WARNING AGAINST LEGALISTIC CULTS !!! BEWARE OF DOGS !!! Philippians 3:2 Watch out for "dogs," watch out for evil workers, watch out for those who mutilate the flesh. The following definitions and descriptions of legalism offer various insights into the meaning of a term that is not found as a word in the Bible. “The attempt to acquire merit before God through the performance of various rituals and practices.” “Legalism is a distortion of obedience that can never produce truly good works. Its first fault is that it skews motive and purpose, seeing good deeds as essentially ways to earn more of God’s favour than one has at the moment. Its second fault is arrogance. Belief that one’s labour earns God’s favour begets contempt for those who do not labour in the same way. Its third fault is lovelessness in that its self-advancing purpose squeezes humble kindness and creative compassion out of the heart. So far, then, from enriching our relationship with God, as it seeks to do, legalism in all its forms does the opposite. It puts that relationship in jeopardy and, by stopping us focusing on Christ, it starves our souls while feeding our pride. Legalistic religion in all its forms should be avoided like the plague.” “Legalism is the attempt to please God by erecting hard and fast rules where the Bible does not give them, and then making them binding on oneself and others. It is not a matter of following those things that are commanded, or that have clear biblical principles associated with them. It is a matter of raising so-called doubtful things to the level of commands.” “Legalism effectively ousts love as the dynamic of the gospel and the Christian life (and so banishes joy from religion), by reducing both to obedience or conformity to a set of external commands or rules, after the manner of the scribes and Pharisees in the gospels.” “The Pharisees mistook religious practices for real devotion. Have we not known people who kept all the rules, whose habits were faultless, and yet whose “sanctity” was cold and unattractive? They lacked a sense of the significant, giving priority to trivialities, putting procedure before people, and conformity before compassion. Their religion was all law and no grace.” “Legalism is an attitude, a mentality based on pride. It is an obsessive conformity to an artificial standard for the purpose of exalting oneself. A legalist assumes the place of authority and pushes it to unwarranted extremes. It results in illegitimate control, requiring unanimity, not unity. Pride, which is at the heart of legalism, works guilt, fear and shame. It leads to an emphasis on what should not be, and what one should not do. It flourishes in a drab context of negativism.” “Legalistic obedience, life before God based on religious achievement, does not bring one into right relationship with God (Galatians 2:16; 3:3) but to alienation from him (Galatians 5:4), to rejection of God’s grace (Galatians 2:21), to a life of legalistic bondage (Galatians 4:9, 21; 5:1), and to the curse of death. (Galatians 3:10–13)” “Whenever men forget the love and the forgiveness and the service and the mercy that are at the heart of religion and replace them by the performance of rules and regulations religion is in decline. Christianity has at all times consisted far more in doing things than in refraining from doing things. People matter far more than systems. Persons are far more important than rituals. The final arbiter in the use of all things is love and not law.” [1 “Is it fundamentally a matter of what we do for God or of what He has done for us? The truth is we cannot boast in ourselves and in the cross simultaneously. If we boast in ourselves and in our ability to save ourselves, we shall never boast in the cross and in the ability of Christ crucified to save us. We have to choose. Only if we have humbled ourselves as hell-deserving sinners shall we give up boasting of ourselves, fly to the cross for salvation and spend the rest of our days glorying in the cross.” [14] Summary Legalism attempts to please God with man-made rules that are directly opposite to God’s saving grace in Christ. It is contrary to the principle of faith as it attempts to add to the work of the Cross by Law-like works and thus deny the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice. It undermines Christian assurance and joy and makes for a self-centred introspective spirituality. Since it is spiritual and often respectable, it is subtle, deadly and dangerous. It is based on human pride in the obedience accomplished and in the works performed. It causes a man to adopt false priorities and values while at the same time he considers that he is growing in grace and holiness.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 07:19:34 +0000
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