Bully's Blog

“The abundant life is a life that is constantly being beheaded by the truth.”

Legalism and Leadership

“For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20)

You may have had some experience with a “legalistic” church or Christian. We all know that a domineering leadership is a curse to the work of God, but so many people who make the decision to leave such ministries, or individuals, behind become “lawless” in their liberty. What’s really going on there, and what is the Bible’s solution for legalism?

[This post has been refined and included in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.]
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From Tim Nichols:

Gregory the Theologian said, “What is not assumed cannot be healed,” and this is true.  For exactly that reason, Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Triune God, assumed full humanity at His incarnation. In Jesus, we have a spectacular demonstration that man, the image of God, is an accurate image, and can partake in the divine nature.  Nothing human is foreign to Him; there is no part of you that you can point to and say, “Jesus didn’t have to deal with this.”

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Sanctification is not a progressive improvement of the Adamic nature, but a growing maturity of sound judgment. From Sanctification: What Is It? by C.H. Mackintosh:

…This leads us to the second objection, to the erroneous theory of the progressive sanctification of our nature, namely, the objection drawn from the truthful experience of all believers. Is the reader a true believer? If so, has he found any improvement in his old nature? Is it a single whit better now than it was when he first started on his Christian course? He may, and should through grace, be able to subdue it more thoroughly; but it is nothing better. If it be not mortified, it is just as ready to spring up and show itself in all its vileness as ever. “The flesh” in a believer is in no wise better than “the flesh” in an unbeliever. And if the Christian does not bear in mind that self must be judged, he will soon learn by bitter experience that his old nature is as bad as ever; and, moreover, that it will be the very same to the end.

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“Certain Protestants say, it is a true sign of a very gracious state when a man feels and deplores his inbred corruptions. How near do these come to the Papists, whose doctrine they profess to detest and abhor! The truth is, it is no sign of grace whatever; it only argues, as they use it, that the man has got light to show him his corruptions; but he has not yet got grace to destroy them. He is convinced that he should have the mind of Christ, but he feels that he has the mind of Satan; he deplores it, and, if his bad doctrine do not prevent him, he will not rest till he feels the blood of Christ cleansing him from all sin.

True humility arises from a sense of the fullness of God in the soul; abasement from a sense of corruption is a widely different thing; but this has been put in the place of humility, and even called grace.”

—Adam Clarke on 1 Cor. 13.

or Becoming the Finger of God on the Eject Button

“Immediately, the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness.” —Mark 1:12

NOTE: THIS POST HAS BEEN REMIXED AND INCLUDED IN GOD’S KITCHEN.

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Oswald Chambers says:

The first thing to do in examining the power that dominates me is to take hold of the unwelcome fact that I am responsible for being thus dominated. If I am a slave to myself, I am to blame because at a point away back I yielded to myself. Likewise, if I obey God I do so because I have yielded myself to Him.

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