Question: What is Legalism?
Answer: Living before God either in thought or practice, implicitly or explicitly, for salvation or life or future hope outside of Christ the mediator’s redemptive mediation and benefits.
It is making the Christian life conditionality-driven rather than passively receptively-driven.
It is seeing the problem of immorality as being due to not being serious about what to do rather than being serious about what to be believing about what Christ did.
It is making the third use of the law a means to salvation rather than a guide to the saved.
It is making Christ the moral goal rather than the starting point, middle and end.
It is making the cause or basis of salvation and sanctification a mixture of our works and Christ's.
It is making the driving force of the Christian life faithfulness rather than faith.
It is Christ in you driving Christ for you rather than Christ for you driving Christ in you.
It is making Christianity more about what we do rather than who we already are In Christ’s person and works.
It is making the work of Jesus a means for us to obtain righteousness rather than an expression of gratitude for it being the fulfillment and finality of righteousness. The cross is a moral domino getting the moral events moving rather than the self-contained place of trust.
“It is making maturity and discipleship the cause of Christian confidence rather than the consequence of confidence in Christ.”It is making the law grace and grace law and making everything the gospel and everything the law.
It is a spirituality that is about ascending upward to God rather than God descending to us in Christ.
It is making Christianity more about commitments than the cross. More about dying to self than already being dead with Christ.
It is making Christ-centeredness to be more about devotion to Christ than union with Christ in His life death and resurrection.
It is the obsession of looking inward to self rather than looking outward to Christ.
It is putting the law of God for the saved in a courtroom setting rather than a family setting.
It is calling people to behavior for Christ more than calling people to Christ Himself.
It is defining what faith is with law-language like delight, submission, and surrender rather than promise-language of receiving, trusting, and resting.
It is having people work to rest in Christ rather than work from the sabbath rest we have in Christ’s work.
It is making God-centeredness more about getting God’s favor by how God-centered we are instead of making God-centeredness about living from God’s favor that we have irrespective of our God-centeredness.
It is making Christ an object to us being the Christian subject rather than Christ being the perpetual subject and us the object.
It is having a tone that make us act upon God more than being acted upon by God in Christ.
It is having doctrines of Grace but having a day-to-day culture of works righteousness.
It is making what grace empowers you to do overshadow what grace did in history in Christ for you.
It is the gospel being stated as center but the law being the actual point of Christian emphasis.
It is making our relationship to God grounded more on a two-way dynamic than a one-way dynamic.
It is making Christ more of a moral advisor and less of an object of faith. Making him another Moses rather than the one who fulfills and replaces Moses.
It is living as if Christ has more to do with the Christian’s help rather than living from the fullness of what has been done already. Living from yet to do more than already done.
It is making more either explicitly or implicitly of our imperfect love and obedience to God than Christ perfect obedience and love to and for us.
It is making maturity and discipleship the cause of Christian confidence rather than the consequence of confidence in Christ.
It is making the gospel needed for heaven but not in everyday normal life and situations.
It is making Christ the author of the greatness of our story rather than making us parts of His great story. Making the Christian’s personal testimony eclipse the Christ story.
It is making the implications and outcomes of the gospel the same as the gospel and/or making the emphasis of gospel outcomes the same as the gospel itself.
It is making Christ the agreed subject but not the center of Christian thought and experience and interpretation.
It is making our present victories through Christ more definitive than Christ’s resurrection and ascension.
It is making faith depend on our faithfulness rather than making faithfulness depend on our faith.
It is acting as if our works are pleasing to God in themselves rather than because they are done under the canopy of Christ’s perfect works themselves.
It is making more of our sins than Christ’s sin-bearing or more of our sacrifices than Christ’s sacrifice.
It is making our feelings more important to you than God’s declarations towards us in Christ. It is making a Savior out of your feelings.
“It is making Christianity more about the power of the will before law than the ongoing power of death and resurrection in and with Christ before the means of grace.”It is trying at any time to know, relate to, and enjoy God outside of Christ the mediator.
It is trying to use grace to make us forgivable, rather than living In our forgiveness. It is trying to make our Christian life justify our justification.
It is making Christ work through us be the final validation and stamp of Christ’s work for us. That is, making justification a process rather than an event that eternally redefines our future.
It is feeling righteous in oneself rather than in Christ Himself.
It is making people more anxious about what they haven’t done already or did wrong than secure and peaceful due to what Christ already did.
It is making Christianity more about the power of the will before law than the ongoing power of death and resurrection in and with Christ before the means of grace.
It is seeing God’s love for you, for who you are not because who you are in Christ.
It is making the Christian identify not in Christ alone but in Christ and anything.
It is trusting in your newness in Christ rather than the Christ who made you new.
It is making Christian spirituality more about performance than position in Christ. Getting somewhere rather than already being somewhere. More about process than promise.
It is making the law of God the ongoing cause of change rather than the gospel believed.
It is making worship about making God happy rather than worshiping in light of God’s already happiness in Christ.
It is making external behavior more important than the gospel moving the heart from faith to affection.
It is making Christianity more a religion of behaviors than one of beliefs.
