Legalism and Grace
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
This is a subject that creates more problems in churches and in the lives of Christians than almost any other. We all know from the deep study of Scripture that there is no place for works in the gaining or the keeping of our salvation. It is all by faith and faith alone. Not faith as some force or energy or belief system, but specific faith in Jesus Christ—who He is and what He did—and particularly in what He did at Calvary. While most of us know this, legalists (those who believe we must strive to keep the law in order to be sanctified before God) raise points that need to be discussed.
I want to go on record as saying I understand the impetus toward right living. Holiness is what we are called to. But while I admire and sympathize and entirely agree with the legalist and the holiness people who correctly discern that we should live holy, I cannot agree in the least with their idea as to how we do that—a position I draw exclusively from Scripture. As you have frequently heard me say, "Holiness preachers have the correct diagnosis; but the wrong prescription." They prescribe the wrong cure. Holiness is a product of the working of the Holy Spirit in us as we yield to Him, not a product of our own efforts. When we get to Heaven we will have NOTHING of which to boast. Were we able to overcome by our own efforts, to live holier than the next person by our own efforts, we would be able—with the Pharisee who in fact did live in utter outward holiness—to look at the one falling short and know that we were better. And when we arrive in Heaven we would be able to take our crown and say I EARNED this. But nothing could be further from the truth.
No man can—or will ever be able to—glory in God's Presence. Yet, if I COULD keep all of the commandments, I would be able to glory for I would be a perfect man. But there has only ever been ONE perfect man—and His name is Jesus. Only the Christ, the Messiah, God Himself in the flesh could make such a claim and be worthy of such glory. I am RECKONED to be perfect because Christ's perfection is imputed to me by God in His grace, through my faith in Jesus and all that He did for me on the Cross. There is absolutely NOTHING that He left unfinished there. This is the plain teaching of Scripture. And the substance of my faith. Thus nothing need be added. Nothing COULD be added. It is done! Everything. All that I could ever need for my salvation, my sanctification, and my glorification. And all that you or anybody else could ever need, as well.
LEGALISM IS ENTICING
But legalism is a very enticing thing. It gives us a feeling of having done something. It allows us to consider ourselves as having done something worthy, something pleasing to God. But God is pleased—WELL pleased, for that matter—in only one thing: His Son. We ourselves please God when we order our lives IN Christ. Faith pleases God. And it alone among men is accepted by Him. As Paul successfully argues in Romans and Galatians, God's righteousness was imputed to man by faith, long before the law was given. He points out that long after Abraham was reckoned righteous by faith the law was given by Moses as a school teacher to lead men to Christ. You see the law showed man his sin and then necessitated him expiating that sin. And the only way to expiate it was through the sacrifice of a living creature. Thus the principle of substitutionary sacrifice was inculcated in mankind. At least, to those who were given God's Word to preserve. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, the religious leaders lost sight of that fact and had elevated the law and its rituals to the position of supremacy over man and the ultimate means of pleasing God.
The prophets, however, in veiled manner (for it was veiled to them, too) proclaimed and preserved God's plan for the restoration of mankind to Himself... so that when that plan came to fruition, starting in a stable in Bethlehem and being utterly finished on a cross on Calvary, we could see that this indeed was His plan and that it was perfect.
LEGALISM RESULTS IN SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS
Legalism actually desires to hold on to some of the old so that man may feel some sense of worth in the process. "See? I am obedient to you and have kept your law." But only Christ could say that. When we think we are able to keep God's law, we naturally develop an idea that we are morally superior to those who don't. After all, we are obeying God, whereas others are not. This is simply self-righteousness.
LEGALISM LEADS AWAY FROM GOD
Self-righteousness, however, is not the worst of the legalists' doctrine. The worst is that it not only inevitably leads to an eventual improved view of self, it leads away from the truth of God's Word. It directs our gaze from Christ's finished work, to our unfinished work; and entices our efforts into keeping the commandments. Yes, we can put all of our focus and effort into fighting our flesh, and keeping the law: but we will be no more successful than the Pharisee; and we will have replaced faith with works. As soon as you plan works, they obviate faith. You cannot have the two as an impetus. The legalist doesn't understand that. In their unlearned desire to please God they conflate the two and believe that law and grace, faith and works can operate together to keep man in God's favor. But law and grace, faith and works, can no more exist together as a means than could wool be mixed with linen. God in that latter prohibition was teaching both that His people should not mix with the people of the world and that law cannot be mixed with grace.
THE SOURCE OF OUR SALVATION AND OUR SANCTIFICATION
Our salvation is either ALL of Christ ... or it is NONE of Christ. Paul is emphatic on that. In fact, it is the Holy Spirit who is emphatic on that because, after all, Paul wrote as the Spirit led him to write. ALL scripture is God-breathed. As soon as you add law to grace, you have accepted another gospel and you are not of Christ. You have turned from His gospel and accepted another.
By the same token, our sanctification is either ALL of Christ ... or it is not of Christ at all. The Holy Spirit, through Paul's letter to the churches in Galatia, made that very clear. "Who has bewitched you?" he says. "I marvel that you are so soon turned away from Him who called you ... You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion did not come from Him who calls you ... You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness."
SANCTIFICATION IS BY GRACE ALONE
As Paul taught and as I teach, we are sanctified in exactly the same way we are saved: by hearing God's Word and believing it, placing our faith in the all-sufficiency of the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. Either we believe Christ truly saves and keeps us; or we do not. The flesh wants to have some part; but it can no more have a part than Ishmael could share the right of the firstborn with Isaac, than Hagar could share the marital bed with Sarah.
No man may glory before God; but as the Pharisees and Sadducee and Rabbis and Scribes demonstrated, man loves to glory and being diligent in one's religion gives him whereof to boast. Nor do we have to go back two thousand years for that evidence. Look at the religious legalists of our day—the leaders and prominent purveyors of false religions that glory in ritual and regulation—and you will see pride in self, the flesh in all of its ugliness. So, once and for all, remove from your minds the idea that you need to perform works of any kind to supplement your faith. It is not true. It is not scriptural.
SANCTIFICATION AND LAWLESSNESS
The opposite error of legalism is antinomianism. That's a word taken from the Greek. Anti means "against"; nomos means "law". Thus an antinomian is one who is against the law. And that is as great an error as legalism. Those of us who preach grace alone operating through faith alone, are often accused of being antinomian. But that is a lie. In his epistle to the churches in Galatia, from which I quoted freehand above, after chiding the readers for bringing law into grace, Paul says this:
"Use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." (Galatians 5:13b-14)
We are given complete liberty in Christ ... because Christ paid the entire penalty of our entire sin and at the same time freed us entirely from the outward keeping of the law which requires the working of the flesh rather than the working of faith. BUT WE ARE NOT TO USE THAT FREEDOM TO INDULGE OUR FLESH!!! To do so is to sin. Now, by confessing that sin, God is faithful to forgive us ... as often as we ask for that forgiveness. But we are not to tempt God. And to purposefully sin in the belief that God will always forgive you is tempting God. Trust me, He has ways of chastening that will cause you to stop!
SANCTIFICATION PRODUCES SECURITY
But there is something else you need to consider. When you are born again you are restored to relationship with God. But more than that, you are made one with Christ. You are placed in Him and He is placed in you by the Holy Spirit ... a transaction that cannot be undone, providing you in truth in the very center of your heart have come to Christ. When He accepts you, He promises to keep you. You are born again, a brand new creature. And no more can you return to being an old creature than a butterfly can again be a caterpillar.
That said, the mark of this new life is a new heart, a heart that desires to please God. We may not always succeed; but we will always desire to please Him. Every time we fail and fall, we are broken inside because we have hurt our Lord. We feel He has every reason, every right, to cast us away. He won't, though, for we are bound to Him by our faith and sealed to Him by the Holy Spirit. And nothing can overcome God and His Word.
Even those with besetting sins, battles with a sin which they repeatedly lose, are not cast away; but by bonds of love are convicted and eventually by faith are delivered. If this describes you, do not fear. Remember, you are already reckoned blameless and holy in God's eyes, and that blamelessness and holiness (that is to say, your sanctification) is being worked out in your actual life by the Holy Spirit who operates in you as you maintain absolute faith in what Christ fully provided for you at the Cross. The mark you are His is the discouragement and dissatisfaction you feel at your failure. Were you not His, you would not really care.
And that brings me to this: if you claim to be saved, but are continuing in sin, leading your life just in whatever way pleases you, and do not care at all but excuse your sin, I would suggest you need to get real with God. I cannot judge your heart, but I can tell you that you have no fruit that indicates you are saved. If there has been no inward change in you but your life continues on as it did before—the only difference being that you said a salvation prayer or even got baptized—then I would suggest you are not saved. If there is no change, there is no salvation.
But in salvation, there is a change. It begins inwardly, and is sure to occur—sometimes in an instant,sometimes manifested over a period of time. But that change IS ALWAYS PRESENT. It may take a long time to be manifested outwardly so others can plainly see; but it will be present inwardly and others with the Holy Spirit will often sense it. But if there is no inner change, there is no salvation. Get right with God. Repent in truth, and believe in truth. And if it all seems like just a mental or intellectual exercise to you, then do this one thing: say "God, please bring me to the point of true repentance." That is a prayer He will answer.
God's will for every person is to be restored to relationship with Him. Thus He will indeed accept all who come to Him in truth. And He will call all whom He knows will respond. But after being restored to relationship with God by His grace through our faith in Jesus Christ and His finished work at Calvary, it is God's will that we begin to walk worthy of that calling. We are called to walk as children of light. We are told to having nothing to do with the unfruitful works of darkness, to no longer walk as pagans in sin. In this the holiness people are absolutely correct. We should ALL be holiness people in this regard. But it is also here where they go off the rails. I will not repeat why: I made that plain earlier. Instead I will share what they miss: the Scriptural way to holiness.
God tells us through Paul in the same letter to the Galatians that I referred to above. He says, "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that you cannot do the things that you would. But if you are led of the Spirit, you are not under the law." (Galatians 5:16-18)
Now how do we walk in the Spirit? Well, we do it by minding spiritual things. We order our lives around prayer, the word and worship. But most of all we live our lives each day by faith. BY FAITH … trusting that Christ indeed has provided everything necessary for us and believing that, as we desire it, those things will be manifested in our lives. Just as we appropriate salvation to ourselves by faith, we appropriate sanctification to ourselves by faith. Truly the just shall live by faith! But Paul says the flesh lusts against the Spirit. In other places he says we must put the flesh to death. How do we do that? How do we conquer the flesh? It is revealed to us in Romans 8:13— "...if we by the Spirit put to death the works of the flesh...." This tells us that it is by the Spirit that the works of the flesh are put to death. We trust Christ that He has provided all we need and the Holy Spirit that He will work it out in us as we actively exercise our faith in Christ's finished work at the Cross: not trusting in our efforts but entirely in His.
Now, notice I said the word "actively" with regard to practicing our faith. It is not something passive. It is something we have to consciously do. It does not happen by chance; but by continual active decisions on our part. Daily. Every time we are faced with a temptation, a trial, a moment of discouragement. WE need to WALK our faith. Every day.
And part of that is determining to walk in obedience to God. He does not ask us to do something that is impossible. Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." In other words, Christ living inside us by the Holy Spirit, makes it possible to walk pleasing to the Father. He will walk out His life in us to the degree that we are willing to cooperate. And if we are not sufficiently willing, He will bring circumstances into our life to bring us to a place of separation and commitment. But the fact that it is His life and His power does not remove any responsibility on our part to cooperate.
James said works are the evidence that faith is real. Isaiah, speaks of not just willingness but obedience. As works are the proof of true faith, obedience is the proof of true willingness. When we see in Scripture, or perceive in the Spirit, God calling us to leave our former behaviors and walk in His ways then it is up to us to agree with God, submit to His will, and determine that we should walk that way. At that point, when we have firmly made the determination, we then turn from ourselves to Him and in faith trust Him to provide the ability to do that.
The fruit of the Spirit is not something we put on like a mask, but is something that is produced from within. We cannot manifest it; but IT will manifest itself. As a branch on a fruit tree need do nothing to produce fruit but remain attached to the tree which gives it life; so we as branches attached to the Vine need do nothing to produce fruit except remain firmly attached to Christ who gives us life. And that is ALL done through faith. We read His Word in faith, we pray in faith; we worship in faith; we seek to order our lives pleasing to Him in faith; we obey in faith; and we trust HIM to do the actual work in us in faith.
CONCLUSION
Do you see it? Do you see how God does the work but we need to want it done? We need to determine in our hearts to allow Him to do it? And we need to do that by faith. And faith means we RECKON that He will do the work, and in fact IS doing it. It’s all by faith. But that faith will be manifested in those practical acts I just listed. The legalist, the poor holiness person, correctly observes that God wants them to live Holy, that it is in fact a command. But he or she then determines to work that out through self effort, self denial, self works.
Instead, what they should do is determine to follow and trust God to do it. To do this appears much MUCH harder at the outset than trying to do it yourself. After all, when you do something you can see the result of your effort; you know the doing of it rests with you. But the one who operates in faith has no such concrete touchstones. They have ONLY faith. But that is exactly ALL they need. And so in the long run, exercising faith in God to do what we need done, we truly enter into His rest, we bear a lighter yoke, and discover just how easy life in Christ is. If we trust God to do it, He will; and HE alone will receive the glory. Even the crowns we shall earn in accordance with what the Bible says, will be truly His. And that is why we will cast them at His feet. We will know we do not deserve them. Worthy is the Lamb alone to receive praise and honor and power and blessing and glory!
Please do not treat this faith as something light, something you can toss off the tip of your tongue like simple word. It requires a deep commitment to Christ. And a lot hangs on it. Remember, one day you will stand alone before Christ and answer for your life. For everything. We are told to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). This does not mean we are responsible for making our salvation complete; it means we need to ensure that what is planted in us indeed has the opportunity to take root and grow. It means that we actively by faith seek to allow God to do His work in us. (And it IS Him who puts the desire in us and then does the work because the very next verse says, "for it is God that works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.")
And it means by faith that we seek to walk in obedience, trusting Him in faith to guide, and enable us. Why in fear and trembling? Because it is Almighty God who enjoins you to do this. Hell is a horrible place and God's salvation through Christ is the only means to avoid it. One way into Heaven; millions of ways into hell. Do not be deceived. Make sure of your salvation by determining to allow God to do His work in you. Determine to be obedient when He speaks directly to your heart, and in faith trust Him to make your obedience both possible and productive, and so accomplishing your desire and His purpose.
It was along these lines that Paul spoke to his protégé Timothy. To this young pastor he wrote "Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee." In modern words, we would discover a full rendering of the Greek says, "Pay close attention to yourself—that is to say, to your own life—and to the teaching that you have received. Remain in these things and persist in them: for in doing so you will deliver yourself from danger, making yourself safe, and preserving yourself... not just you yourself but all who hear you."
Now, while most people are not pastors and responsible for others, all people are responsible for their own lives and have a great effect on those who observe them. By obedience to Christ we not only give evidence that we are saved, but lead others to Christ, too. And by obedience to Christ we keep ourselves from spiritual dangers that could make shipwreck of our lives.
Let us so live our lives that there will be no doubt that we are Christ's. But understand that the works that WILL be manifest in our lives if we live in that obedience are the fruit of that walk, not the cause of it.
Amen.
