Goodness, and lawless Christians.

If you know Jesus—really and truly know Jesus, not just know of him—you’re gonna want to follow him. You’re gonna want to do as he teaches, and actually try to obey his commands instead of shrugging them off with, “Well, they’re nice ideals, but they’re not gonna be practical.” You’re gonna want to be good.

Goodness is a fruit of the Spirit. A rather obvious one: God is good, so shouldn’t those who have the Holy Spirit in us be likewise good? Shouldn’t he encourage us to be good, empower us to do good deeds, be gracious to us when we drop the ball and help us return to goodness? Shouldn’t he point us in the direction of sanctification, of living holy lives, unique from the rest of the world—where goodness is a huge factor in why we’re unique?

Likewise if you don’t wanna be good, not only do you lack the Spirit’s fruit: You’re probably not even Christian. And yes, bluntly saying so has a tendency to really offend people: “Goodness doesn’t make you Christian! That’s legalism. How could you say that?” Well I didn’t say that. I said you have to want to be good. You have to make the effort. You’re gonna suck at it in the beginning; everybody does; it gets easier with practice. And I didn’t say goodness makes you Christian; only the Holy Spirit does that. But the lack of goodness, or substituting it with hypocrisy and hoping no one will notice, indicates the Holy Spirit isn’t in your life—and if he’s not there, you’re not Christian. Period.

Let’s not be naïve. “Obey Jesus” is a hard lifestyle choice. The world is against us. Christianists have gone to a lot of trouble to swap real obedience with their cheap knockoff, and sometimes they’ll fight goodness just as hard as Satan itself. They’ll claim Jesus’s commands were nullified by a new dispensation, or they’re only meant to describe God’s kingdom after Jesus returns—not before. They’ll claim our resistance to evil is really works righteousness and legalism; that trying to be better is another form of pride; that our commonsense interpretation of God’s commands is extremism, whereas the proper way to interpret them is to water ’em down till they’re nothing but water.

Plus our own selfish tendencies are gonna fight us. And yes, the devil might fight us too… but you’ll find the devil’s far easier to beat than your own flesh. We start off with a lot of ingrained bad habits, and conquering ourselves has to be done first. Which a lot of people never bother to do. Most of us simply relabel all our bad behaviors with Christianese names, and presto-changeo, we’re fixed now! But widespread popular hypocrisy is still hypocrisy.

Still, if we have the Holy Spirit in us, we’ll want to do better. And we’ve got to trust him to help us out with this. We absolutely can’t do it alone. God offers us power to live for him. Grab it with both hands. You accepted his salvation. Now accept his sanctification.

Lawless Christians.

ANTINOMIAN æn(t).i'noʊ.mi.ən adjective. Believes grace frees Christians from any obligation to observe the moral law.

[Antinomianism æn(t).i'noʊ.mi.ən.iz.əm noun]

Matthew 7.19-23 NKJV

19“Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

21“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22Many will say to Me in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ ”

The words Jesus used for “you who practice lawlessness” are οἱ ἐργαζόμενοι τὴν ἀνομίαν/oi ergadzómenoi tin anomían, “you workers of no Law.” The word for no-Law, anomían, is based on νόμος/nómos, “law.” It’s a good word; I don’t know why we didn’t adopt it instead of creating that weird Latin/Greek hybird antinomian. But whatever.

The reason there are Law-breakers in Christianity is really simple: It’s easier to stay the same, than change. It’s easier to disguise our flaws, than work on them. So that’s what plenty of Christians do: Pretend we’re good when we’re not. And make excuses for whenever people catch us being evil.

We want God’s grace to be a free pass for sin. It’s like a little kid who discovers her dad will replace any toy she breaks, so for fun she gets a hammer and breaks everything. And after her milquetoast dad does nothing to correct her, she does it again and again and again. Antinomians expect God to be exactly like that dad.

Now, antinomians have exceptions. Sin against them, and suddenly they’re all about “justice” (really vengeance) and how some things shouldn’t be forgiven. And certain acts which personally offend them will also cross their boundaries: They don’t like murder, so Christians shouldn’t murder. They don’t like homosexuality, so Christians shouldn’t be gay. They don’t like gun control, so they’ll bend a few verses to support that cause too; plus any other political views which they’d rather defend than the Law.

So sin is acceptable, and obeying God is "legalism”? Um…

Isaiah 5.20-21, 24 NKJV

20Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;

Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;

Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

21Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,

And prudent in their own sight!

24Therefore, as the fire devours the stubble,

And the flame consumes the chaff,

So their root will be as rottenness,

And their blossom will ascend like dust;

Because they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts,

And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Y’see, antinomians frequently like to say the Law was only for Old Testament times—but y’notice there were plenty of antinomians in Old Testament times too. The people of Isaiah’s day also believed in God’s grace… and abused it like crazy. Since God forgives all, they kept sinning as usual, and figured their ritual sacrifices made up for it. Instead of goodness, they just killed tons of animals, and remained evil.

God’s response? He was sick of their sacrifices. They no longer meant anything. He didn’t even want to listen to their prayers anymore. He only wanted them to stop sinning; it’s all he ever wanted.

Isaiah 1.11-18 NKJV

11“To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me?”

Says the LORD.

“I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams

And the fat of fed cattle.

I do not delight in the blood of bulls,

Or of lambs or goats.

12“When you come to appear before Me,

Who has required this from your hand,

To trample My courts?

13Bring no more futile sacrifices;

Incense is an abomination to Me.

The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies—

I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting.

14Your New Moons and your appointed feasts

My soul hates;

They are a trouble to Me,

I am weary of bearing them.

15When you spread out your hands,

I will hide My eyes from you;

Even though you make many prayers,

I will not hear.

Your hands are full of blood.

16“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;

Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes.

Cease to do evil,

17Learn to do good;

Seek justice,

Rebuke the oppressor;

Defend the fatherless,

Plead for the widow.

18“Come now, and let us reason together,”

Says the LORD,

“Though your sins are like scarlet,

They shall be as white as snow;

Though they are red like crimson,

They shall be as wool.”

God offered the Hebrews sanctification: He’d make ’em white as snow, white as wool could become. But the Hebrews had to stop sinning. There’s gotta be some give-and-take in our relationship with God. It’s not a one-sided deal, where God’s grace makes us clean and we do nothing. We gotta stop taking him for granted, take him up on his offer, take hold of his power, and stop sinning.

Antinomians insist all these Isaiah quotes refer to the wrong dispensation, but Paul taught the very same stuff.

Romans 6.15-18 NKJV

15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! 16Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

Grace isn’t provided to catch us when we deliberately dive into it. It’s to catch us when we unintentionally fall.

1 John 2.1-6 NKJV

1My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.

3Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. 6He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.

By John’s standard, to put it bluntly, antinomians don’t know Jesus. If they did, they’d be as offended by sin as Jesus. They’d try to shun it; they might not be as successful as Jesus, but they’d try, for crying out loud. Grace is for those who try, but they won’t even do that. So we gotta seriously doubt their relationship with Jesus: They don’t give a rip about him. They only want sin without consequence, evil without punishment. They don’t really want his kingdom; they only want to avoid death and hell.

The first step towards sanctification.

Obviously goodness and sanctification aren’t the same thing. Sanctification is when and how God makes us holy, and he actually starts the ball rolling on that before we repent and turn to Jesus and start following him. But like I said, our relationship with God isn’t one-sided. He’s making us holy, and we respond by being good. Goodness is fruit. And since the rest of the world isn’t good, it makes us stand out… which is what holiness is all about.

Whereas if we don’t produce fruit, if we don’t respond properly to the changes the Spirit’s making in us, he’s gonna stop the ship and wait for us to get on board. Notice how some of us are making him wait an awfully long time.

So let’s not! Start fighting temptation. Start calling out to God for help. Create an accountability structure, with trustworthy Christians who can help keep us honest. Confess your sins instead of hiding them. Stop making excuses for your misbehavior; call them what they really are—sins—and make an effort to do better. If you find out they’re serious addictions, get serious help from support groups and counselors.

Christians have a truly sucky reputation of not being good; of being full of excuses and self-righteousness instead. Pagans are fully aware Jesus is good, but his followers not so much. We need to correct that—and as much as possible, make up for that. This too is a tall order. But we gotta try. And at least start.