The last two decades have been great for Evangelical Christianity in North America. Whereas in the fifties and sixties the Liberals dominated the religious scene, the seventies and eighties belong to the Conservatives, both in a political and religious sense. Long ignored by the news media, they are ignored no longer. Almost every day our news makers have something to report on the activities of Evangelical churches and groups. Names like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have become household words. Everyone knows the former as the leader of the Moral Majority and the latter as (unsuccessful) presidential candidate in 1988. Suddenly it is no longer considered odd to be a Bible believing Christian. Encouraged by Jimmy Carter, millions of erstwhile timid believers de­clared themselves "born again".

But not all the news about the emerging religious right has been favourable. America also became familiar with some other names and faces of Evangelicals: Jimmy and Tammy Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart. The sexual exploits of the two Jimmy's and their partners became part of our daily news menu. The sad result of the exposure of these TV evangelists has been that Biblical Christianity is now widely discredited again. Never mind that there are still many honest and sincere preachers on TV and radio – we are all under suspicion by a sceptical world. And can we blame them?

How could this happen? What caused these popular and successful preachers to come crashing down from their dizzying heights? Some point to the very success of these men as the cause of their fall. Others blame it all on Satan who can't stand it when the Gospel gains a hearing in the world. But while there is some truth to both these explanations, there is a far more basic cause of the recent scandals among Evangelicals. Increasingly people are coming to the conclusion that there is something seriously wrong with much of Evangelical religion itself. The Gospel preached and believed by millions of America's "born again" Christians is perhaps not the true Gospel at all. Not only is it Arminian in doctrine, but much of today's Evangelical religion is thoroughly antinomian as well. John F. MacArthur, in his recent book The Gospel According to Jesus, points out that a careful study of the ministry of Christ as recorded in the Gospels will demonstrate that the message proclaimed by many today is not the Gospel according to Jesus. Says MacArthur:

The Gospel in vogue today holds forth a false hope to sinners. It promises them they can have eternal life yet continue to live in rebellion against God. Indeed, it encourages people to claim Jesus as Saviour yet defer until later the commitment to obey Him as Lord. It promises salvation from hell but not necessarily freedom from iniquity. It offers false security to people who revel in the sins of the flesh and spurn the way of holiness … This new gospel has spawned a generation of professing Christians whose behaviour often is indistinguishable from the rebellion of the unregenerate … Shocking forms of open immorality have become commonplace among pro­fessing Christians. And why not? The promise of eternal life without surrender to divine authority feeds the wretchedness of the unregenerate heart. Enthusiastic converts to this new gospel believe their behaviour has no relationship to their spiritual status – even if they continue wantonly in the grossest kinds of sins and expressions of human depravity … They have been told that the only criterion for salvation is knowing and believing some basic facts about Christ. They hear from the beginning that obedience is optional. It follows logically, then, that a person's onetime profession of faith is more valid than the ongoing testimony of his life-style in determining whether to embrace him as a true believer (p. 17).

What MacArthur is saying here may be put this way: there is no such thing as justification without sanctification. Or, to say it still differently: the Gospel should never be separated from the Law. Whenever this is done, the result is antinomianism. What is antinomianism? Webster's Dictionary defines an Antinomian as "one who holds that, under the gospel dispensation, the moral law is of no use or obligation". And Baker's Dictionary of Theology gives the following brief but lucid explanation of Antinomianism:

The word comes from the Greek anti – against, and nomos – law; and signified opposition to law. It refers to the doctrine that the moral law is not binding upon Christians as a rule of life. In a wider sense it is applied to the view of fanatics who refuse to recognize any law but their own subjective ideas, which they usually claim are from the Holy Spirit.

Antinomianism was so called by Luther when his old friend, John Agricola, taught that Christians are entirely free from the law, i.e., the moral law as laid down by Moses. He argued that they are not required to keep the Ten Commandments. He took this position because he was afraid of works-righteousness and thought that the doctrine of justification by faith alone demanded this. The Reformation teaching, however, was: Good works make not a good man, but a good man does good works.

Antinomianism is a deadly heresy, in fact, the Scottish theologian Rabbi Duncan believed it is the only heresy. He meant by that that every heresy springs from the carnal mind which is unable and unwilling to subject itself to the Law of God.

That the carnal mind is indeed enmity against God, is a fact we are reminded of every day by the news media. Man without God refuses to obey the Law of God and is a law unto himself. The sad thing is that this terrible spring of self-will does not just manifest itself in the world but increasingly comes to expression in the church as well. This can be traced, I'm sure, to a woeful neglect of sound preaching on the law. A wrong interpretation of Paul's words: "Ye are not under the law but under grace" (Rom. 6:14) has done untold harm here.

Many think this means a Christian is free from the law's demands because he is in Christ. But this a tragic error. The true meaning is this: The believer is no longer under the law in the sense that his salvation does not depend on his obedience to it. Christ kept the law for him in that sense, so that now he is delivered from its curse. But that does not mean he has nothing to do with the law anymore. The law is now the Christian's rule of life. It is to guide and direct him in the life of thankfulness or sanctification. God does not set aside His law. He cannot do this. His law is eternal. It is a perfect reflection of His holy nature. By His perfect obedience to His Father's law, Christ honoured and magnified it, and by paying the penalty for His people's transgressions of the law, He shows how inflexible it is, demanding the death of transgressors, even the death of the Son of God.

Those who believe in Christ are indeed set free from the curse of the law, but not from its precepts. Rather, by grace Christians are enabled to keep those precepts, the Holy Spirit writing them on the tables of their heart so as to create in them a willingness to obey out of love. Justification, therefore, is always followed by sanctification. Justification not only secures us pardon for the sin of transgressing God's holy law; it also brings about a change of attitude toward the law. Instead of hating it we now love it and "with sincere resolution we begin to live, not only according to some, but all the commandments of God" (Heid. Cat. A. 114).

Where this love of God's law is not evident there is no true, saving faith. Despite all the claims of loving Jesus and being filled with His Spirit, if there is no holiness there is no salvation.

But even here we have to be careful. There are those who claim holiness or sanctification as a second blessing which takes the form of a mystical experience. They are holy by faith and claim entire sanctification because of their union with Christ. But as Lloyd Jones points out:

There is nothing more fatal than to regard holiness and sanctification as experiences to be received. No, holiness means being righteous, and being righteous means keeping the law. Therefore, if your so-called grace (which you say you have received) does not make you keep the law, you have not received grace at all. You may have received a psychological experience, but you have never re­ceived the grace of God. For what is grace? It is that marvellous gift of God which, having delivered a man from the curse of the law, enables him to keep it and to be righteous as Christ was righteous, for He kept the law perfectly. Grace is that which brings me to love God, and if I love God, I long to keep His commandments. 'He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them,' Christ said, 'he it is that loveth me'.

True, not all antinomians live sinful lives. There are the so-called theoretical antinomians who believe that Christians need not be told to keep the law because they will do so by virtue of their being in Christ. Their conduct is directed by love to Christ and His Spirit will guide them in the right way, they trust.

We believe these people to be sincere, but sincerely wrong, because love alone is not a sufficiently safe guide in the matter of Christian behaviour. As Horatius Bonar wrote a century and a half ago:

Some will tell us that it is not service they object to, but service regulated by law. But will they tell us what it is to regulate service, if not law? Love, they say. This is pure fallacy. Love is not a rule but a motive. Love does not tell me what to do; it tells me how to do it. Love constrains me to do the will of the beloved one; but to know what the will is, I must go elsewhere. The law of God is the will of the beloved One … Love goes to the law to learn the divine will, and love de­lights in the law as the exponent of that will. And he who says that a believing man has nothing more to do with the law except to shun it as an old enemy, might as well say that he has nothing to do with the will of God. For the divine law and the divine will are substantially one, the former be­ing the outward manifestation of the latter.  God's Way of Holiness, pp. 78-79

Obedience to that will of God as revealed in the Ten Commandments, that is the test of Christian character and soundness of faith. As our Saviour said so solemnly: "Not everyone that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 7:21).

"He gave himself for us," Paul writes to Titus, "that He might purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works" (2:14). What has happened to that peculiar people today? Where are they in Evangeli­cal churches? Where are they in Re­formed, even Free Reformed churches?

Bishop Ryle wrote more than eighty years ago:

There is a common complaint in these latter days that there is a want of power in modern Christianity, and that the true Church of Christ does not shake the world in the twentieth century as it used to do in former years. Shall I tell you in plain words what is the reason? It is the low tone of life which is so sadly prevalent among professing believers. We want more men and women who walk with God and before God, like Enoch and Abraham …  Where is the self-denial, the redemption of time, the absence of luxury and self-indulgence, the unmistakable sepa­ration from earthly things, the simplicity of home life, the patience, and humility which marked so many of our forefathers? Yes, where is it indeed? We have inherited their princi­ples and we wear their armour, but I fear we have not inherited their practice. The Holy Ghost sees it, and is grieved; the world sees it too, and despises us … and cares little for our testimony.

The Gospel minus the Law equals Chaos. In society, in the Church, and in the individual soul. Lawlessness abounds on every side. And much of the blame for this must be laid at the door of the Church which has emphasized a gospel that is not gospel because it is an emphasis at the expense of the law which alone can prepare sinners for the revelation of the grace of God in Jesus Christ and which teaches saints how they must live to the praises of Him who has called them out of darkness into His marvellous light (1 Peter 2:9).