In this video, Rev. Ken Jones shows how God’s grace in Christ, not our own law-keeping, is what enables true holiness.
How can pastors help their members to understand the difference between legalism and holiness? One of the things that I remember from a Lutheran friend of mine, he says that Luther said, “We are all hardwired for the law.” So we begin by understanding what do we mean by legalism? Legalism is the misconception that our position with God is based on our keeping His law. Unfortunately, a lot of Christians will use the language of faith in the gospel, but in practice live as if our standing before God is still based on our individual keeping of the law; which means we will judge ourselves and others according to, again, and define their position according to our personal keeping of the law.
Now legalism makes sense because there is a sense in our standing before God is based on the law, but it's not our keeping of the law. It's Jesus' keeping of the law. So our pursuit of holiness is never so that. It's always because of.
Now that seems like some people might take that to mean that we are taking God's law lightly, but our position with God is not because of our keeping of the law. And since we have not kept the law to be in right standing with God, then our failure at any given point is not going to disqualify us from being in a right relationship with God. Holiness is because we have been given everything necessary for life and godliness in the person and work of Christ. There is no such thing as a Christian who does not desire to do the will of God, but what enables us to do the will of God is the grasp of God’s grace in the person and work of His Son.