The Saddest Form of Legalism

Legalism is a category of false teaching that is so regularly misunderstood that the church engages in friendly fire because it doesn’t know the enemy from the ally.  Many Christians have been labeled a legalist because they wisely restrained themselves from something they knew could cause problems later.  Legalism is not necessarily making a rule or boundary for oneself.  Legalism is trying to attain or maintain a justified status before God.  When someone sets a rule or boundary for themselves, they may or may not be a legalist.  It depends on why they did it.  If they are trying to attain or maintain a justified status before God, they are a legalist. 

This means that legalism can take different forms.  The most obvious and widely-despised form of legalism is pharisaical legalism.  This is what we find in the gospels.  People create man-made standards, then ignore or rework God’s law, and finally declare themselves righteous through these artificially formed standards.  A less obvious form of legalism is when people don’t make their own standards but uphold some part of divine revelation alongside the cross of Christ.  This group is trying to mix law and gospel.  We have traditionally called them Judaizers.  We find them in Acts 15 and in the book of Galatians.  They are harder to recognize because they speak about the gospel.  The problem is it is gospel plus                         .  In the early church, it was the gospel plus circumcision and law keeping.    But it could be the gospel plus church attendance or the gospel plus societal morality.  Whatever it is, they are trying to be fully right with God (justification) through something other than faith alone.  Christ and his work is so perfect, to add anything to it is to destroy it.  When you add to the gospel, you destroy the gospel.

But the saddest form of legalism is the hardest to see.  This form of legalism is found in the doctrine of eternal insecurity.  This doctrine says a person’s salvation can be lost, and it is a form of legalism.  It is not easily seen because this teaching is usually applied to the extreme cases of those who forsake the faith.  People will say that a certain person was saved, but that certain person lost his salvation when he went after the world in some sinful way.  Something certainly has gone wrong, but it is not that true salvation was lost.  What has gone wrong is that true salvation was never possessed.  He may have outwardly looked saved by having a conviction of sin, or a degree of morality, or a doctrinal acceptance, but he was not truly born again.  As 1 John 2:19 says, “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.”  True new birth preserves to the end. 

But we can’t just look at the extreme situation of a person who forsakes the faith.  We have to look at the person who struggles in sin and shudders at the idea of losing his salvation.  These people can be some of the most earnest because they fear their salvation is losable.  It is not secure, it is slippery.  They might lose it and that terrifies them, and rightly so.  But when this teaching is held, what does this say about justification?  It is says one’s justified status is not by faith alone, it is faith plus something.  And that something is usually human effort of some kind.  Effort is only biblical as a confirmation that justification has really happened.  As James says, “I will show you my faith by my works.” (James 2:18) But justification is through faith alone. If a person realized it was by faith alone, he could stand secure knowing God-given faith in Christ’s all-sufficient atonement is all he has and all he needs.  Though he sins, he clings to Christ. But to say salvation could be lost means something additional to faith keeps a person saved.  Whatever that is, is legalism. 

It is understandable that confusion can happen here.  We are called to strive to grow in the grace and knowledge of the lord Jesus Christ, but this striving must not be a striving to maintain a justified status.  These two thoughts are close to each other, but important to distinguish.  Confusing these two ideas, striving in grace and striving for grace, must be guarded against diligently.  Though they will outwardly look the same, the two options are very different.  Effort done to maintain a justified status is our definition of legalism.

To watch someone in writhe in the anguish of legalistic effort is incredibly sad.  It is so sad because in many of these people, there is true faith.  They love the lord, understand the gospel at a basic level, and are growing in him.  But because poor teaching has invaded the church, the sin that all of us will always have to struggle with is not seen in light of the cross, it is seen in light of one’s self-effort.  People don’t understand effort as the grace-created effect of new birth, but that which is required of them to stay right with God.  But that kind of effort is legalism and will never be perfect.  Imperfections will always be found in human efforts, and therefore if a person looks to them for security they will surely languish in fear and discouragement.  They don’t fight sin as a child of God, they fight sin as one trying to get into the embrace of God.  How sad.  When the gospel is twisted in any way, incredible loss is close behind.  May we cling to the faith once for all delivered, holding fast to that which is good and abstaining from every form of gospel deviation.