Throughout this podcast series, we have been following the flow of thought in Ernie Reisinger’s book The Law and the Gospel. In his discussion on antinomianism, Reisigner gives 20 errors connected to this heretical understanding of God’s law in the Christian life.
This week, we share most of those 20 ideas and stop to discuss a few of them. To help you better keep up with the flow of ideas, we wanted to write out the list here for you:
The law is made void by grace. Justification by faith alone renders good works unnecessary.
Since good works are unnecessary, obedience to the law is not required of justified persons.
God sees no sin in the justified, who are no longer bound by the law, and is not displeased with them if they sin.
God therefore does not chastise justified persons for sin.
Nor can sin in any way injure the justified.
Since no duties or obligations are admitted in the gospel, faith and repentance are not commanded.
The Christian need not repent in order to receive par-don of sin.
Nor need he mortify sin; Christ has mortified sin for him.
Nor ought he be distressed in conscience upon back-sliding, but he should hold fast to a full assurance of his salvation in the midst of the vilest sins.
Justifying faith is the assurance that one is already justified.
The elect are actually justified before they believe, even from all eternity.
Therefore they were never children of wrath or under condemnation.
Their sin, as to its very being, was imputed to Christ so as not to be theirs, and His holiness is imputed to them as their sanctification.
Sanctification is no evidence of justification, for assurance is the fruit of an immediate revelation that one is an elect person.
No conviction by the law precedes the sinner’s closing with Christ, inasmuch as Christ is freely offered to sinners as sinners.
Repentance is produced not by the law, but by the gospel only.
The secret counsel of God is the rule of man’s conduct.
God is the author and approver of sin, for sin is the accomplishment of His will.
Unless the Spirit works holiness in the soul, there is no obligation to be holy or to strive toward that end.
All externals are useless or indifferent, since the Spirit alone gives life.
Ernest Kevin’s book The Law and the Gospel- https://www.amazon.com/Grace-Law-Puritan-Theology-Puritanism/dp/1877611638
Get your copy of Reisinger’s book here: https://press.founders.org/shop/the-law-and-the-gospel/
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Even the sweetest commands from our King are still commands. We may be tempted to view commands such as “Do not kill” as more weighty than the command “Look unto Christ.” But both are spoken from the same authority, God himself. Therefore, they are worthy of the same attention, effort, and obedience.
For the next few weeks, we will be discussing the command to look unto Jesus. There are several passages that state this command, each in a different way. But it is a theme of both the Old and the New Testaments. For this week’s episode, Dr. John Snyder and Teddy James are getting help from a journal entry written in 1773 by John Newton. Many of you will know Newton as the author of “Amazing Grace,” among other hymns. But the particular journal entry we are resourcing in this week’s episode reads:
This is the Ninth New Years day I have seen in this place. I have reason to say, The Lord crowneth every year with his goodness. The entrance of this finds me and my _ [dear Mary] in health and peace. I am still favoured with strength, and with some liberty for my public work and hope the Lord is still pleased to work by me, for the edification of his people already called, and the awakening of sinners. As to myself, It is given me to trust in the Lord Jesus for life and salvation – I know he is both willing and able to save. Upon him as an All-sufficient Saviour and upon his word of promise I build my hope, believing that he will not suffer me to be put to shame. My exercise of grace is faint, my consolations small, my heart is full of evil, my chief sensible burdens are, a wild ungoverned imagination, and a strange sinful backwardness to reading the Scriptures, and, to secret prayer. These have been my complaints for many years, and I have no less cause of complaint than formerly. But my eye and my heart is to Jesus. His I am, him I desire to serve, to him I this day would devote and surrender myself anew. O Lord, accept, support, protect, teach, comfort and bless me. Be thou my Arm, my Eye, my Joy and my Salvation. Mortify the power of sin, and increase the image of thy holiness in my heart. Anoint me with fresh oil, make me humble, faithful, diligent and obedient. Let me in all things attend to thy word as my rule, to thy glory as my end, and depend upon thy power and promise for safety and success. I am now in the 49th year of my age, and may expect in the course of a few years at most to go whence I shall no more return, nor have I a certainty of continuing here a single year or even a month or a day. May thy grace keep me always waiting till my appointed change shall come, and when the summons shall come may I be enabled to rejoice in thee, as the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.
For the rest of this podcast series, we will be getting help from the first few chapters of Looking Unto Jesus by Isaac Ambrose. This 17th-century book was written after a prolonged illness and has been helping Christians gaze at the surpassing beauty of Jesus Christ for over 400 years.
Looking Unto Jesus was out of print for some time, but we were happy to find it available for sale again. We were so happy, in fact, that we bought two copies to give away at the end of this series. If you would like to be entered to win a copy, you can join the Media Gratiae email list. Our email subscribers get two emails a week: the first is a devotional thought from trustworthy writers and sometimes our own studies, and the other email highlights the podcast content we are publishing that week. If you are interested, you can sign up here:
https://www.mediagratiae.org/the-whole-counsel-giveaway
Show Notes:
Sign up to win a copy of Looking Unto Jesus here: https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/looking-unto-jesus-ambrose.html
See our previous episodes where we mentioned Looking Unto Jesus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLLiw_Xqa08
Want to listen to The Whole Counsel on the go? Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast app: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts
You can get The Whole Counsel a day early on the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:13 – 06:51)The Voters Send Their Message: The New Hampshire Primary and the Shape of the Campaigns AheadPart II (06:51 – 08:43) And it Doesn’t Even Count: The Biden Campaign’s Write-In Strategy to Avoid Embarrassment in New HampshirePart III (08:43 – 26:10)Israel’s Existence Is at Stake, and They Know It: The Truth About the “Two State Solution” to the Palestinian IssueArab Peace Proposal for Gaza Takes Shape as Top Biden Adviser Lands in Region by Wall Street Journal (Summer Said, Margherita Stancati, and Laurence Norman)Israel-E.U. Meeting on Gaza’s Future Yields Division and Confusion by New York Times (Matina Stevis-Gridneff, Hiba Yazbek, Adam Rasgon, Monika Pronczuk and Michael Levenson)Sign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.