---
title: 'Between Two Thieves: James Henley Thornwell on Antinomianism'
type: video
hasMedia: true
requiresPurchase: false
authors:
- 'Jonathan Master'
date: 2026-02-27
collection: 'Dead Presbyterians Society'
subcollection: 'Season 2'
topics:
- 'Christian Life'
- 'Character and Conduct of Life'
- 'Christian Liberty'
- 'Personal Piety'
scriptures:
- 'Titus 2'
- '2 Corinthians 3'
url: https://confessional.org/dead-presbyterians-society/season-2/between-two-thieves-james-henley-thornwell-on-antinomianism
---

# Between Two Thieves: James Henley Thornwell on Antinomianism

In this episode of Dead Presbyterians, we revisit James Henley Thornwell's powerful warning against Antinomianism — the ancient error that turns grace into license. Thornwell reminds us that the gospel is "always crucified between two thieves": legalism and lawlessness.

[Watch](https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/1168963778)

## Transcript

By nature, human beings are prone to legalism, prone to trust in their own works for their standing before God.

00:00

But when confronted with the free grace of Jesus Christ, the gospel of grace, they're often prone to another error

00:07

that of ignoring the law, what's called antinomianism? Greetings from the past. Welcome

00:13

to Dead Presbyterian Society. My name is Jonathan Master. I serve as President of Greenville Seminary. Should Christians obey the biblical laws?

Is the law just put there to condemn all people or is it a guide for those who have been justified unto eternal life?

00:58

Have you ever heard someone use the popular phrase, God broke the law for love? This might sound like a modern

01:07

and fresh articulation of the truths of the gospel, but it actually is an ancient error known as Antinomianism From the days of the apostles to the time

01:12

of the reformation from Robert Trail to Sinclair Ferguson, today, the church has repeatedly had to face down this serious distortion of the gospel.

And today we'll revisit that battle through the voice of one of the South's greatest theologians, James Henley Thornwell, who with characteristic clarity addressed the issue

01:32

of antinomianism. In the 19th century, Thornwell stood at a fascinating crossroads in history and in historical theology. In his time debates about law

01:43

and grace, the relationship between law and grace were not merely academic controversies. They were actually important issues that shaped

01:53

how people viewed salvation sanctification and the Christian life. And what Thornwell recognized and what all of our best theologians have

recognized in the past is that legalism and antinomianism appear initially to be opposites. But Thornwell saw that they were actually two sides

02:11

of the same coin. Both are distortions that strike at the heart of the gospel, and interestingly, they strike at the heart

02:20

of the gospel in similar ways. He connected them and said that they were equal and opposite errors, each robbing Christ of his glory,

02:27

though coming at that from different directions. Now, before we explore his analysis of this matter,

let's first consider the man himself. We have looked at Thornwell before on this show, but just as a kind of review,

02:56

James Henley Thornwell was born on December 9th, 1812. He had a twin brother, but his twin died just a few days after birth.

03:02

His father also died when he was eight years old, and though his family was relatively impoverished because of his father's death,

03:11

he received help from relatives that enabled him to pursue an excellent education at South Carolina College. In 1829, Thornwell had a turning point in his life

because it was at South Carolina College now the University of South Carolina that he began to study and encounter the Westminster Confession

03:29

of faith for the first time. And that really changed his whole life. It changed his spiritual life. It certainly set his theological trajectory.

03:37

And after a period of real soul searching after his graduation, he embraced Christ by faith. He came to saving faith in Christ

03:45

and he publicly professed that faith In May of 1832 joining the Presbyterian church. He studied briefly at Andover and at Harvard,

but the theology of New England really did not suit him. He did not find that in keeping with what he was familiar

04:04

with from the Westminster standards. And so he returned to South Carolina to complete his studies at Columbia Theological Seminary.

04:11

He was ordained to the ministry in 1835 and he served in Lancaster, South Carolina and he really began to gain a reputation

04:18

as a powerful preacher from his earliest days. He was also given several academic positions at South Carolina College and he became later on a professor

of theology at Columbia Theological Seminary and he held that post until 1862 when he died. Now along the way, he served in many

04:37

important church positions. He was moderator of the General Assembly in 1847. He wrote extensively, he wrote some short pieces,

04:46

he wrote some longer pieces, but throughout it, one of the threads of thornwell's writing and really thornwell's life is all of it was shaped

by the Westminster standards, which remember he encountered at South Carolina College. He wrote this in 1841. My Bible and confession of faith are my traveling companions

05:02

and precious friends. They have been to me. I bless God for that glorious summary of Christian doctrine contained in our noble standards.

05:12

It has cheered my soul in many a dark hour and sustained me in many a desponding moment. I love to read it

and ponder carefully each proof text I pass along. Now, as I mentioned, he died in 1862 of tuberculosis and many who have come after him as many

05:27

of his contemporaries would also have marked him as one of the great theologians in American church history and certainly in American Presbyterian church history.

05:39

To understand Southern Presbyterian history says Morton Smith one must understand Thornwell and and certainly that's the case. What about this work that he wrote against Antinomianism?

It's addressing again a fundamental question a, a question that is addressed in one form or another in each generation of the church.

06:17

And the question is this, how does the gospel relate to the law? And we're speaking here, of course, of the law of God,

06:24

of the law of the Bible. How does the gospel relate to the law? And he's addressing this error known as antinomianism,

06:31

which literally means against the law. Now it's not a new error. In fact, Thornwell in his analysis talks a little bit about

the history of Antinomianism. He notes the fact that this is something that came up in the 16th century. Martin Luther faced this in the 17th century.

06:47

He mentioned Samuel Rutherford and Robert Trail in the 18th century. He mentions Ralph Erskine and Thomas Boston and the Marrow controversy as a kind of outworking

06:56

of this Antinomian question. And then of course, in his own day in the 18th century and he actually app penned an appendix to Robert Trail's

07:05

excellent treatise on Antinomianism. One of the highlights of the year for us at Greenville Seminary is to meet together

with other brothers who are engaged in the work of ministry at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church in America.

07:23

And we hope you'll join us for our luncheon at this year's PCA ga. The luncheon is going to be Wednesday,

07:30

June 24th at the Kentucky International Convention Center in Louisville. And this gathering o offers all of us an opportunity

07:35

to reconnect with one another to enjoy great fellowship and to hear a little bit more about what's going on

at the seminary this year. I'll be presenting and Pat Daley will be presenting on the work of the seminary.

07:48

We also have a special speaker planned for that luncheon. And don't worry for all who attend. There will be plenty of Greenville Seminary merchandise

07:52

that we'd love to give away to you. Space is limited this year, so register early. You can register at gpts.edu/events.

Now, what are the points that Thornwell seeks to make? What does he say about antinomianism? Well, first we have to understand his definition

08:26

of antinomianism and his understanding of legalism. Thornwell defines antinomianism this way. Here's a quote, a system of doctrine which naturally leads

08:35

to licentiousness of life. Those who deny that the law of God is the measure of duty or that personal holiness should be sought by Christians,

are those alone who can properly be charged with antinomian principles. So in other words, these are people who either deny

08:53

that God's law gives us our duties today, or who deny that holiness of life is something that all Christians are bound by duty

09:01

to Christ to seek after. Now, it's also worth, worth noting what he means by legalism because oftentimes these are contrasted antinomianism

and legalism and thornwell has much to say about that today when we use the word legalism, we typically use it to refer to people who add extra rules,

09:20

extra commands to the Bible. We'll say that's a, a legalistic understanding that that actually isn't in scripture, but you're imposing it on others.

09:30

So we think about all kinds of extra biblical rules that some Christians have that they demand to be followed as the law of God.

That's not precisely what Thornwell is talking about when he's talking about legalism, although that is a kind of legalism.

09:46

What thornwell means when he talks about legalism and antinomianism is with legalism. He's referring to those who believe that your own keeping

09:54

of the law, your personal keeping of the law is that which justifies you before God, that which saves you before God.

And so normally it might be thought that that kind of error that your own keeping of the law is what saves you would be

10:11

answered by saying, no, we don't have to keep the law at all. Antinomianism, the scriptures Thornwell writes about antinomianism are so pointed

10:20

and explicit in pressing upon believers that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, they should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world.

and explicit in pressing upon believers that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, they should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world.

10:30

So he begins by saying this, that the Bible could not be clearer, that Christians are commanded to live in a certain way.

10:39

They are commanded to obey those things that scripture teaches them to obey. He describes the way in which this has often

10:47

been uh, refuted. This has often been answered, and he makes this important historical observation. Here's what he writes. When

10:54

after a dreary night of Armenian darkness and legal bondage, the doctrines of grace are proclaimed with clearness and power.

after a dreary night of Armenian darkness and legal bondage, the doctrines of grace are proclaimed with clearness and power.

11:02

There are always found men who unable to endure the light which reveals the folly of their slavish, toils and un-Christian schemes pervert the gospel

11:10

and turn the grace of God into lascivious ness. What he's saying is this, that you find antinomianism most prominent when the gospel

11:19

of grace has been rediscovered. When people are bound by legalism, when they are bound by a system that tells them that they have to do something,

11:29

obey certain rules in order to be saved, and then the gospel of grace breaks in, we see this in the reformation.

When the gospel of grace breaks in, then oftentimes you'll find people who go to another extreme and suggest that we no longer have

11:43

to keep the law of God at all. That obedience isn't something demanded by the scriptures that gives thornwell his central insight.

11:51

Perhaps the most profound insight in his entire uh, treatise of antinomianism. He points to three factors in the apostolic age

that produced antinomianism. So he is making a historical point, but then he's gonna make a very important theological point.

12:11

First of all, he says in the apostolic age you see antinomianism because of the prevalence of legal opinions. In other words, there were all kinds of people

12:17

who were going around saying, in order to be saved, you need to keep parts of the law. And then he says, there's also a reception

12:25

of justification in the head without the heart. And then that is combined with the gospel's assault on human pride.

And he says this, when confronted with their own helplessness, some reacted like the encaged, but untamed tiger gnashing their teeth in rage

12:41

and perverting the gospel. But here's his central insight. I think the most famous line in this whole address, the gospel, he writes like its blessed master is always

12:50

crucified between two thieves, legalists of all sorts on the one hand and antinomians on the other, the former robbing the savior

of the glory of his work for us and the other robbing him of the glory of his work within us.

13:11

And see, here's what Thornwell is saying. He says that essentially the parent, the father of Antinomianism is legalism. Whatever form he writes, however Antinomianism may assume it

13:18

springs from legalism, none rush into the one extreme, but those who have in the other, perhaps you've encountered this in your own life.

Perhaps you've encountered this in people that you've met. They're confronted with the glorious grace in the gospel, the glorious grace found in Jesus Christ

13:39

that we are not saved by works, but we are saved through faith alone by grace alone. And because of how freeing that is for them,

13:48

because they thought that they needed to do certain things and accomplish certain works and perform certain rituals, and now they realize that the gospel is a gospel of grace

13:56

because they formerly have been enslaved to legalism, they then move to antinomianism and they start to say things like obedience is not necessary

because God doesn't judge us on the basis of our works. The God broke the law for love. What thornwell recognizes is that some people think of this

14:16

as kind of a middle path, that there needs to be a middle path between legalism and antinomianism. And he talks about historical ways in which people have

14:27

tried to find this middle path and he critiques a number of people who try to invent a third way between antinomianism and legalism.

14:36

But Thornwell sees through this, and here's what he writes. Justification is a gracious sentence of God in Christ on them that are represented

by him for acceptance. By this act and sentence, the state of their persons is favorably changed, but sanctification is a divine work in them

14:54

that changes their heart and nature. So Thornwell is saying the answer to this problem, the answer to this, these two errors, legalism

15:04

and antinomianism, is not to mix parts of two of them together to have a little antinomianism and a little legalism and come up with some middle path.

Rather, the answer is to distinguish as the Bible distinguishes between justification and sanctification. Holiness is not the cause of our salvation,

15:23

but it is the fruit of our salvation. Here's what he writes. Holiness so far from being the cause of salvation is part of it.

15:34

Holiness is a benefit received and not a price paid. It is our neatness for heaven, not our title to it.

15:42

What he means thereby meekness is it's the way in which God makes us ready for heaven prepares us for heaven,

but it's not our title to heaven. None of us will appear before God on the basis of our good works.

15:56

We could not possibly stand before the bar of God's justice claiming our own works as a kind of meritorious feature of ourselves that earns us

16:03

salvation, but they are making us ready for heaven. It is the way in which God, in the process of sanctification

16:13

by his Holy Spirit, conforms us into the image of Jesus Christ. So what Thornwell is doing is he is dismantling any attempt

to merge grace and works to have a little grace and a little works mixed in with our salvation. Here's a quote, any plan of salvation

16:31

therefore, which lays down anything to be done by man no matter what, no matter how, whether with or without the assistance of divine grace is a legal plan.

16:39

So if your understanding of the gospel is that you do your best and God fills in the rest, or you have to try very hard to obey

16:50

and you hope that God's mercy covers over your faults, this is a legal plan of salvation. No, what is it? It is all grace.

That's how God justifies us by grace through faith based upon the merits and the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ.

17:08

And yet justification and sanctification are inextricably linked in the life of the believer. If you are a justified believer, then God is at work in you

17:15

to sanctify you, to make you more holy. And the law serves as a guide to your personal obedience. He adds this little illustration.

17:26

He as truly bis who pays only a farthing as he who pays a thousand pounds. What he's saying there is this, whether your understanding

of how you are justified involves just a little work on your part or a lifetime of good works on your part.

17:44

You're still buying something. And what the Bible teaches is you are buying nothing when it comes to justification. You are receiving based upon what Christ has done for you.

17:51

There's no halfway ground between Pianism and Calvinism. Man is either under a legal dispensation or he is not. Thornwell writes this salvation as a harmonious whole,

18:03

embracing pardon, acceptance, adoption, peace, holiness, and everlasting. Joy is the free gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is our testimony. But then what about the law? Well, the law is a guide for life for those

18:24

who are justified sinners. Yes, the law does show us our sin. That is another one of its purposes. That is another one of its uses.

18:30

But when it comes to our understanding of our acceptance before God, we realize we're not accepted based on our

18:37

keeping of the law, but it is essential that we obey the commands of God as justified believers. Thornwell's essay is much more than a historical artifact,

although if you go back and read this essay, you will find that he does a good deal of historical analysis going all the way back

19:09

to the apostolic age, but then particularly when it comes to the reformation and the history of presbyterianism. But really what it is is it's a mirror that's held up

19:15

to every generation of the church, I would say particularly to our own generation of the church. He exposes how easily the human heart,

19:23

your human heart bends the gospel either towards legalism or towards license. These distortions are not confined to the past.

They persist today. They're often clothed in modern language, perhaps even language that's different from the language that thornwell uses,

19:43

but they are driven by the same spiritual impulses. They are the same theological error. The church often finds itself swinging between two extremes.

19:50

And perhaps you've been in churches or you've been in Christian communities that seem to swing between these two extremes.

19:59

They swing between legalism or a a, a kind of antinomian impulse where the law means nothing and what you do does not matter.

See, that's what we're prone to do. That's what our hearts are prone to do. That's what we are prone to do as communities of Christians.

20:14

But legalism remember diminishes the sufficiency of Christ's work for us. It's a grave error. In fact, it can even be an error that causes people to to go

20:20

to hell in misunderstanding the gospel. Antinomianism though denies Christ's power for us and in us. Oh, what a great error that is as well.

Robbing Christ of his transforming glory. Thornwell's clarity cuts through both of these errors. He reminds us that the gospel must be proclaimed

20:43

and lived in its fullness. The whole Christ, a message of free grace that produces holy lives, not as a legal

20:53

bargain in which we purchase something from God and certainly not as a moral free for all where we are simply free to live our lives and,

21:02

and God in his grace will, will forgive us in our own time. Sometimes this issue can appear in subtle ways.

There is preaching that often softens the law or whenever it comes to a command of God, simply preaches that command as something that condemns us.

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So here's what the Bible teaches you to do, and what that means is you can't do it. And so you need to look to Christ well in a sense.

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Of course that is a partial truth, but what that can do is it can rob these commands of the real force.

21:32

When the scriptures command us to do something, we need to obey that command. We need to take that command seriously

and we need to recognize that God in Christ is at work in us to conform us to His his will.

21:43

There is a kind of cultural Christianity that assumes grace without transformation. No, the whole Christ is at work in us so that we might will

21:49

and do his good pleasure. Thornwell doesn't give into any of these distortions and he makes a clear distinction between justification

22:00

and sanctification. And that gives a framework, a biblical framework that resists all of these trends. His theology calls us to recover a gospel

that is both gracious and yet demands something from us. It's freeing, but it's also sanctifying. And our challenge today is not merely

22:18

to understand thornwell's arguments or to rediscover them, but to embody their implications. We have to preach grace freely and clearly,

22:28

and we have to guard the law's proper place in a bold way, in a way that will often seem counter-cultural.

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If we're in leadership in the church, we have to cultivate and model A, a culture that resists legalism and license where neither one of those can find any refuge.

Thornwell's voice still speaks to us today and it urges us to hold fast to the gospel that both saves

22:56

and sanctifies to the Christ who offered himself on behalf of his people, taking the whole penalty of their sins upon himself

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and whose spirit is also at work to transform us from one degree of glory to another.