Legalism: a definition

I've recently been thinking about the subject of legalism. I've come to the conclusion that no matter which branch of the body of Christ a person belongs to he will agree that legalism is wrong. Imagine going to hear a sermon and the pastor beginning by saying, "well, I hope everyone is enjoying being legalistic! Today I'm going to preach on why legalism is great". Legalism is generally held in disdain and for good reason. Legalism is contrary to Christianity. The problem I've found, though, is that legalism, while unanimously condemned is not often well understood. I've been thinking for the last few weeks on a good definition. Here's what I've got:

Legalism is one of two things:
1) an attempt at conformity to a good law for a substituted purpose
2) an attempt at conformity to a substituted law for a good purpose

Allow me to explain. Legalism is a word that has at it's root what is "legal" or "lawful". People who are legalistic either pervert a good law into something for which it was not intended OR they begin with good motives but seek to meet proper ends with an improper law. A Legalist person is aware of and concerned about law, though, which the inverse, an Anti-nomian or Licentious person would not. Biblical Christianity, in contrast to both, has an aspect of attempt at conformity to a good law for a good reason.

The Letter and The Spirit

Let's take a law: "You cannot drive over 70 MPH along X stretch of highway". This may be, and for the sake of discussion let's say that it is, a good law. A law has a letter and a spirit. The letter of this law is that it is wrong to drive at any speed greater than 70 MPH. If a person were to drive 70.000001 MPH, he or she would be breaking the letter of the law. Consider, though, that the example law is not an isolated thing. Behind the creation of this law there is an intention of whoever wrote the law. We might say, and for the sake of discussion let's conclude that, the intention, or spirit, of the law is "Do not drive in a way which puts persons or property at risk of harm or damage." This is rooted in the second greatest commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Suppose a man is driving 69.999999 MPH. He is swerving to the left and right as he weaves through traffic. He cuts off a bus full of children. To save a few seconds off of his commute, he drives through a person's front yard and flower bed. Is he obeying the letter of the law stated above? Yes. Is he doing it for the intended purpose? No. He is obeying the letter but not the spirit of the law. He is a legalist by the first definition. His utter contempt for the spirit of the law reveals the wrongness of legalism.

Suppose, now that a young woman desires to protect life and property. She learned from her parents to always drive 10 MPH below the speed limit. As she enters the highway she cautiously accelerates to 59 MPH. As people pass her traveling at speeds of 65 or 68 MPH, she smiles at them but wonders in her heart, "Why are all these people breaking the speed limit?" She finds another car going her speed and carefully paces them, preventing anyone following from going above 60 MPH. Is she being legalistic? This is where we enter the second definition of legalism, and to be completely honest this part is a bit more difficult to see the error. She is keeping the letter of the law. She is even keeping the spirit of the law to some extent. I'd say she is being legalistic, though. What makes it difficult to determine is the idea of Hedging.

Trimming the Hedges

Hedging is, simply, to impose a boundary upon one's self to help prevent transgression. Let's take the speed limit example above. If I decide that to help myself obey the law I will always drive 2 miles below the speed limit, I am building a hedge. Building a hedge for one's self is OK, provided it is for the correct intention (i.e. toward the spirit of the law). Hedges are not a problem so long as they are kept only for one's self. Hedges become legalism when the hedge is substituted for the law. This is portrayed clearly for us in Mark 7:

7:1 Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, 2 they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash [1] their hands, holding to the tradition of the elders, 4 and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. [2] And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches. [3]) 5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!

The elders of the Pharisees and scribes had developed hedges to help themselves obey the letter of the law. Generations later, the hedge had been mistaken for the law it surrounded! We see the horror of this when the Pharisees accuse Jesus of leading his disciples into sin. What a bold thing to do! The Pharisees accuse Jesus, who is God, of breaking the God's law! God is perfect and cannot deny himself. We see the rebuke they receive is well warranted. By replacing God's law with man's traditions, the Pharisees were the ones who were rejecting God's law.

As followers of Christ, we need to guard against confusing our own hedges with God's perfect law. God's law is perfect as we are reminded in Psalm 19:

7 The law of the Lord is perfect, [3]reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; ... 10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. 11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.

Since God's law is perfect, we must not substitute our law for His. We must continually trim our hedges to make sure that they do not impede upon the spirit of His law.

The Greatest Commandment

So, how do we ensure that we are keeping the spirit of the law? What is the spirit of God's law? Jesus tells us the greatest commandment, and I do not think it is just another law to add on top of the rest, I think it is the spirit of all of God's law:

Mark 12:

28 And one of the scribes came up and ... asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

All other laws God gives are only extensions of this fundamental law: that God is one and that mankind is to love him wholly. Even the second commandment to love one another flows out of the first. We love one another because we love God. We love God because He loves us.

1 John 4:

19 We love because he first loved us.

A Guardian that is Good

The law is rooted in that we should love God. We know God first loved us because of the gospel. Paul the Apostle was quick to point out that the law should point us to the gospel. The law is good in that it drives us to Christ.

1 Timothy 1:

8 Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, 9 understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, ... and whatever else is contrary to sound [3] doctrine, 11 in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.

Paul even calls the law our guardian, imprisoning men until they are justified by faith:

Galatians 3:

23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.

As Christians, we should oppose legalism. It is either a misuse of God's law or a rejection of God's law in favor of man's law. In either case, legalism destroys the laws power to draw us to Christ. If we are not drawn to Christ, we will never have love for God who is a just judge. If we have no love for God, we will be forever doomed to fail at meeting the spirit of the law: to love the holy God with the whole of our being.

Faith Alone? ... yep.

I was recently in discussions with a friend of mine over what the gospel is. My friend is a Catholic and I am Evangelical. We disagreed. He directed me to a website from the "Bible Christian Society". I'm a fan of the bible and am a Christian, so I gladly checked out what was there. My friend asked me to download and listen to a lecture called "Sola Fide - Salvation by Faith Alone?". I happily obliged.

The lecture was by a man named John Martignoni, and John began by introducing 3 false assumptions that Protestants make. As a Protestant, I was eager to understand what I had been assuming falsely. These false assumptions that I had apparently been making were:

1. You have to believe either the (Roman) Catholic Church or the bible.
2. The (Roman) Catholic Church teaches a salvation by works.
3. And a third one... Scripture teaches that we are saved by faith alone.

The third struck me as odd. I'll assure you that I didn't know then what the Roman Catholic Church's teaching was on these matters, so I didn't mind being accused of misunderstanding them. The third, however, was a shock to my system... as an Evangelical, the accusation was preposterous. The doctrine of Faith Alone is central to the gospel itself, how could someone assert that is wasn't in the bible? This is a very serious accusation, indeed, as the apostle Paul tells us in Galatians 1 verses 8 and 9 in no uncertain terms that anyone who preaches a different gospel is accursed.

As I listened on, John Martignoni read verses from the bible that he felt Protestants misinterpreted. Each of these, he countered with verses which he felt proved his point. If you'd like to take a look, he's got them listed on his website. For each of the verse responses he gave, he remarked that the bible taught faith and works. He even accused Protestants of misunderstanding Ephesians 2:8-9 by not also reading Ephesians 2:10.

At the capstone of his argument, John Martignoni read from James chapter 2. Particularly, he said that the only verse in the bible which has "faith" and "alone" next to each other is James 2:24:

James 2:
24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

John Martignoni claims that this verse teaches against the doctrine of faith alone. Is he right? Well, first it would be helpful to identify what the doctrine of faith alone is and also get some context for the verse in question.

What is Faith Alone?

Faith alone is the doctrine rediscovered at the Protestant Reformation. It basically identifies the instrument by which a person recieves salvation. The Reformers held that God justifies (accounts as righteous) a person based on the work of Christ applied to them through faith. Because Christ's works are perfect, the faithful person is immediately acceptable to God, and thus has eternal salvation. The question then comes up:

'what about good works?" If a person is saved by having faith in Jesus Christ, do they need to do anything else? Shouldn't they also be trying to be good people?'

I've mentioned this in another post, but I think it should be mentioned here: faith and good works are distinct, but not separate. The Reformers certainly held that "we are justified by faith alone" but also that "the faith by which a man is justified is never alone." In other words, a person who is justified is also being sanctified. When John Martignoni points to passages in the bible which call for good works in believers, I agree wholeheartedly with the passages, but can't help but feel that John Martignoni doesn't understand the entirety of the doctrine he opposes.

James's Argument.

So, concerning John Martignoni's argument clinching verse, James 2:24, is James correcting a false doctrine? The context will help us. James actually asks the question he intends to answer in verse 14:

James 2:

14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?

James asks the question: 'can someone have true, saving faith but lack good works?' The answer James goes on to give, and the answer with which that the Reformers wholeheartedly agree is "NO!". Saving faith is always accompanied by works. These are distinct but never separate. Does a person exist who is justified but not being sanctified? NO.

From the context, we see that the verse which John Martignoni claims argues against the doctrine of faith alone is actually an argument against a wrong understanding of faith itself. We should understand verse 24 in light of verse 14.

The faith which James speaks against in James chapter 2 is so inherently different than the faith which Reformed Theology holds to, that to say that James is speaking against the doctrine of "faith alone" is either a gross misunderstanding of the doctrine itself, of what James is saying, or of both.

I disagree with you, John Martignoni. When I read Ephesians 2:8-10, I see the doctrine of faith alone...

Ephesians 2:

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

...and yes, that includes verse 10.

on the label "Evangelical"

Evangelical refers to the Greek word εὐαγγέλιον, which means "good message" or "gospel". Basically, Evangelicals are Christians who believe and proclaim the gospel. Jesus Himself proclaimed the gospel during His life:

Mark 1:14-15
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."

So, what is the gospel? As Jesus directed above, it is clear that the gospel is something to be believed. As context for why people should believe the gospel (and repent, or "turn away from their sin") is that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. These words would sound like, "You're out of time, Judgement awaits!". Belief in the gospel is associated to salvation from such a judgement as Paul notes in Romans:

Justified by Faith
Romans 1:16-17
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."

Here Paul identifies the key of the salvation is faith. Faith is basically knowledge of a thing, assent that it is true, and trust/assurance that it is true for one's self. So, what is the thing which we must have knowledge of? What is the object of faith? What is it that Christians have faith in?

Faith in God
John 17:
17:1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Jesus, as he prays to God the Father, reveals that eternal life is through knowledge of God and Jesus Christ. Do you "know" Jesus Christ? The question implies relationship. I have already asserted that Christians know Jesus to be their Savior and Lord. Through knowing Jesus, they come to know God as their father, too. (See Matthew 11:27). But how can this happen? How can a sinful person come to be a child of God, who is just?

The Great Exchange
2 Corinthians 5:
21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

In this sentence the key of the gospel is expressed. Jesus was not a sinner (he knew no sin). God the father made him to be sin (imputed the sins of believers on him) so that we might become the righteousness of God (Christ's own righteousness imputed to those who believe). Through faith, all our sins are paid for by Jesus's death. Through faith, God sees us as if we were as righteous as Christ himself. Thus God is perfectly just to accept us, because in His sight, we are His son, thus he accepts us as adopted sons. When we are judged after death, we will be judged righteous and given eternal life through faith.

Evangelicals are very sensitive about the gospel and for good reason. Not only is it the only way to God (Jesus said, no one comes to the Father except through me John 14:6), but great punishment awaits those who would preach a false gospel:

Galatians 1:9
9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

Applying the Label
I am an evangelical. I love the gospel. I can have hope because of what Christ has done. This is the good news. There is hope. It reminds me of the bumper sticker. It has the phrase: "Know Jesus, Know Peace. No Jesus, No Peace." I think it would also apply to the idea of hope: "Know Jesus, Know Hope. No Jesus, No Hope." Jesus said firmly, "No one comes to the father except through me". It is not a mere dry theology to talk about the gospel. It is the only way to peace with God.