Dwight Fletcher | The lie of legalism

It is easy to follow a rule or law once it is clearly stated. Deciding to agree with it is another matter, but once it’s in black and white, there is no denying what it requires. This seems to be why Christians are sometimes drawn to living strictly by ‘the rules’.

Last week, we started this conversation by looking at the race that we are called to run in Christ. We saw that oftentimes when we realise that we are not living the way God wants us to, we tend to develop a rules-based, legalistic response to make up for our shortcomings. That response, unfortunately, is not what God wants because it focuses on ‘I’ and can lead to self-righteousness. Legalism focuses on the individual and takes our focus off Christ.

Colossians 2:23 (NIV) states: “Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.” In essence, even if we know all the rules, understand all the dos and don’ts, and agree to do them, these won’t help us restrain our sinful impulses.

Charles Spurgeon said, “I have found in my own spiritual life that the more rules I lay down for myself, the more sins I commit.”

Paul calls the attitude towards legalism “the basic principles of this world”. The first time is at the end of Colossians 2:8 (NIV), which states, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.” In that verse, these “basic principles” are tied together with “hollow [or empty] and deceptive philosophy”, and they stand in opposition to Christ.

The concept is also addressed in Galatians 4:3-4 (NLT): “… We were like children; we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world. But when the right time came, God sent his Son … .” The solution is found in Jesus! Galatians 5:1 (NLT) tells us, “So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.”

From the verses that we have read, it is clear that legalism was a principle that we lived by before Christ and something that the Colossian Christians were in danger of going back to. The basic principles of the world have to do with man’s own ideas about how he can be right with God. That way is through keeping the ‘law’ literally or by ‘being good’. According to author John MacArthur, it is the “idea of achieving divine acceptance by one’s own efforts”. Rules may be easier, but they are useless when based on man’s ideas of how to please God. They are “empty”, “deceptive”, “weak”, and “enslaving”. They have no power to help us live a free life.

That’s the way the Jews used to think before Christ came and told them that the way to God was not through the law but through faith. Yet, many of them still thought that faith in Jesus was not enough. People today have the same idea: “If I can just be good enough, then God will love me and let me into heaven.” This is the lie of legalism, and it robs us of what God has for us.

But if this is not the way, then what is? Next week, we will explore the answer to this question according to the Word of God.