Beware of Legalism

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." Eph. 2:8

We are saved by grace through faith. We are called to be obedient and saving faith always produces obedience in one’s life… but the rules and obedience to the rules is not what saves us. It's easy become too caught up in externals, “Alcohol is evil, sex is bad, watching movies is bad, all secular music is evil, makeup is bad, etc…” When we do this, we are being legalistic and we are actually continuing in bondage. This type of mindset leads to pride, self-righteousness, little to no grace with other people, and a superiority complex. 

Don’t get me wrong, we should be passionate about following God’s law and we are called to holiness but when take what God created to be good and call it evil, we are doing more harm than good by throwing the baby out with the bath water. Sex, alcohol, dancing, makeup, etc.… none of these things are inherently evil. Context matters. Sex within the confines of marriage is good, alcohol without drunkenness is good and is to be enjoyed in moderation, Make up is not bad in itself and can be worn wisely. We could go on and on…

Genesis 1:31 “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good”

I'd also like to note that the term "legalism" is thrown out a bit too much in our churches. One can simply be discussing the important topics of modesty, sexual sin, cursing, keeping the Sabbath holy, etc. and someone is bound to call them a legalist. It is NOT legalistic to encourage believers to obey God's law. It IS legalistic to act as if obeying specific rules is a means to salvation. At the same time, we mustn’t be antinomians who say, “Woohoo! We can do whatever we want and God will forgive us!” Using God’s grace as a ticket to sin displays an unregenerate heart. Sin should not be taken lightly and is the very reason Jesus died on the cross for us. We should strive for holiness and mortify sin daily with the power of the Holy Spirit. Let’s be careful not to swing the pendulum to either side. 

Here’s an excerpt from the book Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis about legalism. The book contains correspondence between a senior devil, Screwtape, and his obstreperous and incompetent nephew, Wormwood, a "young fiend." All of the letters are from Screwtape to Wormwood, and the subject of the correspondence is a human being, newly converted to Christianity, whom Screwtape refers to as "the patient." Throughout the correspondence, Screwtape tries to help Wormwood tempt the patient away from Heaven and into Hell. 

“Dear Cousin Gall, 

We are excited to write to you regarding the new training we have received from our great mentor. He has come up with a wonderful ploy to create havoc with the enemy. We know that hordes of converts have gone over to the side of our most hated one. We are not able to unconvert them, for once they are converted to Him, He keeps them on His side. So what can we do? Our great leader advises a new way by which we can paralyze them to make their impact in our domain slight. 

How is that? The principal means is by stealing their liberty. We can do that by binding them with chains where God has left them free. We will direct their attention to a different law, a false law, a new law. We’ll tell them that what obedience to the enemy really requires is that they refrain from dancing, from smoking, from wearing lipstick, and from going to movies. By putting the accent there, we can keep their attention away from pursuing real righteousness and the fruit of the Spirit. In a word, the strategy we will employ is to make them legalists. 

Of course, we know that it is not legalism to obey the law of God, but it is legalism to think that the enemy’s law is something different from what it is. We must work hard to fool them, to tell them that true righteousness comes by obeying these cultural standards that we will suggest to the church. We’ll get people so caught up with refraining from these worldly things that they will be paralyzed and confused about what true righteousness is. We’ll also get them to think that by keeping this new law, their works will save them. 

If we’re not able to convince them altogether of this false law, then we’ll give them an unbalanced view of the real law, that is, we’ll encourage them to act like the Pharisees of old by majoring in minors, by obeying lesser items of the law while ignoring the weightier matters. This is part of the strategy of keeping them unbalanced and paralyzed. If we can accomplish this stratagem, then perhaps our gates will prevail against them. 

Your Master,Legion”

xoxo, The Law Student's Wife