Shane Lems writes:

Legalism is not a rare thing in Christian circles.  It’s not confined to a certain denomination, age, gender, race, or class.  Legalism is not rare because it’s the default mode of the sinful human heart.  Thomas Boston said it is “engrained in man’s corrupt nature.”  From one angle, then, we could even say that legalism is alive and well in non-Christian religious circles since people, in general, tend to think of God as a strict master demanding obedience to his strict rules.  Many people think that we need to obey God to gain his favour and acceptance.  Legalism is not rare!

Legalism is also dangerous and deadly because, as Sinclair Ferguson notes, it is “separating the law of God from the person of God” (p. 83).  Instead of seeing God as a loving and generous Father who gave the law for the good of his children, a legalist sees God as a “magnified policeman who gives his law only because he wants to deprive us and in particular to destroy our joy” (p. 83).

Legalism is poisonous because it is “not only a distortion of the gospel but in its fundamental character it is also a distortion of the law” (Ferguson, p. 88).  A legalist distorts the gospel by mixing the law with it, as if the gospel has to do with one’s obedience.  He distorts the law by forgetting that God gave it to his people in love as a light for their paths.  Or, like John Colquhoun said, “They [the legalists] perverted both the law and the gospel, and formed for themselves a motley covenant of works.”

There is obviously a lot more to legalism.  Legalism comes in many shapes and sizes, degrees and layers; it is a complex spiritual disease.  Based on Ferguson’s discussion of legalism, my interaction with legalists, and my own experience battling legalism, here are some characteristics of legalists:

• Legalists are unbalanced in that they stress law over grace, God’s justice over his mercy.
• Legalists are typically rigid, harsh, and judgemental because of their emphasis on laws and rules.
• Legalists often lack love; being “law-heavy” makes one “love-light.”  For them, judgement triumphs over mercy.
• Legalists are often unteachable since they believe they are right and others are wrong.
• Legalists are often biblicistic and their biblicism leads them to ignore the context of Scripture as well as other Scriptures which might go against their rigid beliefs.
• Legalists often demand/expect perfection and are impatient with others who are not like them.
• Legalists are often inconsistent and unbalanced.  They emphasise minor, tertiary rules or laws (i.e. clothing rules) but sometimes neglect major important laws (i.e. love and help your neighbour).

More could be said about these things, of course.  Perhaps you could add to the list!  The point I want to make (and repeat) is that legalism is dangerous and deadly.  Here’s Ferguson again:

“[Thomas Boston] knew from experience that a ‘legal frame’ or spirit can pervade the whole of an individual’s life.  It can twist the soul in such a way that it comes near to and yet veers away from the grace of God in the gospel.  Particularly if it is present in someone engaged in preaching and pastoral ministry, it can multiply and become an epidemic in the congregation.  …It lies at the heart of many pastoral problems and is one of the most common spiritual sicknesses” (p. 79-80; 123).

What’s the medicine for the deadly disease of legalism?  It’s for sure not antinomianism.  What then?  The person and work of Christ.  The gospel.  Grace!

For more information, you’ll for sure want to read Ferguson’s chapters on legalism in his excellent book, The Whole Christ.

J. G. Vos writes:

“And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers” (2 Chron. 34:32b).

 

Josiah was king of Judah 639-608 B.C., on the verge of the Babylonian Captivity. During his reign there occurred the last religious revival before the captivity. At the age of 16, having been king eight years, Josiah undertook the religious reformation of his kingdom. When the king and his people set their heart on consistently living according to God’s will, God met them with help and blessing and prospered their efforts. There was a spirit of zeal, unanimity, and spontaneous eagerness in their service of God. This was nothing mechanical or artificially worked up. It was real. It came from their hearts by the work of the Holy Spirit.

False religion cleared away

Read 2 Chronicles 34:3-7. The idolatrous religion was ancient, customary, and deeply imbedded in the life of the people. Only a king and people united in honestly turning to God could eliminate it. It is very difficult to change that which has the sanction of antiquity, custom, long usage, and popularity. Here in Josiah’s reform we see the victory of principle over popularity—something very much needed today. When we get a revival like that, there will be sweeping changes in religious life, customs, and worship. The unscriptural worship of centuries will be swept away with a return to the reign of Scriptural principles.

God’s house was repaired

Read 2 Chronicles 34:8-13. For long years this had been neglected, but a people with a mind to return to God soon put the temple in repair again. The workmen wrought faithfully. It was not necessary to audit their accounts, for they worked conscientiously. A similar revival in our own day would not only take care of the physical repair of church buildings, but would provide for the proper support, in proportion to our real ability, of the whole program of the church and kingdom of God.

God’s work requires not merely money, but money willingly given by a people who have set their heart on the true progress and welfare of God’s church and kingdom.

Attention given to the Word of God

Read 2 Chronicles 34:14-28. For years the Word of God had been lost and neglected. The roll of the Book found was perhaps one lost or hidden during Manasseh’s reign, or one place in a cornerstone when the temple was built by Solomon. At any rate, when found it produced a tremendous effect. Those people really took Scripture seriously. To them the Word of God was not a mere ornament or formality. It made a profound impression on king and people. This would be true in a similar revival today. It may be questioned whether the present revival movement in America is producing a real return to Scripture. The attitude toward Scripture seems still to be a formal and conventional one in may cases.

In Josiah’s day, covenant vows were solemnly taken by king and people. Read 2 Chronicles 34:29-33. Divinely appointed worship, long neglected in whole or in part, was once more observed in an adequate and Scriptural manner. Read 2 Chronicles 35:1, 2, 17-19. In this revival, conscientious devotion to God overcame (1) popular false worship and practices; (2) gross ignorance of God’s will; (3) long continued neglect of divinely appointed worship.

The revival North America needs is along the same lines. How can we help? Not by doing something dramatic or spectacular, but by what Josiah is recorded as doing in 2 Chronicles 34:2-3. If we will be faithful and consistent in keeping our covenant vows to God, he will work in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.

Jeffery Ventrella writes:

I remember my first visit to a Reformed church all too well. There I was, very wet behind the ears. Searching the Scriptures had convinced me that the “doctrines of grace” truly summarised the gospel, and I desired with all my heart to worship the sovereign God.

So I searched for a church that confessed these great Reformational truths. I found one. Upon my arrival at the small church, I was “greeted” by a nerdy guy carrying a stack of books. What he lacked in social skills he made up for in aggressiveness. He approached me quickly and started the interrogation: “Are you new here?” Obviously I was. “Do you study theology?” When I said yes, his breathing became labored and he started to sweat. Then came the coup de grace: “Are you infra- or supra-lapsarian?” I replied, “Neither; I’m vegetarian!”—but my humor was lost on this poor fellow.

Just What Is Hyphenation?

This story illustrates a sometimes humorous, sometimes disturbing phenomenon in today’s conservative church circles: the resurgence of the hyphenated church. A hyphenated church is one which, whether officially or unofficially, judges the orthodoxy or at least the “real maturity” of people on the basis of their adherence to a preference that has been elevated to the status of an essential precept. It becomes a litmus test within the congregation.

I speak of a hyphenated church because the “insiders” in it think of their preference as if it were actually appended to their name: “Trinity Church-KJV Only,” “Grace Reformed Church-A Politically Active Church,” “New Life Community Church-A Homeschooling Fellowship,” etc.

Ecclesiastes informs us that “there is nothing new under the sun” (1:9). Therefore, we should expect to see such sectarianism periodically. Scripture tells us that there were factions in Corinth that were evidently hyphenated (1 Cor. 3:4), and there were the Judaizers in Galatia. They had added an extrabiblical standard for evaluating spirituality.

Hyphenation has resurfaced again, even as we are seeing a resurgence in churches teaching the doctrines of grace. This is not surprising, for as the church grows, the devil groans.

As numerous children of God have experienced the Spirit’s revitalisation of their faith, the hyphens have arisen to muddy the waters. Again, hyphens are preferences that have been anointed as precepts, deviation from which leads to disfavour or even discipline. This hyphenation has become a new legalism. Here are some modern-day examples:

KJV Only

This hyphen has lately been gaining ardent supporters. The debate over Bible translations is certainly not new. Although some people have characterised the Greek text used by the KJV as the “ecclesiastical text,” the church has in its history recognised a number of textual families.

Since the KJV was not published until 1611, its use could not have been essential to a Christian confession before that time—and thus cannot be essential for us today, either. Furthermore, there are actually two “authorised versions” of the English Bible: the 1611 edition and a later Cambridge edition.

Classical Christian Education

In recent decades, God has granted his church a new interest in rearing covenant children. Many Christian parents have recognised that covenant faithfulness necessitates removing their children from the godless secular schools. Home education and private Christian schools have become common.

Some folks have determined that a particular method of nonstatist education is preferable to others: “classical” education based upon the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, logic).

But here come the hyphenaters, demanding that their classical approach be used, usually including the teaching of Latin. There may be nothing wrong with this preference, until it is made an ingredient of orthodoxy. Put differently, would you consider yourself a Christian if your children did not attend a classical school? Some advocates of this hyphen would be hard-pressed to answer yes.

Ironically, it was just this scholastic approach—which imported the philosophical paganism of Greece and Rome—that ultimately produced the humanism of the Enlightenment. Who is to say that the reinstitution of this same approach will not lead to the same mistakes? We should not endeavour to re-create the schools of the 1450s any more than those of the 1950s.

Prolific Procreation

The “home-everything” hyphenaters usually insist that a family committed to real godliness should have lots of children. Certainly our culture is wrong to reject Scripture’s teaching that children are the Lord’s blessing. Nevertheless, Christians should not simply advocate whatever the world rejects.

What if the Reformers had simply rejected whatever Rome did, and then did the opposite? They would then have rejected infant baptism, the Trinity, the Nicene Creed, etc. That would have been disastrous, but often Reformed churches today use that very reasoning on the subject of worship: “Since the charismatics use overhead projectors, we must reject them.”

Similarly, one cannot determine ethical duties merely by reversing pagan practices: “Pagans drink alcohol; therefore, Christians should not drink alcohol.” What then becomes of the Lord’s Table? The issue of birth control is far more complex than simply concluding that the admonition to “be fruitful and multiply” requires prolific procreation. It is true that many Christians have swallowed the world’s nonsense when it comes to so-called “family planning.” The danger of this hyphen, however, is that it establishes judgmentalism within the church, which can only increase when this preference is made a precept.

Courtship

Many Christians have neglected their covenantal responsibility not to be part of the world. But God has been merciful and gracious in reorienting many believers and transforming their minds. One area in which the world and Satan have certainly undermined godliness is that of dating. Enter the hyphenaters.

“Dating” now becomes an evil which is to be replaced with “biblical courtship.” What this exactly connotes is not clear, since even the proponents of courtship do not agree on its details. Do these rules apply to all youth or just young ladies? Just when is the jurisdiction of the young woman’s father terminated? What role do the church’s elders play in this process? Cf. the Westminster Confession of Faith, 24.5-6.

What is clear is that a broken courtship is not considered to be a divorce, which might transgress God’s law and thereby preclude a subsequent marriage. Thus, courtship is not really being treated as a betrothal would be (as in Matt. 1:18-20).

Please do not misunderstand. I fully intend to instruct my four boys regarding biblical headship, the honoring of one’s (or someone else’s) future spouse, the unholiness of emotional involvement without marital commitment, the unwise (and perhaps sinful) practice of serial relationships, and so forth. But this instruction does not need to be called “courtship” to be biblical.

In fact, whether one calls a godly approach to impending matrimony “courtship” or “dating” is somewhat arbitrary. A better understanding of the seventh commandment’s prohibitions and requirements would do much to purify guy-girl relationships without hyphenating the church. A man is not prevented from lusting after a woman merely because he “courts,” rather than “dates,” her. Moreover, one man’s (presumably sinful) dating habits could well be another man’s (presumably pure) courtship habits. Courtship is really intended to be nothing more than godly dating.

Paedocommunion

Another hot area for the hyphenaters centers on the Lord’s Table. The notion here is that the covenantal head of the household functions as a priest of sorts. He (1) determines who in his covenantal unit may partake, and (2) distributes the bread and wine to those persons. Often, this practice includes serving very young children.

At the outset, it should be noted that this preference prefers error. Paedocommunion is unconfessional. See, for example, Larger Catechism 168-175. Now it is certainly possible that the Westminster Divines were mistaken in their understanding of the Lord’s Supper. But, until the church reassesses this doctrine and the Spirit grants a more biblical consensus, this preference ought not to be practiced and certainly should not be elevated to being a precept. Rigorous debate, yes; practice before consensus, no.

Furthermore, both aspects of this practice undermine the authority of the elders. While the family and its head may certainly recommend a member to the elders for examination and possible admission to the Lord’s Table, the keys of the kingdom belong to the church and its leaders (Matt. 16:19). The family, though covenantal, is subordinate to Christ’s lordship (Matt. 10: 34-37). Christ’s lordship in the church is expressed by the rule of the elders (Heb. 13:17; 1 Peter 5:1-5).

Moreover, the Bible teaches that there is only one mediator between God and man: Jesus Christ (1 Tim. 2:5). Because the elders rule in Christ’s name, they represent him in their serving of the communion elements. There is no room for the priestly mediation of the head of the household. Only the ordained servant should distribute and administer the elements of bread and wine. Cf. Westminster Confession of Faith, 29.3-4; Larger Catechism, 169.

Thus, paedocommunion is a preference that is actually a perversion of the Westminster standards. Again, the Confession could be mistaken, but until the church is granted a different consensus on this issue, we should adhere to our present confessional standards and reject this divisive preference.

Other potential hyphens have also entered today’s Reformed churches, such as Y2K preparation and preterism. Whenever we are tempted to make a preference into a precept, we would do well to consider Ephesians 4:1-3: “Walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (NKJV).

Reprinted from New Horizons, May 1999.