Legalism & Lawlessness in the Church
There are two major errors that plague the Christian faith. They are Legalism and Lawlessness. Both distort the truth concerning salvation by grace.
Legalism is when people mistakenly think they have to be “good enough” in order to be saved, or to maintain their salvation. Legalists try to put God in their debt by keeping His laws. They are saying in their hearts, “Okay God, I obeyed you, so now you have to reward me.” Legalism leads to self-righteousness (if you are good at it), but it leads to discouragement when you are not. It dishonors Christ by failing to rest in the sufficiency of what He has done for us.
Lawlessness, on the other hand, is when people presume upon the grace of God, treating God’s forgiveness as if it were a license to keep on sinning. They wrongly think that since they have been saved by grace, they can continue living in their sins as if sin no longer matters to God. That is simply not true. Lawlessness dishonors God, but it is also destructive to the sinner. Christ died to set us free, not only from the punishment our sins deserve, but also from the harms our sins do to ourselves and others.
Both Legalism & Lawlessness Are Distortions of Christianity!
Both of these errors are wrong, but they are wrong for opposite reasons. They are like two ditches on either side of a road. The road itself is living joyfully under the reign of our living Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. On this road we get to obey, not in order to be saved, but because, by His grace, through our faith in Him, we are already saved. We can rest from all our efforts to earn His favor because, by His mercy, we already have His favor. The sad thing is that when we obsess too much over staying out of one ditch or the other, we swerve into the ditch on the other side of the road.The Legalist can become Lawless and the Lawless one can become Legalistic.
What is God’s Solution?
This dilemma is resolved by what the Apostle Paul wrote to a young pastor named Timothy. “Study to shew yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15 KJV). Now “rightly dividing” God’s Word may sound a bit audacious, but the Bible requires us to correctly apply the right passages to the right situations at any given point in our lives— before and after salvation.
Two Major Divides
God’s Word, the Bible, never changes. But thankfully we do change. We don’t have to remain in our sinful way of life forever. As we sing in the old hymn, Amazing Grace,
“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found. T’was blind but now I see.”
As we experience God’s amazing grace it transforms us. Though we are all “lost” at one point, we can be “found.” Having been spiritually “blind” in the past, we can eventually “see.” For that reason, not every passage of Scripture can rightfully apply to us at the same time. As we pass from unbelief to faith, different verses will apply to us in very different scenarios that I call “scenes.”
#1. The Courtroom Scene
God is the God of Justice. He must punish all those who have rebelled against His will. In the Courtroom Scene of His justice, we find ourselves on trial. Nothing we have done in the hope of being “good enough” to earn God’s favor will stand up in His Courtroom. We are guilty as charged and have only our own death to offer as payment for our sin. We would be doomed, if it were not for Jesus.
But Jesus Christ, our great Savior and Attorney, addresses the Judge. “Your Honor, if it please the Court, I have already paid this sinner’s debt. I shed my own blood on the cross for this scoundrel. And as You know, I had no debt of My own to pay. So, I have agreed to have my death applied to his account. He has put his faith in Me to be his Savior, and so, according to Our Plan of Salvation, he now belongs to Me.”
There is silence in the courtroom as the angels lean in to hear God’s verdict. “Case dismissed!” the Judge cries out. And so, the Judge has ruled in our favor. There is nothing more for us to say or do in the Courtroom Scene of God’s justice. Our chains are removed. Our guilt has been paid in full by Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. We are now free to go. But free to go where?
#2. The Family Room Scene
From the Courtroom Scene we are ushered into the Family Room Scene. With all charges against us having been dropped, we have now been “born-again” as a “child of God.” We are no longer “dead in our trespasses and sins.” We have “passed from death into life” by receiving a “new heart” and a “new spirit” (Ezek. 36:25- 27). We’ve been adopted into God’s eternal family and so a whole new set of passages of Scripture now apply to us.
In the Family Room Scene God is now our Heavenly Father rather than our Judge. Jesus is now our older Brother and Lord. This is where so many new Christians get things wrong. This Family-Room Scene is where the twin errors of Legalism and Lawlessness are most likely to show up. By getting confused about which Bible verses now apply to us, we can easily end up in one ditch or the other.
To “Rightly Divide the Word of Truth” We Must Know Our Bible.
When Paul wrote, “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15), he probably had legalism and lawlessness in mind because a different set of Bible verses apply in the Family Room.
For example, if we apply the famous Courtroom Scene passage about having been “saved by grace through faith” and “not of works lest anyone boast” (Eph. 2:8-9) to our new life in the Family Room, we can mistakenly think we no longer have any responsibility to do what we know pleases God. That would be the ditch of Lawlessness. That passage applies ONLY to our justification by faith alone in the Courtroom Scene of God’s justice. It does NOT exempt us from living to please our Heavenly Father as a member of His loving Family. God has plans for us as His children.
In fact, we read in the very next verse, in Eph. 2:10, that “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” This passage speaks clearly to the Family Room Scene where God has “prepared good works for us to do.” Hebrews 12:5-11 tells us God will discipline us as His children when we disobey Him. But He will NEVER disown us!
So, if we, as believers in Christ, mistakenly apply Eph. 2:10 to our Court Room Scene, we would be committing the error of thinking our “good works” somehow add support to our justification before God. They don’t! When we do that, we are swerving into the ditch of Legalism, thinking we can only keep our salvation by being “good enough.”
Stay on the Road!
So, there is a ditch on both sides of the road of Christianity: Legalism and Lawlessness. Both are wrong. The road itself is living joyfully under the reign of our Lord, Jesus Christ. That is our new life in God’s family.
Got questions? Please call or text me at 971-370-0967. If we meet, I’ll buy your coffee.
Are You Looking for a Good Church? Consider visiting Gracious Cross Reformed Church. We gather on Sunday mornings at 10:00am in northeast Salem. Gregg Harris, the author of this article, is our teaching pastor. To learn more and listen to sermons, go online to www.graciouscross.org.
