Quotes About Legalism

Too often, however, we "honor" God by creating our own law, making ourselves more pious than Him. God says, "Don't eat," and we say, "Don't touch." God says, "Give ten percent," and we say, "Give twenty percent." Like the Pharisees before us, we add to God's law, then expect Him to pat us on the back. This problem of seeking a piety greater than God's, however, gets no uglier than when we apply it to ourselves.

Legalism always breeds compliance over purpose.

Discussion Questions 1. Why does legalism appeal to almost every Christian at some time? To what extent are you a "just do it" Christian? What is the cure for legalism? 2. How do people change? How have you answered that question in the past? How do you answer it now? 3. List all the motives people can have for obeying God. What are your main motives for living as a disciple? How might you move to the higher motives?

You see, the human creature is prone to legalism. There is nothing the devil likes more than to impose a set of legalistic rules on a person. Then when that person has a hard time keeping those rules, his confidence that God will move in his life is greatly shaken.

After 'The Hurt & The Healer', we kind of hit a wall. I grew up in a somewhat legalistic church and it taught me that faith is enough, but here's three more things left just in case. There's always things left to do to be closer to God.

Paul's point is that that curse falls on people who are actually trying to obey the Torah if their efforts are grounded in legalism

If God cared only about religious activities, then the Pharisees would have been heroes of the faith.

Legalism is looking to something besides Jesus Christ in order to be acceptable and clean before God.

The gospel shows a God far more holy than the legalist can bear, yet far more merciful than a humanist can conceive

We insist that God must surely lead everyone as we believe He has led us. We refuse to allow God the freedom to deal with each of us as individuals. When we think like that, we are legalistic.

Going back to legalistic roots contaminates the blood of Jesus.

When there's something in the Bible that churches don't like, they call it 'legalism.'

I am tolerably ignorant about Judaism, and much of what I do know about it seems hard to swallow, because it is so grounded in legalism, and adherence to rituals.

John Barclay has well summarized the ethical issue at stake: "The problem here is not legalism (in the sense of earning merit before God) but cultural imperialism—regarding Jewish identity and Jewish customs as the essential tokens of membership in the people of God.

But even a nation of laws must understand the limits of legalism.

My observation of Christendom is that most of us tend to base our relationship with God on our performance instead of on His grace.

The conscious attempt to be a good person without Christ is as legalistic as an attempt to make it into Heaven through empty religiosity.

You didn't learn the Bible as a Fundamentalist. You learned fragments of Old Testament legalism mixed with Behaviorism & Nietzschean ethics

It is no wonder humanity has long preferred legalism, which involves much cleaner territory. Give me a rule any day. Give me a clear "in" and "out" because boundaries make me feel safe. If I can clearly mark the borders, then I am assured of my insider status—the position I feel compelled to defend, the one thing I can be sure of. I want to stand before God having gotten it right.

When a person has fallen in love with God, both his ethical commitments and aesthetical pleasures become focused and satisfying. But when the religious is lost, ethics devolves into, first, a fussy legalism, and then is swallowed up completely by the lust for personal satisfaction.

Of course, the idea that a state, any more than a corporation, commits crimes, is a fiction. Crimes always are committed only by persons. While it is quite proper to employ the fiction of responsibility of a state or corporation for the purpose of imposing a collective liability, it is quite intolerable to let such a legalism become the basis of personal immunity.

Law is a Bottomless-Pit, it is a Cormorant, a Harpy, that devours every thing.

Struggling against the legalism of simple obedience, we end by setting up the most dangerous law of all, the law of the world and the law of grace. In our effort to combat legalism we land ourselves in the worst kind of legalism. The only way of overcoming this legalism is by real obedience to Christ when he calls us to follow him; for in Jesus the law is at once fulfilled and cancelled.

The word of cheap grace has been the ruin of more Christians than any commandment of works.