In this video, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson explores how legalism manifests in our hearts through our tendency to try to earn God’s favor and judge others by standards that distort the gospel.
The question is, “What are some of the signs that legalism might be present in my heart and in the way I live?” I think here, the first thing I would say is, I think we all need to recognize that we are actually all legalists by nature, that ever since the fall, that has been our natural disposition. And you see this in all kinds of ways. People sometimes present it with the gospel, and they will say, “I think I’m good enough.” Or Christians who are struggling, and what they tend to fall back on is the notion, “I’m not good enough.” So, there is this kind of native disposition in us to think—and I think it’s partly because of our sinfulness—either that there are things that we have got to do to earn God’s favor or that there are things that we can do that will earn God’s favor. And both of those dispositions are actually forms of legalism. Now, technically legalism has got to do with the idea that by obedience to the law, we can earn salvation. But it manifests itself, I think under disguise really in these different ways.
And I’ve come to think that as Christians one of the ways in which we can detect legalism in our lives is by how we assess other Christians. So for example, recently I was working on Romans 14 and 15. These are two chapters towards the end of Romans where Paul is speaking about Christians in Rome with a Jewish background who will not eat certain meats and who have a conscience to observe certain days. Whereas there are gentile Christians in the church at Rome and special holy have no part of their background or history and they’ll basically eat anything that is put before them. And Paul says the danger for both sides is on the one hand, one group may judge and condemn the other and the other group will look down their noses at the other. And the interesting thing in both cases is that it’s because they’re not meeting a standard that one or the other has. And I think again, that is a form of legalism because almost Paul’s first word in Romans 14 and his last word at the end of the section in 15 is: “Welcome. You welcome your fellow believers because Christ has welcomed them.” And that insidious refusal to welcome because somebody has not met the standard is another way in which—a very subtle way—legalism manifests itself. And I think we always have to be on the lookout for it.
Geerhardus Vos, very famous New Testament scholar of the first half of the twentieth century who taught at Princeton Seminary, has a very striking statement in one of his books where he says, “The essence of legalism is to divorce the law of God from the person of God.” And I think that’s tremendously insightful because what characterizes legalism is it’s really an expression of a distorted view of God and His relationship with us and becomes a distorted view of the law—the law is something I’ve got to keep to earn His favor rather than guidelines that He’s given to me to stabilize my life and to direct me in the way in which I should live as a member of His family. And at the end of the day, it kind of moves back into the way you view God. Like God is a kind of policeman who is just checking up to see that your behavior is adequate for His acceptance. And that turns the gospel on its head, doesn’t it? It’s His acceptance and our knowledge that He is that kind of Father to us that sets us free from the spirit of legalism. It’s a very subtle thing. And the last person usually to notice it is the person who has it.