Most Christians know that they are saved by grace, but once saved, many people live their lives as if their continued favor in the sight of God is based upon their good moral life or actions. Even those of us who knew that we were loved by our parents, know the feeling of shame that comes from disappointing our mom or dad. Unfortunately, many of us carry the shame of parental disapproval based on our action into our relationship with God. Whether it was meant or not, we got the message that we were not acceptable when we did bad things. We confuse seeing the behavior as bad, with seeing ourselves as bad.
There are many ways that we can be deceived or blind. One example is not recognizing our ability to believe two or more conflicting things at the same time. We believe one thing deep inside while professing another thing with our conscious minds. Our professed doctrine and internal beliefs are at odds with each other, because what we truly believe in our hearts and what we think we believe can be two different things. Many Christians profess to believe that we are saved by faith, not by works, but live out a gospel of good behavior and dependence on self-effort. If we don’t examine our deeply held beliefs, we may accidentally fall into legalism.
Legalism– In theology, legalism is defined as the doctrine that salvation or “favor from God,” is gained through good works, and the judging of conduct in terms of adherence to precise laws or commands.
There are several types of legalism, but the type I am addressing is not the type that claims that salvation is gained by works, but the type that practices Christianity as if obeying rules and regulations was the main point. In this distortion, the keeping of God’s laws is seen as an end in itself. A person tries hard to follow the laws, and when they keep them, they have achieved the goal of being a “good Christian,” and when they break the laws they are not a “good Christian.” The goal becomes earning affirmation and worthiness from those in authority through being good.
However, the truth is, God wants us to experience the freedom and Life that Adam and Eve experienced in the Garden. He wants to rescue our hearts, not our behavior. God is the source of Life. As we are loved alive by Him, we begin to see the truth of who He is, who we are, and how life is meant to be lived. As the lies that we believed are uncovered, we begin to internalize Truth, and our behavior will change as a result of Truth, rather than will-power. But our good behavior isn’t the goal. The goal is Life. God’s power, not ours transforms our hearts and gives us Life.
These two descriptions may sound very similar because they both result in changed behavior but the difference is in the purpose, power, and motivation for following God.
These are the Main Components to a Legalistic Approach:
We try really hard to follow all of God’s laws, and we get really good at it, and it feels good. We alternate between pride and self-condemnation. We define sin to include only behaviors, so that we can follow all of the laws and see ourselves as “good Christians.” We blind ourselves to our own personal sin. If we were to see that our pursuit of security and significance in success or goodness is just as sinful, it would destroy the sense of value we gain from being good. This blindness to sin leads to a sense of pride from earning our goodness by being good. But, we eventually fail to live up to this standard, so we experience self-condemnation and believe that we are worse than everyone else, and therefore worthless.
We see everything as either black or white. Everything is interpreted in terms of whether it is absolutely right or wrong; sin or not sin. “Being right” is made to be the highest priority. At any point in time, we feel we can evaluate ourselves as either being “in sin” or not being “in sin”. We are either “on the right path” or “in disobedience”. And we tend to evaluate others this way as well. People are seen according to their being in or out of sin.
In a sense, we believe perfection is possible. We believe that if we are really committed to Christ and we try our very hardest to follow all of the rules, we could do it. We believe that those who struggle spiritually are morally defective, including ourselves. We believe leaders can and should be morally perfect, or at least spiritually superior. We put them on a pedestal and believe they have achieved holiness, and we compare ourselves to them and wonder what is wrong with us. Then when we see them fail in some way we are shocked, and disillusioned, because it doesn’t make any sense with our belief that people are either good or bad, sinless or sinful.
We find ourselves laying guilt and shame on others. We shame others by pointing out their failures. “You have not loved well, cared well or tried hard enough.” “You have not been a good enough son, daughter, or Christian.” If you were a good Christian, you would- fill in the blank. We shame ourselves as well. The goal of this shame is behavior change. We believe that shame is a good motivator.
Over time we find ourselves judging others. We find others guilty and we condemn them. We see ourselves as having sinned less than others and we believe that puts us above them; in a position to judge. We entertain feelings of superiority, indignation, and condemnation toward others who have sinned. We punish others by yelling, intimidating, and withholding relationship. We may call this Matthew 18, but if is punitive or done without humility, gentleness, and patience, it is not Matthew 18. Whether our judgment is acted out, or is only in our hearts, this is not our role as fellow sinners and strugglers (Matt. 7:1-5; John 8:3-8; Rom. 2:1-3; James 4:11-12). Judging and punishing others only makes sense if we believe that behavior is the most important thing, and that people can avoid sin and, in a sense, be perfect if they try hard enough. But neither of these premises are true.
We see those who have made mistake as “damaged goods.” We lose respect for them because of their “failure.” This thinking applies to ourselves as well. We believe that once we mess up we are ruined. We missed the standard and we are left with no way back. We are overcome with feelings of failure, shame, worthlessness and defeat.
We force ourselves to behave in ways that we really don’t believe in. We are constantly conflicted within ourselves because we want to be good, so we do those good things, but we don’t really want to do the good things, and we are actually bitter about having to do those good things, but we really don’t know why or with whom.
Legalism is a whole system or false beliefs. One false belief leads to another. And legalism can be practiced without God. If we are able to be sinless by trying hard, we don’t need God’s power or his grace. If we can be perfect by trying hard, we have every reason to be prideful and self-righteous. If we have our own righteousness, then we don’t need the righteousness of Christ.
No one would ever purposely decide to be a legalistic Christian, but our experiences, false interpretations, or distorted teachings that we hear, influence our deeply held beliefs. Over time we find ourselves accepting certain lies and practices, and we end up becoming legalistic in our approach to Christianity.
If we want to experience the Life that God has for us and a true heart change, we need to make ourselves available to the Holy Spirit to illuminate any lies that we have unintentionally come to believe.
When we stop focusing on our own will-power to change our behavior, and we open ourselves up to the work of the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts by his love and grace, our lives become an outflow of our identity as dearly loved children.
When we understand and experience the truth of God’s Grace, we begin to see ourselves the way God sees us. When we stop expecting perfection of ourselves, shaming ourselves, judging ourselves, and punishing ourselves, we stop doing it to others. We will never be able to accomplish this by sheer will power. We need the Holy Spirit to illuminate the lies we have adopted, so that He can transform our hearts rather than just our behavior. This is the ongoing process of spiritual growth.
