Reductionistic Legalism Part 1

When I ask friends to describe legalism, it is often that I hear the slogan that legalism is "rules over relationship."

Most of them miss the fact that I was asking for a description of legalism, for them to describe the character of legalism "especially as determined by salient features" (Merriam-Webster), not a simple reduction of its character into a single sentence. Perhaps this is my error in not asking a clearer question.

The reason I ask is that I want people to move from a simple theology into a Biblical theology. This is not to say that the Bible is hard to understand --- surely, we only understand the Bible because God gives us understanding (1 Corinthians 2:6-16) --- but that people tend to oversimplify Biblical concepts and thereby lose the "salient features" that make them compellingly practical.

"Rules over relationship" is somewhat practical, because it reminds us that we are placing too much importance on following "rules" over a "relationship" with Jesus. But, is this the only important feature of legalism? Personally, I don't find this a compelling renouncement of the heresy of legalism. For, certainly, it is heresy.

The book of Galatians begins (Galatians 1:1-2:14) with a long defense by Paul of the gospel and his apostleship. Throughout this introduction to his main point, which he gets to in Galatians 2:16, that "a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ", the recurring theme is that the gospel and its ministration is not natural, but supernatural, given by God Almighty.

This, I think is the first salient feature to notice. Legalism is about the natural over the supernatural. It's about accepting the ideas of culture rather than God's ideas, human philosophy instead of Biblical teaching.

This is why teaching pastors are so vital (1 Timothy 5:17), and furthermore why reading, studying, and meditating on Scripture is so vital in a Christian's life. We know that God's word is used by the Holy Spirit like a sword, judging us and revealing our hearts (Hebrews 4:12), and we know furthermore that the hearing and understanding of Scripture trains us to be godly (2 Timothy 3:16-17; Isaiah 55:11; John 17:17; Romans 12:2; Ephesians 5:25-27).