strefanash
12-26-2008, 10:30 PM
Put plainly sin is lawlessness. But legalism is not lawfullness. It is in fact lawlessness with a mask , an expression of the very sins it fights.
It is all to do with motive. If you obey God with a joyous heart in love peace, gentleness and restful repose then well and good, you are blessed by God.
But if you do not obey God like this then it is in fact not God you are obeying, merely the external form of a commandment in a book. The difference between lawfulness and legalism is motive. and it is ony god's grace which turns a lawless legalist (as strange as that sounds) into a lawful saint.
If we find it hard in ourselves we are unwilling and are forcing something against our own will. See how legalists get so harsh and driven, they are not denying themselves in any biblical sense, they are a kingdom divided which wil not stand
For the motive of legalism, though this is usually so deeply buried as to be totaly denied, is that we who are legalists are trying to save ourselves and then have the temerity to ask God to help us. But he never does. There is grace and help to be had, but he will never offer it to us to help us assert our independance from God, which is what legalism is at its very core.
I believe I know of what I speak, for my legalism was and is still extreme, and the conviction of sin he is giving in order to get me to repent of this sin beforfe it literally kills me (i am not joking) continues.
For not only do i have to repent of my sins of lust pride etc, but i have to repent even of my stern moral resolves to be pure and humble etc.
It took me 25 years to get here, as a pharisee of pharisee i am stubborn, refusing to acknowlege where it counts that i need to be saved. No, I prefer to save myself and cry to God to help me do it.
Even now
I must add that I have NEVER defined legalism only as pre occupation with specifically Jewish Laws, but though I do hold that such coincerns are legalitic now I was never troubles by them. In fact I think this definition is dangerous for it obscures the danger and the pervasiveness of legalism in the rest of us who never felt the need
I was legalistic about the sermon on the mount and the 10 commandments. About the moral LAw if not the ceremonial Law . I was legalistic about looking away from women (as if that addressed what the commandment was about. IT DID NOT!!!!). I was legalistic about honesty, gentless (I was thoroughly repressed even as a child and more so after becoming a believer then falling away from christ into this carnal belief in moral effort.) And I was legalistic about faith as I was torn apart by doubt, and this thought repression is what drove me mad. Literally. Two psych ward admissions and 12 years on welfare as a sickness beneficiary came from it.
What the moral law commands is good, but my response to it as a sinner was entirely wrong.
Interestingly enough when i hear stories of gangsters coming to christ I am no longer imrpessed. What they usually have done is swapped one response to the Law of God (completely ignoring it) for another, and in fact they only took on a reponse to the LAw if God i had had since I was a child (I was converted age 19). MY life long striving left me tired even at that age. They take it on as a new convert. They do some external works of law, now have a moral framework when they never did (well so did I but it did me no good) and they think that a great change has happened when it has not. Given that these are the sort who now beat up what they call heretics (I got a few punches thrown at me), or unbelievers, I hold myself to be correct here.
But I digress. The spontaneous response to the Law of God coming from sinners wil always be wrong. St Paul's was. He went through Romans 7. So did I.
Converted 30 years ago for 5 years I ignored the Spirit til He got my attention in 1983. I can explain how later if you like. So for 25 years the conversation, twixt God and me, has been continuing, and even after all this time the notion that legalism is SIN is still unbelievable to me.
That is how deep legalism can get, and how destructive it can be
It is all to do with motive. If you obey God with a joyous heart in love peace, gentleness and restful repose then well and good, you are blessed by God.
But if you do not obey God like this then it is in fact not God you are obeying, merely the external form of a commandment in a book. The difference between lawfulness and legalism is motive. and it is ony god's grace which turns a lawless legalist (as strange as that sounds) into a lawful saint.
If we find it hard in ourselves we are unwilling and are forcing something against our own will. See how legalists get so harsh and driven, they are not denying themselves in any biblical sense, they are a kingdom divided which wil not stand
For the motive of legalism, though this is usually so deeply buried as to be totaly denied, is that we who are legalists are trying to save ourselves and then have the temerity to ask God to help us. But he never does. There is grace and help to be had, but he will never offer it to us to help us assert our independance from God, which is what legalism is at its very core.
I believe I know of what I speak, for my legalism was and is still extreme, and the conviction of sin he is giving in order to get me to repent of this sin beforfe it literally kills me (i am not joking) continues.
For not only do i have to repent of my sins of lust pride etc, but i have to repent even of my stern moral resolves to be pure and humble etc.
It took me 25 years to get here, as a pharisee of pharisee i am stubborn, refusing to acknowlege where it counts that i need to be saved. No, I prefer to save myself and cry to God to help me do it.
Even now
I must add that I have NEVER defined legalism only as pre occupation with specifically Jewish Laws, but though I do hold that such coincerns are legalitic now I was never troubles by them. In fact I think this definition is dangerous for it obscures the danger and the pervasiveness of legalism in the rest of us who never felt the need
I was legalistic about the sermon on the mount and the 10 commandments. About the moral LAw if not the ceremonial Law . I was legalistic about looking away from women (as if that addressed what the commandment was about. IT DID NOT!!!!). I was legalistic about honesty, gentless (I was thoroughly repressed even as a child and more so after becoming a believer then falling away from christ into this carnal belief in moral effort.) And I was legalistic about faith as I was torn apart by doubt, and this thought repression is what drove me mad. Literally. Two psych ward admissions and 12 years on welfare as a sickness beneficiary came from it.
What the moral law commands is good, but my response to it as a sinner was entirely wrong.
Interestingly enough when i hear stories of gangsters coming to christ I am no longer imrpessed. What they usually have done is swapped one response to the Law of God (completely ignoring it) for another, and in fact they only took on a reponse to the LAw if God i had had since I was a child (I was converted age 19). MY life long striving left me tired even at that age. They take it on as a new convert. They do some external works of law, now have a moral framework when they never did (well so did I but it did me no good) and they think that a great change has happened when it has not. Given that these are the sort who now beat up what they call heretics (I got a few punches thrown at me), or unbelievers, I hold myself to be correct here.
But I digress. The spontaneous response to the Law of God coming from sinners wil always be wrong. St Paul's was. He went through Romans 7. So did I.
Converted 30 years ago for 5 years I ignored the Spirit til He got my attention in 1983. I can explain how later if you like. So for 25 years the conversation, twixt God and me, has been continuing, and even after all this time the notion that legalism is SIN is still unbelievable to me.
That is how deep legalism can get, and how destructive it can be