Like a Battering Ram

Christ Jesus hits you like a battering ram. He shows all your works to be but filth and wretchedness. There is no safety from Christ - He comes boldly to sinners -- and thus, when He comes to you, you are shown to be a Sinner. Yet this is for your good, for He comes to rescue you and pull you out of the bondage of sin.

Legalism seeks to prevent this by putting up a barrier of rules that one can hold to, that one can hide behind. See how good I am, Jesus?

Antinomianism seeks to prevent this by pretending that there is no sin -- didn't you free me from the Law - therefore I can do what I want? See how free I am Jesus.

Both Legalism and Antinomianism play up the self - my rules, my freedom, how I act. Both Legalism and Antinomianism take something from myself, my rules, my desire to act how I want to, and claim that they are actually from God - my law gets called "God's Law", my selfish gets called "Freedom in Christ." Christ Jesus and His true Law crushes all of that, shows it all to be vanity of vanities and vapor or vapors.

You are a sinner. Period. Yet for you, Christ Jesus has died, and He now in His Word gives you forgiveness and life - calls you away from this futile worrying about your own righteousness, your own actions, your own freedom -- and batters it aside, shows its ridiculousness whenever you show it. Then He wrests your eyes back upon Him, so that you might delight that His death and resurrection is in fact your death and resurrection, and that you have life in Him.

Jesus is not polite. As C.S. Lewis points out, He is not a tame God. But He is good for you, better for you, in fact, than your own pipe dreams of what your best life now should be. He comes and brings you mercy and forgiveness, even when you would disdain those things. God grant that I ever more be broken upon Christ, that I may ever more live with Him!