Legalism Under the Guise of Freedom

As a congregation, we are often puzzled by the decisions that other church bodies have been making over the past several years. Professor Steven Paulson (author of Luther for the Armchair Theologian) has some insights which might help you understand what is happening in the contemporary church scene.

...Fanatics are a specific type of infiltrating and clandestine false prophet. They are self-righteous. They are on a mission. They believe that they hold the key to the future. They are decidedly *not *antinomian, in fact they believe in the law alone. The trick is that the law is held by them with a twist.

They believe they are the messengers and purveyors of a *new and higher law* than had ever existed before in church and world—even laws given by God himself. Furthermore, this new and higher form of law comes in the person of the Holy Spirit who gives them new spirit-led revelations that are not in Scripture but are supposed to be part of God’s hidden plan.

Plan for what?

For making the church a more righteous, perfect group of saints who will then be a light to the nations by living out the love the law requires. Fanatics are never very creative. Fanatics think that God has communicated the new law through them (such as in a new ecclesiastical vote at a churchwide assembly).

They believe they are enlightened. This is why the issue of homosexuality has been taken up as a matter of rights or righteousness along with the supposed movement of the Holy Spirit to “do a new thing.”

Fanatics think that the Holy Spirit has given them a new word not found in Scripture that approves of homosexual acts because a higher righteousness has now been revealed to them than has ever existed in history.

They know, even though they have no word from God to stand on.

To read the whole article, see Against the Holy Blasphemers by Steven D. Paulon.