3. Conclusion
Rev J R Tallach
Summary of differences. Justification. Tobias Crisp taught that there were three stages to justification: (1.) Eternal, in that the believer was already justified by God from all eternity. (2.) Virtual, in that the proof of this eternal justification was to be found in the resurrection of Christ. (3.) Actual, when the Spirit worked faith in the heart and the sinner believed. The Westminster Confession takes a different view: “God did, from all eternity, decree to justify the elect; and Christ did, in the fullness of time, die for their sins, and rise again for their justification; nevertheless they are not justified, until the Holy Spirit doth in due time actually apply Christ unto them” (11:4).
The Atonement. Crisp based his teaching here mainly on Isaiah 53:6: “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all”, and 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him”. From these passages he deduces that “God not only inflicted the desert of sin on Christ . . . but also He laid iniquity itself on Him”.2 “God made Christ as very a sinner as the creature himself was.” On the other hand Crisp also writes, “Beloved, mistake me not, I say not that Christ ever was or ever could be the actor or committer of transgressions, for He never committed any”. It seems that Crisp and other Antinomians who adhered to him in this matter were more confused than heretical.
Union with Christ. As noted previously, Antinomians are in error here also. One of their writers, William Dell, asserted that we must “be united into one person with Christ, yea, and lose our person in His”. For Eaton, union with Christ “is not a thing in mere imagination . . . but is a true, real and substantial union”. K M Campbell notes that such views could be found among the early Gnostics.3
Law and Gospel. One writer says of Crisp that he had once been an Arminian and that, “shocked at the recollection of his former views and conduct, he seems to have imagined that he could never go far enough from them; and that he could never speak too highly of the grace and love of the Redeemer, nor in too degrading terms of legality and self-righteousness.” The common view among Antinomians was that the Mosaic covenant was a covenant of law only and the new covenant a covenant of grace only. Eaton states, “The law and the gospel are two contrary doctrines”. In reply
1The final part of a paper given at the 2012 Theological Conference.
2Tobias Crisp, Works, vol 1, p 267 (sermon 17).
3K M Campbell, Living the Christian Life, p 72.
to this, K M Campbell quotes Obadiah Sedgwick as saying that the Mosaic covenant was a covenant of grace as well as law and not a reduplication of the covenant of works. Sedgwick writes, “They hold a friendly concurrence in point of duty . . . they are not destructive” nor one devouring another “but sweetly co-ordinate”.
Sanctification. Crisp held such a view of his union with Christ that both the guilt and the pollution of sin were removed. Because our sin was laid on Christ, “it cannot be there and here too; it cannot be on Israel and on Christ”. David confessed his sin in Psalm 51, and Crisp comments, “I must tell you all he speaks here he speaks from himself, and all he speaks from himself is not true”. In other words, according to Crisp, David felt his sin, but he was wrong. We must never trust our feelings. On the other hand, Crisp does not deny that the believer sins: “There is committing of sin every day in the believer”. Nor does he say that the law is absolutely abolished: “I do not say that the law is absolutely abolished, but it is abolished in respect of the curse of it, to every person that is a free-man of Christ”.
Crisp is ambiguous in his position and confused in his statements; he does not occupy the central ground of Antinomianism, but there certainly is a dangerous Antinomian tendency in his position. Others went further. Eaton states, “The blood of Christ hath made us in the sight of God clean from all sin, against our reason, sight, sense and feeling”. Our consciousness of sin is only the voice of the law and is to be silenced by the voice of the gospel telling us that we are perfectly righteous. Eaton defines mortification as the gradual freedom from the sense and feeling of sin, for in reality Christ has already mortified sin for us. We purify ourselves, he claims, only by declaring our rightness in Christ before men and by thankfulness to the Spirit of God for clothing us with the perfect wedding garment of Christ, by which our sins are utterly abolished and put entirely out of God’s sight.
Another Antinomian, William Dell writes, “The crucifixion of Christ was the taking up of His human nature into His divine nature. . . . His human nature was fully crucified in His divine.” From this4 he draws a parallel in the believer: “the true and glorious crucifying of all the faithful is through the same word and spirit of Christ, that is the Word and Spirit of the true God, dwelling in us. . . . The baptism of the Spirit is the death of the flesh.”
Though the Antinomian does not deny the law a place in the believer’s life and some teach the need for good conduct in believers, two main points about the law and the gospel emerge from the above: (1.) The believer’s
4This is a form of a heresy called Eutychianism which teaches that there was only one nature in Christ, and therefore but one will. The orthodox doctrine is of two natures and two wills, with the human subordinate to the divine.
justification, mortification and perseverance were all given to him together in regeneration; the believer is passive in obedience, and the means of grace and prayer are made virtually superfluous. (2.) The new-covenant law is a subjective matter; the Holy Spirit, not the Word, is the only guide to a believer’s conduct.
Practical lessons. (1.) The importance of establishing the truth. James Buchanan writes in his The Doctrine of Justification: “It has long been my firm conviction that the only effective refutation of error is the establishment of truth. Truth is one, error is multiform; and truth once firmly established overthrows all the errors that either have been or may yet be opposed to it. He who exposes and expels an error does well, but it will only return in another form unless the truth has been so lodged in the heart as to shut it out for ever.”
(2.) Exegesis. K M Campbell points out that the Antinomian debate was frequently conducted on the basis of what might be logically deduced from Scripture rather than according to sound exegetical ground rules. This made “deductions according to reason as authoritative as the text”. He quotes Baxter as saying, “The most religious are the most truly and nobly rational”.5 True wisdom will content itself with an answer to the question, What does the Word say? and then hold to the answer.
(3.) Law and gospel. John Kennedy notes among the orthodox a determination to separate law and gospel in a way that made it difficult to refute the errors of Antinomianism. He quotes Edward Fisher in the Marrow of Modern Divinity as saying, “Separate the law and the gospel as far asunder as heaven and earth are separated.”6 But all the words of the covenant are to be received as from God, whether promising, commanding, threatening or exhorting – the one element complementing the other and conveying blessing under God.
(4.) A well-educated ministry. Mrs Hutchison (see article 2) said, “I’ll bring you a woman that preaches better gospel than any of you black-coats that have been at the Ninniversity (sic) . . . and for my part . . . I had rather have such a one that speaks from the mere motion of the Spirit without any study at all than any of you learned scholars, although they may be fuller of Scripture”. And similar sentiments were being expressed in England at that time. K M Campbell quotes Sedgwick as saying in reply: “A confident boasting of dictates from above is not sufficient warrant that the doctrine is heavenly”.7 A good education produces far better sermons than any number
5 K M Campbell, Living the Christian Life, p 79.
6 Edward Fisher, Marrow of Modern Divinity, 1937 reprint, p 317.
7 K M Campbell, Living the Christian Life, pp 78,79.
of empty exhortations based on personal subjective experience. Even today the false contrast is drawn between the guidance of the Spirit and a sound theological education.