Desperately Seeking Legalism
Here’s a pastoral observation from over a quarter of a century in ministry: people are desperately longing for legalism.
Once you get a taste of it, you will do almost anything to find more. It’s maybe the ultimate addiction.
Legalism comes with secure boundaries, clear authority, cleanliness, and disgust. It vacillates between pride and self-condemnation. It produces a kind of guilty depression that is itself addictive.
Ok, let me be clear. We think we don’t want legalism. We think we want grace. So, we dumb down the idea of grace — the robust, gospel-shaped kind would scare us to death! — into a sort of Grace Lite. We convince ourselves that because we have more “freedom of the Spirit” or more “freedom in worship” we have left legalism for grace.
Hardly.
Legalism beckons us. It makes us plead for more authority — from husband, from father, from church leaders. We want structure . . . we want to be told what to do . . . we want to fall in line.
Our need for legalism is so great we’ll break family ties to keep it (all the while priding ourselves on our freedom). We want the rules; we want the structure; we beg for order.
One of the challenges of ministry is helping legalism addicts. They flit about from place to place, but they can’t “rest” until they find it. It helps explain the popularity of some religious cult heroes — whether wackos or well-coiffed preachers — who will speak with authority and with confidence that they are absolutely right.
We say we want grace. But most don’t. Real grace — God’s grace! — is radical, unfair, against-the-grain. It messes with our addiction.
Thanks for the clarification on legalism. I totally agree that following rules doesn’t save. However, my response to God’s grace is a strong desire to do His will as a thank you.
I have seen the word used to indicate a following of rules regardless of one’s motive. It is thus used in the context of trying to eliminate all rules. This is some people’s definition of freedom.
Thank God we’re not like those legalists…
Henry Cloud says it better than I can, but a lot of the turmoil families and churches are facing today is not a product of too much legalism, but too little.
The truth is, to lead healthy, productive lives we need boundaries. We need rules. We need authority, structure, predictability. We need to be able to trust, to know who and what we can count on. We need to know where the lines are, and to know that there are consequences for crossing them.
To “find rest” in that structure is not an addiction to something harmful but a gracious gift of a loving God.
As people, we range between the poles of law and lawlessness. My natural bend is toward legalism. I think in this conversation to find God’s way we have to admit the tention in scripture between freedom and slavery; obedience and faith. Afew thoughts: “Law is for Lawbreakers,” John 1: 14, 17 Jesus came full of grace and truth and to bring grace and truth. Full of both? “”For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope–the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.” (Titus 2:11-15 NIV)
If we seek truth in exchange for grace it becomes legalism and seases to be truth. If we seek grace in exchange for truth, it becomes tolerence (not a good word in this context) and seases to be grace. The royal law is to love our neighbor as ourselves. If only I could stay on target with that legalism. “Who will save me from this body of death?”
This is an important conversation that can’t lands safely in a definitive answer of rules to follow. And so begins the conversation again.
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Sincerely,
Christ’s Devoted Follower Opposing Paul in Colossae/Galatia
Tribe(s)? Strange labelling system or analogy, for what, and why, exactly? Is it a way of pointing to acceptance of and grace-sharing with a different community of believers in Christ, or yet just more religious and spiritual condescension?
I am seeing some American evangelical Christians using this terminology more and more. It is as if ‘believers’ who belong to one ‘tribe’ are vetting the belief systems in other ‘tribes’. This just seems weird to me, as most tribes I have known about, outside the context of ‘church’, have built up rather exclusive structural societies/communities, with their own language, culture, etc. They are hardly inclusive. But then, out of America, more than any other nation historically, a massive amount of religious Christian denominations and ‘non-denominational’ groups just keeps evolving. Tribal warfare or brotherly love?
‘… And I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.’ God’s grace is wonderfully universal, is it not? How much more freeing can it get?