A couple of different listeners in the past month have written in to ask essentially the same thing and it's this. Is it possible to become legalistic about not being legalistic? Pastor John, what would you say? My short answer would be simply yes, but that won't have much meaning until we provide some definitions and biblical content for the word legalism.

Here's the startling fact that more people need to take into account and they need to become more careful in their use of the language. There is no word for legalism in New Testament Greek. The English word legalism never occurs in any modern translation of all the Bible. It's not in ESV, NIV, NASB, New King James.

What this means is that the incredible frequency and confidence with which we use the word today in a negative way to criticize other people stands on very shaky ground. Not shaky because such a thing may not exist, but shaky because we may not know what we're talking about. And if we do know what we're talking about, it may not be in the Bible, may not be a biblical idea, but everybody just slings this word around, unbelievably common and with such amazing confidence.

So we need to look at the scriptures and decide what the English word legalism might refer to in the Bible. So let's mention three or four things that are often called legalism, which the New Testament does not condemn, but in fact encourages. And I am using the word legalistic here to refer to something bad just because that's the way it's universally used.

So number one, I think I have four of these. So these are things that are considered to be bad when people call them legalistic, but in the New Testament are good. So number one, it is not legalistic to believe that a changed life of love and holiness are necessary for final salvation.

Hebrews 12, 14, "Strive for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord." Ephesians 5, 5, "For you may be sure of this, everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous," that is an idolatry, "has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God." So the biblical truth is that Christ's blood and righteousness are the sole ground of our full acceptance into God's favor, but the new life of love and holiness, pursued with all our might, ready to cut off our hands if we must, is necessary as the fruit which demonstrates that we are truly in Christ and born again.

It is not legalistic to be that serious about holiness. Number two, it is not legalistic to think of the Christian life as a life of obedience guided by commands, commandments of Jesus. Those two words, obedience and commandments, are not legalistic words in the New Testament. Philippians 2, 12, "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling." Or 1 John 2, 3, "And by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments." Number three, it is not legalistic for a Christian to make it his aim to please God by the way he lives.

Justification by faith alone does not exclude this; it empowers it. 2 Corinthians 5, 9, "Whether we are at home or away," meaning in heaven or on earth, "we make it our aim to please the Lord." Number four, it is not legalistic to use warnings and threatenings toward professing Christians to stir them up to be vigilant in their pursuit of holiness in heaven.

Colossians 3, 5, "Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you—sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry—on account of these," he's addressing Christians, "the wrath of God is coming." So don't do them! And Matthew 5, 30, "If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.

It's better for you, you disciples, Peter, James, John, it's better for you to lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell." It's not wrong, it's not legalistic to use that kind of Jesus and apostolic language to warn professing Christians to get about the business of putting sin to death in their life.

So then, what would be the meaning of legalism? If that's what it isn't, and yet many consider to be is, what would it be? What would the New Testament really condemn that we sometimes and should call legalistic? Here are three meanings of legalism that I hear used today that I think ought to be used, but they should be carefully explained, which ones being used and when.

Number one, we might call someone legalistic if they are overly scrupulous about behaviors that are not prohibited or commanded in the New Testament. This is what Romans 14 is mainly about. It goes like this, "Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats." So that despising and that judging would be legalistic on this definition.

Number two, we might call someone legalistic if they fail to see that the mosaic system of sacrifices and priestly ceremonies and rights of purification and food laws and rituals that distinguish Israel from the nations are not binding any longer on the Christian. Hebrews 8, 13, "In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete," or Romans 7, 4—actually, just verse 6, maybe, both of them say almost the same thing—"We are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the way of the Spirit and not the old way of the written code." And finally, number three, we might call someone legalistic if they treat the law or any moral behavior as the ground of our full acceptance with God instead of seeing Christ's blood and righteousness as the only ground of our acceptance and faith in Him as the only means of having what He died to obtain.

So Romans 8, 3, "God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do." What? "By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, He condemned sin." So our condemnation is over because He did in the cross what we could never do by law-keeping. Or Galatians 5, 2—this is even clearer, I think—"If you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.

I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law." Which means if you're going to use circumcision as part of the ground of your acceptance with God, you've got to go all the way and be a perfect person in law-keeping. So you just better get rid of that notion and bank everything on Jesus Christ for your acceptance with God.

Now, my answer is yes, a person can be legalistic about legalism. Yes, you can. And here's the easiest way to see it, I think, is what I see anyway in our day. Watch a person who thinks another Christian is being overly scrupulous about behaviors that are not prohibited or commanded in the New Testament.

Perhaps praying at meals, having personal devotions every day, having family devotions in the evening, abstaining from alcohol, refusing to watch movies with nudity, etc. None of those is mentioned in the New Testament. And then you see this legalism-rejecting, so-called free person become overly scrupulous himself about doing the very behaviors that the overly scrupulous Christian avoided.

You see him turn those very behaviors into necessities in order to show that he's not legalistic, he's free. So he's just got to do those things that this other generation didn't do or not do what they did when in fact the freedom may be just as much a bondage to be different, a bondage to be different as the so-called legalism they are rejecting may be a bondage to tradition.

So yes, it is possible to be legalistic about legalism, but the big challenge, as I see it, is to know what we're talking about when we use the word legalism and that we measure it by the scriptures. Yeah, sobering. God save us from this. Thank you, Pastor John. Well, we are going to break now for the weekend, and that means plenty of time for you to subscribe to our audio feeds and to search our episode archive and even reach us by email with a difficult question you're facing in life.

You can do all of that, of course, through our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. And Lord willing, by the time that you hear this, Pastor John will have just embarked on an international trip to Hong Kong, and we will have more details for you about this trip on Monday. I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

Thanks for listening to the podcast, and we'll see you on Monday. < 3 < 3