TITLE:
Freedom from Legalism in Christ—Law and Gospel Dialectic in Luther’s Theology
AUTHORS:
Francisco Sabotsy
KEYWORDS:
Law, Gospel, Legalism, Freedom, Formula of Concord, Christian Ethics, Morality
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.11 No.7,
July
15,
2024
ABSTRACT: This paper develops the concept of Christian freedom from legalism for the sake of Christ’s death on the cross. It thus deals with the entailment of Christian Freedom and the believer’s Christological attitude toward God’s laws in Scripture, particularly the Old Testament. The purpose of this paper is to bring the Christocentric reading of Scripture based on Luther’s Sola Scriptura principle to another related concept: Christian freedom from legalism. This matters because when we read the Scripture on a Christological basis, there is no more room for the literal requirement of biblical Laws. This is indeed what Christian freedom from legalism implies, that the living Christ takes the place of the biblical written Laws to make Christian ethics, like moral decency for a godly life, be no longer Law-based but Christ-based. However, simply ignoring the biblical text in its written form is no way, but a Christocentric interpretation is a prerequisite. The novelty of this scientific paper, therefore, lies in Christian ethics being free from biblical written laws and rules since those laws and rules are Christologically addressed so that the living Christ becomes a final standard.