Paul's Passing Thoughts

The born again Christian is no longer under law but under grace. In regard to justification, the Christian is sinless because Christ died on the cross to end the law, and where there is no law there is no sin.

So, the believer dies with Christ as one born under the slavery of sin, law, and death. The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. That is why it is the “law of sin and death” to the unbeliever. The one who is also resurrected with Christ is no longer under any condemnation whatsoever. The law now guides the believer in love, but in no way condemns.

Those whom Satan cannot keep out of the kingdom he seeks to neutralize by keeping them under condemnation. The power of sin is the law’s ability to condemn. Therefore, by a variety of means, he seeks to keep Christians under law and away from love. Not being under law enables the Christian to aggressively obey without fear of condemnation. Fear has to do with judgment and condemnation; those who fear are not mature in love.

Calvinism keeps the “Christian” under law via a particular view of double imputation. Instead of the biblical imputation being OUR sins imputed to Christ and God’s righteousness imputed to us APART from the law, Calvinism teaches that Christ lived a perfect life to fulfill the law so that His obedience to the law, in addition to Him dying for our sins, is imputed to our Christian life in order to keep us saved.  This not only keeps Christians under the law, and is not justification apart from the law, but requires the “Christian” to live by faith alone in the Christian life in order for the obedience of Christ to perpetually fulfill the law for justification in order to keep us saved.

It is a satisfaction/fulfillment of the law of sin and death rather than the law of the Spirit of life.

Hence, supposedly, the Christian life must be lived by faith alone so that the law may be continually satisfied by Christ’s obedience and not ours until the final judgment. At the final judgment, if we lived by faith alone well enough, our sins are covered by Christ’s righteousness. This removes the Christian from actual acts of obedience for purposes of loving God and others, and replaces them with faith only in Christ’s loving acts that replace anything we would do lest it be works salvation. So, when Christ says, “well done faithful servant,” He is not going to be talking about anything that we really did, but what we didn’t do by faith alone.

All in all, this keeps Christians under law and condemnation. They must live in constant fear that they are not “trusting” in the works of Christ well enough for the law to be satisfied; or, in Calvin’s words, resting enough. In this construct, sin is empowered because the law’s ability to condemn is still operational. To the contrary, Christ died to end the law (Rom 10:5) for justification, and we are quickened by the Holy Spirit so that the law might be fulfilled by us in our loving acts towards God and others:

Romans 8:1 – There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Calvinism keeps Christians under the law of sin and death via its double imputation view of law. By faith alone in the obedience of Christ while in the flesh, the law is actually doing something that Scripture clearly says it can’t do: give life in justification. It doesn’t matter who keeps it; there is not a law that can give life for justification (Gal 3:21).

Listen: Christ came to set us free from the law of sin and death, not to fulfill it for us so that His obedience can replace our loving acts in sanctification. He came to end the law of sin and death, not fulfill it. Our sin is not covered, it is ended. Because it is ended, we are free to serve the law of the Spirit of life without fear of condemnation. We fulfill the law of liberty and are blessed in the doing of it (James 1:25), and are not under the condemnation of the law of sin and death. The fulfillment of that law cannot bring forth life—only condemnation.

In the Calvinist double imputation approach, we continually seek to see our own condemnation in order to achieve a deeper and deeper gratitude for our original salvation.  If we do so, the law of sin and death continues to be satisfied by Christ’s obedience to it and we remain justified by the blood. Instead of there being no condemnation in the Christian life, we are exhorted by the Calvinists to seek a deeper and deeper understanding of our condemnation to make the cross bigger (deeper gratitude for our original salvation).

This is a satanic objective dressed up in Christian garb. We are helping the accuser of the brethren by continually seeking to accuse ourselves. Instead of seeking to love through obedience, we are told to partake in “deep repentance,” “repentance from good works,” and “revealing the sin under the sin.” They tell us that the Christian life is a sin onion, and that the gospel is made bigger by continually peeling back the layers of sin.

There is NO sin onion. The law is ended, and there is no onion to peel. Sinning as God’s children and the grieving of the Holy Spirit is another issue that has nothing to do with justification. Well, sort of.

Obviously, Calvinism also seeks to grieve the Holy Spirit through us by empowering sin in our lives because sin is empowered by condemnation. And it also denies the primary reason Christ went to the cross…

…to end the law of sin and death, and to set us free to love Him through obedience to the law of the Spirit of life.

paul