“Therefore, the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24).
There are some schools of thought in the Body of Christ that has done much harm in the church’s effectiveness to confront and overcome evil. Pietism on the surface seems righteous and holy and it is indeed when it comes to the personal application of Christianity in one’s life. It can, however, become a moral and spiritual disaster when it comes to our public lives as Christians.
Pietism in the church as a movement combined Christianity with the Greek dualism of the Renaissance and Enlightenment era. It leaned more towards spiritual subjectivism instead of God’s objective truth contained in His Law/Word.
Through pietism, the terms of Christianity subtly shifted. The church took a high view of “spiritual” otherworldliness and a low view of the effectiveness of Christianity in the real world. Pietistic preachers filled the pulpits of America to convince Christians that topics such as, law, government, and politics were of this world and Christians need not to be concerned about “worldly affairs.”
It was therefore the duty of the church to withdraw, retreat, and abandon the “gates” of our land. The problem of course is nature abhors a vacuum. If the church is not acting as salt and light in all areas of life, darkness and all its subsequent evils fills the void. Pietism led to the church to embrace antinomianism. A person who is antinomian is someone who rejects the validity of moral laws. Law need not have a religious and moral base to support its validity. It is someone who opposes or dismisses God’s law as having any relevance spiritually as well as politically. There is a distinction between strict and implicit antinomians. Strict antinomians are the unconverted, unsaved souls who show contempt by brazenly disregarding God’s law.
The Apostle Paul affirms this truth, “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Romans 8:7). Implicit antinomians are professing Christians who hold that God’s moral law is not relevant in the present era. They typically substitute subjective, arbitrary standards for God’s clear commands.
When the Apostle Paul wrote we “are not under the law, but under grace,” he was revealing two important revelations every Christian should grasp. They are profound and full of unspeakable glory. First, we are not under law as a means of securing God’s salvation. We are saved by God’s amazing grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Salvation is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).In other words, we do not keep the law as a means to obtain God’s salvation; we keep God’s law because we are saved. We are not performing good works to earn God’s redemption. Good works are the evidence that we have partaken of God’s redemption.
How does this brief teaching apply to the injustice being committed against the preborn? To this day, most preachers in America believe that the solution is only found in the salvation of men’s souls. On the surface, no argument from me. If folks are truly born again and the Spirit of God has filled them, they will desire to love God by obeying His commandments and keep his Word (John 14). “Thou shall not murder” will convict most Christians not to offer their seed to Moloch.
Is personal salvation alone sufficient to end the American holocaust? A resounding no! When Martin Luther King Jr dealt with the issue of racial inequality in his day, he stated, “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.”
Those of us who are seeking the complete and total abolition of abortion reject both pietism and antinomianism. We do, however, believe at its core, abortion is a Gospel, Kingdom issue. Both love and law need to be applied if God will cleanse our land and finally deliver our nation from this grave evil. It is not an either-or situation. Both are required. The grave error of the pro-life movement is they have pitted God’s love against God’s demand for justice on the behalf of the preborn. They are not mutually exclusive, but a part of God’s divine order to set the preborn free. This is the thorny point with Christians who have been taught pietism and embrace antinomianism. They accuse abolitionists with hating the sinner simply because of our desire to come into agreement with God’s assessment that abortion is a crime. He calls it murder and it must be penalized by law.
These two aspects of God’s nature, justice and mercy, are not in contradiction to one another as the pro-life lobby groups have maintained. They are in complete harmony with God’s order, character, and will in the earth. One can have his sins forgiven and still stand trial for crimes committed in violation of the moral, civil law of God. Micah 6:8 settles the issue, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” Amen!
