ANTINOMIANISM ăn’ tĭ nō’ mĭən, ăn’ tĭ nō mĭən ĭzm (from Gr. ἀντί, G505, against; νόμος, G3795, law). A theology which interprets Paul’s teaching on law and grace (Rom 7:8) to mean that the Christian is so wholly in grace that he is in no sense under the law. In this original form, antinomianism arose within the NT period, as is evident from Paul’s reaction to it (Gal 5:13 ff.). Antinomianism was endorsed by some of the Gnostics in the Early Church, by some sectarians in the Middle Ages, and at the time of the Reformation by Anabaptists who appealed to Luther’s emphasis on salvation by grace apart from works. It appeared later in certain sects in England, and is still advocated by some sectarian groups in the U.S.

The original understanding of law and grace as taught by Paul was transformed over the centuries into a distinctive theology whose chief characteristic stems from its elimination of the Pauline tension between law and grace in the life of the believer. This elimination was accomplished by ignoring the temporal process in which salvation was accomplished in Christ and realized in the sinner’s life. Christ’s gracious action for the sinner was viewed as making the sinner perfect in Christ, so that the sins of the believer are no longer to be regarded as his, but those of his “old nature” now dead and gone.

On this view of the sinner’s status in Christ, justification sometimes came to be regarded as an event in eternity—which makes the cross not so much a decisive, historical act of divine love as a mere disclosure of an eternal love. At other times justification came to be regarded as an event that occurred within the resurrection, with the consequence that the believer did not at the time of his conversion become justified and set on the road of sanctification, but merely came at that point to know that he is, and was long since, free from the law and in the grace of Christ.

Although springing from a different theological motif, the denial of all obligatory force to Biblical moral law places the “New Morality” in the category of antinomianism.