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Legalism: Difference between revisions
→God's Word as regulations
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Simply put, moral behavior that is not from faith is legalism. The legalist is always a very moral person. In fact, the majority of moral people are legalists because their behaviour does not grow out of a humble, contrite reliance on the merciful enabling of God. | Simply put, moral behavior that is not from faith is legalism. The legalist is always a very moral person. In fact, the majority of moral people are legalists because their behaviour does not grow out of a humble, contrite reliance on the merciful enabling of God. | ||
On the contrary, for the legalist, morality serves as an expression of self-reliance and self-assertion. The first meaning of legalism is the terrible mistake of treating biblical standards of conduct as regulations to be kept by our own power in order to earn God’s favor. It is a danger we must guard against in our own hearts every day. And we are all prone to it.<ref>John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2002), 153.<ref> | On the contrary, for the legalist, morality serves as an expression of self-reliance and self-assertion. The first meaning of legalism is the terrible mistake of treating biblical standards of conduct as regulations to be kept by our own power in order to earn God’s favor. It is a danger we must guard against in our own hearts every day. And we are all prone to it.<ref>John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2002), 153.</ref> | ||
==Erecting a code of conduct beyond scripture== | ==Erecting a code of conduct beyond scripture== | ||