Second Sight
Contend for the Faith
Part I - Time for a Little House Cleaning
February 20, 2006
“Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” (Jude 3)
The struggle between the Biblical worldview and various forms of non-Biblical worldviews has been a feature of Christian experience from the earliest days of the Church. Most of the time, when we think of the task of defending the Biblical worldview, we focus on philosophies and ideologies outside the Church that deny the teaching of Scripture and posit ways of living that would limit God’s involvement or cut Him out entirely. Such is the struggle today between the Biblical worldview and the naturalistic worldviews of rationalism and scientism, and the mystical and relativistic worldviews of postmodernism in its different shapes. Against such intellectual arguments and lofty opinions “raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:5) believers are called to be ever vigilant and aggressive.
But what often gets overlooked in the conflict of worldviews are those unbelieving arguments and opinions that, assuming the language of faith, weasel their way into the believing community and sap the strength of Biblical thinking and living. Such were the Judaizers and Gnostics of the first and second centuries, the Arians and other proponents of a subordinationist theology of the third and fourth centuries, and a host of other false teachers in every age. It is about just such teachers that the apostle Jude wrote in his brief letter, observing, “For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (v. 4).
Jude warned his readers against these false teachers. They appealed to “new revelations” beyond the scope and teaching of Scripture (v. 8), mocked the authority of the apostles and those appointed by them for church leadership (v. 8), and promoted their views in the interest of making money (v. 11). They were popular and ubiquitous, made plenty of room for sensual indulgence in their religious schemes (v. 7), and brazenly insinuated themselves into the very midst of established churches by any means they could (v. 12).
But their preaching and teaching, while very appealing, produced no real fruit for the Kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Spirit (v. 12) and left whole congregations confused, divided, contending with one another, and filled with ungodly and complaining people (vv. 15, 16).
The apostles had warned about such people, Jude advised (v. 17), and he called on his readers to resist these false teachers and “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” Even early in the history of the faith it was necessary for one of the apostles to call for a little house cleaning.
Jude’s exhortation to his first-century readers is valid for us today. Little has changed from Jude’s day to ours; there are still false teachers rampant in the churches of the land, promoting all manner of false doctrine, creating all kinds of confusion in the ranks, and making a handsome living for themselves in the bargain. They use the language of faith but deny the substance of it; they invoke the Name of Jesus but lead people away from Him to their clever schemes or dazzling personalities; they may achieve huge followings, or they may instruct in small churches, but little in the way of righteousness or boldness for Christ is evident from their ministries. Against all such false teachers Jude’s instruction yet stands: “Contend for the faith!”
In this and the next three installments of this column I want to examine four types of false teachings which have become firmly established in many churches and in the minds of many believers, the effect of which is to “pervert the grace of our God . . . and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” I won’t be naming names; instead, I’ll take an “if the shoe fits, wear it” approach to four of the most dangerous teachings afoot in the Body of Christ today.
I begin with antinomianism.
Antinomianism is the doctrine that denies a central place in the life of faith to the keeping of God’s commandments. The antinomian claims that the Law and the Gospel are at opposite ends of the religious spectrum; Law depends on works for salvation, while Gospel looks to grace. Law lays on a heavy burden that no one can bear; Gospel lifts that burden and allows us to “be free in Jesus.” Law emphasizes sin and condemnation; Gospel emphasizes forgiveness and hope. Law is a taskmaster of duty; Gospel is the liberator of love.
The antinomian boasts, in a perversion of Paul’s teaching (Galatians 3:25), that he is “not under Law, but under grace.” Law cannot save; it can only enslave. Law was for the Old Covenant; Gospel and grace are for the new. Since there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1), there is no need for believers to fuss with obeying “precepts and teachings” that “have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Colossians 2:22, 23). Why are you so anxious about rules and laws? Just keep your eye on Jesus, and He’ll show you how to live in forgiveness and love. Don’t be so hard on yourself about feelings of sin and guilt. You’re forgiven in Christ—a new creature! He welcomes you as you are and just wants you to accept yourself as He does; when He’s ready to change you, He’ll take care of it in His own special way. Until then, be free of guilt and shame, and revel in the free grace of a God who demands nothing of us but to regard Him as our friend, and to be friendly to others as we have opportunity.
The antinomian acknowledges that the Law has a powerful ability to point out our sins. However, he will insist, once it has accomplished that task, and driven us into the arms of Christ, its work is done, and we need worry about it no more. “For the Christian,” as one antinomian theologian wrote, “the Law is a dead and a useless thing.”
ANTINOMIANISM PERVERTS GRACE
The problem with antinomianism is that rather than promote grace as a way of life, it actually denies grace by cheapening it almost to the point of mere license. The teaching of Scripture is that, while none of us can keep the Law in a way that will result in our salvation, still, if we are ever to be saved—that is, if we are ever to possess a righteousness sufficient to dwell in the house of the Lord forever—someone has to keep the Law and achieve that righteousness for us.
This is what Jesus has done. By fulfilling the Law in exhaustive detail, Jesus achieved a righteousness that God the Father has accepted and is willing to credit to all people who will receive it by faith. This is what Paul argues so forcefully in Romans 3. But once that alien righteousness is received by faith, the Law, which Christ kept to achieve our salvation, is not tossed on the dust heap of religious history. Rather, Paul says, we establish the Law (Romans 3:31) as the means whereby the love of God flows through us, both to Him and to our neighbors, as the Holy Spirit brings grace to fruition in our hearts (Ezekiel 36:26, 27; Romans 5:5). Obedience to the Law, John tells us, is the very essence of love, of grace (1 John 5:1-3). To deny or ignore or minimize the Law, therefore, is to eradicate grace and replace it with a dangerous form of license, one that has yet to produce much in the way of real evidence of the Kingdom of God in our midst.
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