What is antinomianism?
Question 07082
If legalism is the error of adding to what God requires, antinomianism is the error of subtracting from it. The word comes from the Greek anti (against) and nomos (law): the view that Christians are so thoroughly freed from the law by grace that the moral law has no ongoing relevance or binding claim on their lives. This is not a modern invention; Paul was already addressing it in his letters, and it has reappeared in various forms throughout church history. It represents a real and persistent danger that arises, ironically, from a misunderstanding of grace itself.
Paul Anticipates the Objection
Romans 6:1–2 shows that Paul knew exactly where a misreading of his doctrine of grace could lead: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” Paul had argued in Romans 5 that where sin increased, grace increased all the more (Romans 5:20). The antinomian inference is obvious: if more sin produces more grace, why not sin freely? Paul’s response is emphatic and immediate. The idea is not merely impractical or inadvisable; it is incompatible with what actually happened to the believer in union with Christ.
He returns to the same issue in Romans 6:15: “What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!” The fact that Paul addresses this objection twice in the same chapter suggests it was a live and persistent misunderstanding. Grace does not function as a blank cheque for moral indifference. The reason, which Paul expands throughout Romans 6, is that what happened to the believer in Christ was a genuine death to sin and a genuine resurrection to new life. The person who continues in sin as a pattern of life, using grace as their justification, has not understood what happened to them at conversion.
The Error in Its Various Forms
Historical antinomianism took various shapes. Some teachers in the early centuries argued that since the physical body was irrelevant to salvation, what the body did was of no spiritual significance, leading to either extreme asceticism or deliberate licence. The Nicolaitan movement mentioned in Revelation 2 may represent an early form of this. In the Reformation period, Johannes Agricola argued with Luther that the law had no place in Christian preaching at all, not even for showing sinners their need of grace. In various streams of Christian experience since, a practical antinomianism has emerged through emphasising spiritual experience as the marker of genuine faith while downplaying the moral dimensions of Christian life.
In contemporary Christianity, antinomianism often operates less as a formal position than as a functional assumption: the idea that acceptance before God is so complete and unconditional that moral failure carries no real consequences for one’s relationship with him, that a Christian can persistently live in any pattern of sin they choose without this being a significant concern. This reflects an antinomian logic even when it would never be formally espoused.
The Law Is Not the Enemy of Grace
The antinomian error rests on a confusion between different functions of the law. Paul’s argument in Galatians and Romans that Christians are “not under law” (Romans 6:14; Galatians 5:18) refers to the law as a covenant of works, as the means of justification, as the standard that condemns by its impossibly high demands. In that sense, the believer is genuinely free. The law cannot condemn the one who is in Christ (Romans 8:1).
The moral law is, however, also a revelation of God’s character. It reflects what God is like and what he requires of creatures made in his image. This dimension of the law is not abolished by grace. Romans 3:31 puts it plainly: “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” Jesus’ own statement in Matthew 5:17–18 is equally clear: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.” The ceremonial law was fulfilled in Christ. The civil law of Israel was specific to that national covenant. But the moral law, as a revelation of God’s holy character, continues to speak to God’s people in every age.
Grace Produces Obedience
The decisive argument against antinomianism is not a stricter legal framework but a deeper understanding of what genuine grace actually produces. Titus 2:11–12 states it with precision: “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.” Grace is not passive. It trains. It produces something in the person who has genuinely received it. A grace that produces no change in the direction of holiness is not the grace of the New Testament.
So, now what?
Paul’s summary in Romans 6:18 captures the right relationship between grace and obedience: “having been set free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.” Freedom from the law as a means of justification is not freedom from God’s moral claims. It is freedom from the condemnation that those claims bring, and freedom for the obedience that love for God naturally produces. The believer’s obedience is not the basis of their acceptance; it is the evidence of it.
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” Romans 6:1–2
