The Trouble With Antinomians

According to antinomians, those who believe in the literal and inerrant truth of the Bible suffer from an inability to appreciate the literary excellence and fine figures of speech of the Bible and instead are cultural philistines whose very seriously held beliefs about the importance of obedience to God are nothing more than the prejudices of narrow-minded and unintelligent bigots. Obviously, being someone who takes the Bible quite seriously and quite literally, as well as being someone who has a great appreciation of literature (both as the writer of copious amounts of literature and the reader of a fair amount as well), I would appear to be at least somewhat suited to combat the false claims of the antinomians. So here goes.

It is beyond dispute that the Bible is a finely crafted work of literature. The Bible contains, for instance, a rich poetic language, some of it similar to Egyptian, Canaanite, Persian, and Babylonian literature (though far superior with regards to moral law). Certain customs in the Bible appear in the Nuzi tablets, or in the practice of Akkadian leaders, for example. The Bible's books include a hymnbook (which we call Psalms), numerous prophetic books (which could be said to be similar to oracular literature in other traditions, if one chooses to go that route), genealogies (of great interest to me, as I have been a student of family histories for many years), creation literature, historical chronicles, decrees, letters, apocalyptic literature, biographies, sermons, and so forth. All of this is a large amount of rather disparate literature in one book. The fact that it all shares a commonality of purpose and the divine dispensation of preservation is another matter entirely. It is important to realize, though, that a fine appreciation for the literary excellence of the Bible is not sufficient. Unlike other mere works of literature, the Bible was not written merely to entertain, but to instruct, and to serve as the blueprint for a moral life. This means we cannot view it merely with the eyes of literature appreciation, but must take its words and laws with the utmost of seriousness. Those of us who fail to do so, no matter how cultured they may think themselves, are behaving with a failure of respect and honor towards the divine ordinances of our Creator God.

It is strange that those who criticize law-abiding believers for being so foolishly literal minded are so foolishly literal minded about certain phrases that, when taken out of context, would seem to indicate that the law is done away with. For example, there is the pernicious expression translated in English as "under law." Whenever an antinomian sees the expression "under law," they behave as Pavlov's dog's do to the sound of a bell, and salivate at the mouth, spawning off vile insults at those who would point to a requirement for obedience among Christians today, especially when it comes to such issues as the Sabbath and Holy Days, clean and unclean meats, gender roles, laws of sexual morality, and so forth. However, in the context of Galatians, Romans, and so on, "under law" seems not to refer to the laws themselves, but but the administration of punishment without mercy for sin. It is only through the divine dispensation of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that we can hope to be redeemed of our sinful nature. But, as Paul clearly said on numerous occasions (as there were antinomians in his time), and as John and Peter said as well in their own various ways in their epistles, our respentance at baptism frees us from sin, not to sin, and we cannot know sin apart from the law. If we, in other words, are baptised, we will live in ways in accordance with God's law, not merely to be rewarded, or because we are under the "Old Covenant," but rather because we love God and wish to gain His righteous character, which is done through obeying and internalizing His laws in our lives, and applying them in spiritual ways, which do not contradict (nay, they expand) the previous physical applications.

One might then speculate (and I am unkind enough to do so), that it is not those who take the Bible seriously and seek to obey it that have the problem. It is rather that those who refuse to take the Bible seriously (a rather large population in this wicked world, I must admit) who have the inability to appreciate the seriousness of God writing the Decalogue with his hand in a cave high on Jabul Al-Musa, Mt. Horeb, Mt. Sinai, or the equally serious prohibitions on the habitually immoral in Romans, Corinthians, and Revelation, and elsewhere, from entering the Kingdom of God. For too long believers in the Bible have been made to feel as barbarians, uncivilized and hopelessly outdated, when in fact those who would disregard the Bible are as the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, of Gibeon in Judges, hastening towards their own fall.

It should be remembered, and is often forgotten, that the truth is the truth even if no one believes it, and error is error even if everyone believes it. What is right and wrong is not up for a popular vote, but simply is. Once the absolute nature of truth becomes under attack from moral philistines (look up Judges and 1 Samuel for that reference), then civilization as such becomes impossible. Civilization, after all, depends on a certain moral superiority to barbarism, which properly defined is any system whose legitimacy has no moral bearing and is dependent on force or fraud, rather than any reasonable and just bearing. The trouble with antinomians is that they mistake rebarbarism (the dog returning to his own vomit, as Hebrews says) for the peak of civilization, and confuse those who would arrest civilization's fall with uneducated barbarians. Though it is a popular mistake, it is a mistake the same, and one that needs to be brought home with a bit more fire and frequency. After all, we are engaged in a war for the survival of decency--we cannot throw down our arms merely because the fight is unpopular.