LEGALISM

Author: Ray Shelton

What is legalism?
Legalism does not mean just having rules or laws; it is a misuse of rules and laws. Theologically, legalism is a distortion of the law of God, a misunderstanding of the law given by God to Israel. The law of God is not legalism. It was a covenant relationship between God and the people Israel. Unlike the covenants God made with Noah and with Abraham, which were covenants of sheer grace, with no conditions attached to the receiving of the blessings of the covenant, the Mosaic covenant was conditional. God made unconditional promises to Noah and to Abraham of what God Himself would do. But the blessings of the Mosaic covenant were conditioned upon Israel's obedience to God (Deut. 28:1-14); their disobedience to Him would bring curses upon them (Deut. 28:15-20; 30:1-20). These conditions are given in the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:3-17; Deut. 5:6-21) and other statutes and ordinances. These commandments were not an end in themselves; they were specific ways in which they were to obey God. The law is concerned with Israel's personal relationship to God: to love and obey God and not to worship or serve other gods. The history of Israel shows that they did not obey God. They disobeyed Him by turning from Him to other gods. From the time of Moses through the times of the judges and kings they kept backsliding into idolatry. The prophets over and over again rebuked them for the sin of idolatry. The curses that God said He would bring upon them for their disobedience and idolatry (Deut. 28:36-52, 63-66; 29:24-28) came upon them; they were scattered among the nations: the northern tribes in 722 B.C. by Assyria and the southern tribes in 586 B.C. by Babylonia. When they returned from the 70 years of Babylonian captivity, the Jews never again went into the idolatry of worshipping pagan gods. But it seems that very soon after the last of the O.T. prophets, Malachi, they developed an idolatry of the law. They began to trust in the law (Rom. 2:17). The law became an absolute standard to be obeyed. Obedience to the law subtly took the place of obedience to God. Keeping the law became a meritorious work that could earn God's favor and blessings. Eventually there evolved the idea that one's eternal destiny depends upon the amount of merit or demerit that one accumulates during one's life-time. This whole scheme of merit with its absolute standard of the law is what we mean by legalism.

Jesus and the early apostles, particularly Paul, opposed this Jewish legalism. Paul combated the Judaizers' attempts to put Christians under the Mosaic law. When we realize the covenant nature of the law, we can see why this was not possible. Since the Christian's relationship to God was already established in the New covenant, it could not at the same time be established under the Old Mosaic covenant. Then it must be that what the Judaizers were trying to do was to make the law in an absolute sense necessary for a right relationship to God. This is not just the Mosaic law; it is legalism. And Paul refused to allow it.

In Eph. 2:8-9, Paul contrasts salvation by grace with salvation by works.

"⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith;
and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,
⁹ not as a result of works, that no one should boast."
(Eph. 2:8-9 NAS)

"⁴ Now to the one who works his wages is not reckoned according to grace [as a gift]
but according to debt [something owed since it was earned]
⁵ But to the one who does not work,
but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly,
his faith is reckoned for righteousness." (Rom. 4:4-5 ERS).

Paul very clearly teaches that salvation is not by works ( Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5). Salvation is by grace through faith. Man cannot be saved by his good works; he cannot earn salvation by his works. This is the clear and explicit teaching of Scripture. Salvation by grace and salvation by meritorious works are mutually exclusive and opposing ways of salvation.

"But if it is by grace, it is no longer by works;
otherwise grace would no longer be grace." (Rom. 11:6)

Even though Paul's opposition to the Judaizers in the early church effectively stopped the entrance into Christianty of the Jewish legalism (see the Letter to the Galatians), this did not stop another form of the legalism from creeping into Christian thought and practice some 200 years later. In this later form of legalism, the rationalism of the Greek philosophers had been wedded to the legal philosophy of the Romans developed by such earlier writers as Cicero (1st century B.C.) [1]. This rationalistic legalism crept into Christian theology by way of a 3rd century lawyer and Christian apologist, Tertullian, and since the time of Augustine (5th century) has formed the basis of most Roman Catholic and Protestant theology.

Tertullian (160?-230? A.D.) introduced into Christian theology the whole legalistic scheme of salvation with its idea of merit in reference to penance or repentance. God cannot disregard good deeds. Tertullian said.

"God, we may be sure, will not sanction the reprobation of good deeds,
for they are His. Since He initiates and preserves them,
so also must He needs approve them; since He approves them,
so also must He reward them...
A good deed has God as its debtor
and a bad deed, also, because every judge settles a case on its merits.
Now since God presides as judge in order to exact and safeguard justice,
something so precious in His sight, and since it is for this
that He establishes every single precept of His moral law,
can it be doubted that, just as in all our actions, so, too,
in the case of repentance justice must be rendered to God?" [1]

"Faith is established in the Rule. There it has its law
and it wins salvation by keeping the law." [4]

END NOTES ON "Tertulian"

[1] Tertullian, On Pentence, 2;
William P. LeSaint, Tertullian,
Treatises on Penance: On Penitence and On Purity,
in Johannes Quasten and Walter J. Burhardt, eds.,
Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation
(Westminter, Md.: The Newman Press and
London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1959), pp. 16-17.

[2] William P. LeSaint, Tertullian, footnote 29, p. 142.

[3] Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros,
trans. Philip S. Watson
(New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1969), p. 348.

[4] Tertullian, Prescription Against Heretics in
Library of Christian Classics, vol. 5,
Early Latin Theology, ed. S. L. Greenslade
(Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1956), p. 40.

[1] "I find that it has been the opinion of the wisest men that Law is not a product of human thought, nor is it any enactment of peoples, but something eternal which rules the whole universe by its wisdom in command and prohibition. Thus they have been accustomed to say that Law is the primal and ultimate mind of God, whose reason directs all things either by compulsion or restraint.... it is the reason and mind of the wise lawgiver applied to command and prohibition.... Ever since we were children, Quintus, we have learned to call, 'If one summon another to court,' and other rules of the same kind, laws. But we must come to the true understanding of the matter, which is as follows: this and other commands and prohibitions of nations have the power to summon to righteousness and away from wrongdoing; but this power is not merely older than the existence of the nations and states, it is coeval with that God who guards and rules heaven and earth. For the divine mind cannot exist without reason, and divine reason cannot but have this power to establish right and wrong.... For reason did exist, derived from the Nature of the universe, urging men to right conduct and diverting them from wrongdoing, and this reason did not first become Law when it was written down, but when it first came into existence; and it came into existence simultaneously with the divine mind. Wherefore, the true and primal Law, applied to command and prohibition, is the right reason of supreme Jupiter."
Cicero, Laws, II, 8-10,
Cicero, De Re Publica, De Legibus,
Eng. trans. by Clinton Walker Keyes, in The Loeb Classical Library,
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1961), pp. 379-383.

Legalism in its fullest form consists of four distortions of the law.
These are the essential characteristics of legalism.

1. The first distortion of the law is the absolutizing of the law. This consists in making the law into ultimate reality. This may be done either by making the law stand by itself apart from and above God or by identifying God with the law.
   1. In the former God is seen only as a Lawgiver and Judge who gives and enforces the law that exists apart from Himself but who is ultimately subject to it. The law therefore is something eternal which rules the whole universe by commands and prohibitions; it is the primal and bedrock foundation of the moral universe. This form of absolutizing the law may be found in some forms of Judaism and in some Greek and Roman philosophy (Stoics).
   2. According to the latter form, the law is the eternal and essential nature of God ("God is a God of law" or "God is law" or "the law is the essential nature of God"). The mind and will of God expresses this ultimate nature of God. Before the law was given and written down, it existed in the mind and nature of God. [1] God, accordingly, is defined as an infinite, moral, rational being. This form of absolutizing the law is found in some Christian theologies.
   In both these forms of absolutizing the law, the law is ultimate and supreme. Individually and personally, absolutizing the law means that the law is made into one's ultimate criterion of decision; it becomes the object of trust and ultimate confidence (Rom. 2:17). Thus to absolutize the law is to make it into God. Legalism is, therefore, basically an idolatry of the law.

2. The second distortion of the law is the depersonalizing of the law. This consists of making the law into a thing that is over man and between God and man. No longer is the law just a clarification of man's relationship to God, providing guidance of man's actions in relationship to God and to his fellowman (Torah - teaching); no longer is it the terms of a covenant that God made with the children of Israel, expressing God's will toward them (in His grace and wrath) and for them (in their response to God). According to this distortion, the law now stands between God and man as a mediator, separating man from God. Instead of a face to face personal relationship to God, the relationship between man and God is depersonalized into a relationship to the law. God's relationship to man is understood only in terms of the law. God is seen only as a Lawgiver and Judge. God is not a God of love. And if God's love is recognized at all, it is subordinated to God's justice and is reduced to an emotion. Little place at all is left for God's mercy and grace. God's wrath is depersonalized into the effect of the eternal law of divine retribution. God is impelled by the demands of His own nature to punish sin; God's wrath is caused by the immutable and necessary law of moral retribution (justice) which is God's essential nature. There is little if any place for mercy in the exercise of God's wrath. God deals with man strictly on the basis of law which demands that every sin be always and exactly punished and righteous works be rewarded.

   This misunderstanding of God in terms of the law leads not only to a misunderstanding of the relationship of God to man but also of the relationship of man to God. Sin is defined in terms of the law and not in terms of God; sin is understood only as a falling short of the divine standard of the law, the breaking of the law or rules, the transgression of or want of conformity to the law in thought, word and deed. Sin is a crime and the penalty for these crimes is spiritual, physical and eternal death. Until the penalty is executed at the last judgement, man is under the burden of an objective guilt or condemnation which must be satisfied by the execution of the penalty. This objective guilt has been conceived in terms of a debt which man owes and/or as a demerit on man's record.

   Righteousness, correspondingly, is also misunderstood to be keeping of the law or rules, a conformity to the law in thought, word, and deed; legal and moral perfection. Man's highest good and final goal according this point of view is this moral perfection, this legal righteousness. To stand spotless and without legal blame before the law is thought to be man's ultimate hope. Man is misunderstood as being created under the law and for the law; he is a moral, rational animal. Accordingly, man is different from the lower animals and is like God because he possesses a moral and rational nature as God does. There is within man's conscience an absolute standard of right and wrong - the law of nature, a universal moral law. This misunderstanding of man in terms of the law follows from the misunderstanding of God in terms of the law. As a result, the relationship between God and man is depersonalized. And this depersonalization of the law follows from the absolutizing of the law.

3. The third distortion of the law is the quantitization of the law. This consists of attaching to the law's commands and prohibitions various quantities of merit and demerit. Each good act is considered as having a certain quantity of merit or worth attached to its performance, while similarly each evil act incurs a certain quantity of demerit or unworthiness. The performance of each command of the law earns the associated quantity of merit, and each prohibition the quantity of demerit. So in the course of his life a man acquires merit by his good works or demerit by his bad works (sins - transgressions of the law). At the final judgment, these will be weighed in the double pan balance of justice. And to each man, justice will render impartially that which is due to him. If the merit outweighs the demerit, the man is legally declared righteous and is legally entitled to eternal life and blessedness (he has earned it and justice demands that he receive it). On the other hand, if the demerits predominate, he justly deserves and receives eternal death, punishment, pain and suffering. Such an arrangement is called the merit scheme.

   Jesus opposed this distortion of the law in His parable of the householder (Matt. 20:1-16). The Apostle Paul also rejected this distortion when he opposed salvation by works. He refers to such meritorious works as "the righteousness of the law" (Rom. 10:5; Phil. 3:6,9) and "the works of the law" (Rom. 3:20; 4:2-5; Gal. 3:2, 5, 10). In his language, a "work of law" was usually more than just a good deed or act; it was a meritorious good deed or act. The law was considered to be the standard by which the merits of good works can be determined. For James, on the other hand, a "work" was just a good deed or act (James 2:14-26). Since the Apostle Paul was talking about something different from James, they do not contradict each other when they speak of justification by works.

4. The fourth distortion of the law is the externalization of the law. This consists of making the law regulate the outward acts and conduct rather than the inner decisions and orientation of the will. Jesus specifically opposed this distortion of the law in His Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:21-48) and elsewhere (Matt. 12:9-14). This distortion results from the quantitization of the law. In order for a person to be able to know the amount of merit or demerit of each act, the law is considered to regulate only the outward act or conduct. This distortion often leads to extensions of the law by the addition of many minute detailed regulations of conduct in order to be able to assign the correct amount of merit or demerit. These extensions of the law resulting from the externalization of the law were condemned by Jesus in His criticism of the scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 23:16-26). Legalism is not concerned with love and mercy except as a law that must be obeyed and kept. Love for God and for one's fellowman are only laws that must be observed and rules that must be kept and not broken, an absolute standard that one must strive to come up to.

These four characteristics of legalism are based on a misunderstanding of the law,
which leads to
a misunderstanding of sin,
a misunderstanding of sin and death,
a misunderstanding of righteousness,
a misunderstanding of the need for salvation,
a misunderstanding of the origin of sin,
a misunderstanding of death and sin,
a misunderstanding of salvation,
a misunderstanding of the righteousness of God,
a misunderstanding of justification by faith,
a misunderstanding of the death of Christ,
a misunderstanding of the grace of God, and
a misunderstanding of the Christian life.
Read a summary of the law and legalism.

THE LAW OF GOD

What is the law?
The term "law" is used most often in the Bible, especially in the New Testament (Matt. 5:18) and Christian theology, to refer to the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue (Exodus 20:1-17; Deut. 5:6-21), sometimes improperly called the moral law. Sometimes it is used to refer to the whole law of Moses, ceremonial as well as the Ten Commandments, statutes and ordinances (Luke 2:22; John 7:23). Sometimes it is also used to refer to the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch (Matt. 12:5; Luke 2:23- 24; 16:16; 24:44; Rom. 3:21) as well as the whole Old Testament (John 10:34, quoting Psa. 82:6; I Cor. 14:21, quoting Isa. 28:11). The Hebrew word for law, torah, means direction, guidance, instruction, teaching. As such it is that content of God's revelation of Himself which makes clear man's relationship to God and to his fellowman. It provides guidance of man's actions in relationship to God and to his fellowman. Thus it is the Word of the Lord (Deut. 5:5; Psa. 119:43, 160). It is first of all about God's act of redemption of Israel from Egypt (Ex. 20:2; Deut. 5:6; Psa. 119:174 parallelism) and then about man's obedient response to this act (Ex. 20:3-17; Deut. 5:7-21). The law is the covenant that God made with the children of Israel through Moses (Ex. 24:1-12). The commandments of the law are based upon the grace of God who provided redemption from Egypt (Deut. 4:37-40; Psa. 119:146) and are the terms of God's covenant with His people (Ex. 19:3-8; Deut. 5:1-3). In contrast to the covenants with Noah (Gen. 9:8-17) and with Abraham (Gen. 15:12-18; 17:1-14), which were covenants of sheer grace, the Mosaic covenant is conditional. God made unconditional promises to Noah and Abraham of what He would do. The blessings of these covenants were unconditional. The blessings of the Mosaic covenant are, on the other hand, conditioned upon obedience (Deut. 28:1-14) and the curses upon disobedience (Deut. 28:15-20; 30:1-20). These conditions are given in the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:3-17; Deut. 5:6-21) and other statutes and ordinances.

What is the difference between law and grace?
The difference is not: rules and no rules. The difference is in the relationship of the blessing to obedience. Under the law the bestowal of the blessing is conditioned upon obedience; obey in order to be blessed (Ezek. 18). Under grace the blessing is bestowed unconditionally to bring about obedience: obey because you are already blessed (John 13:34; Eph. 4:32; Titus 2:11-12; I John 3:3; 4:11,19). Grace appeals to the unconditioned prior bestowal of the blessing as the grounds of obedience. Law, on the other hand, appeals to obedience as the ground of the bestowal of the blessing.

The Mosaic covenant is not pure law but is based on the grace of God who graciously provided redemption for the children of Israel from the bondage in Egypt and who in free grace chose to establish His covenant with them. This redemption by God from Egypt is the grounds of the appeal for obedience to the terms of the covenant which are stated in the Ten Commandments.

"² I am the Lord your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage.
³ You shall have no other gods before me."
(Ex. 20:2-3)

"¹⁵ See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil.
¹⁶ If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God
which I command you this day,
by loving the Lord your God,
by walking in His ways,
and keeping His commandments
and His statutes and His ordinances,
then you shall live and multiply,
and the Lord your God will bless you in the land
which you are entering to take possession of it.
¹⁷ But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear
but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them,
¹⁸ I declare to you this day, that you shall perish,
you shall not live long in the land
which you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess.
¹⁹ I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day,
that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse;
therefore, choose life, that you and your descendants may live.
²⁰ loving the Lord your God,
obeying his voice, and cleaving to him;
for that means life to you and length of days,
that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers,
to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them."
(Deut. 30:15-20)

What is the purpose of the law?
Being a clarification of man's relationship to God, the purpose of the law is to expose the nature of sin (Rom. 3:20; 7:7b) and God's reaction to man's sin in the form of wrath ( Rom. 4:15; Gal. 3:10; the curse of the law = wrath of God). Therefore, to the question: "Why the law?" Paul answers in Gal. 3:19:

"It was added because of transgressions, until the seed [Christ, Gal. 3:16]
should come to whom the promise had been made;..." (ERS; cf. Rom. 5:20)

The Scriptures, and in particular the Apostle Paul, do not teach that there is a law of nature, lex naturae, after Stoic fashion. In Romans 2:15 Paul does not say that the Gentiles have "the law" (ho nomos) written on the heart, but that "the work of the law" (to ergon tou nomou) is written on their hearts. In this passage, Paul is not talking about having the law but about keeping or fulfilling the law. In the context. Paul is contrasting the Jew who has the law but does not keep it with the Gentile who does not have the law but does what the law commands. Having the law is not sufficient.

"For not the hearers of the law are righteous with God,
but the doers of the law shall be justified." (Rom. 2:13 ERS).

"But this is the covenant which I will make with
the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my law within them,
and I will write it upon their hearts;
and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."
(Jer. 31:33)

"¹⁴ For when Gentiles, not having the law, do by nature the things of the law,
these, not having the law, are a law to themselves,
¹⁵ who show the work of law written in their hearts." (Rom. 2:14-15a ERS)

The conscience does not contain an absolute standard of right and wrong as implied in the Stoic law of nature. The standard that conscience uses to judge the action of the will is relative to the ultimate criterion that the person has chosen. That is, the god that a person has chosen and worships supplies the standards of the conscience. This is why not every person has the same feelings of guilt or responsibility for his decisions or actions (I Cor. 10:28-29; 8:7). The conscience can be modified (seared or hardened, I Tim. 4:2) by rejecting the judgments of the conscience (I Tim. 1:19-20). And a weak conscience can be made strong by the increase of knowledge (I Cor. 8:7). The fact that everybody's conscience has a standard does not mean that all have the same standard. There is not in everyone's conscience a universal standard, lex naturae.

[The double genitive absolute phrase in Rom. 2:15b,
"their conscience bearing witness
and their conflicting thoughts accusing or even excusing",
is a grammatically independent clause. It should be taken with the sentence that follows, which is the usual syntax, and not with the preceding subordinate clause. It should be translated as follows:

"^15b As their conscience bears witness
and their conflicting thoughts accusing or even excusing,
¹⁶ in that day God will judge the hidden things of men
according to my gospel, through Christ Jesus." (Rom. 2:15b-16 ERS)

Can man keep the law?
Yes, he can; that is, man is able to choose to do what the law commands.

"¹¹ For this commandment which I command you this day
is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.
¹² It is not in heaven, that you should say,
'Who will go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us,
that we may hear it and do it?'
¹³ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say,
'Who will go over the sea for us, and bring it to us,
that we may hear it and do it?'
¹⁴ But the word is very near you;
it is in your mouth and in your heart,
so that you can do it." (Deut. 30:11-14)

"Is the law then against the promise of God? Certainly not;
for if a law had been given which could make alive,
then righteousness would indeed be by the law." (Gal. 3:21)

The law of God also intensifies the wrath of God against sin:

"For the law works wrath,
but where there is no law neither is there transgression" (Rom. 4:15 ERS).

"For until the law sin was in the world;
but sin is not imputed when there is no law" (Rom. 5:13 ERS).

The law came in alongside in order that the transgression might abound (Rom. 5:20b). Thus through the law, sin became exceedingly sinful (Rom. 7:13b). "Since through the law comes the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20b; see also Rom. 7:7b), the law shows what sin is and thus makes clear the true character of sin and that the basic sin is idolatry (Exodus 20:3-6; Deut. 5:7-10; 6:13-15; 8:19; 11:16-17; 29:24-27; 30:17-18). But this does not mean that sin is to be defined in terms of the law. The law just exposes its true character. The law not only reveals what sin is but also God's direct opposition to man's sin, that is, the wrath of God which is the curse of the law.

"Cursed is every one who continues not in all things
that are written in the book of the law, to do them."
(Gal. 3:10 ERS; see also Deut. 27:26; 29:27).

What the law could not do, God has done through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, His Son. God has made us alive to Himself in the resurrection of Jesus and set us free from the slavery of sin. Since the basic sin is idolatry (trust in a false god) and sin is a slavery to a slave master (John 8:34), the false god is the slave master. We were all slaves of sin once, serving our false gods when we were spiritually dead, alienated and separated from the true God, not knowing him personally. But we have been set free from this slavery of sin through the death of Christ. Jesus entered into our spiritual death and died our death. His death is our death. Now when a slave dies, he is no longer in slavery; death frees him from slavery. So we likewise have been set free from the slavery of sin having died with Christ. We have died to sin with Christ (Rom. 6:1-7). But now Christ is alive, having been raised from the dead, and we have been made alive to God together with Him in His resurrection. His resurrection is our resurrection. We are no longer slaves of sin but have become slaves of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Now that we are alive to God in Him, we have become slaves of righteousness (Rom. 6:17-18). For just as death produces sin, so life produces righteousness. Since we have passed from death to life, we have been saved from sin to righteousness (I Peter 2:24).

From the Biblical point of view the law has three serious weaknesses (Rom. 8:3).

1. The law cannot remove the wrath of God but causes wrath ( Rom. 4:15; Gal. 3:10; the curse of the law = the wrath of God). And the law cannot remove the wrath of God because
2. it cannot take away sin (Heb. 10:1-4, 15-18). Not only is the law unable to take away sin, but it causes sin (Rom. 7:5, 8, 11, 13). This is not because the law is evil (on the contrary, it is holy, righteous and good, Rom. 7:12) but because
3. the law cannot make alive ( Gal. 3:21). The law cannot deliver man from the death that has been passed to him from Adam (Rom. 5:12, 15, 17). On the contrary, it brings death (Rom. 7:10-11, 13). The law makes death, primarily physical death, the result of personal sins (Ezek. 18:4, 20; Deut. 24:16; Isa. 59:2) and superimposes this relationship of death-because-of-sin upon the more basic relationship of sin-because-of-death (Rom. 5:12d ERS; Gal. 4:8). But the law did not change this more basic relationship; man sins because of spiritual death. And the law cannot remove this death, and therefore cannot remove sin. Also, since the law cannot make alive, it cannot produce righteousness ( Gal. 3:21) and therefore peace with God (Rom. 5:1). Christ is the end of the law for righteousness (Rom. 10:4) because He alone can and did remove death and does make alive and thereby make righteous.

END NOTES FOR "LAW OF GOD"

[1] W. Gutbrod, "anomia", in
Theological Dictionary of the New Testament,
ed. Gerhard Kittel, translator, Geoffrey W. Bromiley
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1967), Vol. IV, p.1086.