The Personality of Legalism

There are legalists in every spectrum of Christianity. You can't just point your finger at every person that lives by a stricter set of personal guidelines than you and throw the label at them. Holiness is a personal walk just like faith; there are no two people that are alike. However, it is important that we know what it looks like so we can keep from falling into it ourselves. The first dilemma that we run into is that nobody wants to be a legalist so even the people that fit every quality of the word live in continuous denial of it. To keep ourselves from being bitter name callers we must go back to scripture, find the legalists mentioned there, and study their traits. In Luke chapter eighteen I believe we find everything we need straight from the mouth of Jesus to get a good idea of what the personality of legalism looks like. I fear that it is more common than most would care to admit. Let's take a look...

Luke 18:9-14 (KJV)

[9] And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: [10] Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. [11] The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are , extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. [12] I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. [13] And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. [14] I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

They Trust in Themselves

Verse nine puts the first nail in the coffin when the Holy Ghost inspired Luke's commentary on who this parable was directed toward. Jesus, knowing the heart problem in the legalists, directed this parable toward "certain which trusted in themselves." The legalist claims a devotion to Jehovah but faith is the only thing that pleases Jehovah. This man was dressed right and walked right, verse ten even tells us that he was going to the temple to pray, but his confidence was in the power of his own flesh. When verse eleven begins Jesus reveals to us that even the prayers of a legalist are directed toward his own flesh when he stated that this Pharisee "prayed...with himself." Thats a pretty stark contrast to the men we know through scripture who prayed "in the Holy Ghost." The legalist will tell you that his faith is in God but he lives a life that contradicts this lip service. Whenever you find a man who's spirituality produces pride and self satisfaction you find a man that is trusting in himself and not God; you find a legalist.

They Believe Their Form of Faith is Superior

This parable is not about a religious man and a lost man; this parable is about two believers that are both headed to the house of God to worship. Jesus tells the story in such a way that he draws the mind of the legalist to assume the worst about a man that Jesus knew would be the hero of the story. No legalist wants to hear that the publican in the story is the real spiritual man. So we have two Christians, if I may borrow the word, and one is assuming his form of Christianity is the superior form with the superior methods. This legalist is so convinced that his way is better that he even thanks God at the end of verse eleven that he isn't as bad off spiritually as the other man of faith. Whenever you find a Christian who believes that his personal form of Christianity is superior to all that don't meet his standard you find a man who's faith is in his own performance and not God; you find a legalist.

They are Defined by What They Do and Don't Do

As this Pharisee began his prayer it was not "our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name." He lifted his chin high and reminded God of all the things that he did not do! I imagine if he had been given a pulpit that his preaching would have probably consisted of a lot of this, too. Just as soon as he finished there, he was so pleased with himself, that he went on to remind God of all the things that he DID do. I imagine his long list of good works wasn't just reserved for his private prayer time either. Everything that this man was revolved around what he did and didn't do. Never a mention of grace, never a mention of God opening his eyes and ears, never a mention of God strengthening his faith or establishing his heart, never a mention of the cleansing work of the Spirit. No, just look at what I can do and look at what I can keep myself from! Whenever you find a man that is obsessed with what he does and does not do you find a man that believes in a works based spiritual life instead of a faith based spiritual life; you find a legalist.

They Devalue Others

Luke told us that Jesus was addressing those who had their confidence placed in their own self but he quickly followed that with the other primary defining characteristic of a legalist; they "despised others." This word "despise" literally means to devalue or "make of no account." When a man turns legalistic in his thinking he quickly becomes the judge of others and he isn't a very fair one. In order to maintain his confidence his primary passion becomes picking other people apart. We see in verse eleven that at the very introduction of this Pharisee's prayer he thanked God that he was not as other men were. As he closed that thought he narrowed the focus down to the closest person he could get his eyes on and that was the publican. Was he burdened for the publican? No, rather, he profited from the inferiority that he believed the publican to represent. Without anyone to compare himself to his life would carry very little meaning. The legalist is a vain elitist and always a gossip because his confidence depends on other people being wrong. Whenever you find a man that can't quit critiquing, criticizing, and gossiping about other people you find a man with blatant disregard for the grace of God; you find a legalist.

There was one man who went home justified at the end of this story and that was the humble, broken publican. The poor, wretched publican was a nothing, a nobody, with no confidence in himself. He was broken because he knew God. He was humble because he knew himself. Jesus wasn't interested in the man who had it all together. Jesus was interested in honesty. The minute we enter into denial about who we are and what our flesh is we, too, can enter into legalism. Legalism is deadly because it is a cause of it's own that works directly against the only cause that matters; faith in Jesus Christ and His completed work.

Dropping Standards: Not Always a Bad Thing

I've not tried to hide the fact that I used to be very outward focused on my ideas about what spirituality was supposed to look like. Over the first decade of my Christian life I acquired a long list of things I decided that my family would and wouldn't do from avoiding modern Christian music to not having a Christmas tree. Many of these things I find myself smiling about today. Of course, we still hold firmly to the convictions we have against clear cut areas of sin but natural growth and spiritual maturity have lead us to drop many of these opinion based, personal preferences down to a place of less importance in our lives. I've personally been the one to jump up and down about people who "threw all their standards away" and now the topic seems a lot more complex. Are there some times when dropping some standards might be a good thing?

One of the first areas that springs to mind is young people reaching adulthood and leaving home. Countless times I've watched the children of pastors, preachers, and missionaries leave home and "throw all their standards away." I've watched onlookers shake their heads, run them down, and start discussions in prayer rooms about how much these young hopefuls backslid and dropped the ball when they left home but is that really what happened? Very rarely, and usually only accompanied by extreme spiritual discouragement, have I seen a Christian take a conviction that God put on his heart and just lay it down and walk away from it. The case with many of these young people is that these supposed standards were never theirs to begin with. Once they stepped out from under the pressure of mom and dad the importance placed on these areas, whatever they may have been, fell away. Sure, this can be a dangerous time in this young adult's life but it is also crucial for their personal walk with Christ and its development. The real problem is that if a heart issue did exist in the child before it left home that we were all too satisfied with the facades to ever spot it. Now, for the first time in that young person's life they are being who they truly are and ultimately Jesus has something He can actually work with. There is no high premium in scripture for hypocrites no matter how much religious training they exemplify on the outside.

The next area that comes to mind is just plain and simple spiritual maturity. Take my little girl for example. When she first started talking and conversing with people she was not allowed to use the word "hate" at all. A two year old cannot fathom the gravity and weight that such a little word like that can carry. Now that she is fixing to turn five she uses the word nearly weekly as she tells her mommy "I hate that you hurt your finger" or "I hate that we aren't getting to see Grandma today." My little girl didn't digress morally because she began using the word that she originally had been taught against. No, maturity gave her the balance she needed to move forward and learn to use that word correctly. Many of the preferences I held to in the first season of my spiritual walk kept me out of a lot of trouble and helped me to grasp the importance of purity. Many of the standards I held drew strict lines in the sand to keep my flesh from areas that I had not developed temperance to handle. I'm not crawling any more though. In fact, I'm not even toddling. As a Christian I am now on my feet walking and eating meat. Do I have a lot to learn? Oh, of course! Until the day I die I'll have a lot to learn but I can now discern things that as a weaker Christian I was "not able to bear." This example holds true in my own home where many of the gates we put in front of the stairs, the padding we placed around the brick on the fireplace, and the locks on the kitchen cabinets are now gone simply because maturity has deemed them no longer necessary for my children. This same sort of scenario exists in the spiritual relm.

The last area that comes to my mind is religious peer pressure. I've been on the receiving end and on the giving end of this one. New believers need to be discipled but there is a fine line that can sometimes be crossed when we take areas that may be common practice to our particular genre of Christianity or to us personally and prioritize them over the black and white areas of scripture that actually need to be taught. The intentions and motives behind such practices are not always bad but it is dangerous to say the least because it can easily become a "grievous weight" or an area of bondage in that Christian's life. Everybody wants to fit in with the Christians after they get saved but the bar must be set as Christ and revealed as a level no man has reached! These standards that carry political weight in an assembly are most always bringing glory to a man somewhere that is thought to be the bar. Once a person loses faith in that man or manmade system these types of standards always come down because they were a result of pressure and not spirituality. At this point, a man can rebuild on the right foundation and have a real grasp of who God is. Just because one of these brothers or sisters doesn't recover and land exactly back where we are on all of our personal preferences doesn't mean he or she isn't right with God and no longer deserves respect. In fact, what you see on the outside now is what was probably in the heart all along. The only difference is that this person is no longer afraid of what you think about them. Keep in mind that we have our own spirituality overvalued when we use it as leverage to look down our noses at anyone.

We feel safer when we think everything has to be black and white but the beauty of grace is how personal it is. Most of the time it takes a lot of private prayer and meditation for God to be able to reveal to me exactly where I am. I tend to be biased towards myself and my view of who I really am usually winds up clouded. When I realize the immense amount of effort that I have to exert just to sort through my motives, my crutches, my vices, my insecurities, and all of my intricate internal workings I quickly realize that it would be absolutely impossible for me to look at you and know where you are in this process. As Christians we just have to love each other and trust that the Father is doing the necessary work in each of His children's lives. In every one of the above scenarios we find real people with real needs for love and friendship. We will either be the friends these people need or we will allow our own selfish agendas to cause damage and hurt and no good ever comes from that. When our motives are wrong we will often be quick to misjudge the motives of others. Romans two abrasively reminds us that it is the goodness of God that shapes a man and that we should be careful not to despise His long-suffering nature. Mine and your lives are like 1,000 piece puzzles that the Master is assembling. Unfortunately, the onlookers around us usually only have a clear view of three or four of those pieces at a time.