LEGALISM

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. But 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 He 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.

Even though Paul's opposition to the Judaizers in the early church effectively stopped the entrance into Christianity 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 were wedded to the legal philosophy of the Romans by such early writers as Cicero (1st century B.C.). 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) it has formed the basis of most Roman Catholic and Protestant theology.

DISTORTIONS OF THE LAW

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 of 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. [1] Before the law was given and written down, it existed in the nature of God. 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 fellowmen (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 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 like God because he possesses a moral and rational nature like 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. The depersonalization of the law thus necessarily 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 legally entitled to (he has earned it and justice demands that he receive it) eternal life and blessedness. 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 in opposing salvation by works 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" is usually more than just a good deed or act; it is a meritorious good deed or act. The law is thus considered to be the standard by which the merits of good works can be determined. For James, on the other hand, a "work" is just a good deed or act (James 2:14-26). Since the Apostle Paul is talking about something different from James, they do not contradict each other.

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 are 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 of God and love for one's fellowmen are only laws that must be observed and rules that must not be broken, an absolute standard that one must strive to come up to.

THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE LAW

Legalism in absolutizing the law has distorted the meaning and misunderstands the place of the law in God's dealings with man. The law in its proper place in God's dealings with man must be carefully distinguished from the distortion of the law that results from the legalistic absolutizing of the law. The failure to make this distinction between the proper understanding of the law and the legalistic misunderstanding of the law has led to much confusion in the discussion about the relationship of the law to the gospel. The distinction between the law and the gospel is not the same as the distinction between legalism and the gospel. The distinction between the law and the gospel is the distinction between the old Mosaic covenant and the new covenant. Whereas the distinction between legalism and the gospel is the distinction between salvation by meritorious works and salvation by grace though faith. The law as the old Mosaic covenant is not legalism and does not contain any of the legalistic distortions and abuses of law discussed above. These were introduced later by the Pharisees, etc. Legalism has taken some elements of the Mosaic covenant of the law and has exaggerated them, distorting them into something that God did not intend or reveal. The apparent truth of legalism stems from these elements of the Mosaic covenant that legalism has distorted.

There are two of these elements in particular that legalism has distorted which need to be especially noted here.

1. The first is the meaning of sin. With the revelation of the law, sin becomes a transgression of the law. Under the law sin becomes more than just any choice contrary to faith and trust in the true God; it becomes the transgression of a God-revealed command. Now in legalism this element that a transgression of the law is sin is taken, reversed and generalized into a universal definition of sin: sin is any transgression of or want of conformity to the law (the Larger Catechism of the Westminster Assembly). Sin is thus defined in terms of the law as a universal standard. What was true in a particular situation under the Mosaic covenant, legalism has generalized into a universal definition of sin that is true everywhere and always. And to justify this universal definition, legalism assumes contrary to explicit statements of Scripture (Rom. 2:14; 5:13) that there is a universal standard, a law of nature, that exists everywhere and in the conscience of everyone. Legalism thus has taken an element of the Mosaic covenant that a transgression of the law is sin and reversed it and generalized it into the definition of sin, distorting the Biblical meaning of sin. A transgression of the law is sin, but sin is not just a transgression of the law.

2. A second element of the Mosaic covenant that legalism has distorted is the relationship of death to sin. Under the Mosaic covenant of law, spiritual and physical death becomes the result of personal sins (Ezek.18:4,20,28; Deut. 24:16; Isa.59:2). This relationship between sin and death is, with the coming of the law, superimposed upon the more basic and primary relationship of sin-because-of-death (Rom. 5:12-14). The coming of the law did not change this basic relationship: man sins because of spiritual death (Rom. 5:12d). The law only adds to the already existing relationship of sin-because-of-spiritual-death the relationship of spiritual-death-because-of-sin. The law makes spiritual death also the results of personal sin (Isa. 59:2). Legalism now takes this relationship of death-because-of-sin and generalizes it into the universal principle that death, spiritual, physical, as well as eternal death, is always the result of sin. Death is always understood to be the punishment for sin. The more basic and primary relationship of sin-because-of-spiritual-death is either unrecognized or ignored or denied by legalism. According to legalism death is always the result of sin and never the other way around. And because death is considered always to be the penalty of sin, legalism cannot understand the more basic and primary relationship of sin-because-of-death and therefore thinks it is impossible. Again legalism has taken an element of the Mosaic covenant, that under the law spiritual and physical death as well as eternal death is the result of sin, and exaggerates it by generalizing it into a universal principle, distorting the Biblical view of the relationship of death to sin.

ENDNOTES

[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 not 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. Clinton Walker Keyes, in The Loeb Classical Library
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1961), pp. 379-383.