The gospel according to Del Boy. {Or why your faith doesn't work}

LEGALISM : {i} A particular philosophy originating in China.
{ii} A term used to define any rule another christian or church comes up with which you don't agree with.

This is what bothers me about the term 'legalism' when mentioned in Christian circles. Hey, we are all legalistic then aren't we? The only people who are not legalistic in any way would be those who are without any rules. Hmmm. That would be interesting. Let's see where we can go with that one.
1 - Thou shalt not kill. - Thats a rule and if you keep that rule and insist that others do also then you are legalistic!
2 - Thou shalt not commit adultery. - If your wife objects to your playing away from home you can simply dismiss her complaints as 'legalism' or better still you can accuse her of being 'judgemental'.
3 - Thou shalt not steal - I have to wonder if you would see this as so legalistic if it were your goods I were pilfering.

Of course I'm taking this whole thing to a ridiculous extreme but if I can get you to think a bit more before banding these terms around then all I've achieved my objective.

So what do people mean by legalism? Some answers I have heard are below.

#You must keep the 10 commandments but anything more than that is legalism.
#We are not under the law, end of story. Grace means you are free to do whatever you like and anyone who says otherwise is legalistic.
#The old testament is irrelevant. The only law that counts is love and if you love then you have fulfilled the law according to Jesus.

I have a confession to make. I don't suffer fools easily. This explains why I find myself having to show restraint when I hear what christians believe. I'm serious when I say this. I find more common sense spoken by non christians than by christians when they try to defend a doctrine which is hopelessly impractical so let me tell some home truths which I think are so easily defendable you would have to be naive to challenge me on. {But feel free to try anyway}

1 - The law of God is good. God doesn't make laws up for the fun of it or to be awkward to cramp our style or stop our fun.
2 - God is always right. It is the height of idiocy to think we know more than God.
3 - Simply stating 'we are not under the law' when we still shouldn't kill, steal or commit adultery is non sensical and misleading. {especially as it is so easy to find these practices condemned in the NEW testament}
4 - If you can do what the hell you like and still be a christian and go to heaven then a lot of 'good' sinners will have every right to start asking some serious questions of God.

Now I've already stated that thinking we know more than or better than God is foolish. Needless to say I don't think the view of 'live how you want and slip into heaven' holds any weight anyway but I've met christians who actually teach this. Taken to it's logical conclusion you could come to faith and then live how you want for the last 40 years of your life in utter rebellion against God and his commandments, join the nazis, rape a schoolgirl and generally do every evil thing under the sun and still get to heaven. {Granted you may lose your reward but if you get heaven I figure thats not so big a deal} Now I'm no 5 point Calvinist but there is a reason why they taught that if a person died in their sin and rebellion against God they were never saved in the first place.

So let me deal with a possible accusation here. You might say, 'So Steve, surely you are in danger of teaching salvation by works, that somehow you have to be good enough to enter heaven?'{an accusation I reject enterely by the way} Now I'm going to give you two statements which at first may seem like a contradiction.
1 - No man can earn salvation nor can he earn the right to keep it.
2 - The unrighteous will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

The answer to this quandary is the understand the nature of faith. In the west we define faith like this. 'You believe something is true'. In bible times it was more like this 'You trust someone and act accordingly.' We know the bible teaches that salvation comes by the grace of God...correct? Er..half right actually. {Seriously I wouldn't trust some christians to organise a booze up in a brewery!} If we really believe that grace saves and thats the end of the story then why doesn't God save everyone? The answer?...

You are saved BY grace THROUGH faith. {Ephesians ch 2 v 8}

Now read on to verse 10 where you will find the mention of 'works'. Not only that but works in a positive sense. This is intimately connnected to being saved by grace through faith. Here is the key to the whole thing.
Grace : You are saved by the power of God freely given
faith : This grace comes through your faith in Jesus Christ
works : This grace that flows through your faith empowers you to live the life God wanted you to live.

In other words it is not good works which save you nor keep you saved but works are EVIDENCE that you really have faith. If you are not walking in obedience to God's commandments then you need to ask serious questions about your faith.

So GRACE flows through FAITH and produces WORKS. Now think for a moment.

If we remove grace from the equasion would you still be saved? {given that we know you can only be saved by grace}. The answer is no!
If we remove faith from the equasion would you still be saved? {Given that the only way grace can get to you to save you is through faith}. Again the answer is no.
Now if we remove works from the equasion and the grace you supposedly received through your supposed faith didn't produce good works are you still saved? The answer is surely no. That is if you are going to base this on any credible evidence.
I'm sure this will stir up a hornets nest. Perhaps it needs to. I'm convinced many christians don't really understand what they believe.

Now briefly let me state what I'm NOT saying : I'm not saying you are saved by grace but must MAINTAIN your salvation by doing enough good works.
I am not saying you start with Christ then go back to the law of Moses.
What I AM saying is that you are saved and stay saved ONLY by the freely given favour of God {Grace} which ONLY comes through faith and that your actions and how you live will reveal or betray whether you really had that faith anyway.

For us to claim we have been saved raises a simple question. SAVED FROM WHAT?
The answer, of course, is saved from sin. So tell me, what sins has Jesus saved you from. Interesting question. After all if we are to start being specific about this it would be hard to maintain any credibility whatsoever if we claimed salvation from any particular sin that we still committed. Thats like me telling you I've been saved from herion addiction while shooting up in front of you.

Don't get me wrong. I know that the christian life is a process but the word process is related to the word procession which by it's nature goes FORWARD. All of us are led by something. All of us put our trust in something or someone. If what you put your trust in is not making you more like Jesus and bringing you further into obediance to God's commandments then may I suggest you take a good hard look at what you call faith. {This may sound harsh but I recommend you read what James said in his letter in the new testament. He didn't pull punches either} I believe what we've done in the west is to gut the gospel so drastically in order to make it easier to receieve that we've lost track of what conversion really is. When we call those who are serious about a sanctified life 'legalists' yet can't even define the word properly maybe that shows just how watered down and liberal our theology has become.

Salvation is to be saved from the penalty, power and presence of sin. Some just emphasise the first and last but the middle one exposes or reveals the reality or otherwise of the faith we claim to have. Ignoring the evidence leaves us holding to an 'easy believism' where you just say a prayer and everything is O.K. That may work for the marketing department of the seeker friendly church or the microwave mentality, quick results orientated ministries we often see coming from the U.S.A but God is into the real thing, undilted, unwatered down. Numbers of prayers prayed, hands raised and convert cards filled in will count for nothing. The number of people populating heaven will count for everything. This is why I refuse to go through a series of affirming scriptures trying to assure a person they are saved. If you haven't truly put your faith in Christ then I'm not surprised you have no assurance. Real assurance comes from the Holy Spirit in accordance with scripture. It comes with real faith and that faith will produce real fruit. That's not legalism. That;s preaching and teaching a proper gospel message of a faith that actually works rather than sell a cheap faith that doesn't work turning todays evangelists into 21st century religious Derek Trotters'.

regards...steve