“Christianity is not about rules. It’s about a relationship.”
That or something similar to it is an oft-repeated phrase that Christians use to warn themselves against legalism. Legalism is commonly defined as following the law, the rules in order to merit God’s grace and consequently, salvation. Legalism is relying on one’s own efforts to be right with God.
I’ve been reading a number of books recently that deal with the topic of grace and relationships in the Christian life. All reject the kind of legalism that focuses on law-keeping and right actions. They all agree that the goal of the Christian life is to be in a right relationship with God.
Here is where I see problems with what I’ve been reading. Right relationship is often described in terms of right relational attitudes. The authors come up with a list of desirable, relational attitudes. What I see is a replacement of one set of rules for another. The reader is told to give up behavioral rule-keeping, but is then given a checklist of correct attitudes. Behavioral legalism is abandoned, but there is a danger of adopting relational legalism. Both are equally ineffective when it comes to getting into a right relationship with God.
Neither is the old legalism completely abandoned. Somewhere, almost invariably, is presented that as part of one’s own evaluation of their relationship to God, they will have taken off the old. And how does one evaluate whether or not the old has been removed? By appealing to the old rules, of course – usually in the form of “not doing” immoral actions. There remains, then, a great temptation to revert to the rule-based method of defining what a right relationship looks like.
At this point an objection may be raised. Don’t many of the epistles contain exhortation to develop good fruit, i.e., proper attitudes, when in a right relationship with God? My question in response to to this objection is this: are these “exhortations” a prescription toward more sanctified living, or are they a description of what automatically happens in a right relationship? These lists (such as the list of spiritual gifts and immorality to avoid found in Galatians 5:16-23) can be seen as a way of measuring and growing a relationship with God (the prescription method). Or they can be seen as descriptive of what naturally happens with a Christian when they walk with God.
Specifically with the passage in Galatians, in our English translation we interpret the “but if you are led by the Spirit” to be a conditional. But it can also be understood to read “but because you are led by the Spirit.” The latter is more in line with how the section begins in v.16 where it reads, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” This passage is not prescriptive. It is not telling the Christian to focus on either avoidance of the bad, or to focus on developing the right attitudes. It is simply descriptive of what happens when a person is in a right relationship with God.1
The problem with both kinds of legalism – rule-based or relationship-based – is the preoccupation with self. With the former it is navel-gazing asking myself, “Am I doing the right things and avoiding bad things?” With the latter it is still navel-gazing, asking myself, “Am I developing the right attitudes? Am I avoiding deeds of the old nature?” The focus is still “me.”
Jesus’ parable of the final judgment, the sheep and the goats, found in Matthew 25:31-46, illustrates the above. The sheep, on the right, have no idea that they are sheep and are in a right relationship with God. Their focus has never been on themselves and whether or not they are doing the right things, avoiding the bad, or having a right attitude toward God. Their preoccupation is service for others, without making a conscious effort to do so. The goats, on the left, are shown to have no genuine concern for others. Implicitly this indicates a preoccupation with self. The goats are “clean” as are the sheep. The goats are not overtly evil people. They, therefore, can be seen to represent those who claim to follow Christ, those who claim to belong to God. They are not in a right relationship with God because their preoccupation is with self (c.f., Matthew 7:21-23).
I think that one reason why relational legalism is such a temptation and trap is that Christianity has not adequately defined what a right relationship is. There is nowhere in the New Testament where we can find it explicitly defined. Thus we must resort to building a definition via inference. It is easy to take the lists of good, moral attitudes in many of the epistles and use them to build a definition. But as I wrote earlier, these lists are not prescriptive. We cannot grow our relationship with God by focusing on how short we fall of meeting these descriptions.
So how do we grow our relationship with God? How should we define a right relationship with him?
It is instructive to refer to John 13-17. In his final discourse Jesus could have said many things. But in John’s longest recorded single discourse, Jesus’ instruction is singular, in two parts: 1) Abide in me; 2) Love one another. Jesus could have listed all sorts of attributes and attitudes that he wanted his disciples to develop and by which they could measure growth. Jesus does nothing of the sort. His instruction to his disciples is to become preoccupied with him and with others; i.e., focus away from self. I believe that is the most concise and only definition of “right relationship with God” that we need. I believe this definition most accurately characterizes the “sheep” of the Matthew 7 parable mentioned earlier.
I agree that Christianity is right to warn against rule-based, behavior-based legalism. Christianity is right in emphasizing that what God wants is a right relationship with him. There is much in current Christian literature that is good, but I believe that many of them define “right relationship” in a manner that can lead to relational legalism. We must avoid that at all costs. Both types of legalism is essentially a focus on self. Jesus tells us that in order to avoid legalism and develop a right relationship, we must stop focusing on self.
We need to stop our navel-gazing. It is not about whether or not we see ourselves doing good or bad, or we think we have right or wrong attitudes. It is all about looking away from ourselves – and instead to God and toward people around us. If we focus on the goodness of Jesus, we will bear fruit without having to be conscious about it.
1 These morality lists are also cultural and literary conventions of the Greek and Roman world. The New Testament writers are simply following what is the norm for them and what their audience expects to see. That does not make such lists inappropriate, but neither are they strictly right or necessary.
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