What Is Legalism?

It is not wrong to love and obey the law of God. Neither is it legalism. What then is legalism? I found an interesting definition of legalism in this article "Jesus and the Law | Reformed Theological Seminary"

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What then is legalism? Legalism comes in many shapes and forms. Let me mention four forms in which we still see legalism raising its ugly head today.

First of all, legalism is when someone teaches that salvation is by works. If somebody tells you that salvation is by law keeping, they are a legalist by Jesus' definition.

Secondly, legalism occurs when people attempt to add their own man-made human rules and traditions to the authoritative word of God. Mad-made rules added to the word of God take away from the authority of the word of God and they are one manifestation of legalism.

A third form of legalism is grudging obedience. Jesus is going to go into detail in Matthew chapter 6 about grudging obedience and His prime example of grudging obedience is going to be the Pharisees. These are the one who supposedly love the law, and yet He said they relate to God not as if He is their loving heavenly father, but they relate to God as if they're doing "x" so He will do "y". They'll do this so He'll do that. They're relating to God as if they can trap Him into being loving and kind towards them if they'll only do certain things. So that kind of grudging obedience is legalism.

And finally, legalism occurs when people confuse the weightier and lesser matters of the law and give great attention to the lesser matters of the law while ignoring the weightier matters of the law.
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