Union with Christ
The Double Cure
"God likes to forgive, I like to sin: what a great relationship!" In that line W. Robert Godfrey nicely captures the often hidden assumption that Christ came merely to save us from sin's guilt while leaving us under its slavery. Throughout church history, preaching and teaching have attempted to properly relate God's saving work for us and his saving work in us. Antinomianism is the view that we need not submit to God's law as the rule of life, since we are saved by grace alone, while legalism maintains that following God's law is not only the rule of life but the way to life. In short, while legalists confuse the law and the gospel, antinomians separate them and reject the former altogether, at least with respect to its authority in directing the lives of believers. Since our direction, ever since the fall, is to be "curved in on ourselves," as Augustine put it, our natural tendency is to trust our own inner righteousness (legalism) and our own inner light (antinomianism). However, the gospel is the answer to both: it calls us out of ourselves, to look to someone else both to save and rule over us. The Jesus who is Savior is also Lord; faith knows nothing of receiving him merely as prophet and priest but not as king. Thus, in his famous hymn, "Rock of Ages," Augustus Toplady wrote, "Be of sin the double cure: save us from sin's guilt and power."
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Michael Horton is the J. Gresham Machen professor of apologetics and systematic theology at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, California), host of the White Horse Inn, national radio broadcast, and editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation magazine. He is author of many books, including The Gospel-Driven Life, Christless Christianity, People and Place, Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology, and Too Good to be True: Finding Hope in a World of Hype.
Issue: "The Peace that Starts the War" July/August Vol. 15 No. 4 2006 Pages 6-11
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