an immediate revelation that one is an elect person. 15. No conviction by the law precedes the sinner’s closing with Christ, inasmuch as Christ is freely offered to sinners as sinners. 16. Repentance is produced not by the law, but by the gospel only. 17. The secret counsel of God is the rule of man’s conduct. 18. God is the author and approver of sin, for sin is the accomplishment of His will. 19. Unless the Spirit works holiness in the soul, there is no obligation to be holy or to strive toward that end. 20. All externals are useless or indifferent, since the Spirit alone gives life. (William Young, Reformed Thought, pp. 61-62)

(from James Dorman on Twitter, from @Alfred Sparks)

Full of God's Promises

 The Bible is full of God's promises - to provide for  us spiritually and materially, to never forsake us,  to give us peace in times of difficult circumstances,  to cause all circumstances to work together for our  good, and to bring us safely home to glory. Not one  of those promises is dependent upon our performance.  They're all dependent on the grace of God given to us through Jesus Christ.

Jerry Bridges

Not by your own Feelings

 Do not measure God's love and favor by your own feelings. The sun shines as clearly in the darkest day—as it does in the brightest. The difference is not in the sun, but in some clouds which hinder the manifestation of the light thereof.

—Richard Sibbes

No rest in our faith

 To the man that makes his faith and his trust his rest, and tries to pacify his conscience by getting up evidence of their solidity and excellence, we say, miserable comforters are they all!

—Horatius Bonar

Nothing New

"Preaching is not designed to teach us something new in every sermon, but to put us in remembrance, to call to mind things forgotten, to affect our passions, and engage and fix our resolutions, that our lives may be answerable to our faith." 

 —Matthew Henry

Inward Despair

 Satan is the Accuser. His work is to turn your eyes in on yourself and despair. 

The Spirit is the Comforter. His work is to turn your eyes to Jesus, the rest for our souls.

Michael Reeves.