Pilgrim, concerning antinomianism, I read Dr. Gerstner's article you reprinted and you concluded "all the confusion is dispelled and the truth of the matter is laid bare". I have trouble with your assessment. I came away from his article with the impression he is mixing sanctification with justification as Roman Catholics do. Maybe it is the choice of his words and phrasing that I found difficult.

Having grown up in dispensationalism, I heard the statement that "it is heart knowledge that is true faith, not head knowledge." I detested that comparison for it explains nothing! What you truly believe in your 'heart' in biblical language, is still Bible truth undestood by the brain, the head. Maybe Dr. Gerstner is teaching what I understand from a different perspective.

I was taught that man is a trichotomy: body, soul and spirit. In that presentation the body directed by the soul may sin all it wants, be carnal, yet still be saved in the spirit. I usually heard it based on the following:

"It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife. And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." (1Cor 5:1-5 KJV)

This was termed the 'carnal Christian' doctrine that the flesh here is the combined body/soul and if the Christian continues in sin without repentance and change of life, the Lord will kill him and take him home to stop him from being a shameful example on earth as a Christian and harming the gospel truth. So, the carnal Christian can continue to sin in the soul or carnal dimension, but be eternally saved in the spirit. Now, I reject this totally, and maybe this is what Dr. Gerstner is explaining as "antinomian". I came to believe the carnal Christian idea to be a dangerous and false teaching.

I take the works to be evidentiary for showing that one has true saving faith as in James chapter 2. But I separate justification from sanctification and look at it as follows:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life." (Eph 2:8-10 NRSV)

I do believe you cannot have a true saving faith with only justification, if the process of sanctification is missing. I also understand this verse to mean each individual, the true born anew man will have that Spirit given new birth continued with, and in sanctification, by the Spirit. I understand 2 Peter 1:1-11 to be a more full teaching as that in James 2.

I have high respect for Dr. Gerstner and within the last year bought his book Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth and loved his phrase "spoof texting" used by dispensationalists, instead of proper "proof texting". Maybe my confusion I had with the article you presented by Gerstner is because I've been studying some on "eternal justifcation" and kept seeing that connected to antinomianism. I seem to be leaning toward Gill's presentation of eternal justfication, and so I was connecting antinomianism with that.

As a New Covenant believer, I do believe that Christ abolished the entire Old Covenant, the Law of Moses. I reject the idea of dividing the Law into 3 parts. BUT, I understand the abolishing of the Law to mean as it came from the writing of Moses. I am convinced that what I see as God's everlasting law existed from the creation and is still in effect under the New Covenant today, and is basically seen in brief, in the Ten Commandments. I do not see any believer to be under the Old Covenant Law today. I take this from the following:

"For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all." (Rom 2:13-16 NRSV)

I only bring up eternal justification in my reply to possibly explain why I found Dr. Gerstner's article more confusing than clarifying.