Legalism is a touchy subject. Of course, no Christian should ever willingly and boastfully admit they are a legalist. Sadly, however, being blind to their legalistic ways would probably be one of the top hallmarks of being a legalist. There's another top mark that's easily noticed. I have found, through testimonies of others, and my own life experiences, that legalists don't care for their practices being called out. At all. They will rally all kinds of reasons why, either what they do isn't legalism, or that it's actually a good thing. Therefore, I think it's important to address some of the common objections to anti-legalism. I pray this helps promote clarity and understanding on the subject for all of us. Before we begin, it may be helpful to review Michael Kurger's article on the definitions of legalism.
He defines three kinds of legalism:
A. Salvation-Legalism (Requiring works for salvation itself)
B. Rule-Legalism (Requiring unbiblical men-made rules in addition to God's rules.)
C. Tone-Legalism (A heavy-handed, fault-finding, intolerant attitude of law-keeping)
So, in light of these definitions, let's take a lot at some objections that may come up.
However, as you'll note, the objections center more on the latter two definitions, as the first is usually rejected quite soundly, in most areas, by legalistic churches.
1. Tone-Legalism doesn't exist, it is only pastors rightly warning against sin.
I want to be gracious, I really do, but this one baffles me. IFBsermonclips and Badsermons both have a plethora of examples of men bashing, brow-beating, manipulating, and displaying a fascination with fault-finding. Take the college handbook from any number of IFB colleges and there will be numerous heavy-handed, petty, rules that promote an atmosphere of law-keeping. I know a pastor who was berated for three hours straight because he cheekily made an impromptu farting noise in a skit he was performing at a church camp.
2. Rule-Legalism doesn't exist because our rules are from the Bible.
Even if this one was true, it would not keep legalists from indulging, as many do, in tone-legalism. Thus, legalism would still, very much, be alive and well in fundamentalism. However, the simple fact is that the more honest ones will admit some of their rules aren't from the Bible, or aren't directly from it. So, which is it? Try as hard as you can, no verse tells you to only use the KJV. No verse tells you to avoid rhythm instruments and dancing. (Psalm 150:4-5 say the opposite!) No verse says women can't wear pants. No verse says people must dress up in fancy clothing for church. (James 2 and I Timothy 2:9 both speak about the wrong attitudes that often accompany fancy dress.) So often, the supposed "Bible-backing" simply shows an utter ignorance of proper hermeneutics. Proof-texting, forgetting context, importing 21st Century American culture into the Bible, or simply looking at something and claiming one's personal application is the only acceptable application are the common mistakes often made.
3. Abandoning standards will lead to "everyone doing right in their own eyes."
Harkening back to language used by God in the book of Judges, this objection attempts to equate rejecting legalism, and certain extra-biblical standards, with an utter, outright, wholesale rejection of any decent morality. This makes the claim that anti-legalists are just practicing Antinomianism, and reject anything and everything God and his Word stand for. This is nothing but a strawman fallacy. But we'll focus on that in a second, for now, let's actually take a slightly different angle. Rather than the sinful aspect, let's take the disorganization. Why? When this objection was recently brought up to me, examples were used that tried to support the idea that churches need extra biblical standards to operate and work smoothly. To which I somewhat agree. But then, they claimed rejecting legalism would result in chaos, with no organization, no expectations, and no authority. This has two major aspects.
First, unity doesn't demand uniformity.
Romans 14 makes clear that different Christians may come to different conclusions on conscience matters. Rather than lay down the law and demand everyone conform to one or the either opinion, Paul emphasized the love they should have for one another and for their mutual growth in the Lord. Paul realized that the church members won't be completely unified on every point of application, and was totally ok with that as long as they treated each other with sacrificial love. (And obeyed what was clear in the Bible)
I Corinthians 12 makes it clear that different individuals in the church will be gifted different ways, for different roles, and with different strengths. There will be differences in individual's giftings and ministries, and that's ok. The ending of that chapter drives home the point that no everyone is gifted the same way, nor do they all have the same role in the church.
To expect one gifted in teaching to also evangelize to the same degree as one gifted in that area is strange and unbiblical. Different church members should be encouraged to find and follow their own gifting, which means their lives will look different than another's. Paul even makes is clear that different behaviors and practices are appropriate in different areas, with different cultures. I Corinthians 9:19-23 clearly teach that different approaches are ok with different people groups. Just one example is that Timothy was circumcised (Acts 16:3) but Titus wasn't. (Gal 2:3) To expect all people, of all times, to live by your specific, arbitrary standards is ludicrous and anti-biblical. That uniformity is foreign to God's structure.
Second, organization requires some set procedures, but NOT legalism. For example, if a church wants to have a mid-week service, they could have it literally any weekday. Most seem to opt for Wednesday, but I know others have it on Thursday, and some don't have one at all. Some organization is needed for that to happen, or not happen. But here's the difference. I know a pastor that caught a lot of flak for having his midweek service on Thursday, not Wednesday. I have heard preaching that insisted on having a midweek service to be right with God. Both are legalistic attitudes. A non-legalist can choose to have a service, or not, and while possessing his reasons for doing so, won't condemn others or doubt their godliness for making a different decision. He also won't preach his opinion as the only way to do things, nor will he break fellowship or give others grief for being different. Again unity doesn't demand uniformity.
Set procedures are necessary for all of life. However, set procedures are treated as preferences, nothing more, nothing less. They are the specific preferences of one ministry or individual, and may be recommended by them, but are not used as a rule of fellowship or of a test of orthodoxy.
4. Abandoning the mix of standards and preferences will lead to absolutely no standards.
You'll notice this one sounds very similar to #3. And it is. However, I do think there's a distinction. While #3 focuses more on the chaos and disorganization that's predicted by a lack of legalism, #4 assumes a worse problem: actual, horrible, sin. Which, in the eyes of some legalists, isn't any different than the disorganization above, but I think it's important to address both.
Is there such a thing as abandoning all sense of morality by not caring about murder, theft, blasphemy, or anything? Yeah, that's extreme antinomianism. Paul addresses that attitude sharply in Romans 6. Anti-legalists would whole-heartedly agree! Anti-legalism, rejecting legalism, is not out to reject all laws, even those actually in the Bible. Instead, it seeks to live in the freedom of God within the bounds of the Bible and elevates the Bible far above all traditions and preferences. Rather than elevate man's traditions to the level of being treated as biblical, anti-legalists maintain Biblical Authority and superiority over all. They gladly embrace the commands and regulations God actually put into place and seek to live by them. Anti-legalists elevate the Bible far higher than legalists, as legalists drag it down to the level of their own standards and preferences, putting them all on an equal plain.
5. It is an abandonment of tradition/previous generations direction.
This objection hinges on the presupposition that the direction of the previous generation was not only right then, but is also right for today. It also promotes the idea that any other way is now bad, not because of some inherent problems, but simply because it's not what was before. Those alone reveal numerous issues with this argumentation.
This objection, while claiming a connection to church history, in fact, reveals it's utter ignorance of it. First, keep in mind the context. This is an objection to rejecting the extra-biblical standards and legalism of a previous generation of certain fundamentalists. Any true Bible believer should reject a sin, even if his father did it, but there are problems even beyond that. This was also raised within a strict IFB context. Therefore, things like KJVonlyism, men wearing suits and ties to church, and very traditional music are in mind.
While space doesn't permit an extended rebuttal, all of those things are, in the 2,000 year history of the church, quite recent developments. I've written on KJVonlyism several times before. While primary use of the KJV was popular for several hundred years, even the translators never claimed perfection for it. Flaws were pointed out, by prominent men throughout that time, both the TR and the KJV continued to have more revisions after 1611, and the popularization of "KJVonlyism" can be traced David Otis Fuller's "Which Bible" from the 1970's, and Peter's Ruckman's work of the same era. Dressing up for church, in American Evangelicalism, is claimed to have origins in the early 1800's, by one history book. While many of the hymns sung in churches are only a few hundred years old. The "Altar Call" dates to the 1830's, and the formation of a group of "Independent Baptists" is largely traced to J. Frank Norris and the beginning of the 1900's. Which is, obviously, over 1,800 years after the Bible was completed.
I recently ran into post on Twitter which read "If you are trying to use a year to appeal to your Christian group's history but it's got 4 digits, then do better."
While, of course, a short tweet cannot explain all the nuances and probable exceptions to that statement, it should still spark some serious thinking. The "traditions" often appealed to by modern IFB's rarely stretch deeper than the 1800's, with many coming into existence in the 1900's.
Additionally, some of their quirks were not picked up by previous generations of pastors outside the IFB movement. So to appeal to "previous generations" is only valid within a very small slice of Christianity at best. Plenty of other, faithful, godly, wonderful men and women outside of the IFB have handed down other traditions. What makes their traditions any worse?
Next, one must also face the fact that every tradition has a start. At one time, it too was novel, and it too was "contemporary." John Newton's Amazing Grace hasn't always been a classic. It was modern and new at one time. Hyle's famed Bus ministry was innovative and edgy in it's day. The KJV rolled off presses for the first time, at one time, too.
Why then, should the "new" things of 1600's, 1800's, or even the 1950's, which began new traditions, or dethroned even older ones, be untouchable? If previous generations tried new things, wrote new songs, used new methods, and came up with new ideas, why can't we? If they were free to tinker with the traditions handed to them, why can't we?
While this argument builds on supposed church history, it also builds on the idea of respecting and idolizing what previous generations did to the point of never altering it. Yet, this was never the previous generation's attitude. Also, they fail to realize that one can respect others without echoing every bit of their ministry. John the Baptizer and Jesus had very different ministries, as I've written about before.
Penultimately, this all assumes that what previous generations is also relevant and appropriate to this generation.
Many of the IFB quirks so strongly held to are very culturally bound and simply don't work well in other contexts. Bus routes are not only nigh physically impossible in NYC, but the culture is very strongly against children going off alone without parents, completely undercutting the main reason given for that ministry. Door to door knocking also doesn't work in secured apartment buildings that a stranger can't even get inside. To some, a preacher wearing a suit and tie gives the feeling of a pretentious, prideful, aloofness, rather than the humble, personal care that should be seen in the office. That's only within America, and dissonance between the IFB traditions only get more intense when taken to other countries and languages.
Finally, (At long last!) and most importantly, this assumes that previous generations were actually right and biblical to enforce these standards and practices, and more, right to also preach them as biblical and unquestionable.
There is a vast difference between something perhaps being a wise practice at times, or even generally, and it actually being a sin to not do it. For example, it may be wise for parents to have curfews for their teen children. But what time that should be can vary, and in fact, my parents had no such curfew. It is one thing for wisdom to suggest a curfew if needed, and entirely another to demand it is biblical to have it at one time, but not another, or that one is more right with God for having one than not.
A previous generation may have simply have had a bus route to pick up kids because they thought it wise for their area, but I've heard a pastor say a church isn't right with God, and obviously doesn't love children, or the great commission, because they don't have a bus route today.
That, friends, is stark legalism.
6. The church must protect it's reputation.
This one stuck me as funny when it was mentioned. On the surface, there exists a semblance of logic to this one, yet the deeper one examines the paradigm behind the objection, the more inadequate and unorthodox it seems. There is great danger in allowing preferences to dictate, determine, and define the reputation of a church. To those in fundamentalist, American churches, there are many taboos. Smoking, drinking, dancing, wearing certain clothing, getting tattoos, going certain places, and so on. A Christian, in their mind, is distinguished largely to "The World" by these things. They have a reputation of rejecting those things. A put-together, clean-cut person in nice clothing who doesn't cuss is automatically seen are more moral, Christian even, than a tattooed, long haired, dirty truck driver. Because their image of Christianity is so focused on appearance, projecting the right image, looking the right way, saying the right things, these external things are so much of what that "reputation" is built on. To others, ladies wearing skirts, (not pants) guys wearing suits (not t-shirts) and other arbitrary standards are mainstays of their church reputation. To remove them, and other preferences like them, is said to become like the world, and is imagined to destroy any distinctively Christian elements in one's reputation. Why do I say that? I understand where they are coming from, wanting Christians to be instantly recognizable and distinct is noble. In fact, the Bible calls us to be distinct. (More on that in a second) However, a rather blunt response to requiring preferences to fuel that distinction is that "you don't believe the Bible is enough to be Christian." To maintain that following God's Word alone is not enough is to call into question God's Word when it tells us "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." (2 Tim 3:16-17 ESV) The object of that phrase is God's Word. God's Word was given to make men of God complete, not just for some, but for every good work. Obeying God's Word makes one distinct. Once again, for legalists, the Bible is not enough. Legalists maintain that dropping their preferences will destroy the reputation of the church, yet if that's true, then God's Word, and God's promise in his Word, aren't enough.
The Bible calls us to be distinct, but one quote from the Second Century details well how that distinction is to be noticed: The Epistle to Diognetus, V, Verses 1-4
"For Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind by country, or by speech, or by dress. For they do not dwell in cities of their own, or use a different language, or practice a peculiar life. This knowledge of theirs has not been proclaimed by the thought and effort of restless men; they are not champions of a human doctrine, as some men are. But while they dwell in Greek or barbarian cities according as each man’s lot has been cast, and follow the customs of the land in clothing and food, and other matters of daily life, yet the condition of citizenship which they exhibit is wonderful, and admittedly strange." (New Eusebius, document 32)
The following verses explain in detail the radically sacrificial, loving, and Heavenly-minded way of life that brightly marks these Christians. Christians that embraced the attitudes, mindsets, and transforming power of the Gospel, rather that peculiar habits of dress or speech, like the Amish may in today's world.
If obeying the Bible alone is not enough to be distinctly Christian, then either God messed up the Bible, or our definition of "Christian" and our idea of what a "Christian reputation" is must be wrong. Psalm 1 makes it clear that the distinction between the righteous and the ungodly stems from the righteous man delighting "in the law of the LORD." If a churches reputation is built on the Bible, rejecting legalism won't change a thing. If it's built on preferences and extra-biblical standards, it was already founded on a shaky, inconsistent, and shifting foundation that brings to mind the foolish man of Matt 7:26-27.
An additional note is appropriate here.
While standards and extra-biblical preferences are supposed to preserve a churches reputation, it is sad that they would, in fact, accomplish that. A far too common critique of churches are their hypocrisy, judgmental nature, and pettiness. With that being the case, is that a reputation that we really want to protect and continue? Do we really want to push along that cycle of using our personal preferences to demean and discourage others? I think not.
7. Lower expectations leads to less dedicated Christians.
The thought process behind this one is a paradigm I've heard before. Basically, the idea is that you trick people into morality. What you do is set expectations/rules really high, knowing people won't reach them. But, even in trying, they reach the level you actually wanted of them. To explain. If you want people to dig a 10-foot deep hole, but know they will be lazy and stop two feet before whatever goal you set, then you tell them to dig a 12 foot hole, watch them stop short, and smile secretly since you managed to get them to still dig your desired 10 feet. Just replace the depth of the hole with the perceived level of spirituality/spiritual activity, and you've got the manipulation scheme of some legalists. Now, not only is it hypocritical and deceptive, it's just not necessary. The first problem is how many legalists grade dedication. It's often by extra-biblical rules, external activity, and outer performance. Which can all be faked. Just because a person is at the church building 7 times a week, doesn't mean he's more in tune with God and his Word than the guy there only 3 times a week. It's hard to accurately judge other's motivations and attitudes, so many judgements of "dedication" fall on the external actions, rather than the internal heart change.
Second, as has been said over and over, anti-legalists point people to the Bible. They do. They love the Bible. So if expectations are lowered, they are only lowered to the Bible's level. It's never wrong to lower your standards to the level of the Bible. Let me say that again: It's never wrong to lower your standards to the level of the Bible.
But, let's think about this practically. When setting goals and standards for those under your leadership, a helpful tip is using S.M.A.R.T. Goals. To quote exactly:
Specific (simple, sensible, significant).
Measurable (meaningful, motivating).
Achievable (agreed, attainable).
Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based).
Time bound (time-based, time limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive).
Check out the "A" Achievable, or Attainable. If you tell somebody to earn 1 million dollars by the end of the year, and it's November, and they wash dishes for a living, they will probably laugh, walk away, and not even try. You goal is too high and to ridiculous. Even in my own life, I've seen too high of goals ruin my motivation to do anything. Once I see I can't do it, I quit. No use wasting effort on the unobtainable.
If one has too high of expectations, followers will get disillusioned when they cannot, under any circumstances, measure up. If you ask a Christian to pray 3 hours a day, and make them feel unspiritual if they don't, they may try once or twice, but then will give up because it can't happen with their schedules. Maybe a pastor can, but not the factory worker already doing double overtime, trying to care for his kids, spend time with his wife, do upkeep on his home, and then make three church services a week. It's not gunna happen. That's only going to breed discouragement and defeat. If a person cannot live up to their pastor's demands, they could easily translate that into their being unable to live up to God's demands. If so, they will live a defeated, discouraged, deficient life apart from the grace and love and acceptance they could find in Christ, in a non-legalistic environment. But no, that high expectation, higher than the God's, must continue to drag them down.
A lower expectation, a more realistic goal, is far more likely to produce the desired effect.
If a pastor wants his people reading the Bible on a regular basis, he should probably motivate them to read one, two, or maybe three chapters a day, rather than convince them the only spiritual thing is to read the entire Bible four times in a year. One is far more achievable.
Makes sense?
Conclusion
After looking through these seven objections, I hope you've found the case for rejecting legalism to continue to stand, not only on biblical grounds, but also on the pillars of history and logic. I hope it's become obvious that legalists, and those defending the practice, operate with several fundamental misunderstandings of anti-legalism, misunderstandings that cripple their ability to see the truth. Is there a solution? Yes. Much prayer, much grace, and much examination of our own hearts, lest we, in any way, fall back into the paradigm of legalism and so neglect the great mercy and grace of God, and the sufficiency of his Word. Anti-Legalism can only stand true as far as it stands on the Word of God and a genuine relationship with God.
While I hope to elaborate further in the future, here are some keys to anti-legalism:
A deep desire to know Christ and abide in him, not being content with simply ticking some external behavioral boxes.
A dedication to the Historical-Grammatical exegesis of the text of Scripture.
A willingness to honestly examine practices and habits based on Scripture, history, and logical consistency.
A proper understanding of theological triage, when to disagree, and how.
A graceful approach to those with whom you differ, as well as an honest and fair treatment/response to their teaching.
I hope this has been a help, and I pray that this article can help lead to more open conversations, love, and understanding between those who may see these subjects differently.