What does the Bible say about legalism? How can a Christian avoid falling into the trap of legalism?

The question arises, why was the law given, if we cannot gain righteousness by it? The answer to that question is here. "We know that whatsoever things the law says, it says to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God" (chap. 3:19). That was good advice that a Christian woman, of whom our dear friend Ed White used to tell us, who gave to her loquacious husband, who was always talking of his goodness and wondering why he could not get the peace that she had. Said she, "Do you not know that it's not manners for two to talk at once, hold your voice man and listen to God." It was good advice, for faith does not come by talking, "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Then shut your guilty mouth, ye self-righteous sinners; bow your heads in repentance and submission to God, and by so doing acknowledge the truth, that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, " Make the general statement particular and personal, and own like the prodigal, "I have sinned." Then say no more but hear what God will say to you, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes." What a blessed and most satisfying statement is that, it answers the deepest questions of the heart and the most poignant need of the soul. Since you are a sinner, you need forgiveness. Where will you find it? Not in the law, but in Christ. If you are to be at peace with God you need righteousness. Where will you find it? Not in the law but in Christ. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. The law pointed with a thousand fingers to Christ; its many voices proclaimed, Christ is coming. The ordinances, the sacrifices, the ritual of Tabernacle and Temple all spoke of Him; they were the shadows of the coming Saviour, and faith in those distant days perceived their meaning and rejoiced in anticipation of His day. Now He has come, and the shadows have served their purpose and disappeared, Christ has come, He is the hope of weary sinful men. O ye who are burdened with guilt and defiled by sin, to you He says, "Come to Me." Christ is your hope, Christ and His blood!

The apostle now proceeds to treat of a question exceedingly delicate and critical, especially in days and places where the saints consisted of any considerable mixture of converts, brought out of systems so opposed as those of Jews and Gentiles. What to the strong in faith is an indifferent matter may trouble the conscience of those who are weak, as the apostle here distinguishes them. The weak were such Christians as were still shackled in conscience by their old Jewish observances, as to days, meats, etc., by distinctions not moral but ceremonial; the strong were those who saw in their death with Christ the end to all such bondage and enjoyed liberty in the Spirit. Carefully must we guard against the offensive misinterpretation that the weak mean those who tampered with evil. Contrariwise so fearful were they of sin that they were needlessly burdened and thus cherished a conscience not tender only, which is of the utmost moment for all, but scrupulous. But they were in no way lax, which is an evil of the greatest magnitude and only exaggerated, not diminished, by increase of knowledge. The weak were really ignorant of the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free, and hence apt to burden themselves continually where they might have found rest for their souls. They knew not that His yoke is easy and His burden light.

The practice to which brethren are called in such matters is mutual forbearance (Rom. 14, Rom. 15:7), all agreeing in doing what they do to the Lord, spite of difference in judgment of what should be done. Room is thus left for growth in knowledge as the word of God opens to our faith, while conscience meanwhile is respected. "Now him that is weak in faith receive, not to decisions of reasonings. One believes that he may eat all things, while he that is weak eats herbs. Let not him that eats despise him that eats not, and let not him that eats not judge him that eats; for God has received him. Who art thou that judgest another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls; but he shall stand, for God is able to make him stand. One esteems† day above day, while another esteems† every day. Let each be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regards the day to [the] Lord regards [it], [and he that regards not the day to the Lord regards [it] not.]‡ And he that eats to [the] Lord eats, for he thanks God; and he that eats not to [the] Lord eats not and thanks God. For none of us lives to himself, and none to himself dies; for both if we live, to the Lord we live, and if we die, to the Lord we die. Therefore, both whether we live and whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this [end] Christ died and lived,†† that he should rule over both dead and living. And why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou too despise thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of God. For it is written, [As] I live, saith [the] Lord, to me shall bend every knee, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each of us shall give account about himself to God." (Ver. 1-12.)

From the beginning of Romans 14 to the end of Romans 15:7 another point is taken up, to which the different positions of the Jew and Gentile gave rise. It was difficult for a Jew to rid himself of the sense of difference between days and between meats. A Gentile, having abandoned his whole religious system as idolatrous, held to nothing. Human nature is liable in this respect to sin on both sides — a want of conscience, an unbridled will, and a ceremonial conscience. Christianity recognises neither of these things. It delivers from the question of days and meats by making us heavenly with Christ. But it teaches us to bear with conscientious weakness, and to be conscientious ourselves. Conscience cannot — has not a right to — prescribe a new thing to us as a duty, but it may, through ignorance, hold to a traditional thing as obligatory. In reality we have entire liberty, but we ought to bear with weakness of faith in another, and not put a stumbling-block in his way. The apostle gives three directions in this respect: First, to receive the weak, but not for the discussion of questions that have to be settled; second, not to judge our brother, since he is Christ's servant, not ours; and every one must give account of himself to God; third, to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves; to walk in the spirit of love, and, if we are in a higher state, to show it by receiving one another, as Christ has received us, to the glory of God, which eclipses man and his petty superiorities, and which kindles charity and makes it ardent, earnest in seeking the good of others — taking us so out of self, and beyond little things, that we are able to adapt ourselves to others, where the will of God and His glory are not in question.

The distinction between individual weakness of faith and consequent special observances for conscience' sake, and an active legal spirit which would insist on such observances, is clear in itself, but is to be carefully kept in view as a practical point. The one never goes beyond the individual conscience. Certain things are observed to the Lord, for conscience' sake. In the other case, the object is to place a yoke on the necks of others, to spoil and hinder the liberty of Christ. But this is a thing to be resisted utterly wherever it occurs, as being from Satan, and in no wise of God. It is an evil of constant recurrence in the Church of God, and one which demands therefore incessant watchfulness. Its root can never be perfectly extracted or destroyed, for it lies deep in the natural constitution of the human heart. Yokes and bonds to bind again the consciences which Christ died to set free, are the incessant machinations of the enemy of light, who finds, alas! too ready a material and too commodious a space for his evil work in the natural heart. The Epistle to the Galatians is worthy of all attention on this head (cp. also 2 Cor. 11:12-16; Acts 15).

Now God in this epistle presents to us the forgiveness of sins, and also the death of the sinner in the person of the One who satisfies God as to the question of his sins. This is Paul's gospel (chapter 1), wherein, he says, the "righteousness of God" is revealed on the principle of faith. God's righteousness "upon all who believe" (chapter 3) when we had none to offer Him (see chapter 3), and Christ now before God instead of myself, in whom I am, according to Romans 8:1. This is how the power and grace of God have triumphed. "It" (the gospel) "is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." And this word salvation, thus brought out in the first chapter, is no mean measure; it is what God's heart desires to be proclaimed to every poor sinner "for the obedience of faith." As it was in the synagogue of Nazareth (Luke 4) so it is now, "deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised." To accept it is to be "free indeed," no longer a servant, but a son; "and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ." (Gal. 4) How appropriate the exhortation of the apostle to these law-keeping Galatians: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Yet though we are not Jews, and so not under the law of Moses, how often we make laws for ourselves, not reckoning ourselves dead, not accepting the truth, and thus are landed again under a yoke of bondage, in which case the true Christian liberty is not known. How common is the thought, in respect of worldliness for example, (though the principle applies to other things), "I ought not to be so worldly, nor to do what the world does." This is admitted; but it is the old man you are addressing as if alive; you have allowed yourself to "be" what is inconsistent with a dead man. Had you met the enemy at the outposts with the truth, "I am dead," because you have accepted it by faith, you had not been betrayed into a path and conduct you now sorrow over, a path of servitude, and not of liberty, in which you find yourselves in Rom. 7, and do not know the truth of Romans 8 as your abiding portion and joy.

I connect this with what Paul says in verse 1, “Stand fast,”or, “Stand firm.”This liberty is something to enjoy in the Christian experience, but it is also something that is hard to understand. Christian liberty is not legalism. This is the way that the enemy wants people to go; legalism is the opposite of Christian liberty. Further, Christian liberty does not mean license, we will see in chapter 6 that we are under the law of Christ. This is a new law, a new order of things, the law of Christ relates to the new nature. God does not force us to obey His commands; rather, he has given us a nature that desires to do exactly what He wants us to do. James speaks about the royal law (Jas.2:8) and the law of liberty (Jas.2:12) so there is obligation but not in the sense of a bondage. In one sense we are bondmen of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, but it is not in the sense of bondage that we have seen in connection with Hagar at the end of chapter 4, a system that is in bondage with her children (v.25) which is characteristic of Judaism, and which Paul calls “a yoke of bondage”(5:2). No, that is something that is entirely different from God’s thoughts. If we are under such bondage, we will not be able to serve God effectively, nor will we be able to worship Him well. A yoke of bondage will stop the believer from going on. There will be all kinds of hindrances and that is what Paul wants to prevent. We are set free from such bondage, we are set free from paganism, set free from this religious side of bondage and set at liberty. This liberty is a precious thing, and it is constantly under attack. Many are the forces seeking to move away the saints either towards legalism or towards license. Therefore, we have to have our focus right in connection with this liberty and that is why he says, “Stand firm.”When it comes to the enjoyment of these precious Christian truths there is always this challenge to stand firm, so we will not lose them, but that we will enjoy this position of liberty in true fellowship with God. In every epistle Paul gives encouragement in this sense, to hold fast.

The law says to the one under it, “Thou shalt”; and to the disobedient, “Curses be upon you.” “Cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal. 3:10). Thus the law brought a curse, not a blessing to man. It revealed sin in the heart, but did not remove it nor cure it. But grace reveals a remedy. “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, that as sin has reigned to death, even so might grace reign through righteousness to eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” So we are brought to the feet of our Lord for our deliverance from the reign of sin in us. He Who was able to endure God's wrath against my guilt is able to supply power over the sin that dwells within me and that is too strong for me. In Him and through Him deliverance comes. By looking to Christ Jesus, by trusting in Him, by occupation with Him, I get away from my own evil desires and my own natural inclinations. With the eye of faith upon the Lord, grace, not sin, reigns in my heart, and I walk before God in His love and in His fear.

Baptize it as you may, you cannot make it Christian. Relax it, you have spoilt it as law without making it gospel. Call it, without warrant, the "law of Christ," your apparent scripturalness will not hinder the necessary result of an adoption of what is not of Him. "The law is not of faith; but the man that doeth them shall live in them." (Gal. 3:12.) Now the gospel most surely requires obedience to it, and Christ's commandments admit no relaxation and lack no authority. But commandments and obedience do not constitute law in its essential principle, its absolute contrast with grace. And grace is the one power for holiness, the only thing that can deliver from the dominion of sin.

Verse 16. "I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." He touches here the root of their disease. They had felt the exceeding difficulty of satisfying their own conscience in their daily walk. Hence all the mischief. A love of goodness, misdirected, had led them into unsuspected evil and disaster. But the question which their later guides had falsely answered was one which truth could not disown, and to meet it with a right solution is the apostle's present aim. To walk, he says, in the Spirit is the sole condition of a practical exemption from the lust of the flesh. But walking in the Spirit is possible to those only who abide in Christ, and who reckon consequently both their old nature and the law, which was its ineffectual bridle, among the former things which faith no longer sees before it in its race (Phil. 3:13). It is as if he said: Engage your hearts' affections with the Lord, and regulate your liberated and purged consciences by the sayings of His lips, and you will need no other safeguard from the paths of the destroyer (Ps. 17:4). Christ's words, which are spirit and life, are strength also for their own fulfilment to the heart of faith. Prohibitive legal injunctions give no power against the evils they denounce. "Touch not, taste not, handle not" are rules for sinners, not for saints (Col. 2:20-23). The law of the Spirit is liberty, and has its fountain in the heart wherein Christ dwells. What He did both perfectly and naturally, when He pleased the Father, the generation of God's children are in their measure empowered to do, by yielding themselves to the will of Him who works His own good pleasure in His saints (Phil. 2:13; Heb. 13:21). The promise here delivered, if conditional, is also without limit; though, as we shall see presently, perfection, in its subjective meaning, is a hope only while these bodies of humiliation are unchanged. Paul could say much in his own name, though to the praise of the glory of His grace who kept him; but , he could not say that he had attained, or was already perfect. So he ran and battled to the end (Cor. 4:4; Phil. 3:12).

We shall now address ourselves briefly to the chapter before us. At the close of Galatians 5, the apostle warns the saints of what necessarily results from the cultivation of the legal spirit, vainglory, provoking one another, and envy. In the beginning of Galatians 6 we have another kind of spirit, the spirit of grace, "If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." This is what we need to do, not to glory over each other, but to help each other; ever seeking the profit and advancement of our brethren. In appealing to those who are spiritual, the apostle does not desire us to be testing ourselves to discover our degree of spirituality. The spiritual man lives too near to God to think anything of himself; and the spirit of meekness is the antithesis of the spirit of fancied spirituality. Those who are spiritual know that the restoration of the erring one is bound up with the glory of God. It was said of the Pharisees that they bound upon men's shoulders, burdens grievous to be borne; but they would not touch them themselves with one of their little fingers. This was the spirit that was creeping in among the Galatians; the direct result of turning to the law as a rule of life.