Showing Favor to Ungodliness
by T.M. Moore
The Inevitable Consequences of Antinomianism
If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty of the LORD. (Isaiah 26:10)
One of the virtues of each new season of television programming is that it provides a kind of reality check on our continuing moral decline. I don’t watch much network programming—just enough, though, to catch the occasional trailer for a new show.
This fall, as far as I can tell, we’ll be treated to a series that glorifies the life of “cool crime.” Another series—the continuing story of a group of classmates-turned-near-adults—features a woman who can spell “denial” and has a penchant for falling in love with homosexual men. And, of course, we are promised new and more outrageous “reality programs” that have nothing whatsoever to do with the reality anyone ever lives, but everything to do with such skills as getting the best of someone else at anybody and everybody’s expense, all for the sake of fifteen minutes of fame and a big chunk of money.
Television serves as a mirror of society, in a strange kind of way. It reflects what many people think and feel, but typically keep to themselves. By reflecting for public scrutiny what we’re secretly thinking and feeling—but wouldn’t dream of acting on—TV encourages us to go on and let it all hang out. Which, as we do, has the effect of moving the moral boundaries back a little more toward complete decadence, a condition Jacques Barzun has described as accepting “futility and the absurd as normal.”
But before we blame television for our moral slide, we need to consider what, in particular, is responsible for creating a favorable climate for ungodliness. It’s not TV. Rather, the Church’s indifference toward, even scorn for, the Law of God is the primary source of America’s continuing moral slippage.
ANTINOMIANISM
Antinomianism—active or passive rejection of God’s Law—is nothing new, not even among believers in God. Throughout most of her history, Israel in the Old Testament ignored, fudged, and blatantly disobeyed the Law of God. It was for their persistence on this course that God ultimately brought them to judgment. The book of Isaiah, indeed, all the prophets, are filled with warnings, threats, and denunciations against the rulers and people of Israel for their rebellion against the Law of God.
In the New Testament, as the Gospel began to spread and churches appeared throughout the Roman world, two different types of abuse of God’s Law became apparent. The first, that of the Judaizers, tried to make obedience to the Law a prerequisite of salvation. According to them, we are saved by believing in Jesus and submitting to certain ritual requirements of Jewish law. Paul rightly identified this teaching as “another gospel.”
The second error, perhaps a pendulum swing in the other direction, wanted to do away with the Law altogether. Paul addressed this incipient problem in the book of Romans. There he argued that the Law, being holy and righteous and good, is a vital tool in the believer’s sanctification. It serves both to point out our sin and to direct us in the way of righteousness and, therefore, must be established as integral to the ongoing life of faith (Romans 3:31; 7:12).
Antinomianism, as it has recurred over the course of Church history, takes this latter form. The Law of God is honored as such, and the Ten Commandments are highly regarded. But, the antinomian believes, the followers of Christ are not bound by the Law, as though they were obligated to make some conscious effort to follow its teachings. We live in a time of grace, not law. The Spirit is our guide in ethical matters, pouring forth the love of God from within us, so that we do not need to exert ourselves in laboring to understand or keep the Law of God. We are free from the Law in Jesus Christ, and walk in the Spirit by faith.
The result is that, while we make much over the removal of the Ten Commandments from the public square, we are shamefully silent about their removal from pulpits, Sunday school classrooms, Christian decision-making, and matters of church discipline. Instead, in all these places a kind of “Beatlesque” ethic obtains: “All you need is love.” You know, just love one another, as Jesus loved us. Don’t try to put anybody under the Law—except, of course, those pagans and secularists who insist on removing the Commandments from court houses and schools.
FAVORING UNGODLINESS
The effect of—let us be kind—minimizing the role of the Law of God among the followers of Christ is that we have no sure anchor for our own ethical decision-making, no standard by which to measure love, and no basis for holding unbelieving society accountable for its rejection of God’s Law. Failing to see that God’s Law is both the defining criterion of love for God and others (Matthew 23:34-40) and the primary work of the Holy Spirit in our lives (Ezekiel 36:26-28), we continue to drift untethered from anything but the best intentions when it comes to how we live each day.
The result is that, as a community, the ethic we demonstrate is not much different from that of the increasingly decadent society in which we live. Except for our “church activities,” we as a community are not that much different from our neighbors. We are nearly as materialistic, spend as much time watching television and participating in other frivolous diversions, have about the same divorce rate, and in just about every other way demonstrate that we’re just “one of the guys” when it comes to everyday ethical behavior.
In other words, by our antinomianism we actually show favor to that which the Law of God proscribes—greed and lust, anger and gossip, Sabbath-breaking and blasphemy, stealing and murder, lies and hypocrisy, adultery and incivility.
Having rejected the very guidelines that teach us to avoid such things and guide us in how to live in love with our neighbors and our God, we have opened the door to every form of unrighteousness, if only by our refusal decisively to proclaim and exemplify the holiness, righteousness, and goodness of God’s Law. As Isaiah says, if we show favor to those who promote wickedness, they will never learn the way of righteousness. Instead, they will pollute the land in which they live by espousing, demonstrating, and securing legal status for every kind of corruption and unrighteousness.
And what’s worse, as Isaiah points out, our encouraging the wicked in their corrupt and decadent ways makes it increasingly difficult for them to see the majesty of the (cf. Romans 1:18-32).
The refusal of contemporary Christians to take the Law of God seriously has paved a favorable way for wickedness to proliferate in our land. We have met the enemy, and he is us.
THE PROMISE OF GOD’S LAW
The tragedy of this situation is our failure to see the promise Isaiah holds out when the Law of God is faithfully adhered to by His people: “For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:9). When God’s people devote themselves to obeying the Law of life, liberty, and love, a standard of beauty, goodness, and truth becomes incarnated in a community, demonstrating the reality of the risen Christ and the indwelling power of His Spirit. The effect of this, as both Psalm 66:3 and Psalm 81:15 have it, is that even the enemies of God “feign obedience” (NASB) to Him. They recognize that the beauty of the Law is appealing, and, while they may hate the God who provides such a standard of goodness, if only in their own interest, they will bring their conduct into line with the manifest goodness visible among the followers of the Lord.
YEARNING FOR THE LORD
What’s to be done to remedy this situation? Let us seek the Lord—no, yearn for Him (Isaiah 26:9), that He might come among us to renew within us love for His Law and obedience to its holy, righteous, and good counsel.
The Law of God is a level path where we may wait for the Lord, fully expecting to meet Him, to know His power and to glory in His presence, and to demonstrate His beauty, goodness, and truth to the watching world (vv. 7, 8). Let the “name and remembrance” of our Lord—His faithful obedience to God’s Law, His passion and resurrection, His ascension and reign, and His imminent return—be “the desire of our soul” (v. 8), and we will soon take to reading, studying, meditating on, delighting in, and obeying the Law of God once more.
Let the season of favoring wickedness come to an end. And let a new season of seeking the Lord, and waiting for Him in the path of His righteous Law, be ushered into our postmodern generation. Then we will begin to see a welcome reversal of our moral decline, and a reviving of sincere faith in the living God.
FOR REFLECTION
Are you an antinomian? How would others answer that question concerning you? What is your present practice of delighting in the Law of God?
T. M. Moore is a fellow of the Wilberforce Forum and dean of the Forum’s Centurion Program. He also serves as Principal of The Ailbe Fellowship, a spiritual order in the Celtic tradition. T. M. is editor of the series, Jonathan Edwards for Today’s Reader (P & R), the latest volume of which is Pursuing Holiness in the Lord. His latest books are Consider the Lilies: A Plea for Creational Theology (P & R) and God’s Prayer Program: Passionately Using the Psalms in Prayer (Christian Focus). He and his wife and editor, Susie, make their home in Concord, TN. He can be reached at nacurragh@aol.com. All Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version (Crossway).