We must recognize legalism and protect ourselves and others from its milder forms (forcing people to do what they do not need to do) and its dangerous forms (covering the sins of abusers, claiming they are doing God’s work). In its milder form, legalists mistake God for an angry boss and demand too much of themselves and others. The harshest legalists value appearance over true faith. They hide their sins or the sins of those they want to look good, and then the innocent are harmed. Women and vulnerable people are often targeted and used by these harshest legalists. When legalism thrives, often so does abuse. And all of it comes from valuing work over loving God and people. Love of God (a heart fully surrendered to him, trusting our salvation comes from Christ alone, not any work) must come first in our lives. As such, we need to recognize many different forms of legalism (I’ve only mentioned 2 out of many other forms) and call it out for the wrong it causes.
A milder form of legalism existed in my home, even though I know my parents loved me dearly and did their best. I don’t think they knew they suffered under legalism, so it went undetected in how we lived. My parents often reminded me that God was angry with me and that I needed to do more and more. Without my consent, my dad would volunteer me to complete duties at church for free. I might be babysitting (unpaid) for a family where the parents were taking an adult confirmation class. When I was old enough to get a job to make money for college, my mom told me I needed to volunteer, full time, my entire summer to do construction on the church. I was always told God expected these tasks of me, and I had no choice but to comply.
My parents had already told me they could not afford to pay anything for college, and I suffered financially, due to losing an entire summers’ income. God intervened, and the next year I received a large financial scholarship just before I left for college. It did not cover everything, and I did need to work (nearly full time) while going to college to pay for everything. Yet I was spared some of the trouble (God is kind and sometimes rescues people who don’t know what they are doing).
The legalism in my home was of a milder form, so let’s look at this “forced Christian work” first. Although God saw me through, I realize many of those forced volunteer church jobs were not God’s will for me. I didn’t want to do so many of those things, or they caused me harm. God had not called me to do many of them. Yet too many Christians also end up doing jobs they are not called to do. God is not a tyrant who demands we give until we are suffering financially. He does not ask us to do work where we give grudgingly. Although the verse in 2Cor.9:6 speaks of giving money, it applies here too: “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” Avoiding legalism is tricky, because God calls us to serve him, so we must not indulge our flesh by not serving at all.
So, how do we avoid the forced, legalistic, frantic work that harms us, and yet also avoid the spiritual laziness where we do too little for the Lord? I believe the answer rests in our relationship with God, and I hinted at this truth in my three most recent posts about abiding in the Lord (Why Abiding in the Lord is Hard, Abiding in the Lord, part 2 Resisting the Blocks to Our Rest, Abiding in the Lord, part 3 Enjoying the Peace.) When we feel delighted with God, we want to serve him, because we love him. We serve him, because he pleases us. We do not serve him to appease him, because God is not angry with us. There is no wrath to appease. To think otherwise pulls us into legalism and other abuse. But people who don’t really believe God loves them unconditionally will rush to appease what they believe is God’s wrath or even abuse others while claiming it is God’s law to treat them so poorly. People caught in this will work to try to please God instead of resting in the joy and understanding that he already loves and adores them. They will keep remembering their sins, thinking they need to work to earn God’s forgiveness instead of seeing God has already forgiven those sins. They will not relax and trust in their peace-giving, forgiving, loving, and generous heavenly Father. Likely they are looking at God the way they look at their earthly, angry fathers. I suspect my Dad did this, as well as other men I know who had angry dads.
In my dad’s case, he could never please his earthly dad who was an angry perfectionist. My paternal grandfather was very gifted and arrogant, and thus he was impatient with weaker people, even though weaker people had not received as many gifts and talents as my paternal grandfather. For example look at what God thinks of those who brag about their talents as if they are better than others: Jer.9:23-24, “Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.” And 1Cor4:7, “For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” Often gifted people like this are merciless. Three of my paternal grandfather’s children (my dad included) told me horribly cruel things he said to them. My dad could never appease his angry dad, and I suspect my dad didn’t feel he could please his heavenly dad either. My parents were not legalists to be unkind. They loved my siblings and me. But my dad’s fear of displeasing God rubbed off on his faith, and my dad taught us God was angry with us.
We grew up in a church where I don’t ever remember hearing about having a “relationship with God.” I remember being taught we should say that Jesus died for our sins, and that would mean we were a Christian, if we also were infant baptized and confirmed in the church and went to church weekly. With this belief, I met many people who did not love God and were not Christians, but who tricked me into thinking they were believers. They took advantage of me, so this lack of knowledge can be dangerous.
Some of my Sunday School teachers clearly had a relationship with God (though they never used the term “relationship”), because I remember their joy and love. They simply lived in fellowship with Christ, and I got glimpses of a loving heavenly father through them. Due to their love and faith, I developed a relationship with God. I sincerely prayed to him and believed he cared about me. But due to my dad’s beliefs and teachings (which my mom reinforced) I also feared God’s wrath.
In some ways I thought differently about God the Father, who seemed distant and angrily judging me, than I did about Jesus, who cared for the weak and hurting (and thus seemed safer).
Due to my legalistic belief, I fell prey to much more dangerous legalists than I ever did in my home. They were judgmental people who made unrealistic demands of me (and other gals) to hide sin and try to make harsh sinners look good. This happened at a Christian organization where I worked. Sadly, sexual harassment was also rampant there, and we, the young women, were blamed for how these men mistreated us. The older men wanted to hide the sins of the men who harassed us, because those men had done some major Bible work, and they were revered. Even though they were committing gross sins, the leaders wanted to hide those sins. The leaders would tell us that the harassers (predators, really), would have left us alone if we weren’t so young or pretty or thin. These men would claim the older and heavier women were left alone, so they said it was clearly our fault. Even that story was a lie, because a full figured gal was sexually harassed, and a 60-year old volunteer was harassed too.
Most people would never connect legalism with sexual harassment, but it was the sin of revering the work those harassers had done, outside of their abuse of us. Revering their work over confronting their sins, the leaders abandoned us, the innocent women. One of the leaders even told me he questioned a dress I once wore. I only wore un-tailored cotton-weave dresses; they are very loose fitting and didn’t reveal my curves. I remembered that one day I had worn a belt with one of my dresses. It is sad when men blame a sexual predator’s behavior on a woman’s belt, age or other things that are not wrong.
I never heard any of the leaders in that organization joining any kind of men’s accountability group. In accountability groups, men develop relationships with other godly men, and they have strong relationships with God. Yet I never heard any leaders in that organization talk about resting in the Loving Father’s arms. These men often spoke of God’s law and of so many rules in that organization. They were stern and strong in knowing about God’s wrath and about the organization’s rules. But they were so weak in any ability to savor God’s mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation. And they lacked the love of their Christian sisters, so they left us to fend for ourselves as these men touched in places where their hands did not belong and said things we should not have heard. As such, legalism and abuse abounded there.
I later learned that the founder of that organization had his mentally ill wife institutionalized and did not visit her, because he said his “work for God,” especially his work overseas, came before her. She was alone in a sterile place, rarely if ever seeing him until she died alone only a few years later. He never repented.
God could have raised up another man to take his place until the wife died, because she was clearly not in good health and would not last long. His break would not have been long from the overseas work, (Eccles.3:1, ““For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”) He was unwilling to give up his work for a temporary season of caring for a sick wife, Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Also look at 1 Peter 3:7, “You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.” And finally look at Malachi 2:14b, “the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.”
The founder could have worked near the institute housing his wife. He could have supported the organization by local work and temporarily assigned another man to travel overseas for that part of the organization’s work. But he put relationships behind work. It was legalism, and that entire organization became rife with neglect and sexual harassment. So many women told me of how men had disrespected and harassed them there.
I saw too many families in this organization neglecting their children too, yet Scripture says 1Tim5:8, “If any one does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” Those families would say that God’s work came first. I heard men praise their neglect of their families by claiming, “I would rather burn out for God than rust out.” That statement bothered me, because I thought, “Shouldn’t we just obey God and sometimes rest in his love?” No one agreed with me about that idea.
Sometimes a gal can challenge legalism in her church or job. Perhaps the leaders will soften and repent. But if they will not, as they would not at the organization where I worked, then a gal must leave to protect her own heart.
These problems will always creep up (or come roaring to life) if people do not dearly love the Lord and put the highest value on people and not their work. In Matt.22:37-40 Jesus said the most important commandment was “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Note how Jesus did speak of the Law, but only after saying we are loving God and loving people first. Loving God and loving people ARE the law. To put the law before God and people is simply wrong. That is why we call legalism wrong. It is! We surrender our hearts in repentance and obedience to God, because we need Jesus to pay for our sins, and we need God to rule our hearts. We love him, and we serve him by serving others, not ourselves. Some gals like me were confused legalists who got used by the second kind of legalists, abusers and hiders of abuse who put themselves first. Neither giving ourselves up for abuse, nor using others to abuse them, in the name of God’s law is right.
God healed me and has enabled me to value relationships first. I still love to serve him, but no longer from a point of force. And I now recognize abuse and don’t let anyone use God’s name to try to deny their sin or mistreat me claiming God gave them permission.
This was a brief primer on just some forms of legalism, but next week I want to bring peace and hope too. I plan to discuss the joyful side of resisting legalism. I do hope with this heavier post I could warn younger gals (and gals of all ages) away from this lie that harmed me and other young gals where I used to work.
Thanks for joining me in this post. I pray we blessed you, even though it was a heavier topic. Please share any wisdom you have, including ways you have overcome legalism in your life too.