I want to be very careful here at first to say upfront I am not accusing anyone of being antinomian but want to warn against the rising use of antinomian-type language to combat the Legalism found in many places among Evangelicalism.
I was recently made aware of a blog post by Tullian Tchividjian (found here) that used this quotation:
Because Jesus was strong for you, you’re free to be weak;
Because Jesus won for you, you’re free to lose;
Because Jesus was Someone, you’re free to be no one;
Because Jesus was extraordinary, you’re free to be ordinary;
Because Jesus succeeded for you, you’re free to fail.
After reading this yesterday and the more and more I cogitate upon it the language “free to…” really bothers me and here is why. Paul in the Letter to the Hebrews says in chapter 12, verse 14 , “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.” Yet it seems to me Rev. Tchividjian words sound an awful lot like what Paul writes against in Romans 6. Jesus in Luke 22:32 says to Peter, “But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail…”. Also in Luke 1:74-75 we read these words from Zacharias, “To grant us that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve [God] without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life. ” The call to holiness is all over the Scriptures. Does this mean we can perfectly keep the Law, even though we have been “delivered from the hand of our enemies”? Of course not, but what Rev. Tchividjian seems to be saying is we should not even seek to be holy but revel in the fact we are “free to fail”, which while not explicitly antinomian sure seems to be leading down that path. I wish I had more time to write about this today so I will hopefully revisit this later.
For more on Antinomianism I highly recommend James Henley Thornwell’s work on the subject. It can be found on Google Books for free here.
