Legalism has been around longer than the Church and was directly confronted by our Lord during His earthly ministry as He dealt with the Pharisees. Like the Pharisees of yore, the modern legalists are very fair to see carrying out a strict religious discipline. They are typically excellent Biblical scholars, for in order to keep the law one must know the law.
The books of Romans and Galatians show that modern Legalists are just as spiritually bankrupt. Like the Pharisees, they refuse to confess the filth of their own sinful hearts, the total inadequacy of their own righteousness. See Isaiah 64:6: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”
Legalism According to the Bible
Works are the natural result of saving grace in the life of a true follower of Christ.
Legalism can be the result of a reactive rightward move and is a very real danger in any conservative congregation. However, those who hold a liberal theology can also drift into a legalistic practice focused on the law of acceptance and toleration. Yes, legalism can consume any aspect of variety or aspect of theology save for the doctrine of grace.
Legalists tend to multiply commandments. They can use a general precept to dictate all sorts of very specific regulations regarding anything and everything. They find new commandments in their own traditions. They can get commandments from observing what their theological rivals do and making rules to condemn such actions. They may even make commandments of their own preferences: very arrogantly assuming they have infallible preferences unbiased by their own experiences. In some cases, these poor souls do not even know the origins of their laws, but they cling to them as their only hope of salvation and identity.
Because it is weak it is often defensive, and in its defensiveness, it is prone to be harsh and judgmental. This is why in verse 3 of Romans 14, Paul (inspired by the Holy Spirit) commands that the weak not judge the strong for their liberties.
Now, it is very important to note that in Paul’s discussion, he deals with a matter that is not prohibited by a clear command of Scripture: regarding those who break the Scriptures; clear commands we shall see more about in the next section.
We view in the gospels a number of occasions when the legalistic mindset is more concerned with keeping the laws than with helping people. See Mark 3, Matthew 12, and Luke 13.
This is flawed and is baked into the very essence of legalism. Even when a legalist engages in benevolence ministry it is a self-oriented work with a goal of discharging a necessary duty.
The cure to legalism is humility. Legalists earnestly believe they must earn their own way to Heaven, by confessing that they cannot, the bonds of legalism are broken. When the law becomes something we do as a result of grace, it takes its proper place, held firmly but gently by souls who openly confess their own struggles and failures and look to Christ alone for their ultimate salvation.
We would emphasize one particularly common form of legalism which upholds traditions as an inviolable law within churches. “We haven’t ever done it that way” is a cry too often heard in business meetings, pointing the congregation to rely upon history rather than God’s leading. Let our tradition be subject to examination by Scripture the same as everything else.
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