Are you a legalist?
Are you a Legalist?
Romans 3:19-20
Tim Keller defines legalism as “looking to something besides Jesus Christ in order to be acceptable and clean before God.” Are you a legalist? Are you looking to something besides the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ to make you acceptable and clean before God? Are you tempted to be a legalist? Every human heart is born a legalist. We are born as self-justifiers. We are born believing our works can make us right before God. The gospel is vastly different from every other religion in the world. One writes defines the difference,
RELIGION or LEGALISM equals: I obey-therefore I’m accepted.
THE GOSPEL equals: I’m accepted-therefore I obey.
Are you a legalist? John Piper defines legalism, “the conviction that law-keeping is the ground for our acceptance with God — a failure to be amazed at grace.”
The Apostle Paul believed the church of Rome was full of legalists. He believed there were many trusting in their heritage and their good works as the grounds for their righteousness with God. Every church has legalists. Legalism celebrates obedience as salvation. Legalism is condescending towards others. It elevates people above others. Legalism breeds entitlement; believing God owes you for your obedience. Are you a legalist?
I am a recovering legalist. I believe we are all born legalists. I say I am a recovering legalist because I am always in danger of going back to drink from its lies. Legalism is so enticing to the human that so desperately wants to justify itself before God. May this text help hammer a few more nails into the coffin of your own legalism. Are you a legalist?
How is everyone accountable to God?
Romans 3:19-20 is the conclusion of Paul’s argument beginning in Romans 1:18 where the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. The Jews were suppressing the truth of their unrighteousness. They did not understand their need for grace. It was easier for them to believe the Gentiles were going to be punished for their wickedness, but they believed their special place as God’s covenant people would spare them from judgment. Paul put an emphatic end to that assumption. Romans 3:19–20
Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Paul is speaking to the Jews as he says, “those who are under the law.” The law speaks to the Jews as they are under the law, but he then makes an application beyond the Jews to the whole world. Paul provides a laundry list of Scriptures documenting the evidence against the Jews. The Scriptures clearly teach that the Jews will be held accountable to God for their sin. Paul is making an argument from the greater to the lesser here. If the Jews, who are God’s covenant people, who have been given the oracles of God, will not escape the judgment then it follows that the Gentiles who only have the law of their consciences will not avoid condemnation either. If the Jews will be judged, then the whole world will be judged.
Early in marriage Ellen and I would always debate who should get out of bed to get the water if we were thirsty in the middle of night. I would use things like, “I did it last night.” “My day started much earlier than yours.” We would go back and forth, but then she got pregnant. And she would simply say, “Me and the baby are thirsty.” The debate was over. My mouth was shut. There was nothing else I could say. I was getting the water.
No one will be able to defend themselves before God. Every mouth will be stopped because they know they have nothing to say. They have no argument left. The whole world will be held accountable to God. Many of the Jews were legalists. They believed the Gentiles deserved to be punished but not them. Paul needed to help them see that they too would be held accountable to God. And if it was true for the people of God, it would be true for the whole world. Paul puts an exclamation point on this argument,
For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
The law refers to the whole Mosaic law. If one was going to be justified then they would have to obey every single aspect of the law both externally and from the heart. Every action and every motivation must be acceptable in God’s sight. Paul has made his case. No human being will be justified in God’s sight because the law exposes their sin. Their mouths are stopped and they know that they are accountable to God.
If you are a non-Christian, the Bible is saying you are a sinner. You have not kept the law. And therefore, you are not righteous and will be held accountable to God for your sin. God’s standard is perfection and you can’t meet his standards by your good works. Your good works will not save you. It does not matter how many good works you have if you also have the dark mark of sin. You can’t justify yourself before God. Which may lead you to ask, “If I can’t justify myself by what I do, how can I be made right with God?” That's the right question to ask. Paul gives the answer a few verses later.
We do not have the righteousness of God, but God will send us the Righteous One, Jesus Christ, to make us righteous. Romans 3:22b–24,
For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
All have sinned and have missed the mark of perfection. And only those who believe by grace through faith in the redemption of Christ Jesus will be justified. You can be made right with God through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Jesus perfectly obeyed the law. Every action and every motivation of his heart were perfect. He never sinned. He never broke the law therefore he was righteous. Jesus, the righteous one, died on the cross to pay for the sins of everyone who would believe in him. He died so that you could be righteous. Peter says it this way, “1 Peter 3:18,
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
Jesus, the righteous, died for the unrighteous, you and I, so that he might bring us to God. He was put to death but was raised from the dead. Jesus now stands as our Advocate before God declaring that we are righteous through faith in him.
So friend legalism says “I obey therefore I’m accepted.” And that's not true. You will never be accepted by your obedience, because it will never be perfect obedience. The gospel says “I am accepted therefore I obey.”Legalism breeds pride and self-righteousness, the gospel breeds humility and grace. Friend, if you came in as a legalist, trusting in your good works before God, you need to repent of your pride and fall on the mercy of God. Only God can save you through Christ. And the amazing thing is, he wants to! He delights to save. Turn from trusting in your righteousness and lean on the righteousness of Christ Jesus and you will be saved. Turn from your sin, accept the gospel, and follow the Lord Jesus. Follow him because he loves you and you love him, not because you will earn anything from him.
How can Christians be turned into legalists?
Paul believed the church at Rome was a true church. He believed they were Christians loved by God and called to be his saints. And he also knew the temptation of the human heart that wants to justify itself before God. Beloved, the desire of self-justification still lives in our hearts. What are ways we still desire to be legalists? Another way of putting it, how can we be away of the symptoms of gracelessness?
I call myself a recovering legalist because I know my desire to drink from the well of my own self-righteousness. I believe we all are recovering legalists. How can we see the signs when we are starting to fall away from grace to legalism?
Our actions do not match our confession.
Legalists are happy to point out the sins of others, while and even happier to excuse sin in themselves. Legalists make a practice of following the law in certain areas but make excuses in others. Jesus said of Pharisees, “Matthew 23:3b–4
[3] For they preach, but do not practice. [4] They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.
Be aware of any recurring departure from obedience in your own life. Are you quick to preach against others while not practicing obedience yourself?
We are more concerned with how others see us.
Legalists obey God’s law to be seen by others and not from the heart. Jesus warned the crowds to beware of the Pharisees in the Sermon on the Mount because they gave to be seen by others, they prayed to be seen by others, and they obeyed the Scriptures to be seen by others. They did not want to honor the Lord. Their motivation was the praise and esteem of others. They lived to be seen. Beloved, is that you?
Are you more concerned with how others see you than to please the Lord? Our motivation for our obedience matters to God. We can be in danger of trying to appear godly without loving God from our hearts. If we care more about what others see, we may be missing grace. If we are afraid of being exposed in our sin, then we may not understand forgiveness. If we are reluctant to confess our sin before others, we may fear man more than God.
When we try to cover our sins, and look good on the outside, while our hearts are full of wickedness, we are nothing more than whitewashed tombs, fallen from grace. Lovers of Jesus who are amazed at the gospel freely confess sins. We believe that God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
We are overwhelmed when we sin
When we are putting too much trust in our own righteousness, we are overwhelmed when we fall into sin. If we are trusting in our ability to keep ourselves in Christ, the weight of our own sin can overwhelm us when we fall. When we fall again to that same old sin, and feel unclean and unlovable and struggle to turn to the Lord, we are living as legalists. The gospel frees us from feeling condemned when we sin, because there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Remember 1 John 2:1,
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
Our standing before God does not depend upon us. It is all of grace. Do not fall into the legalist trap that puts the weight of your salvation on your works. It is Christ's work that saves and his work alone.
People who follow us are legalists
Apple trees bear apples. Fig trees produce figs. Gracious leaders bear gracious followers. Legalist leaders bear self-righteous followers. We cannot always bear the responsibility of others in our lives. People are accountable for their own sins, but the people who follow us may reveal the fruit of our character.
Several years ago, I started seeing a lot of pride and self-righteousness in many of the young men I was discipling. I kept hearing them say certain things and act in certain ways that revealed arrogance and a condescending attitude towards others. Then I realized they were fruits from my tree. My discipleship was producing prideful, self-righteous followers. Their self-righteousness revealed my own.
One of the ways you can see if you are a legalist is to examine the people you are influencing. Parents, what are you producing in your children? Are they gracious towards others or do you hear them speak in contempt and against others? Is there anything in you they are emulating? If you are a leader, what do those who are following you reveal about your character?
One of my fears for our congregation is that we will be sound doctrine, theological legalists. I have seen this as fruits from my own ministry and pray hard against it. Will our desire for sound doctrine cause us to look down upon others we deem less theologically accurate? Will we say in our hearts, “We thank God we are not like those other churches, for we preach expositionally and have meaningful membership. We have a residency for future pastors and support missionaries from around the world.” Or will we say, “We thank God he has had mercy on sinners such as us!”
Beloved, we are recovering legalists. Our pride and exaltation in our lives and works over Christ and his mercy, reveals we have shifted from grace to the flesh. Our lives are all of grace.
We feel entitled when we suffer
One of the great indicators if we are moving towards legalism is what happens when we suffer. When things do not go our way, when trials strike us, how do we respond? If we become angry and bitter at the Lord, it is a sign we have moved from grace. We become like Jonah who has forgotten we have been saved from the depths of our sin, forgotten that salvation belongs to the Lord, and when he removes the comfort from our health or wealth, we become angry at the Lord for his providence. Keller again helps us here,
The [acid] test is your spirit of wonder stays there even when things go bad. You see when things go bad, when problems happen, here you can tell the difference between a moralist and a Christian. A moralist says, "what good is all my religion, what good is going to God, I have tried hard to be a Christian, I am trying hard to be obedient to God, and what good is it? God owes me." And you see you get mad. You say, "I have been trying hard and look what's going on in my love life, look what's going on in my career", and you get bitter. Why? because God owes you. But A Christian keeps that spirit of wonder. A Christian may say "my career has not gone too well, my love life has not gone too well, it's astonishing... Its amazing that God is as good as He is to me. Its all grace. Its all grace. That spirit of wonder. That sense of being a miracle. That everything that comes to you being an absolute mercy.
Beloved, that is the test. Are you a legalist who thinks God owes you or a Christian who knows its all of grace?
We lack love for others
One of the fruits of legalism is it looks down on others rather than loves them. Jesus loved tax collectors and sinners. He did not bristle when the ungodly came near to him. He welcomed them in love. He sat waiting for the woman at the well. He allowed the woman of the city to wash his feet. He ate at Zacchaeus' table. Jesus loved sinners. Do we?
When we have a hard time loving sinners, it may be because we are closet legalists. We are looking down on others more than loving them. Our lack of love reveals we are moving from grace. And moving from grace, pushes us to self-justifying legalism. Tim Keller writes in Prodigal God,
We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did.
Do moralists who trust in their moralism feel more at home in our church than those who are broken by their sin? We attract those who are like us. If we are broken by our sin, we will attract others who are broken by their sin. If we are self-righteous moralists, we will attract self-righteous moralist people. When we are not overwhelmed by grace we are in danger of a legal spirit. John Piper says it this way,
There are all kinds of attitudes, right — pride, demandingness, lack of mercy, lack of compassion, unkindness, impatience — and these have their root, don’t they, in a heart that is not stunned by grace, not broken and humbled by grace, not joyfully filled with grace? That creates a legal spirit.
Our lack of love and impatience towards others often finds its root in our self-justifying hearts that are not amazed by grace. Beware of your lack of love.
We are no longer overwhelmed by the gospel.
It is easier for us to have the right doctrine of God but not the right love for God. We have all the right answers but our hearts are far from him. We know the right things in our heads, but we do not fully believe them in our hearts. I am confident 95% of the people hearing this message would affirm Paul’s summary of the last two chapters, “For by the works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” I have no doubt that most of you would not affirm your works justifying you before God. And yet my fear is even though you do not believe it intellectually, your lives are functionally governed by it.
You have the right doctrine but do not have the right love. Beloved, sound doctrine will not save you. Church membership and expository preaching will not save you. There is no salvation in your following of the law. Salvation belongs to the Lord. We are saved not because of our good works done in righteousness, but because of his mercy. I do not only want you to believe the right things in your heads, I want you to feel them in your hearts.
It is the hearts full of compassion and mercy for Jesus Christ that know grace. It is the hearts that are overwhelmed that a righteous and holy God would love sinners that know grace. The hearts that do not cover their sins, but freely confess them that know grace. The hearts who beat their chests and say, “Have mercy on me God, for I am sinner” that know grace.
And those who know grace will not be legalists. Those who make it their life’s ambition to be overwhelmed by the grace of God, will always live as recovering legalists. We will know the danger of our own hearts and its desire for self-justification. We will know we are prone to wander from grace and fall into legalism, but we know that no human being will be justified by the works of the law.
Are you a legalist? Have you seen any symptoms of gracelessness? Beloved, we are about to take the Lord’s Supper. And Lord’s Supper is when we come and confess that none of our works save us. We come confessing that Jesus Christ and his work alone justifies us. It is his righteousness that saves us. It is his resurrection that justifies us. We come to the table as hungry and thirsty sinners in need of grace. We come because we want Jesus. We want his life. We want his death. We want his resurrection. We want him. We come because we know we were born self-righteous legalists, but have been broken and overwhelmed by the grace of God in Christ Jesus. We come because we do not just know the gospel in our heads, but we feel it in our hearts. We come because we want Jesus. So, let us, yet again, feed on Christ by faith as we shed our self-righteousness knowing that Jesus bore our sin in his body on a tree that we might die to sin and live in His righteousness.