Legalism & The Christian Response
We tend to exclusively relate the term, “legalism” to conservative, right-wing, old-school, southern-Baptisty types of churches. Indeed, the caricature of the overweight old man with a comb-over and southern draw in the pulpit preaching against the evils of rock music does come to mind, and indeed legalism is certainly present in that kind of place in a very real way, but it’s also extremely prevalent in places we really don’t expect. The truth is, legalism is absolutely everywhere in every single layer of our society. It is not just inside the church, not by a LONG shot. The action of adding moral characteristics to certain behaviors or ideas and then allowing or forbidding them within a group or subgroup is the action of employing legalism. It’s basically any spoken or unspoken rules or expectations that people become subject to that fall outside of scripture’s explicit commands and expectations.
Today, we see it everywhere. Yes, within the church, but also from movies, television, social media, the news, politicians, actors, activists, companies, friends, neighbors, family, etc,. Every single person brings a framework of a perceived morality to their sphere of influence no matter how small or large. As humans, we are 100% wired for legalism completely separated from any kind of religious activity. This is the design of God to notice and make decisions about right and wrong. Our fallen state, however, never fails to breed a flawed framework of morality - which is why theology is so absolutely important. Since we’re all wired for legalism, any religious activity that isn’t on the mark of scripture’s intended meaning inevitably causes mishandling and a wrong focus.
The engine that powers legalism is rationality: what makes sense to us. We all have built-in moral compasses, and by default, those compasses will lead us right off a cliff if they aren’t tuned by the grace of God in Christ. Like sheep, we will subconsciously respond to the loud ramblings of other people’s perception of morality based on their personal compass. We rarely realize this, but how we respond to legalism in other people is a major contributor to how our lives are shaped. Often times, because of somebody else’s legalism, we back down from truth so that we avoid being seen as . . . a legalist.
As the squeaky wheel gets the grease, the loudest voices for a given definition of right and wrong tend to rule a population’s framework. From masks, to vaccines, to commonly hated bands, to universally acceptable ideas, to actions, to inactions, to words that must be said, to words that cannot be said, to lifestyles that must be celebrated and affirmed, to religious choices that must be denied and cancelled - it’s all legalism. Human permission or refusal. We once lived in a society where the secular culture would restrain its behavior based on how the church would react, and now we live in an age where the church restrains the whole counsel of God based on the legalism of secular culture. It’s an absolutely wild time to be a Biblical Christian. I personally believe it’s good in many ways as it forces us to truly contend with and clarify what it is we believe. We actually have skin in the game now, but another symptom of this is the watering down of the church to appeal to culture’s legalistic demands.
This is the drift we are seeing in the church toward secularism, liberalism, theology-lite, and a seeming embarrassment toward God’s standards. I believe that more than a response to the, “don’t wear jeans” legalism encountered in the church growing up, the drift is actually more likely due to a response to extreme, “Christianity equals hate” legalism in our society. We all know very clearly where our secular culture stands on issues of sexual sin, gender, race, entertainment, sensuality, money, fame, self-assurance, medical choices, American values, politics, and false religions - basically all of those are as godless of a response as you can get today.
And what has our Christian response been? Well, instead of being a mouthpiece for God, we’ve tended to bend to the culture’s legalism and even change the focus of the message as to not offend or start conflict. We’ve even justified it by classifying it as, “keeping the main thing the main thing.” But that box only gets smaller and smaller and smaller as the culture gets darker and darker and darker. When society drives what Christian pastors say in the pulpit rather than scripture, it’s only a matter of time before that church and the people in it are simply going through religious motions. It’s then those churches turning around and forcing their own brand of sexy and popular legalism on the rest of Christianity.
The BIG problem is, we tend to THINK that legalism is following scripture to the letter, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. The Pharisees weren’t guilty of following scripture to the letter, they were guilty of adding to it (Matthew 15:1-9). Creating their own man-made laws in the name of God and holding the people to them. It’s the absolute height of presumptive hypocrisy. Jesus made it clear that adding to scripture nullifies it (Mark 7:13). We cannot add to God’s Word or else it’s no longer God’s Word. Of course, this is a major problem in the church, but again, it’s not just the old-school who are guilty of it.
ANY ideology, worldview, or set of rules and standards in the church or society that conflicts with scripture is legalism. But we don’t typically sit on our legalism, we also do the same thing the Pharisees did. We get militant about the way we see the world and enforce it on those around us, causing division. Most of the division in the church is blamed on those who hold fast to the Word of God, and sometimes that’s true. Biblically, there are indeed times to divide. But more often than not, division sits with the pastors who have deviated from good doctrine for a whole host of reasons, and cause the division from their own legalism disguised as reasonableness.
So what do we do? Well, we really get to know the God of the Bible. We understand His heart and character by His holy, perfect, living, active, and sufficient Word being illuminated by His Spirit through a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. We approach it with humility and recognize that we are probably coming with some kind of flawed framework that we picked up. Our desire should be for scripture to make us right in all the ways that we are wrong. We should be ok with offloading comfortable traditions that scripture doesn’t uphold. We shouldn’t hold anything higher than scripture holds it, or lower than scripture holds it. God’s Word is the truth, and interpreted properly, it stands as the only true way of life without legalism.
My challenge to my readers and to myself is this: what forms of legalism am I holding on to? Do I hold anything higher or lower than where God holds them? What areas of the world’s legalism am I knowingly or unknowingly responding to in a stronger way than scripture’s commands and standards? Do I fear people or God? In these questions, my encouragement is to pray that the Holy Spirit will show you these things, work them out of you, and reveal to you what is true so that we may become more like Jesus - the perfect balance of God’s truth and God’s love. He’ll do it!
Ephesians 4:17-24
“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
