|
I just covered this on Saturday in my teaching on Romans 7. In fact, Romans 6 and 7 are good ways to help understand this idea.
Legalism is looking at the Law that says: "Do this and live" and saying to yourself: "OK, got it, 600 laws and ordinances, everything you said, we will obey."
That is, legalism is to say, in my flesh, I have it within me to do what God requires and please Him and find approval in His sight by the keeping of His commands.
In contrast, the man saved by Grace sees the Law as something that arouses sin within his heart. He begins to realize, with eyes now open to see the wickedness of his heart, how Holy the Law is and how wicked his heart is and how the Law causes him to desire the very thing that the Law condemns. The Law reveals to him the sinfulness of sin - the ugliness of it. He despairs of himself and runs to the Cross of Christ crying: "Save Me!" and embraces Christ's penalty for sin as well as His righteousness on his behalf.
Now, God has made that man alive in Christ to see that sin and part of justification and adoption is a new heart. This new heart sees and embraces the redemption that has been accomplished in his behalf. It produces praise. It marvels at grace. The new man loves the Father - loves the One who has adopted Him and asks eagerly: "What things please you?"
He then sees the Law as reflecting the Holy character of God and in it sees the Object of His love. He can now understand David's cry: Oh, how I love your Law! Why, because it reflects the character of the One he loves.
Thus, God says: this pleases me and the man desires to do it. God says: this doesn't please me and the man desires not to do it.
Scott's joke is funny but sad. It is true that, usually, if it's something we don't like, we'll call it legalism. God says to keep the Sabbath holy, for instance. You can keep the Sabbath holy as a Pharisee and still displease God because you cannot keep it the way you're commanded: perfectly. Christ kept the Sabbath thusly. BUT, for we who are redeemed, what if God's character reveals that He hates it when people don't keep His Sabbath holy? If this is the case, then it is not legalism if somebody says: God hates it when people break the Sabbath.
Now, here is the interesting wrinkle. What does it say about the man who hears about the things that please God and he says: you're a legalist! It concerns me. Why wouldn't a man that loves God love the things that God loves? A man that constantly intersects the commands of God and says: that's legalism is probably not a Christian.
Thus, when we encounter things in the Word that we don't like, we ought to pray to God: "Conform me more to your image so that I learn to hate the things you hate and love the things you love." In other words, our dislike of the things that God approves of should cause us to desire to be sanctified rather than to come up with excuses to be rebellious.
I think many Churches, unfortunately, don't express this in a way that is helpful for people to pray for the right things. They press the conformity to the Law in a way that feeds legalism instead of love for the Law by enjoining people to "try harder". It is an inwardly focused effort at that point that sees the keeping of the Law as the thing. It loses focus on the Gospel as the source of the power for that obedience and strangles out of men the delight they should have in the Law as God's children.
|