From Legalism to Freedom: Part 3

In the first two posts, I took a look at legalism and freedom.  We defined legalism as dependence on moral law instead of faith and freedom as living in whatever way you want that is not sin. We have seen that legalism can lead to self-righteousness and the alienation of others. Conversely, we have seen how too much of an emphasis on freedom can lead to hurting your witness and the alienation of others. This brings us to the question: so now what?

There has to be some balance between the two. In life, it is my firm belief that the answer rarely ever lies in the trenches, it is usually somewhere in the middle. So much of the Christian life is a matter of conscience.  That doesn’t mean sin is relative and we can make up the rules as we go. It does mean that we have to be willing to wade through the nuance of life. We noted earlier how our definitions of what is and is not sin can be regional and cultural. Things like cursing, smoking, and drinking often have a cultural stigma attached to them that we equate with sin. The Bible is not explicit about any of these things but we can still find ways to biblically justify categorizing these as sins if we wanted to.

There are things, however, the Bible is pretty clear on. The Biblical sexual ethic, murder, and love for each other just to name a few. 

That love for one another piece is pretty big. If we allow our actions to be guided by the greatest commandment and the close second, love God and love your neighbor, then that could solve many of our legalism and freedom issues.

There are important questions to ask as you live:

Does this honor God?

Does this honor my neighbor?

Does this hurt my witness?

Remember that everything we can do, we don’t have to do. Sometimes, you have to lose the battle in order to win the war.  When Blake Griffin first entered the NBA he could have dunked the ball with dynamic force every single time he touched it, but did he have to?  Of course the answer is no. By choosing to dunk less, he saved a lot of wear and tear on his joints that will hopefully extend his playing career.  See, everything we can do, we don’t have to do.

The Apostle Paul sets a great example in 1 Corinthians 8.  He is writing to the Christians who show off their freedom by eating the meat in a pagan temple even though this action is causing their brothers and sisters who don’t see this as acceptable to stumble.  Paul warns them they could destroy their brethren in Christ simply because they took full advantage of their freedom.

The lesson we are given here is that just because we can, it doesn’t mean we should.  If we are living in a way that honors God and loves people, then we accept that we must sometimes say no to things we are allowed to say yes to.  I’m an adult, a whole adult. I could choose to have dessert for dinner every day if I wanted to but the way diabetes works, it is probably not wise.  Just because I can, it doesn’t mean I should.

Truth is, there is no black and white, there is no do things this way and that’s that.  There is no one size fits all version of Christianity no matter how much we’d like to have that.

We tend to be dogmatic and tribal. We try to impose our values and beliefs on everyone else.  Once we think we have the right answer, we are convinced everyone needs to follow our set way of doing things.  Deviating just an inch to the right or the left is unacceptable. We go as far as asking if people outside of our tribe are even Christians.  We are all legalists.

As people, we crave rules no matter how much we say we don’t want them.  I could be wrong but I think we may actually be uncomfortable with freedom.  Left to ourselves it is too easy to go too far. The beauty of the Gospel is that Christ has come to set us free.  Free from sin and free to live. We don’t have to overthink every little thing. In many respects, we can do whatever we want to do. That freedom, however, does come with limits.

And that is good for us.  

In all things seek to live for the glory of the Lord and the good of others.  We want to be charitable and gracious with our brothers and sisters. Therefore, we honor them and their convictions so long as they don’t compromise the Gospel.

I had a friend who didn’t want to have a drink with us because he believed that it was truly sin.  We kept trying to talk him into it because none of us believed the Bible banned drinking. We were wrong.  Not wrong because we misinterpreted scripture, we were wrong in that we tried to get this brother to violate his conscience over something trivial.

Love God, love others, and the rest should take care of itself.

For further reading check out Conscience: What is it, how to train it, and loving those who differ by Andrew Naselli