⭐ The most practical question the doctrine of imputation has to face: if righteousness is freely given and comes from outside us, what use is the law? This quarrel went on, off and on, for thirty years.
The issue
Does the law still have a place in the Christian life? Should the law be preached from the pulpit?
Claim
The antinomian side (John Agricola), as González reports him: the law has no part in the preaching of the gospel, so the proper place of the law is in the court of justice, not in the pulpit; Moses ought to be sent to the gallows. He gave two reasons: preaching the law cannot bring about repentance, because true repentance needs faith, and faith comes only from the gospel; and the law is no use as moral guidance either, because Christians obey God, in González's words, not from outward commandments but from an inward impulse. ⚠ In the third phase (from 1556), Andreas Poach (1516–1585) and others pushed Christian freedom further still, claiming, as González puts it, that Christians are not under any rule at all.
Counterclaim
Melanchthon's side: his Instructions for the Visitors (written at Luther's request) held that the law, especially the Ten Commandments, should be preached often — as González sums it up, not only to move sinners to repentance, but also so that believers could better understand the will of God and seek to obey it. ⭐ And in the second phase the man who refuted Agricola was Luther himself. González records: in a sense Agricola's position one-sidedly exaggerated Luther's earlier attacks on the law; but for that very reason Luther had to refute him, so that people would not misunderstand Luther's own view.
The ruling
In 1577 Article VI of the Formula of Concord affirmed the third use of the law for believers: that regenerate men, “to all of whom, nevertheless, much of the flesh still cleaves, for that very reason may have some certain rule after which they may and ought to shape their life”. And it condemned the opposite teaching as “a false and pernicious dogma, contrary to Christian discipline and true piety”. ⚠ González notes that the Gnesio-Lutherans and the Philippists agreed on this question — this article was not a quarrel between the two parties, but the two parties joining forces against a third opinion.
What was at stake for salvation
Both sides feared two faces of the same outcome: the antinomian side feared that the gospel would become a new law, and people would again measure their relationship with God by their works; the other side feared that the reborn would have no guide, and Christian freedom would turn into being under no rule. ⭐ The Formula of Concord's way was to take half from each side — the law is no longer the way to justification, but it is still the rule for the reborn.
Aftermath
⚠ Three phases. In the first (1527–1528) the question, as González puts it, was whether repentance follows faith or faith follows repentance; Luther brought the two men together at Torgau to mediate, and it ended in a compromise. In the second (1537) Agricola turned to outright antinomianism; Luther refuted him himself in public disputation, and he was forced to leave Wittenberg. The third (from 1556) was carried on by Poach and others.
⭐ González's closing remarks explain why this thread has no settled outcome even today. Although the antinomians' views were rejected and excluded by the Formula of Concord, he writes, opinions of this kind came back, slightly altered, in other settings. Calvin had to argue against the Libertines, who were in fact antinomians. In 17th-century England, antinomianism was one of the handy labels that more conservative theologians stuck on the many sects then springing up. And in New England a similar problem appeared with Anne Hutchinson. — ⚠ Notice that last part: antinomianism later became a convenient label to pin on people, and those it was pinned on did not necessarily hold any such view.