F.P. Definition of what is Legalism

F.P. Definition of what is Legalism explains legalism and how the false prophet is a teacher of legalism.

Definition of what is Legalism

Although technically the word “legalism” is not found in the Bible, the concept is very obviously there. The hypocrite who assumes religious power over other people’s lives is a living example of a legalist.

Let’s back up for a moment and understand how God spiritually changes people. This change is based on the person of the Saviour, Jesus Christ. It is through his work of salvation of dying on the cross, and his resurrection that we are saved. But there is more to salvation that just a mental acceptance of the facts and events of the cross and resurrection. The person of Jesus is a forceful, shining example of the moral attributes of God. When a person “receives Jesus as their Savior” (John 1:12), there should be much more than a mental acceptance of the facts of history. There has to be a spiritual acceptance of the person of Jesus, including his moral character and what he presented himself to be, completely God, the second member of the Trinity.

Jesus was interested in his disciples’ view and belief of who Jesus was to them. That was the essence of salvation for them, and that is the essence of salvation for us, often lost in modern churches. This acceptance of the person of Jesus, of God and his character, is a receiving of that moral character as the spiritual pattern which the person makes for his own life. We can consider this very same thing in different concepts, like confessing sin, repentance, moral change, Christlikeness, etc. The concept is to stop being sinful and be holy like God is. When you see a Christian who loudly proclaims his spirituality and his Christian name, but seems to immediately forget that very same thing in how he acts, then you are dealing with a hypocrite, an unsaved person. The false prophet falls into this category constantly.

This moral change within the true Christian cannot come through forced external conduct, but always must come because of a moral activity within the person. So while many religions use some type of thing similar to prayer, such as chants in oriental religions, it is fruitless on a spirtual level. Without real moral change within the person because he surrenders to God, any good external conduct or profession is hypocrisy, that is, pretending to be something that inside the person really is not. The reason is because there is no submission of the human will to the divine will, no moral change from sinful man to be like God. He puts on a pretense of obeying God when inside, he does not want to do so. This is deception, which Satan is the father of all lies, and eventually, the person will reveal this duplicity of his spirit. The opposite here is intergrity of spirit, not being split between two goals that compete one against the other. So the exercise is useless except for boasting that the person “feels” spiritual. His life does not reflect that feeling in a changed morality.

When we examine legalism, the issue comes to the surface again here. Through outward conduct changes which are presumed to be “what a Christian would do,” leaders teach that morality is changed. It is not. Morality is a moral activity flowing out of a true salvation, a submission to the confession and repentance precursors of salvation that God preaches in the Bible. Without those precursors, there is no moral change.

But people want is to do some external exercise that “secures their salvation,” and then live their lives how they want to live them without God interfering in them. This is exactly the opposite of salvation. Salvation from sin is salvation to justice, and the difference between a deep moral commitment to justice and against sin is what establishes the person as a Christian. He is holy, like God is holy. He lives his life in a holy way, but much more than a pressured change in activities, there is a deep desire to be with and be like God.

Holiness has a precursor also. Its percursor is the conviction that God’s will is the best alternative that exists. Nothing can be good nor excellent outside of God’s will. Any other alternative is either bad or nullifies the good that one would be living if he followed God’s will.

I am Baptist, not Methodist. But I study the Methodism of John Wesley with a lot of interest. The desire for holiness and moral change into the image of God that Wesley had is something that few other groups seem to have captured in their movement. I agree 100% with this desire, but I disagree with Wesley’s conclusion and practice. His whole movement is build on that there is a method that a person can follow in order to be saved and holy, spiritual.

It is my belief that Methodism came out of the Roman Catholic Church, where within Catholicism, they observed people who followed their Catholic rules, but these people were obviusly not interested in living for God. The Catholic Church instituted at one point the practice of teaching the Catechism or their doctrines and practices (the Catholic Catechism) to their youth and new converts. But again, following spiritual rules does not make the person neither saved nor spiritual. All it does is increase the pride in the person depending on how rigorous the discipleship is.

While I applaud the Methodist movement in general for wanting to create holiness within their people, I think an external method, forcing some standard of conduct even if basically that standard is in the Bible, is not how to achieve that result they want. Spiritual growth is slow and calm, not intensive activity. The life of Jesus and his disciples following him was one of times of activity alternating with times of meditation, reflection, teaching, and “spiritual digestion and application” of the teaching of those spiritual principles.

So to understand Scripture on this point, we need to understand the spiritual principles which God teaches about his own person and moral character, and what God commands us as his children to do. But while we do deal with the works of a person, you can jail a person without any access to drugs, but that does not change a drug addict. He is the same inside, and when there is a change for him to fall into the same sin again, he normally will do so. A person locked in a sealed room has very few possibilities to sin, but that is not holiness.

Holiness is the conviction of a saved person that God’s way is superior than any other way, and he is committed to walking in God’s way. That event or practice will never, ever come if the person hates God, or dislikes God meddling in his life. It is only when the person loves God that this can happen the way it should happen. And that loving God only comes after the person is truly saved.

As a practical church matter, the problem is not forcing the membership to do certain commands, but to really be saved, have and practice faith, and imitating God on a moral level.

Jesus’ rejection of Judism’s Hypocrital Leaders

Jesus came into the world into a Jewish nation that had a very formalized spiritual leadership. While he was a Jew, and while he lived and interacted with Jews, it is very clear that both he rejected the Jewish leadership, the general spiritual drift of Israel, and those leaders rejected him. That led to the cross.

If we can peer for a moment into the exchange between Jesus and the Jewish leaders of his day, they were morally corrupt, and they held a great power over the people of Israel. To be a leader is not wrong nor does it displease God. But God is very angry at leaders who lead others into error, and never out of sin.

Controling other People’s Lives

A false prophet is a person who is focused on controlling the lives of other people. They have no real understanding of salvation, holiness nor how the Holy Spirit works to santify us, (because they are themselves unsaved and do not have the indwelling Holy Spirit see [[F. P. Definitions – Are unsaved]]).

But they are extremely rule oriented. It is not necessarily that they are forcing Satan’s rules on their people, but the motive behind this change in people’s lives is not correct. God wants his leaders to lead instead of forcing. See [[ch051-cox-cowboys-versus-shepherds-v1.pdf]] where I describe the difference between leading sheep and ramrodding (pushing by force) cattle.

God gave us examples of spiritual principles applied to the culture and life of the day in the Old Testament. We, in the New Testament, are not under the Old Testament laws, but we are under those same principles which have to be applied in our lives today. That point, the difference between the two, is missed by the false prophet. Either they want to press every New Testament saint into being an Old Testament Jew as the Judiazers did, or they want to make up new laws of their own creation. But they are always pushing with aggression and force that we do not see in the life of Jesus. Jesus was a very forceful speaker, but he never used force to change people’s lives. They had to decide for themselves.

That point should not be underemphasized. The only right way for working with people is to present the spiritual principles of God, and let God change their hearts if those hearts would be changed. Forcing people is a futile and non-serving problem.

The inverse here is very important also. The correct way of working with people is by the minister being a shining example of what that right way is. That is, by living that righteousness in his own life first and foremost. That is not a badge that he wears and wants everybody to see. It is just the way he is. That is the commitment of his life. He doesn’t hide his life, but when people see his life, they see Christ. That is extremely forceful in a spiritual sense. Why?

The power of a godly life comes to play in that there is sincerity in the teacher, and that creates sincerity in the disciple. When the teacher is a hypocrite, then the only moral element that the disciple learns is hypocrisy. Both good ministers and false prophets use the Bible. The use of the Bible can at one point be considered as neutral. The Word of God says what it says, and even when a false prophet uses it, it is still the Word of God. They will twist the meaning and significance of a passage, but that also can be easily discerned for the obedient Christian.

Matthew 23:3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.

So even Jesus recognized the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. What they were teaching at some point was not so much the problem as the teacher’s hypocrisy in not actually practicing what they were supposedly teaching. As a teaching principle, people learn from their teacher, but they learn both information and character, the application of that information. The way that a good teacher practices the principles that they teach speaks to their being a good teacher. They “practice what they preach.” This rule of thumb must have priority in discerning between the good minister and the false prophet.

The exposition of Old Testament principles seems beyond the false prophet for the most part. They see these commandments as things that they can use to force their followers into an always obey mindset, while the false prophet has no interest in personally following those commandments, much less learning spiritually from them.

But the false prophet has a high aversion to understanding that the spiritual principles of God are outworkings of the moral character of God, and should be imposed on the Christian through the Word of God and understanding, through the Holy Spirit’s working on the believer’s conscience, and the witness of Jesus as a live example. That is a mouthful, and the false prophet stumbles over these concepts such that his followers never can achieve this goal.

As a result, the false prophet makes it easy for them, by dictating to his followers every angle of how they have to live their lives. Total control over their disciples is one of the highest priorities for a false prophet. The concept of the priesthood of every believer is never really emphasized because it would undercut his authority over his people. There is a strong obligation for God’s people to understand God’s principles and apply them in their own lives. While everybody benefits from a serious study done by a skilled speaker, you can never minimize the individual disciple reading, studying, and understanding Scripture on his own. That is where the gold is here. This is a basic function of the priesthood of every believer. But the false prophet cannot risk that happening because again, he would lose control of his people.

The false prophet conceives of “the people of God” as his personal possession. He considers himself indirectly as the Christ, and as so, his followers are his possession to do with as he pleases. People are sinful and rebellious, so it is rare that he can achieve that control without using mind control techniques, such as fear, embarrassment, worldly pride and public recognizing and reward of highy submissive members, etc.

Romans 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. Galatians 3:11 But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. Hebrews 10:38 Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

If the just lives by his faith, or his life is guided into holiness and Christlikeness by his beliefs, then the person cannot do this without knowing the Word of God, understanding it, and being capable enough in understanding it that he can make correct application to his life. Personal, individual interpreting of Scripture is necessary on a layman level.

But God speaks of this in relation to the individual priesthood of every believer. Every believer has to go through this process in order to live his faith, and be an example of that individual priesthood of every believer. For Christians that have gotten to that point in their spiritual lives, the false prophet doesn’t have an easy entrance into their lives and cannot control them. Scripture, Christlikeness or the mind of Christ, and the indwelling Holy Spirit are all doing that controlling and this kind of Christians do not very easily fall under the control of the false prophet.