Quotes about Legalism

fanatics. Every teacher of work-righteousness is a trouble-maker.

Strict legalism is a myth. Laws have a knack for ambiguity, and it only takes a moment of reflection to see that they have to be interpreted, which isn't exactly breaking news. The entire history of Judaism and Christianity bears witness to people of faith doing just that.

The one who is physically uncircumcised yet keeps the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.

Take notice: I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.

Again I testify to every man who gets himself circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.

You who are trying to be justified by the law have been severed from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

For the circumcised do not even keep the law themselves, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast in your flesh.

as to zeal, persecuting the church; as to righteousness in the law, faultless.

Therefore let no one judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a feast, a New Moon, or a Sabbath.

Rather than experiencing the richness of a dynamic, intimate relationship with the righteous One, you put God in a little box that you can check off your to-do list each week. By settling for rules and religion and feeling pretty good about how much you're doing for the church and those less fortunate, you become blinded to legalism and self-righteousness.

By striving to prove how much they deserve God's love, legalists miss the whole point of the gospel, that it is a gift from God to people who don't deserve it. The solution to sin is not to impose an ever-stricter code of behavior. It is to know God.

Moralism apart from grace solves little.