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Legalism (9)
for antinomianism and legalism are not so much antithetical to each other as they are both antithetical to grace.
Sinclair Ferguson
The Whole Christ (pp. 156). Crossway There is only one genuine cure for legalism. It is the same medicine the gospel prescribes for antinomianism: understanding and tasting union with Jesus Christ himself. This leads to a new love for and obedience to the law of God, which he now mediates to us in the gospel. This alone breaks the bonds of both legalism (the law is no longer divorced from the person of Christ) and antinomianism (we are not divorced from the law, which now comes to us from the hand of Christ and in the empowerment of the Spirit, who writes it in our hearts).The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (pp. 157). Crossway
It was a consolation to the Marrow Brethren that the preaching and teaching of both Jesus and Paul aroused the same questions and criticism. But antinomianism, like legalism, has many faces.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (p. 138). Crossway
What, then, is the remedy for legalism? At the stage we have reached in reflecting on the Marrow, it scarcely needs to be said. It is grace. But it is not "grace" as commodity, grace as substance. It is grace in Christ. For God's grace to us is Christ.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (p. 134). Crossway
only shock therapy recalibrates the mind, will, and affections rooted in a legal frame.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (p. 129). Crossway
When a man is driven to acts of obedience by the dread of God's wrath revealed in the law, and not drawn to them, by the belief in His love revealed in the gospel; when he fears God because of His power and justice, and not because of His goodness; when he regards God more as an avenging Judge, than as a compassionate Friend and Father; and when he contemplates God rather as terrible in majesty than as infinite in grace and mercy, he shows that he is under the dominion, or at least under the prevalence of a legal spirit. He shows that he is under the influence of this hateful temper. When his hope of divine mercy is raised by the liveliness of his frame in duties, and not by discoveries of the freeness and riches of redeeming grace, offered to him in the gospel; or when he expects eternal life not as the gift of God through Jesus Christ, but as a recompense from God for his own obedience and suffering, he plainly shows, that he is under the power of a legal spirit.Treatise on the Law and Gospel, ed. D. Kistler (1859; repr. Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1999), 143-144
Legalism is simply separating the law of God from the person of God. Eve sees God's law, but she has lost sight of the true God himself. Thus, abstracting his law from his loving and generous person, she was deceived into "hearing" law only as negative deprivation and not as the wisdom of a heavenly Father.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (p. 83). Crossway
Nothing is more deadly than self-righteousness, or more hopeful than contrition.
Legalism is a more dangerous disease than alcoholism because it doesn't look like one. Alcoholism makes men fail; legalism helps them succeed in the world. Alcoholism makes men depend on the bottle; legalism makes them self-sufficient, depending on no one. Alcoholism destroys moral resolve; legalism gives it strength. Alcoholics don't feel welcome in the church; legalists love to hear their morality extolled in the church. Brothers, We are Not Professionals (155)
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