Faith and Legalism
(Sons or Sons-in-Law?)
By Roy Key
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Three questions I shall ask in probing the relation of Faith and Legalism: (1) Is there any difference? (2) What does God want? (3) Why is Legalism tempting?
First, is there any difference between Faith and Legalism? The view that there is none has been around a long time, at least since the critical days when Paul and the Judaizers were locked in combat over the question, "Is salvation by both Christ and the Law?" The answer to the question has also been around for some time, at least since the completion of the books of Galatians and Romans.
In this context I express appreciation for the invitation to participate in this lectureship. It is a special joy for me to join my brother Harold here. Not only do I hold him in high regard as a minister of the Gospel and a Christian gentleman, he is my brother in the family of C. J. and Sudie Key, and I know that this relation transcends the legal relationship I sustain to every other citizen of the nation.
I was deeply shocked, saddened, angered, at the assassination of President Kennedy. I also know that I could feel but a bit of what was churning in the soul of Robert Kennedy. And which of us can grasp that which throbbed in the hearts of the President's widow, his mother, and his father? Which of us can sense what Mrs. Oswald suffers for her son?
What I underscore here is the world of difference between the intimate, personal, costly, family relation and the external, impersonal, cheap, legal relation. Surely few of us are so blind that we cannot with pain imagine some of the difference it would make if either the President, Oswald, or Ruby were by fleshly ties our brother! Or can we stand before these two relationships of Oswald-to-Ruby and Jesus-Christ-to-us, look them up and down, shove our hands in our pockets and saunter off saying, "There is no difference, absolutely no difference"? Whoever says so does not know what it is to have a family.
What is at stake here is not a theological haggling over Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee. It is the nature of God, our world, ourselves, and salvation. This whole question of Faith and Legalism is the question, "What kind of God is God, and what is the nature of our relation to Him?"
I have found two "Christian" sources of assault on the distinctly personal concept of God and our relationship, with representatives from each side affirming there is no real difference between their faith and mine. Now, I do not equate one's faith with his verbalization of it. Faith is not creed and cannot be squeezed into language. Yet, while I do not judge people, I must judge doctrinal pronouncements.
Therefore, I affirm that impersonal and legal views from the left and the right strike at the ground of Christian faith. On the left are those who think modern science has rendered archaic the personal concept, made it an untenable anthropomorphism. God is the Universal Life Force, the Creative Process, the Structure
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Many of these people, earnest in their attempt to be Christian, say "We simply image God differently." But if God is personal, how much we miss when we do not know Him personally! And what of the consequences? As an instance take prayer, it becomes a monologue rather than a dialogue. In a world of non-personal law it is at best meditation and soul-searching, for no heart of Love responds personally to a personal approach.
The assault from the right is not spurred by views of modern science or philosophy. It embodies another misunderstanding of God, with its resultant legalism centering in a different place. The concern is not a legalism of natural law but a legalism of ceremonial law. It is God's will codified that becomes central. The Personal Subject (God) is obscured behind the impersonal Object (Law).
Both wings of legalism employ personal terminology and speak of God as "Father." Left-wingers are aware that for them the symbol points to an impersonal reality. Right-wingers are confused. Not having thought through the implications of a truly personal relationship, they misunderstand the language and twist it to make it carry a legal content. It is chiefly right-wing legalism with which we are here concerned, as we view some differences between Faith and Legalism in terms of the sub-title of this address, 'Sons or Sons-in-Law?"
We could ask "Sons or Slaves?" turning to Paul's contrast in Romans 8:14-17 and Galatians 4. We could ask "Servants or Friends?" turning to Jesus' contrast in John 15:12-15. We could pursue Paul's whole argument of salvation by grace through faith for good works in contrast with the legal view of salvation as a payment for obedience to law, resulting in merit and boasting. Or we could simply turn to Jesus' contrasts between the Pharisee and Publican at prayer and the Prodigal and his Elder Brother.
What I shall try to do is paint with a wide brush, utilizing the insights from all these passages which point to the gulf between the legal and personal relation, highlighting differences between God's "sons" and his "sons-in-law."
First, I point to two identifiable groups of His sons-in-law. The first group consists of those who are terribly lonely and afraid. They know they have not perfectly kept the law and that by it they are condemned. Somehow, they hope God's grace can overflow its legal channels and sweep in at the last moment to save them from the hell they deserve. They live in perpetual fear, teetering on the brink of despair.
The second group consists of the smug and complacent. They are sure that they know and have obeyed the law. They are aware that they fall short of its ethical requirements, but these are not ultimately important. The demands of the law have been reduced to a few "essentials," and they are external, ceremonial, legal essentials. No matter about the ethical failures, obedience to the prescribed ceremonies brings pardon for all that, anyway.
Any question about the "soundness" of this legal interpretation must be met with the fiercest denunciation, for it is the very foundation of security. These souls would be horrified to suspect they had missed a ceremonial requirement, for nothing can compensate for that. In it God's grace is confined. It is the very means by which "the law of pardon" operates. They study the requirements, debate them, are certain they know and obey them, and will fight desperately any question regarding them, for their soul salvation trembles in the balance.
These are not sons, they are sons-in-law. When they say, "Father," they do so in the spirit of one deciding what to call his wife's father whom he has never met. In truth they regard God as Sovereign and themselves as subjects. He is Guard but not Guest. They want His gifts but not His Gift, what He has but not Him. They are sons-in-law rather than sons-in-love.
In this relation the law is the arbitrary requirement of an essentially "Unknown God." Passionate talk about "obedience" covers an agnosticism that is cherished
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Legalism, as Paul well saw and pointed out, cuts the ground from under Jesus Christ as Savior. We need no Savior. We need only the law. We need only the do-it-yourself manual of instructions. If Jesus Christ is needed anywhere, it is only because of God's arbitrary fiat. It is not that we need Him, only that God decided to use Him. He let Him bring the "Plan."
Paul made it as clear as possible, "If justification were through the law, Christ died for nothing" (Galatians 2:21). Of course, Christ died for nothing! He need neither have lived nor died! Let the Law be proclaimed by angels. Let the plan be dropped down in a book, or written on the sky, or spoken by prophets. No need for a Savior, only for the "plan." Unless, of course, Jesus Christ is the Plan, unless He is "the Way and the Truth and the Life" (John 14:6).
"Christ or circumcision!" was the cry of the apostle. Let the issue be clearly drawn. Is there need for a Savior? Is that Savior Christ or the Code? How can Paul set them against one another? Did he not circumcize Timothy? Did he not agree with the Jerusalem brethren that to accept Christ was not "to forsake Moses?" (Acts 21:20-26). How could one who, after his own conversion was zealous for the law cry, "Christ--or circumcision?"
As a means of devotion, as an expression of Worship, the Law was permissible. Here is offered no challenge to Christ as Savior. It had a guiding role, an educative function, a symbolic and devotional ministry. Fulfilling this ministry it was still "a custodian to bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith" (Galatians 3:24). But as a means of salvation, as the instrument of justification, it was the rival of Christ.
In the personal relation there are no arbitrary conditions of friendship, no intermediary tools and instruments by which to pry open one another's hearts. There is the unconditional surrender of self to self. This is costly and risky, for it means the breaching of all middle walls of partition we heap up about ourselves for protection.
Is there a difference between Faith and Legalism? If not, all distinctions are meaningless. If not, then heaven is really hell, for it is being snatched out of the personal relation of our families and being shoved into the legal relation of the so-called "Family of God," where we are not sons at all, but only sons-in-law.
What does God really want? Christian faith is the living denial that God's chief concern is obedience. Otherwise the heartbreak and loss of His creative adventure are inexcusable. He could have had all the obedience He wanted of an external, impersonal kind. God could have created fleas, billions of fleas, and become the Cosmic Flea Trainer. Of course, it is conceivable that He is of such nature that He could not be content with the monotony of fleas.
Then God could have created limitless numbers and varieties of creatures who cannot say "No" to Him. He could have built the "Yes" right into their nature. Instinctively they would obey Him. This is precisely what He did. But the Biblical stories affirm that God wanted more than obedience. He wanted fellowship. Therefore, He created man "in His own image."
God Almighty limited His almightiness by creating new creators, new centers of personal freedom, beings who could say "Yes" and "No." Saying "Yes" to Him by one created in His image is something other than an instinctive reaction. It is response as a person. It is risky and it is costly. It involves becoming vulnerable, placing oneself at the disposal of the other, getting in position to be hurt. Fellowship is an entirely different kind of relationship.
Have you ever thought how you would feel if your children decided that you were only a legal guardian and that they had no business coming to know you and share your mind? Suppose they sought only to catch your words and reduce them to code,
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"How much you love it!" someone said to a heartbroken mother holding tightly a child whose mind was hopelessly clouded. "Yes," she cried, "but how much I long for it to love me back!" Our heavenly Father wants us, not anything on earth that we can substitute. He does not want our deeds more than our hearts. We can, as Evelyn Underhill suggests, "desert Him by entering His service instead." Just as we can give gifts at Christmas to keep from giving ourselves.
Since God is God, He is God no matter how we respond, whether we answer with the "Yes" of faith, the "No" of disbelief, or the "Yes, if..." of Legalism. "God is Love" (1 John 4:8, 16), and He wills our love. We are made for it. This is the Law which is the nature of Reality. We must live in this kind of world, basically a personal world. To do so can be hell, as well as heaven. It can be wrath, as well as grace. It can be law, as well as faith. That depends on us. The world does not change, but to us it does!
To have to live in a world made for personal relations, for fellowship and love, when one chooses to live in it not as a son but as a son-in-law, is to live under law and fallen from grace. To have to live under a God whom we fear and misunderstand and from whom we try to live once-removed, is to live under a law that is to us alien and hostile. To exist as an individual in a world made for community is to be in bondage under wrath. That life will ultimately be destroyed.
God wants persons, not puppets. He wants sons, not slaves or subjects or sons-in-law. What He really wants is a Family. The Father wants a mature Family, a Fellowship of Love, a Community of Concern, bound together by the love that does not say "Yes, if..." or "Yes, but..." And nothing but faith can receive this kind of Love. It is not for sale at the bargain counter. It is utterly free. It is utterly costly. It cannot be bought at any price, and it cannot be given away until it is received with the utter abandon of the receiving self.
Therefore, God gives Himself in Jesus Christ, stoops with a towel and a basin, seeks us all the way from Bethlehem to Golgotha, stalking through the night on Shepherd's feet, reaching out to us with wounded hands. What can one do with this kind of self-giving? buy it? bargain with it? legalize it? objectify and reduce it to code? or abandon oneself to it in unconditional surrender? The former is Legalism. The latter is Faith. This is the right relation. It is what God wants, and it must come to us as a gift.
Why is Legalism tempting? If we are made to be persons responding to a personal God, and are doomed to agony when we deny our nature and live on the level of "things," why do we find the lure of the Law so strong? Why is Legalism a temptation?
First of all, let us admit that there is an insanity about sin. There is an irrationality about it that we can never intelligently explain. Why we will rebel against our nature and break ourselves to 'bits is a diabolical mystery. At the same time there are a few things about sin that we can comprehend, even about this particular sin.
From the story of man's fall we learn that the basic root of sin is pride, man's unbridled desire to escape his sonship and become God's equal, his lust for a freedom from God, rather than in God. "Adam" means "Man," and this is the story of "Everyman." The result of our revolt is alienation, fear, guilt, shame, misunderstanding, suffering, death. We are at odds with ourselves and with one another, because we are at odds with God.
Unless we choke to death our conscience, we know things have gone wrong. We may ourselves set about to put them right, but in our anxiety and fear and partial hostility and blindness, we bungle the job. We objectify the law and separate it from the Person of God; then we twist it and give it a false position. To
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The Law which we attempt to make the uniting bond becomes in fact a "middle wall of partition." The "carnal mind," partly hostile and partly clouded, is nevertheless ingenious and represses its hostility and confusion under a passionate devotion to the Law, instead of to God. The result is that Pharisees could persuade themselves of their spiritual superiority because of their legal devotion, and contemporary churchmen can persuade themselves that their anxiety is groundless and their salvation assured, all the while keeping their ego intact, and holding God at arm's length.
God's sons-in-law cherish the independence of an impersonal relation. They will work for God, but will not live with Him. They want to be in a bargaining position, where they can say, "I fast twice in the week and scrupulously give my tithe. You can be proud of me." They bear no spiritual kinship to God. When He is gracious to another, they complain, "Lo, all these years I have served Thee; I never transgressed a command, but Thou never gavest me a calf that I might make merry with my friends." Their service has been servitude. Their friends have not been the Father's. They know the Father's business, but not the Father. They are subjects, not sons. God is Sovereign, not Father.
The lure of Legalism must he understood in terms of the desperation with which the self fights to maintain its independence and to escape crucifixion. Its victory is assured wherever it can persuade itself that it has gone to the Cross, because it has submitted to some prescribed form, while in reality the self is still unsurrendered and no reconciliation taken place. It is the same victory that is won when an estranged husband and wife return to the same house or same bed without forgiveness.
The lure of Legalism consists in its low view of life, of God, of law, and of forgiveness, a view that is easy and cheap and superficial. God is Guard but not Guest. He is stationed at the door for protection--just on the outside. His gifts are viewed too highly and His Gift too lowly. Salvation is a place and things, not right relations. The fatted calf ranks above the Father and the returning Prodigal. The Law is viewed so flippantly that these sons-in-law think they keep it! Focusing on its letter, they don't see how far beyond them its spirit soars. Its office they hold to be justification, the relating of men to God.
Forgiveness is reduced to a cheap pardon as easily based on one condition as another. Sin is not ultimately serious, for it is erased by a mark in the celestial ledger. But in the midst of it all there are times when the repression of our soul-hunger weakens and we say with the Rich Young Ruler, "All these (commands) I have kept from my youth up, what lack I yet?" When the answer comes back, "Utter surrender (faith)," we may turn away sorrowful, knowing at our depths that the answer is right, but it is too expensive.
Christ knows the temptation to Legalism, and what may be His greatest parable was spoken to woo us away from it, the Parable of the Forgiving Father and his two Lost Sons. His hope is that we will have the sensitivity of F. W. Krummacher, who said, "Today I learned the identity of the Elder Brother--myself." Legalism is not a little matter; it is the greatest enemy to Faith, for it pretends that it is Faith and that it says "Yes" to God.
There is nothing strong enough to break the spell but the Cross of Jesus Christ. Surrender to the God we meet at Calvary is the antidote to Legalism. Here alone do we learn that sin is serious, that forgiveness is not cheap, that reconciliation cannot be a mark in a ledger, and that no externalities can possibly deal with our sinful self. We learn not only that "the blood of bulls and goats" is helpless to purge the conscience and that there is a "remembrance of sin year after
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We learn that in the Lamb of God the Father has shown that He is far from condoning our sin, but that rather He has taken it on Himself, identifying Himself with us, offering to bear our shame, if we will permit. He is saying, "Despite your rebellion, despite your misunderstanding, I love you and will accept you, if you will accept me. I will be your Father, if you will be my son. Together we will live down the past and its shame."
To say "Yes" to God here is Christian Faith, our alternative to Legalism. It is to move beyond the relation of "things" to the relation of persons. The alternative to the legal is not necessarily the illegal, it can and should be the personal. It is costly, as costly as Calvary, but there is no other way of reconciliation.
E. Stanley Jones once told of an English official living in India who became involved in a sordid affair. Certain that his wife would leave him, he steeled himself to tell her the whole story. As the truth hit her, he said, she turned white, clutched at her breast, and fell against the wall. She then answered in effect, "You are my husband. I love you, and we will bear this shame together." He declared, "It was at that time I learned the meaning of the Cross."
Here is a faith that offers and accepts forgiveness, because what is offered is nothing less than two souls, two selves. It is difficult to be honest, and the temptation is to continue coming before God with a lie in our right hands, afraid to expose ourselves as we are. As a wise therapist God comes to us in Jesus wooing us out of our darkness where we have hidden to try to preserve the self we dare not expose. He trusts us, exposes Himself, shows Himself trustworthy, demonstrates His acceptance of us, until finally we can cry,
Just as I am, without one plea
But that Thy blood was shed for me
And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come!
No juggling of books has transpired; yet, our
fear is gone. Our guilt is gone. We haven't deserved the least of
it, but our sin is also gone. For in the Presence of His
Transforming Friendship we are changed. In that
self-identification with Him in faith we have died, been buried,
and raised a new being.There is no lie here, but there is a Cross, and we can never forget that. Nothing less than Calvary is the cost of God's forgiveness and fellowship. Nothing less than Calvary can elicit Christian faith. Nothing less than Calvary can counter the lure of Legalism. "For God (is) in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." This is the ground of our comfort and hope!