In the battle for moral fortitude in the personal lives of Christians and in the church we seem to flip-flop almost as much as John Kerry. There are two sides of the fence in Christian Ethics, legalism and antinomianism (anti-law), and believe it or not I am here to say that Christians should be in the middle! That is weird coming from me huh? I am certainly not a moderate, I lean far to the right in my politics and theology, and yet in the case of Christian ethics I believe we should be neither too far right or too far left, but find a nice comfy position on the middle ground.
Legalism: Many non-Christians see the Christian faith as a set of rules and regulations and things they can’t do. Honestly, I know a lot of people and churches that have fallen into legalism, the art of doing everything the same way, by the book, no deviations and everyone must do it! If a person would be looked down upon for wearing blue jeans to a revival in your church, that’s legalism. If people are saved from a life of sin and the only thing you have to tell them is a list of do’s and don’ts, that’s legalism. As my ethics professor says, the law kills! Being too strict in some of these issues is a killer for the church because it places the focus on earthly things that will simply fade away and takes the focus off of Jesus. We get too worried about the kind of clothes we wear, the color of our hair, the kind of songs we sing, the way the church looks and it causes us to lose focus on what is really important, our savior. This was the Pharisee’s problem! They were too caught up in the law and rules that they couldn’t see the Messiah right in front of them! Rules have value and can be beneficial, but legalism is worthless and destroys the church.
Colossians 2:16-23 “Therefore don’t let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is the Messiah. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm and inflated without cause by his fleshly mind. He doesn’t hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, develops with growth from God. If you died with Christ to the elemental forces of this world, why do you live as if you still belong to the world? Why do you submit to regulations: “Don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch”? All these {regulations} refer to what is destroyed by being used up; they are human commands and doctrines. Although these have a reputation of wisdom by promoting ascetic practices, humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value against fleshly indulgences.”
As Christians we want to live Godly lives, worthy of the calling that we have received. We want to be righteous and holy, we want to please God, and we want the church to be pleasing to Him as well. The problem comes when we completely forget about Jesus and we lose sight of wanting to please him because we are in the middle of making legalistic rules and forcing people to follow them. So, to combat legalism, many people and churches jump over the fence and go running to the other side.
Antinomianism: This is basically the anti-law position. Instead of creating laws and forcing people to live by our rules, in antinomianism, there are no rules. You can wear what you want, do what you want, act how you want, and be whatever you want to be at all times. Where legalism says “everyone must dress up and wear the same type of clothes to church” antinomianism says “you can wear whatever you feel like wearing” and grandma ends up coming to church in her bikini. You see the problem here? When we get too legalistic we have a tendency to run screaming to the other side and abolish all rules which is another problem altogether and is just as wrong as legalism. A good example of what happens when there is no law, is found in the book of Judges between 17:6 and 21:5. Judges 17:6 says “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever he wanted.” After this statement there was a large amount of corruption happening with the people of Israel. Men killed, stole, worshiped false idols, slaughtered unsuspecting people, men raped other men and women, and society became extremely corrupt and perverted and thousands upon thousands of men died in battles because of these perversions.
Judges 19:22 “While they were enjoying themselves, all of a sudden, perverted men of the city surrounded the house and beat on the door. They said to the old man who was the owner of the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him!”
Judges 19:25 “But the men would not listen to him, so the man seized his concubine and took her outside to them. They raped her and abused her all night until morning…When he entered his house, he picked up a knife, took hold of his concubine [who had been raped all night and died] and he cut her into 12 pieces, limb by limb, and sent her throughout the territory of Israel.”
Without law there is utter chaos. Without rules, regulations, moral codes, life is nothing but a big mess. Can you imagine our great nation without a government, without laws, and without anyone to lead? It would be utter chaos and it would result in far more corruption and death than exists now. Moving away from legalism is a good thing, but moving too far into Antinomianism is a horrible thing. There has to be a middle ground. We need rules, we need a moral code, we need to know what is right and wrong and yet we don’t need to be so worried about legalistic, earthly rules that we completely miss the message of the gospel and overlook our savior. We need to be lax in some areas, but not so lax that we throw out all rules and all common sense and allow people to do whatever they want. In ethics, it is a good thing to be in the middle.
Pressed
I blogged about this same topic yesterday.
There are at least 4 errors I can think of wrt this issue.
First is self righteousness, or legalism. This is what Jesus rebuked primarily - those who trusted in their own righteousness. They did not realize they were sick, they thought they were healthy and needed no physician, and looked down on others. Any attempt to earn God’s favor or acceptance by my works, aside from or in addition to the redemption in Jesus, is legalism.
Second is Galatianism, which is part of what the Pharisees did too. I think it tends to show up among real legalists, but not only there. They want to put a hedge around God’s law and treat their hedge as though it is God’s law. The passage you quoted from Colossians (which is coincidentally what I was reading yesterday) speaks to this. These extra rules are often not of any value. Now, some extra rules may be good ideas and may be very helpful to some people (e.g., Billy Graham won’t be alone with a woman who is not his relative) but they are not God’s law and violating them is not sin.
A third error is antinomianism. There are many forms of antinomianism and not all are licentious. But it is any teaching that God’s law is entirely irrelevant since, you know, we’re saved by grace and not law. We are free and we have liberty, but the law of God points out where sin is and we have no liberty to sin. The Law is still applicable in showing us what is sinful. We should not be caught up in mere law keeping, but instead be walking after the Spirit, but the law is still relevant.
The fourth error is licentiousness, which does not always accompany antinomianism. Antinomianism says “there are no rules” and licentiousness lives like it.
The position that there are rules but there aren’t rules and we shouldn’t be too strict but not too loose either, is untenable. As soon as you try to take that path, someone will *need* to know where the lines are, and then you have to try to sort out just where the not-too-strict and not-too-loose rules are. You have to have some kind of basis to tell Granny she can’t wear a swimsuit to church. And why are blue jeans acceptable for Granny to wear at church when just 50 years ago it would have been scandalous? That’s too culturally influenced and inconsistent for the bride of the Christ who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
There are rules, given by God, applied by man, consistent in all ages and circumstances. It’s good for the church to know the rules. We don’t reduce Christianity to a list of do’s and dont’s, but there _are_ do’s and dont’s to Christianity. We follow the Spirit and thereby obey the law, but the law (or “rules”, generally) still applies.
That was very insightful, thanks Robert. Lets see if I got this straight. Legalism is holding the law to such a standard that we would believe obeying it earns salvation or makes us right before God, and it is when we hold our list of laws that are not necessarily given by God as if they are the laws of God when they are not? In antinomionism, it is not that there is no law persay, but the point is that the law is relavent only to the point that it shows sin, but keeping such law is not necessary since we are not save by the law but by grace? There are rules and moral guidlines that are given by God, clearly that the church should know and follow strictly, but there are other rules and things that really don’t amount to a hill of beans in the end even though they may be helpful or they man not?
Interesting post, interesting comments.
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