rather than freedom of function. So there is nothing that
frightens the religionist or moralist more than freedom from
the legal standards of good behavior that have been posited
in place of God. They reason, "If man is free from the law,
free from moral codes, free from the religious manipulation
thereof, there is no telling what man might do. It would be
chaos!" It is thereby revealed that they have not taken God
into account. They only understand "goodness" in the
idolatrous context of conformity to behavioral law codes.
When the apostle Paul shared the gospel of grace, the
freedom that we have in Jesus Christ, the religious critics,
the Judaizers, indicated that he was advocating
antinomianism, that he was teaching "against the law," that
he was encouraging lawlessness, licentiousness,
libertinism. Paul wrote in Rom. 6:15, "Shall we sin because
we are not under the law but under grace? May it never
be!" (cf. Rom. 3:5,8; 6:1). Freedom to sin is a total
misunderstanding of grace and freedom.
Freedom in Christ is indeed on the far side of moralistic
legalism. From the confined and false perspective of
legalism such freedom will appear to be lawlessness,
violations of regulatory behavioral law and moral standards
of goodness. But the Law of God has as its primary
wallpaper
(WallPaper)
#1