Like Moses (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18), Jesus taught that the whole law was summarized by the command to love God and neighbor (Matt. 22:37). He came not to abolish but to fulfill the law (Matt. 5:17’20). Nevertheless, Jesus was famously accused by the religious leaders as an "antinomian" for refusing to accord the same weight to the extrabiblical rules of the elders.
Evidently, Paul was also accused of "antinomianism" by his critics. "And why not do evil that good may come?’as some people slanderously charge us with saying" (Rom. 3:8; cf. 6:1). Encouraging believers in God's grace, Peter nevertheless warned believers against "using your freedom as a cover-up for evil" (1 Pet. 2:16). He added that "lawless people" were using the gospel as an excuse for license; "ignorant and unstable," they were twisting the Scriptures "to their own destruction" (2 Pet. 3:16’18). It should be noted that the charge of antinomianism and the reality of a lawlessness based on Scripture-twisting could arise perpetually throughout the church's history only because the gospel of free justification in Christ apart from works is so clearly taught in Scripture.
Reformation Debates
Martin Luther and his colleagues faced a "Christ-centered antinomianism" in their day. Luther compared reason to a drunken man who fell off one side of his horse and got back on, only to fall off the other side. No sooner had the Reformers proclaimed the liberating power of God's free grace than "certain fanatical spirits" announced that the law was no longer necessary for believers. Coining the term "antinomian" (against law) for the first time, Luther denounced Johannes Agricola and others who defended this view. (Agricola sued the Reformer for slander, but eventually dropped the suit.) While believers are free of its condemnation, the law remains God's standard of living and plays a distinctive role together with the gospel in our lifelong repentance. Luther wrote, "Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever….Thus, it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire!" Antinomianism is a "blasphemy and sacrilege," Luther thundered in his "First Disputation against the Antinomians" (1537). The debate reached its climax in 1539 with Luther's book, Against the Antinomians.
A second antinomian controversy erupted in Lutheran circles when the "Philippists" (those who claimed Philipp Melanchthon, though with dubious warrant) denied the imputation of Christ's active obedience and turned the gospel into a form of law while dispensing with the law itself. The fifth and sixth articles of the Formula of Concord affirmed the law-gospel distinction, rejected antinomianism, and affirmed the third use of the law (to guide believers), which Melanchthon had in fact systematized even before Calvin.
British Debates
At the time of the Westminster Assembly, convened by Parliament in 1643, there were a few hyper-Calvinists suspected of an "enthusiastic" or "Spirit-centered" license. This version exhibits characteristics both of Spirit-centered and Christ-centered antinomianism. They were usually called antinomians because at least some of them held that the elect are justified from all eternity (even apart from faith), and they emphasized inner experience of the Spirit over all external ministry and freedom from the moral law's direction. It should be noted that these views were not in the mainstream.
Later, as we have said, the charge was brought by those with a more legalistic bent’typically identified as "neonomians" for turning the gospel into a "new law." Richard Baxter accused John Owen of antinomianism, and Owen returned the favor by warning about Baxter's neonomianism. On the basis of the Reformed confession, there is no basis of any charge against Owen, though his appraisal of Baxter seems justified.
Another example of the antinomian charge being leveled by neonomians against classic Reformed pastors is the so-called "Marrow Controversy." Edward Fisher's The Marrow of Modern Divinity (1645) enjoyed a wide readership among Puritans, including commendations from the likes of Jeremiah Burroughs. Aside from a brief polemic against the Sabbatarian position, the book reflected typical Reformed conclusions. By the early eighteenth century, the Church of Scotland was influenced by neonomianism and the "moderate" party by the Enlightenment. Scottish minister Thomas Boston reprinted Fisher's book in 1718 with a preface from the great James Hog. The 1720 General Assembly, however, declared it "antinomian," and despite the arguments of Hog, Boston, and ten other leaders’including Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine’this decision was reaffirmed in 1722. This led to a schism in the 1730s, forming the Associate Presbytery. Incredibly, a position that was considered standard Reformed orthodoxy in 1645, even by members of the Westminster Assembly, was declared half a century later by the Church of Scotland to be "antinomian."
Calvinist and Wesleyan Debates
Arminians had long vilified Reformed theology as either explicitly or implicitly antinomian. Arminius himself first provoked criticism by denying that Romans 7 could possibly describe the experience of a genuine believer, and his followers maintain that Reformed soteriology inevitably leads to carelessness and vitiates the seriousness of the call to holiness. William Law argued the same in A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728) and A Practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection (1726). Indebted to radical mysticism, Law denied justification and at times verged on Pelagianism. Though no Pelagian, John Wesley expressed his debt to these works and sought Law's personal counsel on various occasions. In Wesley's view, Calvinism led inexorably to antinomianism’a view he maintained especially in sharp polemics with Augustus Toplady (Anglican minister and author of the hymn "Rock of Ages"). His protégé John Fletcher carried forward the charge with his book Five Checks to Antinomianism (1770). The antinomian charge was renewed by Charles Finney and has been a staple of Arminian polemics to this day.
Yet Wesleyanism generated its own form of antinomianism. Drawing from Wesley's doctrine of entire sanctification, the "Higher Life" (or "Victorious Life") movement emphasizes the mystical rather than the activistic side of Wesley's thought. "Let go and let God" is not a maxim Wesley would have countenanced, but it reflects the emphasis of medieval and pietistic quietism. The key Wesleyan ingredient is the idea of sanctification as a "second blessing," a separate experience subsequent to conversion that makes it possible for believers to live above all known sin. Associated with the Keswick conferences in England and America, this movement emphasized that this blessing comes in "full surrender," as the self of the believer is replaced with the indwelling Christ and his Spirit.
Dispensationalist Tangents
In more recent years, a few writers from the dispensationalist camp have argued that these two blessings are not only separate events, but that one may make a decision for Christ ("making Jesus one's personal Savior") without bearing the fruit of faith in good works ("making Jesus Lord of one's life"). In the latter view, a "carnal Christian" may no longer even believe in Christ yet be eternally secure. The call is to become a "victorious Christian" by "letting Jesus have his way," but sanctification is not necessarily given with justification in our union with Christ. It should be added that in this construal, "eternal security" is based not on God's unconditional grace of election, redemption, and effectual calling, but on the believer fulfilling the terms of God's offer of salvation by making a decision for Christ.
