Ep.37: Unpacking Legalism, License, and Liberty in Christianity

Andrew Marcus:

Hey, this is Andrew Marcus from THE INDOUBT SHOW. We have a fantastic show today. We have Lee Francois, a pastor here locally, and we have my good friend and my pastor Brent Smith from Riverside Calvary Chapel as well. And we are talking about legalism, license and liberty. Legalism and license being two ditches that a lot of Christians find themselves falling into, and just the liberty that we have in Christ. And so it’s going to be a fantastic episode. We hope you tune in and enjoy it.

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So in studio today we have Pastor Lee Francois from Crossbridge. Lee, how are you doing?

Lee Francois:

Doing fantastic. Thanks for having me here.

Andrew Marcus:

Awesome, man. So we are talking about something really important today. We’re talking about legalism, license and liberty. So I want to define terms because Michelle and I, my wife, we were talking about this yesterday and she was saying, “I feel like legalism is the easiest trap to fall into for people who genuinely want to follow God and have a heart after God. You could easily start to become legalistic.” So maybe before we even jump into all things, maybe define some of the terms of what you mean when we talk about legalism, specifically license and liberty.

Lee Francois:

Sure. I mean, I think there’s really three ways you can think about legalism. All of these would be just different expressions of it. But one is just thinking that by keeping a set of external rules, you earn favor with God. So I mean, I see your sign here. “How’s my social credit?” But I mean that’s sort of the idea is if I keep till this list of things, my favor or my status with God goes up. And if I don’t keep those things, it goes down.

In its extreme form it’s a kind of works righteousness. Where in the New Testament you read about this. I mean, the letter of Galatians is all about this. Judaizers had come in and said, “Unless you’re circumcised according to the law of Moses, you’re not saved.” So that’s sort of in its extreme form.

I think the other ways that we see it, one is you keep the letter of the law, but you miss the spirit of it. And Paul talks about that. And there’s lots of examples in Jesus’ ministry where the Pharisees are guilty of this thing. So Jesus will heal a man with a withered hand on a Sabbath day. And rather than seeing the miracle, all they can think about is in what ways did this potentially violate the Sabbath? So that’d be another expression of it, that sort of idea. The letter is kept and you miss the spirit.

And then I think the third way is where we take our rules and we add them to God’s law and they kind of start to seem like those are divine things that God has told us we must do.

Andrew Marcus:

Extra rules that we just make up basically.

Lee Francois:

Rules, traditions. And again, you see that with the Pharisees. They come to Jesus and they say, “Look, why don’t your disciples wash their hands the way they’re supposed to?” Because it wasn’t about hygiene, it was they had a system of how you were supposed to wash your hands before you eat. And Jesus basically says, “Look, you’re elevating the traditions of man above the Word of God.” So I think those are the ways we really express legalism.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. And I feel like, would you agree that maybe the original intent or the heart behind it might not be a bad thing? It’s like, oh, I just want to please God.

Lee Francois:

Yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

It comes from a heart of I just want to be, and then it kind of spirals quickly, clearly.

Lee Francois:

Yeah, absolutely. I think that is the heart. I think the heart is like, okay, we want to be in right standing with God, so let’s make sure we do it. And sometimes the easiest way we find to do it is to create a checklist and say, these are the things I’m going to do. And even we put extra safeguards. So the fence is here and you say, “Well, I’m going to back it up here.”

Andrew Marcus:

Just to protect myself.

Lee Francois:

Just to protect myself. So I don’t even get in that situation. And then you say, “Well, actually that fence is the standard.”

Andrew Marcus:

Right. Right.

Brent Smith:

It’s like the rich young ruler that comes to Jesus. It’s like, “What must I do to inherit the kingdom of God?” So they’re kind of looking for those boundaries, those checklists. I just want to make sure that I got my bases covered in a sense. And that’s what we oftentimes do when it comes to rules and different things that we put upon ourselves that we feel like this is going to help me to know that I’m on track. So you’re right, the intent can oftentimes be a very good one, but it again, causes us to really veer away from what the Lord ultimately has for us.

We begin to add things. Like you said, the Pharisees, a lot of it was based on their own traditions and oral law that they had that went beyond what the simple law of God was stating. So when they are opposing Jesus, they’re opposing Jesus on all these things that weren’t really issues of the law, but they had all these safeguards around them. They thought, this is what’s going to make me right with God and acceptable to God.

And that’s what is really the problem here is that I think for us, I’ve often said at church that the default position of a heart is out of religion. And that means that we oftentimes fall to a place where we feel like we’ve got to apply these things to keep us kind of safeguarded and we easily move from just the things of the spirit, trusting the grace of God, to begin to move into a religious sort of attitude by which we think this is what’s going to again, garner my favor with God.

Andrew Marcus:

And that’s when it gets weird. It’s okay to put safeguards and protect yourself in a sense. But now once you start to say, “Hey, this is actually how I’m going to, again, the social credit score, I’m going to get favor.” And that’s very interesting.

And I wonder segueing into license. So whereas legalism is just all these extra rules and extra protection safeguards that come from a place of I just want to do right and serve God, spirals into this legalistic where you’re judgmental.

Brent Smith:

Speaking of that, like you say, how it robs people so much of joy and it really does. I think about Galatians 5:1 filled with a lot of this context and theme in Galatians dealing with the Judaizers coming in. But what is, it’d say the theme Galatians 5:1, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” And so I think about that, right? This is what it does, when you are not standing just in that liberty and that freedom that we have in Christ and we’re getting brought into external things by which we think is going to make us more right with God. It’s only bringing us into greater bondage and robbing us of the joy and the freedom that we’re meant to have in Christ. But then like you say, there’s a flip side to that, right?

Andrew Marcus:

There’s a flip side. So I guess the extreme is this crazy extreme kind of legalistic view. Then the opposite extreme, oh fine, I could just come as I am and do whatever I want. So that’s kind of more of the license. So maybe walk through maybe a quick definition for our viewers of what you mean when you talk about license and then maybe we can kind of unpack that together.

Lee Francois:

Okay, well just to go to that, so Martin Luther used to say that if a drunk peasant falls off horse on the left side and you help him back up, he’s probably going to fall off on the right side. And I think that’s our tendency. We over-correct, right? So you have this tendency towards legalism and you want to do away with that and you can easily then go, “Well then there are no rules.” It’s that kind of sometimes referred to as antinomianism, which is there is no law that applies to me. I’m just going to live in grace. That means I can do whatever I want to do. And that’s the danger. That’s really what license is. It is that you take your freedom and you use it for you think that gives you a license to do whatever you want.

Brent Smith:

And I think so that’s certainly a potential that people have when they begin to walk in that freedom that we have in Christ and we really do. But again, our heart should always be, I want to be pleasing to the Lord. We understand the grace that was given to us to save us. We understand what Christ went through to pull us out from a life of sin and death, and He’s delivered us, redeemed us from the pit. And so now our lives aren’t meant just to be lived for ourselves and for our own pleasure. Our lives are meant to be lived to the glory of God.

And so that always needs to be the thing that again, is guiding us and guarding us. It’s not applying law now. It’s about saying, I want to walk in love to the one that’s shown me the greatest gift of love ever. I want to return that love to him because he deserves it all. He’s worthy of my life being lived in devotion and praise and to the glory of God. And that’s what needs to guide us and guard us. It’s not to say, “Oh, we’ve been delivered to just live our life now and have at it.” No, we’ve been delivered to live to the glory of God.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.

Lee Francois:

It’s really a misunderstanding of grace. So Paul talks a lot about grace in the New Testament, and he will say, I mean in Romans chapter six, after he’s kind of expounded this idea of grace, he will say, “Well, what shall we say then? If the more you sin, the more grace abounds, then what should we say? Shall we just continue to sin so that grace might have bound even more?” That would be the wrong understanding of grace. That’s a cheap kind of grace that just says, just do whatever you want to do. And that’s a real danger, I think, for people to fall into.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s so good. And I feel like even transitioning into liberty, so we’ve talked through legalism, we’ve talked through that opposite end of the pendulum of license where we kind of get extreme the other way. Liberty, would that be not necessarily a blend between the two, but it’s like you’re having things that you want to do and there’s righteous living, but we fall and we screw up and we get up and it’s a place where we want to do good. We’re not perfect people, but we get up because of the grace. Would you say that’s?

Lee Francois:

Yeah, I don’t know that it’s just, I mean, so if you look at legalism and license as the two ditches on either side of the road, I would say it’s a highway, right? It’s freedom that we have. That’s the road we’re supposed to walk in, the freedom we have in Christ. And you can make mistakes, fall into either ditch on either side of that.

Liberty though is, I mean it is pleasing to God to express and to live out our Christian liberty. But again, we have to make sure when we talk about what liberty is, it’s not something that violates what Scripture says. Right? That’s the thing. So I work with a group that trains pastors for expositional preaching, and there’s a line in there, kind of a motto of keeping to the line. So the line is the text, and if you go above the line, you’re adding to it. And if you go below the line, you’re subtracting to it. And this is I think the errors of legalism and license.

Andrew Marcus:

Interesting. That’s great.

Lee Francois:

The line itself is the freedom that we have. And so I would say what the Bible tells us we ought to do and can do, we ought to take great joy in those things.

Brent Smith:

With liberty, I think when we look at what are we talking about, what does this mean exactly for the believer? I think really in a nutshell what we see oftentimes in Scripture is that we recognize with the liberty we have now in Jesus, the freedom we have in Jesus now, we realize that the things that we do or partake in aren’t the things that are necessarily, again, saving us or commending us to God.

Because in this day, I mean there were a lot of things that they were looking at that were going to be good or wrong, especially coming out of the law and into now the new covenant, things like food now were being acceptable. Things that they partook of now wasn’t going to alter their standing with God in a sense. And so Paul would say in First Corinthians eight, he says, “But food does not commend us to God for neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we do not eat are we the worse.”

And so I go, that’s the liberty right there where we recognize these things aren’t going to cause us to be sent to hell or alter our relationship with God. So whatever you do, and then he would say in Romans 14, he would say, “For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord.” So whether we’re sacrificing dying to certain things or live into those things, whatever we do, we’re doing it to the Lord. We are the Lord’s. And so in everything that we do, we recognize this thing doesn’t commend us to God. This thing doesn’t take us away from God, apart from what He clearly says in his Word. So let’s be clear on that too. There are certain things that the Lord, again, as Lee pointed out, that Scripture’s very clear and commanding us to. And we do those things not because now that’s going to save us. We do it because we love the Lord and this is what He desires for us, for our ultimate blessing.

But now we go with the liberty we have in Christ. We don’t have to fit ourselves under such a rigid kind of structure by which we are worried about, is this going to alter my relationship to the Lord? Is this going to change my relationship to the Lord? If we can do those things and do them unto the Lord and to the glory of the Lord, then we have the liberty and the freedom to do that.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, that’s so good. Such a good word.

Lee Francois:

I think just one more thing to say about liberty is when we talk about liberty, because I mean it’s a good word, freedom. The imagery of the New Testament is so often that we were slaves and now we’ve been set free. But it’s good for us to explore what is the nature of the freedom that we have in Christ? What does it look like?

And I think it’s helpful when we think about salvation, to think about that there’s a salvation from something and there’s a salvation for something. So when we think about salvation from that means we are saved from the wrath of God, but also we are set free from not just the penalty for sin, but also the power of sin. It means we’re set free in such a way we don’t have to be dominated by the sinful nature. So there’s a tremendous freedom that we ought to understand in our salvation.

But also we are set free for something. Our salvation is for something. So Paul will say like Galatians we’ve talked about quite a bit, but he will say, “For you were called to freedom brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” And so it’s the kind of freedom we have where we can actually, now I can serve you. I have freedom to serve. That’s one aspect of the freedom that we have. It’s not just, can I indulge in this or can I indulge in that? It’s what do I use my Christian freedom for?

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. Wow.

Brent Smith:

And that’s where Paul talks about that law of love. It’s really love for the Lord and love for one another. That’s to guide us now in the liberties we have. So though one believer might have a certain liberty, they recognize there might be somebody else that doesn’t really have that same kind of liberty. Maybe they got a different conviction over that. And so our love for one another causes us to say, “I’m going to maybe act out or live a different way for the sake of my brother.” And ultimately, again, to do that which pleases the Lord. Love for the Lord, love for one another, which is to really drive us in our freedoms and our liberties.

Andrew Marcus:

And if we bring it to 2023 today, what words of wisdom would you guys give to a young person who’s listening who might be more on the legalistic approach to life? What would be some things you would coach them on?

Lee Francois:

I think first and foremost is their relationship with God. To understand that that is the basis for everything. So even if you go back to the Old Testament, if you look at Exodus chapter 20, where you find the 10 Commandments right before you get that first commandment, what it says is, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of slavery.” So the very first thing is a relational component to that, that the reason we live out those commands is because we’ve been set free. So start with your relationship with God. That’s the thing of utmost importance.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. Yeah. That’s really good.

Brent Smith:

I would say to those people that are maybe struggling in that area, relax. Relax, because like Lee says, the Lord has done it all for us. And simply just learn to live in that loving relationship with God who has done it all for us through his son, Jesus Christ. He’s saved us by his grace. It’s through faith in him that we are saved and right with God and nothing else. It’s not by what we do.

And so again, like I said, that default position of our heart oftentimes is religion, where we feel like we’ve got to bring something to the table. We’ve got to do something by which God goes, okay, all right, now you’ve kind of passed that test. Now you’ve done it. No, we recognize we can bring nothing to the table. Our righteousness is nothing but filthy rags, the Bible tells us. So there’s nothing we can do. And that’s oftentimes what’s driving that attitude of legalism is that we’re trying to be right, made righteous before God. He’s done it all, relax, enjoy the grace of Jesus, but live to the glory of God.

Andrew Marcus:

So good. And that kind of just ties in all of it and kind of ends with this liberty of just like, man, that is so hopeful. There’s so much peace. There’s so much joy. There’s so much rest. When you think of legalism like, hey, relax. Man, when I read that Ephesians two, it’s just easy to relax. Not to relax and just say, I’ll do whatever, but to relax and say, okay, God, you’ve got me. You’ve saved me, and now I have the privilege and honor and responsibility to move in faith and do good work for your glory.

Brent Smith:

That’s right.

Andrew Marcus:

And to point people to you. That’s so good.

Lee Francois:

That’s right. Awesome.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s awesome. How should one, if someone’s watching who’s fully devoted on the right path and sees someone that they love that is on one of the other sides, how should we address it like Paul would? Obviously, we won’t write them a letter.

Lee Francois:

Well, I mean, think there’s, again, I think we’re actually given really clear biblical guidelines on how to address these things. So I mean, Jesus will say, “Look, don’t look at the speck in your brother’s eye when you’ve got a huge plank in your own.” And so you can have your list and say, man, you shouldn’t be wearing shorts, or whatever your thing might be, but you’ve been harsh with your spouse. There’s issues of your heart around lust and greed and those things. So I think making sure own heart is right.

Andrew Marcus:

It call comes back to, yes.

Lee Francois:

You start with your heart and it should come out of there.

Brent Smith:

Yeah, and I think just really, people need to check their motives and their heart. What is it that’s driving you to take a certain position or stance? Is your motive thinking that, yeah, God’s going to be more pleased with me by doing so? Is this going to, again, like we said, garner that favor with the Lord? Or is my motive just, I want to do this because I just want to please the Lord? I want to live that life separate unto the Lord. What’s our motive behind these things?

And our motive then if it’s just to honor the Lord, serve the Lord, I think there’s going to be less of a judgmental attitude. And when we see that in other people or don’t see that in other people, if we’re thinking again, this is happening, I’m doing this because of how it’s going to be perceived by the Lord, then we look oftentimes more judgmental than other people because then they should be doing it too.

But again, just checking our motives and our heart. What are we doing and why are we doing it? Because again, when we come at things from that basis of there’s nothing I can do to be more right with God, He’s already done it all. And now I just want to serve him and live a life that’s surrendered in love, in honor of him. And so when that’s the basis, then again, we know that there’s nothing that we’re doing that’s going to up that or add to it.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. That’s so good.

Lee Francois:

Yeah. I think when you’re dealing with a person who’s maybe going the other way into license, right? We have instruction about that too. So if we go back to Galatians again in chapter six, Paul’s going to say, “Look, if anyone is caught in any sin, you who are spiritual should restore them with gentleness. But take heed lest you to fall.” So there’s an idea that we go in there and you do need to go in as a loving brother or sister, and your goal should be restoration to bring them back. It’s bringing back an erring brother or sister, but you do so also knowing there, but for the grace of God, go I.

Brent Smith:

Yes, that’s it.

Lee Francois:

And just understanding that. That is a genuine temptation or trap that they’re caught in, and I want to help them out. And as I do that, I want to make sure I don’t fall into that same trap.

Brent Smith:

Yeah, we want to be conducting ourselves in grace, like you say, recognizing the grace that I’ve been given. I’m no different than that person. That person may have sinned or erred in a way that maybe I haven’t, but I’m every bit prone to sin as that person is, and it’s the grace of God that saved me. So we come in grace, not judgment, not harshness. We come in grace knowing that we’ve been given grace and we walk side by side with those people to see them, like you say, restored and walking with the Lord.

Andrew Marcus:

And you mentioned that with someone who’s on that ditch of license. Would we do the same thing with someone who’s in the ditch of legalism graciously?

Lee Francois:

Oh yeah. I think so.

Andrew Marcus:

Same thing, right?

Lee Francois:

Because I think it’s one of those things we might not even realize it about ourselves that we’ve fallen into this pattern of legalism or the checklist thing. I mean, it always takes gentleness to point that out to a person.

Andrew Marcus:

I feel like it just with legalism, as I just reflect on all this, it’s just such an easy trap, I think even for me, it just would be so easy to want to honor God and protect myself, and how quickly it could spiral and turn into this weird judgmental thing.

So this is just a really good discussion, and I think it’s really important that we walk through it and just kind of learn the traps, learn the ways out, learn how to connect with people who we see are in traps. And again, lots of grace and truth. But I just love how every time I’ve asked you guys questions, I mean, it’s great having two pastors in the room that are just seasoned and just they love the Lord.

Lee Francois:

Old, you mean?

Andrew Marcus:

No, seasoned. Salty.

Lee Francois:

Salty.

Andrew Marcus:

Salty. But I just love that every answer you guys gave was straight from Scripture. We’re not making this stuff up. We’re not trying to come up with opinions or what we think it ought to be. No Second Corinthians, First Corinthians, or Ephesians, or Galatians or Jude. It’s just our answers are all in, like you said, our answers are in the Word of God, and so we need to be in the Word and to just be washed by the Word and to find truth and to find answers. People think it’s dated. It’s not the case at all. This is relevant.

So in 2023, what do you think this day and age, the ditches?

Lee Francois:

That’s a really good question. I mean, I think in relation to those two, to legalism and license?

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, where do we find ourselves?

Lee Francois:

Well, it’s interesting legalism, again, we tend to think of it as a particularly Christian problem, but it’s not. Everything we see in our culture around virtue signaling, all of that stuff, it’s a form of legalism. Here’s the things I do. Here’s my carbon footprint. I recycle, I do this. Those are always of trying to improve your social credit in a sense. Maybe not with God.

Andrew Marcus:

But just in general for society.

Lee Francois:

But just in general. I think it’s, again, there’s sort of this checklist. That whole idea of self-righteousness that can come with legalism, self-righteousness is huge today in our culture. I feel morally superior because this is my view on this. And I think that’s a massive problem that we do need to speak into.

Brent Smith:

And like you say, it’s been replaced with the word virtuous, right? That’s the thing now. And on the other side, then with license, I think what we see in our culture today is I think a potential for greater license, simply because we’re seeing more and more people having less and less of a view of the authority of God’s Word, to where now they’re looking at things in the Word going, that’s not relevant for today. That’s not for me today. I can do this.

And so we’re seeing things I think within young people by which they’re permitting things that the Lord doesn’t permit, and they’re doing so because they feel, well, this is kind of like you said, outdated. It’s not really applicable to me. It doesn’t hold the same authority as we once thought. And so people are dismissing the truth of God’s Word and entering into things that are not of the Lord and excusing it by that. So we’re seeing the danger today in our culture and among young people who don’t hold that view of the Word, we see the danger them moving into areas of license that are in disobedience to the Lord and his Word.

Andrew Marcus:

So we’re seeing kind of both ditches.

Lee Francois:

For sure.

Andrew Marcus:

And they’re both very prominent.

Brent Smith:

Nothing new. There’s nothing new under the sun, right?

Andrew Marcus:

I know. No.

Brent Smith:

It continues on, but it continues on in a little bit of a different look to it. But the same heart is there.

Lee Francois:

That’s right.

Andrew Marcus:

Thank you, Lee, for being with us. And Brent, thank you for joining us in third chair today.

Brent Smith:

Hey, thanks. It was awesome to be here.

Lee Francois:

Yeah, it was a great time.

Andrew Marcus:

Hey, thanks so much for joining us today. For more great content, check out THE INDOUBT SHOW on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you stream your podcast. We hope you enjoyed it today. Feel free to check out Indoubt.ca. We have some great resources available to you. Have an awesome day.