Dear Sovereign Redeemer and other friends,

Continuing on the theme of modern Evangelicalism, I came across this insight from Paul Washer while reading his third and final book in his “Recovering the Gospel” series, “Gospel Assurance & Warnings.”

This from Chapter 19, “The Dangers of an Empty Confession”:

“Jesus tells those who practice lawlessness to depart in Matthew 7:23. The word ‘lawlessness’ is translated from the Greek work anomia, which denotes the condition of being without law. It refers to one who lives in violation of God’s will out of ignorance, neglect, or willful rebellion. The meaning of the term is extremely important because it sheds light on the nature of a false confession and reveals the reason for Christ’s severity. It is as though He looks with disdain upon these false converts and declares, ‘Depart from Me, you who claimed to be My disciples and confessed me as Lord and yet lived as if I never gave you a command to obey.’

No other statement we have considered is so applicable to many of those who claim the title ‘evangelical.’ Much of the evangelical community has gradually conformed itself to culture and recreated itself as a convenient religion without demands, laws, or any kind of parameters that might be restrictive to the flesh. Like the ungodly of whom Jude writes, some evangelicals have ‘[turned] the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ’ (v. 4). No one can deny that multitudes of evangelicals make a claim to Christ, yet His sovereign will is virtually unknown to them, and its application is absent from their daily lives. There seems to be a great detachment in the evangelical mind regarding the relationship between a person’s confession of Christ as Lord and his actual submission to His revealed will. Can a person truly be a loyal subject within the realm of any king, yet not only ignore His commands but also live contrary to them? Many contemporary evangelicals seem to think so.

Although it is true that we are freed from the law to follow Christ and be led by the Spirit, we must understand that neither Christ nor the Spirit are contrary to the law or opposed to it. In fact, the way in which we discern true conformity to Christ and validate the Spirit’s leadership in our lives is through what is written in the Scriptures. If we love Christ we will keep His commandments, and if we are following the Spirit we will live a life of highest virtue; ‘against such there is no law’ (Gal. 5:22-23).”

Amen and amen!

Your brother,

Jason