Lawless Christianity Part IV: Licentiousness
This is part 4 of 7. If you haven't read the previous parts, please do so before continuing, thank you! If you would like to contact the author you can email here: justin.hornbaker@gmail.com.
Licentiousness
The consequences of taking this core antinomian teaching to it’s logical end - lawless Christianity (Matthew 23:28, 24:12, 2 Peter 3:17) - is also known as licentiousness. A license to sin is the conscious or unconscious result. I say unconscious because someone may be blind to their error sitting under this kind of teaching, especially if the only Bible reading they expose themselves to is on Sunday morning.
There is always a number of people who talk about hypocrites in the church, or Christians who are hypocrites. Often this objection is posed by someone without a clear picture of what Christianity is: terrible wretched sinners saved by the grace of God, who are now cleaning up their act slowly using the power the Holy Spirit supplies, still far from perfect. But sometimes there is substance to this objection. And when this is the case you have practical antinomians.
Practical antinomians are Christians-in-name-only (or not actual Christians, this includes pastors) who have brushed aside any need to battle sin and see the Christian life as a get-out-of-hell-free card; now they can sin all they want without consequence. When asked who they represent, they give lip service to Christ, blaspheming His name as they dive into sin instead of going to war with it. I see this as the most detrimental consequence of this terrible heresy, possibly leaving the person dead in their sins (never saved in the first place) and believing the deception of being born again in God’s Spirit when their lives testify that they are not!
Ultimately licentiousness is simply an evidence of false conversion. False conversion is a term derived from many verses in the bible which speak of people who walked and talked as if they were Christians, but turn out to be complete frauds because their heart was not changed. The clearest verse that comes to mind is Jesus’ revelation Matthew chapter seven:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” Matthew 7:21-23
This reality is a sensitive subject among many in churches today. There's often an elephant in the room when people watch their neighbors come to church claiming to be Christian but their lives reveal rotten fruit. But I’m not the only one pointing out this elephant. A.W.Tozer wrote:
“Plain horse sense ought to tell us that anything that makes no change in the man who professes it makes no difference to God either, and it is an easily observable fact that for countless numbers of persons the change from no-faith to faith makes no actual difference in the life.” A. W. Tozer, The Best of A. W. Tozer, Volume 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1978), 168
Be careful though, because often you will immediately be looked down upon as judgemental and mean for bringing the doctrine of false conversion to light. It’s unfortunate that one of the core reasons we come together as believers - to hold one another accountable for our actions - is simply thrown to the wayside in the wake of a “Christian” tolerance movement. The results of silencing such a foundational problem comes in the form of errors like antinomianism.
To be continued... (Part 4 of 7)
Originally titled "Antinomianism: A Self-Refuting Heresy."
