Fear of hell is a great motivation!...
for trusting in Christ and being found in him, not having a righteousness of your own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.
The reason someone is an antinomian is because they falsely view God as a hard man.
The reason someone is a legalist is because they falsely view God as a hard man.
Was Paul unfaithful to say the following to a congregation with major issues:
"[God] will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 1:8).
Would we be afraid to say this? Or do we rush to "examine yourself," even when the church is faithful?
When the Law and Gospel are properly distinguished, preaching the Law as a rule of life is not bad or difficult news that balances out the good news of justification.
"A filial fear of God and of fatherly displeasure, is worthy of the believer, being a fruit of faith, and of the spirit of adoption; but a slavish fear of hell and wrath, from which he is delivered by Christ, is not a fruit of faith, but of unbelief." ~ Marrow Men
Has Hebrews 12:14 become to Reformed Baptists what Jer. 29:11 and Phil. 4:13 are to evangelicals: quoted apart from the context and overall theology of Scripture?
It is not good news to say, "God will not count your sins against you *if* you obey."
It is good news to say, "God will not count your sins against you *and* be at work in you to will and work for his good pleasure."
Declaring a full gospel of both justification and sanctification is *not* to imply that justification is God's work but sanctification is our work. The good news is that sanctification is God's work and that work enables us to more and more put off sin and put on righteousness.
The good news of the gospel is not only that God provides the blood of the Passover Lamb to save us from his wrath; it is also that he brings us out of Egypt. It would be bad news to say that he leaves us in Egypt and expect us to fight our way out in order to be saved.
When we are preaching on the necessity for Christians to keep God's good law (which we must), if we imply that it is up to the Christian to provide that holiness under the threat of not seeing the Lord, then we have confused the law and the gospel, and misunderstood both.
If we don't confuse law and gospel, then the truths of sanctification are just as comforting as the truths of justification (1 Thess. 5:23-24; Phil. 1:6, 2:12-13; Heb. 2:11).
"There antinomian is by nature a person with a legalistic heart. He or she becomes an antinomian in reaction...The wholesale removal of the law seems to provide a refuge. But the problem is not with the law, but with the heart"
"For never was any sinner qualified for Christ [but] he is well qualified for us" (meaning, we cannot qualify ourselves to come to Christ, but he is more than qualified to be our Savior.