Jon and Justin talk about why it is that so many people leave legalism and head into antinomianism. They also give counsel to those leaving legalism and are wanting to help others do the same.
Regular Episode
MEMBERS Podcast Transcripts
Justin Perdue: Welcome to the members' podcast. We want to begin with the little piece that I dropped at the end, where I made the statement that it is very normal—and we see this happen frequently—where people who have been in a legalistic context, and have been burned by that, swing all the way over on a pendulum right into antinomianism. It's a common thing for a reason.
The reason that it happens so frequently—you go from legalism all the way over and fall off the other side of the horse into antinomianism—is because legalism and antinomianism come from the same place. They come from and are driven by a legal spirit.
Let's be real: every one of us, as human beings, have a legal spirit. The question is just whether or not we have a tender conscience, because I think we've already alluded to some of that before. The person who has the legal spirit and doesn't have a conscience, that's really aware of how messed up they are, they tend to be legalistic, self-righteous, and intolerable. The person who has a very tender conscience, who is also a legalist at heart, ends up despairing in an obvious way—like hating God and hating the law. For the people that have been in a legalistic context and have been hurt by that, and maybe just feel threatened and condemned all the time, and just really burned and wounded, they run off into antinomianism because they are still being driven by a legal spirit. They have not yet seen and fully understood the gospel of Jesus Christ, and everything that he has accomplished for them and their new identity and status that is theirs is in him.
As we said earlier on the regular podcast, and I trust it was clear, only in rightly understanding the gospel and the work of Christ for you, and in rightly understanding your new identity and status in Jesus that is secure and unshakeable, only in knowing that and being grounded in that could you ever look at the law and say it's good. Neither the legalist nor the antinomian—because again, being driven by a legal spirit and not gospel—neither of those people can rightly discern what the law is. Thereby on the one side, you just think that you can do it and threaten people all the time who aren't as disciplined as you or whatever. Then on the other side, it's like, "Well, I'm done. Bump this. I'm going to go do something else."
Jon Moffitt: It's fun watching these people. For those of you don't know, we have a Facebook group. It's growing and we have new people coming in, and they are skyrocketing in their joy. They're being liberated. It's great. They haven't quite learned all of the lingo yet. They don't know law-gospel distinction yet, but they are like, "Pietism is bad! Pietism is bad!" They see it everywhere. You see the quotes coming in from John Piper, John MacArthur, even RC Sproul and Paul Washer. They're like, "Is this pietism? Is this pietism? Is this pietism?" You just see it everywhere, and you can hear it. This is kind of getting to the point that I was making earlier: we have to be really patient people who are making this transition. For those of you that are making this transition, you need to live by this motto: you don't know what you don't know. You need to be very careful about putting your next foot in front of you, that where you want to put it down is the right place because sometimes people just go running into things. I'm like, "Whoa. Time out. Let's start with crawling, and then we'll get to walking." What happens is you take your sword and you become the pietist police and you are just going to cut it down everywhere. I've seen people go out and call John Piper and John MacArthur a heretic. What are you doing? Calm down. This is not the way this is done.
My encouragement to you is that if you are new to Theocast, you've been liberated and you love it—this is amazing. We want to see you love Christ, obey Christ. It's glorious. One of the reasons why we're making an adjustment to our ministry is for this very purpose. There are so many people in that Facebook group that are just blowing up with great questions.
Justin Perdue: Because they're transitioning out of legalism and out of a pietistic environment, and they're encountering freedom for the first time. It's like, "Oh, what do I do with this?"
Jon Moffitt: It's scary. It's liberating. It's disorienting. It's almost like when Paul said women need to be quiet in the church because there was this explosion of liberation. "Whoa, wait. We don't have to put up with all of this?" Paul's like, "Let's calm down for a second." Now people misinterpret that passage. We don't believe that women have to be silent in church. That's not what Paul was saying. We're not going to explain that today. That's not the podcast. Button
We want to get you guys together and allow you to be able to process, decompress, and encourage one another in this Reformation. This is where our new ministry is coming from. Semper Reformanda is a new podcast with a new push in design, and it's a community of online and local meetings where we want you to gather and process this information. This is not church; it should not replace church. As a matter of fact, you cannot be an SR leader unless you go to a church and you're a member of one. Theocast is pro-church.
Justin Perdue: But Theocast is not your church.
Jon Moffitt: No, I am not your pastor.
Justin Perdue: You're their pastor if they're members of Grace Reformed Church and I'm your pastor if you're members of Covenant Baptist Church.
Jon Moffitt: The point of it is we want to help as many people as possible. We feel like this is an easy way to throw up a flag in a city and see if there are any other listeners in the area whose minds are being blown and they just want to talk through this, and want to talk with other people about the Reformation that's going on in your heart and mind. We want to help channel all of this energy that's happening in Facebook.
Let's just be frank, technology is super volatile right now. I'm not sure what's going on with Facebook. They have the right to tank us anytime they want, and now we don't have a way to communicate. We're trying to open up other ways of communication.
Justin Perdue: And create our own standalone platform.
Jon Moffitt: That's right. What's really exciting about this is as people gather in cities, and that will let us know where we can do some local gatherings and come together and maybe do some regional meetings. This is our people.
We're also working on a conference. Stay tuned for that.
Justin Perdue: I think my word to the people out there who are transitioning out of straight up legalism, or some kind of blending of law and gospel where there's a lot of works righteousness stuff, is continue to consider the Lord Jesus Christ and what he has done for you. That is really the answer. We say this all the time: you don't want to just tear things apart and burn stuff down. That's easy to do because in fallen man, nobody gets it right all the time and we all make mistakes, and there're errors in all of our thinking. If we're just trying to go around and only poke holes all the time, it's going to be easy to do and you're going to basically ruin friendships and alienate people.
Jon Moffitt: Watchdog ministries.
Justin Perdue: Yeah. Don't just do that. I would actually discourage you from doing that. Seek to clear up misunderstanding; do it in a gracious, humble, and patient way. Don't always just be tearing down and burning down stuff. What you want to do is consider Christ for your own heart and point other people to him. Continue to remind people of the fact that nothing is ever going to be required of us that Jesus has not already given us. Talk like that. Ask those questions. Is there something that is going to be required of you that Jesus hasn't secured for you? That's a great question, rather than poking somebody in the eye. What we want to do is consider the sufficiency of Christ together, because you want to pull people from something that is sinking sand and pull them onto the solid rock. That's the goal, and that's the project. We hope that Semper Reformanda groups and all these things, and maybe even a forum, and all that kind of stuff that we may create through all of this is going to be useful to that end.
Be patient with other people around you and find a good church, for goodness sakes. Find a church where you're going to be given Christ in the preaching and the table, in the prayers and the songs—the whole thing.
Jon Moffitt: If you can't find one, move.
Justin Perdue: You won't be able to do this alone. You can't.
Jon Moffitt: The Christian life was never meant to be lived alone. One of the greatest joys—Justin and I were just talking about ministry and pastoring—when I see someone coming to my church and I take them out for lunch, and then they ask me to tell me about our church and I get done describing it, there's tears in their eyes. Because there are two things they've never really heard before: you're a sinner, and I know you're a sinner, and we're going to help you carry this burden that you have. By the way, we love you. People don't know what to do with themselves. "Wait a minute. That's what Christianity looks like? This is what the church looks like? Yeah. This is a place of rest. This is a place of joy. This is a place of peace and comfort. Then we are going to liberate you to love and give joy to other people. That's what church should be.
I will tell you this. You're our people, so I'm going to be open and frank: I don't like watchdog ministries because watchdog ministries create watchdog church members. You're just biting and barking at people all the time. Jesus described himself as a shepherd, not a watchdog. We need to love people, we need to care for them, we need to be patient with them—not bark and bite them.
Justin Perdue: Those kinds of people are uncharitable and exhausting. You don't want to be either one of those things. You want to find a church where the general message is God is holy, you're a wretch, Christ is your righteousness and is able to save you. Let's walk together. If that sounds good to you, then welcome. It's a unique environment where sin is not soft pedaled. We're honest about what we were.
Sometimes people outside of the church, because of what they've seen of the church, will rightly say, "I don't really want to join the church because it's just a pit of vipers," to which we would say this is what makes biblical Christianity unique. We agree with you. Slither on in at any time and join us. The difference between the church and the world is not that the world is a pit of vipers and the church isn't; the church actually knows we're a pit of vipers in need of righteousness we don't have, and we know that Christ has provided that for us. We can be honest about what we were, and we can be honest about the corruption of our flesh that still remains, we can exhort one another towards godliness because it's good, and it's not threatening or scary, and we can rest in the Lord Jesus Christ together. You need that. I need that. I can't imagine where I would be if I didn't have brothers and sisters around me that didn't think that way. We're trying to build a community through Theocast, with Semper Reformanda, and at the same time, we're hoping that all of this is used. We have designs on this, too, for the coming decades—I'm going to just use that language—of an association of churches and even church planting that might result from that. We want to see more churches planted that are preaching this gospel and have this theology. All of this is a means to that end.
Anyway, continue to partner with us and continue supporting this ministry. Thank you for joining the Reformation. Encourage your friends, your family, people that you go to church with—encourage them to do the same. We are grateful to the Lord and thankful to Him for the work He's done and we're hopeful and expectant for what He'll continue to do. We're grateful for your partnership with us. It means a lot, and we couldn't do what we do without you.
Continue to pray for us, that we would have wisdom and that we would have stamina as we need to pastor churches and do this podcast every week.
If you have things that you want to hear from us, we want to hear from you. If there are things that are on your heart and mind that you would be helped by us having a conversation about them, certainly let us know that and we'll need to get it in the hopper.
Jon Moffitt: Your monthly donations. There's a new church plant coming. Justin and I can't edit this—we can't do all that stuff, we don't have the time to because we're pastors—so your money helps pay for all of that. Not only that, we're working on a new primer on what Reformed theology is. All of this is made possible because of you guys. We can't say thank you enough. If the Lord shuts it down, then we'll praise Him and honor Him. But as of right now, it seems like people are finding rest and we're thankful for that. As long as the Lord gives us the strength and energy to do it, and the money to pay for it, we'll continue to try and serve each other, love each other, and lead people to find rest in Christ. Thanks for joining the army and let's continue the Reformation.
Justin Perdue: We'll talk again next week.
