Quotes about Legalism

When there's something in the Bible that churches don't like, they call it legalism.

Legalism lacks the supreme sense of worship. It obeys but it does not adore.

Being in Christ is both gift and task, privilege and responsibility. Exaggerate the gift, and you risk antinomian complacency; exaggerate the responsibility, and you risk legalistic anxiety.

A new and more powerful proclamation of the law is perhaps the most pressing need of the hour... A low view of law always brings legalism into religion; a high view of law makes man a seeker after grace. Pray that the high view may prevail.

At its heart, legalism is a desire to appear holy. It is trying to be justified before men and not God.

Legalism is alive and well in many of our churches.

Legalism at one extreme (keep all the rules) and license at the other (reject any rules) are both completely wrong answers to the question of how Christians should live.

It is this strict side of the ascetic's life that is perhaps the least understood, not only by our culture, but also by other Christians. Especially among evangelicals, who champion salvation by grace through faith, a strict faith can seem perilously close to legalism; and in some cases, it might be. For healthy ascetics, however, strictness is a cherished method of expressing love for God.

If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

Legalism leaches joy.

We have a crippling tendency to forget what God has done for us. For a while, we're humbled. Then, if we do not guard our hearts and minds, we begin to think we must have done something right for God to have been so good to us. Therein lies another road to captivity. It is the road of legalism.

To pick up the Sword of the Spirit without the Shield of Faith is to shrivel and dry up in the desert of legalism. To pick up the Shield of Faith without the Sword of the Spirit is to try walking by faith on quicksand.