For we do not keep the Law to be saved. But rather, in keeping the Law we show ourselves to already have gained salvation through the cross of Christ. In light of the cross of Christ and the liberation from the (sting) of sin we receive from it, we are now free to keep the Law (Gal. 4:31).
R.C. Sproul wrote,
The Antinomian heresy is the view that the law of God revealed in the Old Testament has nothing to do with the New Testament church; that the New Testament church is a church without law, a church that lives and breathes exclusively on the basis of grace… But the New Testament is far from abolishing God’s moral law. Jesus calls His disciples to obedience. He says, “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (John 14:15).
Augustine wrote,
If you believe what you like in the gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself....Wicked men obey from fear; good men, from love.
John Murray wrote,
There is no
conflict between the gratification of desire and the enhancement of man’s
pleasure, on the one hand, and fulfillment of God’s command on the other… The
tension that often exists within us between a sense of duty and wholehearted
spontaneity is a tension that arises from sin and a disobedient will. No such
tension would have invaded the heart of unfallen man.
And the operations of saving grace are directed to the end of removing the
tension so that there may be, as there was with man at the beginning, the
perfect complementation of duty and pleasure, of commandment and love.
