What is the best way to motivate Christians to live for Jesus? Is it to preach law or grace?
Some preachers are what we would pejoratively call “legalistic.” While we’re quick to condemn them, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and admit there’s often a good motivation for their heavy emphasis on preaching laws and consequences. Namely, they see disobedient and carnal Christians in their churches and want them to repent, do good, and become practically holy. And let’s admit that’s a good goal that grace preachers share. We all want a spiritually mature church. So, what is the best motivation for holiness?
In the legalist’s opinion, emphasizing law is the only real way to promote practical righteousness. As John Reisinger notes:
“A legalist sincerely believes that a conscience freed from the fear of the law is the breeding ground of antinomianism. He honestly believes that bringing the law down on the conscience is the only way to produce holy living” (Reisinger, Abraham’s Four Seeds, pp. 106-107).
The legalists fear that preaching grace will encourage people to sin. They worry about the specter of “antinomianism.” Let’s find common ground again and agree that no one wants to encourage people to sin more. But does that mean preaching law is the best way to do that? Does that mean preaching grace will encourage people to sin? Reisinger goes on to say the apostle Paul rejected that idea:
“Paul constantly says that the exact opposite is true. The conscience freed from the law by a realization of God’s amazing grace and unchanging love is the only way that true holiness, or law keeping, can ever take place” (Ibid, p. 107).
What I want you to see is that Reisinger is pointing to two different kinds of motivations for Christian living: legal motivations and gospel motivations.
Legal motivations for holiness include fear of punishment, feelings of guilt, or sowing seeds of doubt about someone’s salvation if they don’t change their behavior.
By contrast, gospel motivations emphasize what God has done for you in Christ. When you realize God’s amazing grace towards you in salvation, His great love for you even while you were a sinner, the fact that He has freely forgiven you of all your sins through faith in Christ, or that He has promised to keep you securely in His hands, you can be inspired to love and obey God in ways that a legalistic approach never could.
The legalist is not convinced of the power of gospel motivations to inspire real transformation in the hearer. But he should be.
The power of gospel motivation is illustrated in Luke 7:36-50, where you’ll remember that Jesus was eating at the house of Simon the Pharisee when a sinful woman came and anointed His feet with expensive oil and her tears. Simon thought to himself that letting a wicked woman touch His feet proved that Jesus was not a prophet. But the Lord then read his mind and told the parable of a creditor who forgave two debtors—one who owed a lot and one who owed little. Jesus asked which of the two debtors would love the creditor more.
“I suppose the one he forgave more,” Simon answered.
He was right. Jesus’ point was that forgiveness inspires love. That’s what you call “gospel motivation.”
Notice that Jesus’ parable doesn’t assume that insisting on repaying the debt will inspire love. No one would assume that, right? And yet, isn’t that the premise of legalistic preaching?
If the legalist were consistent, he would have to object to Jesus’ parable as being dangerously “antinomian” and warn that brazenly forgiving debts will lead to even more irresponsible borrowing. The legalist would have to say that the only way to produce love in the debtor is to insist that he pay back everything he owes in full or suffer the consequences.
If you can see how backward that reasoning is, how contrary to life it is, you can understand why legal motivations are mostly ineffective at producing real change in Christians. Threats and consequences can result in some behavior modification, but love is inspired by experiencing grace.
The gospel of grace has both the power to save and to sanctify those who believe it.
Send your questions or comments to Shawn.
If ye through the the Spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh ye shall live. Have you considered this: you are to kill the deeds of the flesh and not to stop them. It is John's equivalent of the blood of Jesus cleansing us of all sin. And what God is constantly cleansing is constantly clean. That in a nutshell is Christian sanctification.