Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Ryken on Legalism

"Christianity is not a performance-based religion. Those who are saved by grace also live by grace, and their growth in grace is due to the gracious work of God's Spirit. This is what preserves Calvinism from legalism. If someone who claims to be a Calvinist turns out to be a legalist, he or she must not understand the doctrines of grace very well after all, because the true Calvinist is overwhelmed by God's mercy for sinners. A graceless Calvinist is thoroughly repugnant to the gospel, for unless the pursuit of holiness is motivated by an ever-deepening love for God and his grace, it quickly becomes joyless and fruitless."

Philip Ryken

What is a True Calvinist?

The Antidote to Both Legalism and Antinomianism

Below is a video promo from Sinclair Ferguson's book, By Grace Alone: How the Grace of God Amazes Me. The whole video is worth watching, but the 30 seconds from 1:15 to 1:45 especially are pure gold as Ferguson points out,

"Characteristically as Christians, we either fall down on the side of legalism or we fall down on the side of antinomianism. And we've often thought the way to solve legalism is to just have a little touch of antinomianism. Or the way to solve antinomianism is you need more law, whereas when Paul deals with both of those pastoral problems he deals with them essentially in the same way: by pointing us to the grace of God that is in Jesus Christ."

(HT: Dane Ortlund)

The Attraction to Legalism

This morning I saw a really helpful post by Matthew R. Olson entitled The Attraction to Legalism. In it he discusses how easy it is to become a legalist, and how hard it is to identify yourself as such. He makes the following point:

I have heard the argument, “I am not a legalist, because I believe that salvation is by grace through faith and not of works.” Wrong. Legalism is more than just a false doctrine of justification; it is also false doctrine of sanctification. Paul made this very clear in Galatians. They had begun “by means of the Spirit” and were now attempting to live their lives “by means of the flesh.” It is possible to be an orthodox Christian and still be a legalist. The same error that plagued the Jews, and early church, is alive today—in all of our churches.

Indeed, legalism is an enemy of the gospel and can ever so easily threaten each our churches. I recommend that you click here and read the entire post.

(HT: David Crabb)