Creeping Legalism
The Devil is in the Church Preaching, and the Congregation is Saying "Amen!"
The devil is preaching the exact opposite of the Gospel, and the church not only listens but agrees with him and spreads that message to others.
How is that? Surely I'm not going to reject the Gospel that I've known for years! Surely I'm more discerning than that!
Here's how: By exploiting your own desire for holiness and turning it into a trap--by substituting legalism for grace.
Legalism's Genesis
It started in the Garden of Eden when the crafty serpent convinced Eve that it would be better to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil rather than to eat of the tree of life. He convinced her to abandon freedom and life and un-broken fellowship with God for the prospect of becoming her own god and running her own life according to her own knowledge and wisdom. God had said "for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (Genesis 2:16-17) And so losing fellowship with God, Adam and Eve brought sin and death into the world. They did so by embracing legalism instead of grace. Legalism is eating the fruit of the tree of good and evil instead of the fruit of the tree of life. And Satan has been exploiting legalism to control mankind and to promote death ever since.
1 Corinthians 15:56
"The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law."
Heresies
Legalism creeps into the church insidiously and stealthily. We all know that the book of Galatians and Acts chapter 15 both declare that Gentile believers are not bound by the Law of Moses and specifically the requirement for circumcision. But then that very same old crafty spirit of legalism, refusing to accept defeat, pops back in and says "okay, but did they say anything about keeping the Sabbath in those verses?" Yes; in Galatians 4:9-11 it does in fact say "But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain." and Colossians 2:16 "So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths". Nevertheless, the Seventh Day Adventists come in and make the exact same claim as the Judaizers did in Acts chapter 15 and say that you cannot be saved unless you keep the Sabbath, and people are dumbfounded as to how to answer them. Surely we have to keep the Ten Commandments?
If keeping the Ten Commandments was all it took to get you to heaven, then Jesus would never have needed to come in the first place.
Galatians 2:21
"I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain."
Subtle Inroads
In the same way, this creeping legalism sneaks into mainstream churches which preach the proper and correct Gospel of salvation by grace through faith, and it begins to inject doubt into the hearts of believers. Oh, but you say "I would never fall for such an obvious ploy! I read my Bible, and I know that it says 'having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross' in Colossians 2:14. Therefore I cannot be fooled into thinking that I am under the written law."
But are you fooled into thinking you can lose your salvation every time you commit a sin?
Now here is where we find the resistance. You're thinking to yourself "of course I am not free to sin! Of course I cannot be saved if I sin! What is this guy getting at?"
But which of you is free from sin? Which of you never sins? Raise your hand if you never sin. I'll wait. Let me count the hands I see raised.
Does that mean that nobody in this room is saved?
What is Salvation
Are you really saved right now? How would you know? How can you answer that question? Is it not an important question? Shouldn't you be sure of it?
Or, if you sin then lose your salvation and then confess your sin and are saved again, does that mean that your eternal state is constantly vacillating between saved and un-saved, between life and death? What is the frequency of that oscillation? Does it happen weekly? Monthly? Daily? Once every hour or two? Every minute? Every second? If that's the case, then how will you ever know if you are saved from one moment to the next? How do you know you haven't just had an ungodly thought in your heart right now? Did you just think something un-kind or selfish or lustful? Did you just have a complaining thought or remember how somebody has wronged you? Are you struggling with doubt or fear or unbelief? How about pride? How is your humility right now? What is the temperature of your heart right now for Christ Jesus? Do you love the Lord with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength? All of it? Are you sure? Do you love your neighbor as yourself? Really?
Did you just look into your own heart and examine yourself on the basis of good and evil to determine whether or not you are saved? This tendency of looking inward instead of to Jesus proves that legalism has crept into the church. You did not see it or hear it coming. It snuck up behind you and whispered in your ear that you are now on your own and that it is up to you to make yourself holy and acceptable to God and that you can't just keep coming to Jesus for forgiveness over and over again.
Any time we look to our own merit instead of to Jesus as our standing before God, we have placed our hope in the ministry of death instead of the ministry of life; we are eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil instead of the tree of life. The Apostle Paul goes into great detail about how the law is the ministry of death. So we go to great lengths to find an excuse, a loophole which Paul neglected to close or enumerate in his writings, to observe the law instead of placing our faith in Jesus alone and in His grace alone, which is sufficient. Just because we don't believe that circumcision is necessary for salvation does not mean we are not trying to justify ourselves by the law. Just because we don't believe that keeping the Sabbath is necessary for salvation does not mean we are not practicing a form of legalism. Any time we judge our salvation on the basis of how we feel or what we have done or what we haven't done, we are condemning ourselves before God on the basis of the law rather than being justified through faith in Christ Jesus, Who is our salvation and our righteousness.
Do you see how this is the most Satanic lie imaginable? It is an affront to God. It is a slap in the face to Jesus. It is an insult to His blood and a complete denial of His power and of His love and of His eternal purposes. To believe that you have to live a perfect life in order to be saved is a falling away from the faith. It is legalism, which cannot save.
Galatians 3:3
"Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?"
Legalists Claim that Grace is License to Sin
Remember that when the Gospel first started being preached, people resisted it, because they thought it was giving sinners license to sin. It's not just the Law of Moses that is refered to as being "works" in the New Testament. Its the idea that the believer himself is responsible for being good enough to be accepted by a holy and perfect God.
Romans 3:8
"And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), 'Let us do evil that good may come'? Their condemnation is just."
Romans 6:1-2
"What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?"
So in preaching freedom from the law, we get pushback from legalists who accuse us of advocating for sin. But the law does not make anybody perfect! The law only shows us when we sin but offers no way of making us better.
Salvation and Sanctification are Two Different Things
You will see throughout the New Testament that justification, which means having our sins forgiven and abolished, and sanctification, which means being set apart for God and living a life that glorifies Him, are two different things.
Ephesians 2:8-10
"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, so that no one may boast."
"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them."
Many people either get the order of these two things mixed up or confuse them with one another or try to say that if the second one is lacking that it can take away from the first one.
There is No Righteousness Apart From Christ
The Gospel is clear that it is only by being found in Christ that we are deemed acceptable unto God and that any attempt at imputing our standing before God to our own merit or works is a rejection of Christ's sacrifice.
Philippians 3:9
"and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith"
Fear is of the Enemy
And the Gospel does not use fear as its motivation, but love.
1 John 4:18
"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love."
1 John 3:20
"For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things."
2 Timothy 2:13
"If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself."
Two Natures
Notice how Paul lays out in great detail in Romans chapter 7 the fact that we have two natures. Here is the crux of that dissertation about the distinction between the flesh and the spirit:
Romans 7:17
"But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me."
John says the same thing, but he does not make the distinction quite as clear as Paul does. But notice John appears to contradict himself unless you take into account that he is talking about two different natures, two different identities, if you will...
1 John 1:8-10
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us."
1 John 2:1-2
"My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world."
1 John 3:4-9
"Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God."
So we have to exercise discernment to realize that even John is speaking of two different natures when he says we're lying if we claim we have no sin on the one hand and when he says that nobody who is born of God sins, on the other. These two natures are the same two natures Paul describes: the flesh, aka the self, which has sin dwelling in it, and the spirit, aka the "new man" or the "new creation," which is born of God.
Notice that Paul had said Romans 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. So if you constantly carry with you a nature that has nothing good in it, just the same as the Apostle Paul, does it make sense to allow that fact to be used to convince you that God ought to condemn you? The point of salvation wasn't to perfect your old creation but to make you into a new creation who lives according to the law of the Spirit of life. Romans 8:10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. So the body is dead; therefore it does not have the power to kill the Spirit. Galatians 3:11 But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for "the just shall live by faith."
You Are Already One With God
1 Corinthians 6:17
"But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him."
Our spirit is already one with God. It does not sin and does not need to be sanctified and already exists in the realm of eternity, in heaven, with Christ.
Ephesians 2:6
"and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus"
We are already seated together with Christ in the heavenly places.
How to Be Fruitful
We are told by Jesus to abide in Him and He in us.
John 15:4
"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me."
Our fruit is produced naturally by virtue of our abiding in Jesus. We could never produce any fruit on our own. But that being said, it is not implied here that we are condemned for not producing fruit. Condemnation does not drive us to produce fruit. Abiding in Christ produces fruit automatically. If you believe, then you are already in Christ. There is nothing further to be done. Simply abide, and the fruit will appear. If you have no fruit, there is certainly a problem with your faith, with what it is that you believe. Believing in the truth will always produce the fruit. So if you are shrivelling up because you are not abiding in the vine, then almost certainly the problem is in what you believe. A wrong belief will keep you away from God.
No Condemnation = Confidence
We are instructed in Romans 8 to not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit. That means to give our attention to and set our minds on Him, through faith (not by works).
Romans 8:1-2
"There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death."
1 John 3:21
"Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God."
Hebrews 10:35
"Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward."
Self Condemnation is Self Sabotage
We are instructed in Hebrews 4:16 "Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." And yet for some reason we believe that we are more holy and righteous if we come sheepishly before the throne of judgment and declare ourselves unworthy and reject His grace and mercy in favor of our own works? Church; you are doing the devil's work for him! You've just eliminated yourself; you've disqualified yourself; you've taken yourself out of the race; you've become harmless to the devil. You've given your mind to the devil to be his plaything. You've declared that the devil is more powerful than God and that Jesus's blood and His work on the cross are no match for the petty sins you allow Satan to condemn you over. Every time you agree with Satan, you give his lies power over you.
Romans 10:9-10
"that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
So belief leads to righteousness and confession leads to salvation. It doesn't say good works or not sinning leads to righteousness; it says that belief leads to righteousness. Righteousness is imputed to our account from Christ's account through faith. That is the core message of the Gospel. Without that, there is no Gospel message.
Believing Lies is an Agreement with the Devil
But notice the function of confession. When we confess our belief, we establish it; we activate it; we set it in motion; we materialize it. We confess unto salvation. But notice that if we confess unbelief, we can also establish curses onto ourselves; we cancel out God's favor for ourselves through our own mouths; we choose to live in defeat instead of victory. Can you choose not to live in the victory that Jesus purchased for you? Yes! But why would you want to?
If the devil whispers lies about God's word and you agree with the devil and confess disbelief in what Scripture says, your words can then be used against you by the enemy to enforce an agreement. Your mind then builds a stronghold to cement that understanding in your own life; it becomes a core belief that your mind will defend and will use to filter all new information through. When you believe a lie, you become blind to the truth.
If you have agreed with the devil that God no longer loves you or has rejected you or you have violated His holy law or crossed a line where somehow He cannot forgive you, and you have stored up that agreement in your heart and surrounded it with stone walls so that the light of Christ cannot shine through it, then you will become unable to accept the love of God. No wonder your heart feels cold and dark! You're not letting the love of God in, because it is being shut out by a lie you have believed! And you mistake this coldness of your heart as evidence that God has indeed rejected you. No; you've simply fallen into one of Satan's most devious traps: you've rejected the free gift of God in favor of trying to work for it instead, all the while thinking it's because you're more holy and more virtuous and you are therefore holding yourself to a higher standard—the law.
Your faith establishes your expectations. Your eye only sees what it expects to see.
Matthew 6:23
"But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!"
Can you begin to see how evil this is?
The devil is coming to mature believers in Christ and convincing them to separate themselves from the love of God, even though the scripture says that NOTHING can separate us.
Romans 8:38-39
"For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
The Leaven of the Pharisees
The devil is inverting the Gospel message and making people believe that they are more holy if they attempt to justify themselves rather than placing their faith wholly in Christ alone. The devil is convincing believers who know the Gospel of grace to ignore that and practice dead works and self-condemnation and to reject the freedom that Christ bought for them on the cross, by using their own religious zeal and desire to be holy against them.
Romans 10:3
"For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God."
This was the leaven of the Pharisees that Jesus warned us about. The Pharisees rejected Christ and trusted in their own righteousness. But the righteousness that comes by faith is described as being apart from the law and apart from works...
Romans 3:21-22
"But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe."
The righteousness of God to all and on all who believe, apart from the law.
What caused you to disbelieve God Who said in Ephesians 2:5 that He, "even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ"?
Pull Down This Stronghold
Therefore, if we have unbelief lodged in our hearts about the finished, complete work of Christ on the cross on our behalf purchasing our salvation and redeeming us from the curse of sin and death, His resurrection power regenerating us unto eternal life, and His Spirit seating us with Himself at the right hand of God, then we need to dislodge that unbelief. That unbelief is a stronghold, and it needs to be torn down completely.
2 Corinthians 10:4-5
"For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ"
So let's pull down that stronghold by believing the truth of God's word.
When God saved you, how did that happen? Did you make yourself alive? Did you cleanse yourself from your own sins? Did you make yourself worthy? Did you pluck yourself out of darkness and place yourself into His glorious light through your own strength or virtue or good works?
Or did God graciously deliver you from the domain of darkness and transfer you into the kingdom of His beloved Son? (Colossians 1:13) Were your sins washed away through your own goodness and by means of the force of your own will and your own wisdom, or did Jesus take those sins upon Himself on the cross and shed His blood for their propitiation and purge them once and for all, sending them as far away as the east is from the west? At the moment this happened, were you alive in Christ, or were you dead in your sins? When this happened, were you God's friend, or were you His enemy? When this happened, were you obedient and pleasing to God, or were you disobedient and an object of His wrath?
By what means did you take hold of this awesome and supernatural act of Jesus's substitution on the cross for us? Was it by faith? Did you do anything to deserve it or to cause it to happen?
Salvation is of God from Start to Finish
Romans 5:8
"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
1 John 4:10
"In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
So we weren't beloved sons. We weren't righteous. We did nothing to earn it. We were not only undeserving of it, but we weren't even alive yet when Jesus took our place on the cross. And yet His sacrifice stands for all eternity as the door between death and life, between man and God. Jesus, through His body, through His humanity, made Himself into you, has taken your place. And by faith, you receive His free gift, and God accepts you in Him.
Ephesians 1:6
"to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved."
2 Corinthians 5:21
"For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
The Awesomeness of Our Redemption
Ephesians 2:14-15
"For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace"
Not only did Jesus abolish the law and break down the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile to make one new man, but most importantly Jesus broke down the dividing wall between God and man and made us one with Himself. In Christ, we partake of the nature of God (2 Peter 1:4), and in Christ, God has partaken of the nature of man. There is no longer any dividing wall that separates us from God.
Hebrews 4:15
"For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin."
Now, from what does our sinlessness derive? It is from ourselves, or it is from our High Priest? If it is from ourselves, then we no longer have need of a High Priest. But the Bible says of Jesus our High Priest in heaven, "Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them." (Hebrews 7:25) So not only has He perfected forever those who are being sanctified, as Hebrews 10:14 says, but He always lives to make intercession for us, continually, in the ever-present "now." So our continuing salvation is still just as much a product of Jesus's work as it was when we first turned to Him in faith and utter desperation for a savior, which we still need every bit as much as we did in the beginning. Our transformation into His image from glory to glory is not the basis of our salvation. We are truly being sanctified, but our personal sanctification is not the basis for our access to God, and it will never be. The only reason we were saved or could ever be saved is because God looks at us and sees His Son.
Rest in His Love
If we turned to Him as rebels in our sin and He graciously accepted us as sons (in His beloved Son), why should we now be so eager to accept the lie that God might reject His sons because of their sin?
John 6:37
"All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out."
Jesus said in John 5:24 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life." You shall not come into judgment. You have already passed from death into life.
Galatians 6:15
"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation."
So if we are not to look to ourselves for our salvation, Who does the Bible say we are to look to?
Jesus Himself is Our Life
Hebrews 12:2
"...looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."
1 Peter 1:3-5
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
"Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it."
Philippians 1:6 "being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ"
Jesus said "I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes unto the Father except through Me." (John 14:6) If Jesus Himself is the way, then how can we possibly ever go astray? Is He not also our Good Shepherd as well?
Jesus said "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live." (John 11:25) If Jesus Himself is the life, then what can possibly take that life away?
Colossians 3:4
"When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory." Jesus is our life; how can we possibly lose it? Can Jesus die? How then can we die? Can we glorify ourselves? Or has God promised to do that with us because we are in His Son Jesus?
Jesus said "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst." (John 6:35) Jesus gave Himself to be our food and our drink. Jesus Himself is our tree of life.
1 Corinthians 1:30
"But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption" Jesus Himself is our righteousness, our wisdom, our sanctification, and our redemption.
Hebrews 10:23
"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful."
Prayer to Cancel Unbelief
If you have confessed unbelief in Jesus's finished work or in the power of His blood to cleanse you of all sin and unrighteousness, I want to pray with you to confess the truth and to cancel any agreements that might have kept you from fully experiencing His love.
Lord; we come boldly before Your throne of grace, cleansed by the blood of Jesus and clothed in His righteousness. Lord, you have said that we are forgiven and that we have passed from death unto life. Lord, if I have confessed any negative claims that the devil has made over me, I renounce and cancel those agreements right now in the name of Jesus. I confess that since you became a curse from me on the cross that your blood cancels out every curse against me. I confess that my salvation has been purchased by Your blood and that I belong to you and that I have received your Spirit of adoption as your beloved child. I reject all condemnation that the devil has tried to put on me, as Your word says in Romans chapter 8 'There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.' Lord God, I confess that my new nature was begotten in the image of Christ and that sin no longer has dominion over me. I confess that I am not under law but am saved by grace. I confess that I am kept by the power of God and that I am in the everlasting arms of my Savior Jesus.
2 Corinthians 5:17
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."
Amen.