Liberty & Legalism
Legalism is dangerous, yet we trend toward it in various ways even when we have a great appreciation and understanding for the grace and liberty we have in Christ. It tends to crop up in us even when we don’t realize it. It’s part of the fall in that we sort-of muscle-memory drift toward works and tend not to like grey areas. Like, at all. Ultimately, legalism takes the focus off of scripture and onto convictions and preferences of individuals or groups that have been turned into enforceable rules. How are they enforceable? Ejection from a group or social circle, shame for disagreeing or disobeying, hostility, division, and the list goes on.
Although it tends to start with good motivations, we always get more hard-hearted as we get dogmatic about things that scripture doesn’t teach, rather than it leading to deeper maturity and fuller fruits of the Spirit. It’s also not relegated to either conservative or liberal ideologies - all humans, no matter what flavor of ideology, tend to drift toward legalism when convinced of what they perceive is the truth. We can readily see this in politics - chock FULL of legalism. If you do or say or profess something that is not accepted by the accepted consensus, you’re cancelled. Doesn’t even matter if their dead wrong on the issue. Rules are rules, and by the way, they change. Haha.
Now, it goes without saying that the things God directly forbids for Christians in the Bible aren’t up for debate about conviction or liberty. Commands are commands, and sin is sin. There can be some debate about the commands that are a little more unclear and what their application truly is, but today, people have begun to simply cast off commands or sin qualifications they simply don’t like and chock it up to Christian liberty. Which, NAH. Not how that works! Haha! Christian liberty is the exercise of the Christian conscience and discernment in matters that aren’t hard lined by scripture. Non-divisible issues that we should not reject other Christians on for disagreeing with our personal stances.
Many think that legalism is following the Bible to the letter - but that couldn’t be further from the truth! Following the Bible as closely as possible with a genuine love and healthy fear of the Lord is actually the pursuit of truth and legitimate balance since God’s Word IS the truth. Legalism is adding to it or subtracting from it and then being dogmatic about it - which is what the Pharisees and Sadducees were doing respectively. Pharisees added. Sadducees subtracted. There’s a whole host of Christian issues today on all sides of the ideological spectrum that serve as an example of the same exact thing today. There are those who are adding to scripture in the form of social, gender, and sexual issues and then enforcing it against those who hold the line, and the division it has brought and continues to bring is incredibly sad. Those aren’t issues of Christian liberty. Those are issues of clear doctrine being denied.
Where many of us have to be careful is not the area of backing off of being hard-lined about clear teachings (because we should hold the line with boldness, love, reasonableness, and winsomeness), but rather getting dogmatic about things it doesn’t teach. We can all still have preferences and convictions, and there are indeed areas like Romans 14 where the New Testament clearly teaches about this, but we must be extremely clear cut in our own minds where those boundaries are and not start declaring our convictions as commands and demonizing those who don’t adhere the same way. This is where there is freedom! While there are A LOT of absolute truths we MUST accept and unify on, there are indeed areas we don’t all have to agree. Many of us don’t naturally like that though, and discerning what those are can be a challenge! But we’re called to it nevertheless and we should seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance through prayer on our heart’s response to these matters and not break good and right unity.
There are also indeed times to divide. When issues of clear Biblical teaching are being breached and then considered liberty, we stand with scripture. On the flip side, when legitimate issues of individual conscience are being enforced as if it’s a command of God, we stand with scripture. Scripture is always the key. It’s the roadmap. It’s what keeps us on the tracks. For those issues of true Christian liberty, we must make sure that we don’t use it to cause others to stumble. The weaker brother in the faith in Romans 14 is the brother who felt he would stand condemned if he did something that wasn’t even wrong, although, for his sake, Paul taught that we shouldn’t flaunt our Christian liberties if it would make our brother or sister stumble. Instead, as Christians, we have responsibilities toward one another. Like with the use of certain worship movements. I tend to lean a little more strict, and I have wonderful brothers in the faith who have different convictions. Some more strict than me, and some more lax, but we’re still brothers! We can have conversations about where we disagree and why, and maybe even compel each other toward how we arrived at that conclusion.
Ultimately, if our convictions make us more hard hearted rather than more soft and humble toward other brothers and sisters, it’s actually us who are that weaker brother. So whether it’s the exact day we worship, the use of alcohol, style or songs used in worship, celebrating Christmas, Easter, or Halloween, utilizing a Christmas tree, our view of the end times, eating certain foods, whether or not to get current medical shots, doing a modern or traditional style of worship, the list goes on (and we ALL have opinions on everything I just mentioned!) we should all recognize our propensity to become hard lined on things that God declared as liberty in which we are to be discerning. I’m not saying don’t share your opinions on these things! Definitely do! But leave room for healthy disagreement without dividing over it. We should bear up with one another in love. And with the commands of God, we should all clearly and swiftly adhere to them for His glory and our good.
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“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” - Galatians 5:13
