Many of us who grew up in a more or less fundamentalist form of Christianity are quite familiar with legalism. It has a long, though not exactly distinguished, history in the church. In fact, legalism is a significant theme in the New Testament itself. Basically legalism is Christianity by keeping a set of rules: I don’t smoke, drink, dance, or chew, and I don’t go out with girls who do. Judaism tried to make legalism a stand-in for faith in becoming a Christian, but its primary application is in the doctrine of sanctification, the theme of Galatians. The right way to become like Christ is to do the right things and avoid the wrong things. Didn’t Jesus himself say that those who love him should keep his commandments (John 14:15)?

The less well known polar opposite of legalism is antinomianism, the idea that no rules whatsoever apply and we may do whatever we please. After all we live by grace, not by law (Romans 6:14), so we can even do evil that good may come, right? Some who knew Paul’s teaching accused him of exactly that, so, like legalism, antinomianism is also of New Testament vintage.

Does biblical moral law have any relationship to sanctification? If so, what? This question was debated during the Reformation between Lutherans and the Reformed. They agreed that the law has a condemning function and that it serves to point us to Christ, but they differed over what was called the third use, its application to the Christian life after justification. Lutherans generally said it doesn’t apply; Calvinists generally held that it does.

St. Augustine gave a rather famous summary of Christian ethics: Love God and do as you please. Some have heard echoes of that in modern situational ethics, which focuses on always doing the loving thing. Modern ethicists, however, empty “love” of all meaning and usually apply it only horizontally, not as a response to God. But even in Augustine’s sense, how would I know whether I am really loving God? Calvinists would assert that law functions to give a structure to sanctification, keeping me from self-deception at exactly this point. If I live in violation of the law of God, then I have no justification for saying that I love him and that doing what I please pleases him.

Law is not ignored in sanctification, as in antinomianism, but it also is not the sum and substance of sanctification as in legalism. Think of it in relation to civil law today. Such law is prohibitive or negative in nature; it forbids me to kill, maim, defraud, libel, etc., other people. If I love my neighbor, I will obviously fulfill those requirements and I don’t have to fear the cops or the judge, but my focus is much higher than just the minimal negative requirements law imposes on me. I will act for their positive good. However, if I say that I love my neighbors while I’m beating up or cheating everyone in sight, the law gives the lie to my claim. In sanctification, biblical moral law functions in much the same way.
Phil Meade, Kevin Farmer, Dana Arledge, Will Uminn