Legalism is a problem in the church, but so is anti-nomianism. Granted, I don't hear anyone saying, 'Let's continue in sin that grace may abound'. That's the worse form of antinomianism. But strictly speaking, antinomianism simply means no-law, and some Christians have very little place for the law in their pursuit of holiness.
They who cast God's law behind their backs, God will cast their prayers behind his back. They who will not have the law to rule them, shall have the law to judge them.The Ten Commandments, 13
Not infrequently will one hear that we should just "preach the gospel" and then let the Spirit do his work in believers. Of course, this statement can be taken in a number of ways that even the staunches opponent of antinomianism could agree to. But often there is such an overreaction to "moralizing sermons" that preachers fail to give appropriate, soul-searching application in the form of commands. Direct and specific application in the form of commands. Direct and specific application is something that Paul does not omit in his letters. For example, he reminds the Thessalonians to love one another and then urges them "to do this more and more" (1 Thess. 4:10).Antinomianism (Loc 829/ Kindle)
[Antinomians] blur the distinction between impetration and application, and so make Christ totally responsible, not only for our imputed righteousness, but also for our imparted righteousness. On the surface, such a view appears to honor Christ. But on closer inspection, this view obliterates human responsibility to the point that antinomianism ends up becoming a form of hyper-Calvinism.Antinomianism (Loc 693/ Kindle)
There is only one genuine cure for legalism. It is the same medicine the gospel prescribes for antinomianism: understanding and tasting union with Jesus Christ himself. This leads to a new love for and obedience to the law of God, which he now mediates to us in the gospel. This alone breaks the bonds of both legalism (the law is no longer divorced from the person of Christ) and antinomianism (we are not divorced from the law, which now comes to us from the hand of Christ and in the empowerment of the Spirit, who writes it in our hearts).The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (pp. 157). Crossway
At root then antinomianism separates God's law from God's person, and grace from the union with Christ in which the law is written in the heart. In doing so it jeopardizes not simply the Decalogue; it dismantles the truth of the gospel.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (pp. 154). Crossway
We live in a day and age in which Christianity throughout North America is primarily antinomian. You're saved by grace perhaps, or at least mostly through grace and partly your free will, so you can be free. Free to do what you want.https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermons/5191514403910 (11 mins)
the deepest response to antinomianism is not "You are under the law" but rather You are despising the gospel and failing to understand how the grace of God in the gospel works! There is no condemnation for you under the law because of your faith-union with Christ. But that same faith-union leads to the requirements of the law being fulfilled in you through the Spirit. Your real problem is not that you do not understand the law. It is that you do not understand the gospel. For Paul says that we are "in-lawed to Christ." Our relationship to the law is not a bare legal one, coldly impersonal. No, our conformity to it is the fruit of our marriage to our new husband Jesus Christ.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (pp. 153-154). Crossway
It was a consolation to the Marrow Brethren that the preaching and teaching of both Jesus and Paul aroused the same questions and criticism. But antinomianism, like legalism, has many faces.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (p. 138). Crossway
Christ's humiliation and sacrifice point to a new way in which believers are to love one another. And this model of love is a greater model of love than what is found in the Old Testament, since it was ontologically impossible for God to act in sacrifical love toward his people. In other words, it was the incarnation that made a suffering love possible, and therefore it was only after the incarnation that this heightened form of love could be required on the basis of Christ's own example. Therefore, contrary to antinomianism, the New Testament heightens, not lessens, the place of the moral law in the life of the believer, for the indicative has been heightened through Christ's mediatorial work.Antinomianism (Loc 817/ Kindle)
Discussions and writings on holiness often lack a strong Christological basis and center. Without a robust affirmation of the holiness of Christ, and all that that means, calls to holiness, however stirring they may be, well inevitably devolve into a form of man-centered pietism.Antinomianism (Loc 520/ Kindle)
Scholars today who accuse the Puritans of legalism are simply echoing a pattern well established in the seventeenth century by antinomian theologians, who hurled the "legalist" epiphet-as well as "crypto-papist" and the like-at those who were thoroughly Reformed in their theology.Antinomianism (Loc 320 / Kindle)
a Reformed understanding of Christ's person and work- not necessarily more imperatives, though they belong in our preaching--is the true solution to the problem of antinomianism.Antinomianism (Loc 179 / Kindle)