Resisting the Lure of Legalism

“Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them?” (Mark 7:18, NIV)

Let’s talk about legalism. I know about legalism because I used to be a legalist. At the time, I didn’t believe legalism was really a thing. I’ve actually said to people, “When people say legalism, they’re really just trying to turn walking in righteousness into something negative.” I committed my life to Christ at 18 years old, which was also the year I got married and started a family. I remember falling in love with God’s Word, and in my enthusiasm (and thanks to my type-A personality), I started making lists of all that God said to do, so I could check it off and help everyone around me do the same. I needed my kids and those whom I influenced to be followers of God’s rules as expressions of their devotion to him.

This came from a heart that loved God and wanted to please him. Yet it was completely backwards.

One place where we see legalism is when they complain because Jesus’ disciples didn’t wash their hands before eating. Hand washing here had nothing to do with removal of germs and prevention of sickness; rather, this was a ritualistic washing to remove the “uncleanness” of Gentiles whom they may have encountered in the marketplace. It was their tradition through which they affirmed their special status before God, contrasted with the defilement of others who were not Jews.

“I started making lists of all that God said to do, so I could check it off and help everyone around me do the same.”

Yet God’s purpose for the law was never to make one group feel superior to another. The ultimate purpose of the law was to expose humanity’s need for God in light of our inability to achieve or maintain holiness on our own. And Jesus’ summary of the law was to love God and love others. So, a practice that perhaps started as an effort to keep the command of God had morphed through time and tradition into a practice that was completely backwards. As Jesus explained,

“Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.” (Matthew 15:17–20, NIV)

Traditions, in and of themselves, are not bad, but are inevitable. We do and repeat things until they become traditions. The problem is when we see our human rules and traditions as equal with God’s will. It is just as wrong to add to God’s commands through legalism as it is to ignore his commands. Legalism leads to caring more about the rules than about knowing God. As much as my type-A personality would like to, I cannot take the depth and the width of God’s nature and fit that into a rule box or checklist. Think of your marriage. It must be built on love, not a honey-do list. The same is true in our relationship with God.

“Legalism leads to caring more about the rules than about knowing God.”

Jesus drew a connection between the Pharisees’ hypocrisy and the empty traditionalism of Isaiah’s time:

“Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!” (Mark 7:6–9, NIV)

They had become professionals at misusing God’s Word and his commands to justify what they wanted to do and force others to do.

So, how do we keep from putting our own external traditions on the level of God’s will for our lives? Discipleship. Legalism can stem from inadequate discipleship. When we don’t take time to guide people into a heart changing relationship with God, we sometimes instead foist rules on them to try to force them to look the part. I’ve seen this happen with Christian parents and their kids, and I’ve had to course correct my own parenting here. When we fail to rightly teach God’s Word, but instead replace it with external rules that help us to “look the part,” here’s what we’re really doing:

“Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.” (Mark 7:13, NIV)

“So, how do we keep from putting our own external traditions on the level of God’s will for our lives? Discipleship.”

Our problem is inside of us, not outside of us. Our problem is ourselves, not others. Our problem is a heart problem. The external circumstances are only symptoms of the problem. Sin is a heart problem, as a clean heart does not desire sin, but desires God. Our external good deeds are the symptoms of a heart for God.

External rule-keeping doesn’t change our heart. When God changes our heart through his grace, he creates a new inside which eventually transforms the outside.

“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:22–24, NIV)