Legalism is a belief in which people can preserve or earn salvation based on what they do. They believe that God favors them if they do this or don’t do this. This belief defeats the common faith of Christians that God will save people because of Jesus Christ’s obedient life and acts of love for mankind. This belief also focuses more on one’s attempt to rely on his own effort to justify his actions to earn God’s promise of salvation.
For those people who believe in legalism, they see themselves deem fit of God’s promised salvation by comparing the “holiness†of their acts with the actions of others who believe that salvation is a free gift from Jesus and you don’t have to do anything to get it.
Legalism promotes strict obedience and self- righteousness. Many Christians oppose this as they believe that men don’t have the capability to become perfect which results to their belief that they need Jesus Christ to pay for their sins and imperfections.
Christians detest legalism as they believe that there’s no law that can justify a man’s faith for him to be saved. One basis of this belief is a bible verse stated below:
“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified” (Galatians 2:16).â€
People who live by Christ’s significance believe that legalists are brainwashed by their church’s leaders to make them obey and gain profit from them. On the other hand, legalists believe that man’s work will determine their salvation and that their church’s leaders are helping them to achieve it.
