Legalism, License, Lordship, and Liberty by Frank Viola
***Prelude: This blog post is an introduction to a subject; it is not a complete statement. The book delves deeper.***
When my editor read the pre-publication manuscript of REVISE US AGAIN, he told me that the chapter called “The Three Gospels” had a huge impact on him.
“History,” Martin Luther said, “is like a drunk man on a horse. No sooner does he fall off on the left side, does he mount again and fall off on the right.”
The same can be said about the Christian life. (So it seems to me anyway.)
In the chapter entitled “The Three Gospels,” I discuss three distinct “gospels” (messages) that many contemporary Christians have accepted.
Some have accepted the gospel of legalism. Reformed people tend to restrict legalism to be the attempt to earn salvation by human works. But for the genuine Christian who is saved by grace, legalism goes much deeper than that.
Legalism
Legalists also feel that it’s their right to become intrusive meddlers, or as Paul put it condemningly, “busybodies in other men’s affairs.” They are blind to their own self-righteousness, and they pride themselves on being “clean” on the outside (without realizing that they are defiled on the inside). For all of these reasons, they unwittingly bring a lot of pain and heartache into the lives of others, yet sadly they seem to be out of touch with this.
Forgive the personal reference, but when I was in my teens, I came to the Lord through a legalistic denomination. I was fed a steady diet of the gospel of legalism and was surrounded by legalists. Thus I used to be a legalist without realizing it. But God was merciful.
Libertinism
In reaction to legalism and the devastation that it brings to other people, some have accepted the gospel of libertinism. Libertines are folks who live the way they want and have skirted the Lordship of Christ and all that it means. They are apt to justify carnality by pulling the “grace card,” the “I’m free in Christ” card, and the “don’t judge me” card. For the libertine, grace becomes license to live in the flesh and silence their conscience.
(Regarding the “judge not” card, the Bible gives us a sharp paradox on the matter of judging. There are scores of texts that exhort us to judge and scores of texts that forbid us to judge. I have written a blog post that I will release sometime in the future that resolves this paradox. It’s tentatively called To Judge or Judge Not?)
Some libertines have rationalized to themselves that they can continue to practice a particular transgression and God is “kewl wit dat,” irregardless of the carnage it brings. (A mark of sin is that it produces unnecessary pain in the lives of others. Sin and love are the exact opposites. Love is benefiting others at the expense of yourself. Sin is benefiting yourself at the expense of others. Sin is selfishness; love is selflessness. Love is a greater force than sin – God’s life is more powerful than satan’s nature – and “love covers a multitude of sins.”)
Some libertines have gone so far into deception that they have reinvented Jesus in their own image to justify their rebellion against the Lord and clothe it with spiritual talk. Others have gone further off the beam and have become practical atheists.
Note that there are degrees of legalism and degrees of libertinism. But these descriptions should give the general flavor of each.
In short, the libertine lives as if there is no God. The legalist lives as though she/he is God to everyone else.
Both attitudes are incompatible with the life of Christ.
Complicating Factors
What complicates the situation further is that . . .
The legalist doesn’t know that he/she is a legalist and tends to view all non-legalists as libertines.
The libertine doesn’t know that she/he is a libertine and tends to view all non-libertines as legalists.
Without the Holy Spirit’s illumination, this deception is difficult if not impossible to break.
The truth is, we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. And we all need Jesus Christ to forgive, deliver, and keep us each day from both the defiling acts of the flesh andthe self-righteousness of the flesh.
Lordship & Liberty
In “The Three Gospels,” I discuss both the gospel of legalism and the gospel of libertinism in great detail, comparing and contrasting them and giving examples for each.
I then contrast these two “gospels” with the gospel of Jesus and Paul, which I call the gospel of Lordship and Liberty. And I explain how those two words go hand-in-hand.
But the gospel of the New Testament is rooted in reality – the real Jesus – and it sets us free from the defilement of the flesh and the self-righteousness of the flesh—both of which come off the same tree. Both of which bring bondage and cause untold pain to others. For both violate love, the nature of God’s own life.
One of the things I’ve learned in my spiritual journey is that the closer someone gets to Jesus Christ, the less judgmental, self-righteous, harsh-toward-others, and selfish he or she will be.
Again, we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. And we all need Jesus Christ to forgive, deliver, and keep us each day from both the defiling acts of the flesh and the self-righteousness of the flesh.
To my mind, this chapter (though not the best in the book in my opinion) is worth the price of admission.
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