Dwight Fletcher | The biblical answer to legalism

Bill Bright, founder of Cru, used to tell a story about a woman married to a tyrant. He didn’t like the way she kept house. He didn’t like the way she did laundry or ironed his clothes. He criticised the way she dressed and conducted herself in public, and so much more. Early in their marriage, he handed her a list of 25 rules for her to follow. She hated it and him.

You can imagine how frustrating it was to her to have to constantly check her list to see if she was pleasing him. She usually failed and each time was chastised by him. He made her feel miserable and small.

One day, he died, and she eventually fell in love with and married a wonderful man who loved her very deeply. She made every effort to please him, sometimes even bringing him breakfast in bed. One day, she came across the old list from her first husband, and as she read it, feelings of anger and inferiority returned. Then she started laughing. As she checked the list, she realised that she was now doing all these things for her new husband and more. And she was doing them with great joy because she loved him so much.

Colossians 2 points to the fact that pleasing God starts and ends with us developing and sustaining a close, loving relationship with Him and not a slavish, legalistic one. The Christian has a special bond with Christ. At first glance, Christians appear as ordinary men, women, boys, or girls. But according to the scriptures, and in actual experience, we have an ‘extra dimension’ to life. There is a hidden resource, an invisible reality, that the world does not have and cannot see. This refers to what Paul has described in Colossians as “Christ in you, the hope of glory”.

This extra dimension is not far but is right within the heart, an untouchable, invisible dimension within believers. This is the glory of the Christian life and the secret of its power, joy, and courage. If you have not discovered this yet as a Christian, don’t worry – you still can!

God wants us to understand who Christ is and that Jesus:

• He is the image of the invisible God.

• By Him, all things were created.

• In Him, all things hold together.

• He is the Head of the body.

• He disarmed the powers and authorities of evil.

“For in Christ, all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form,” says Colossians 2:9.

It is this Christ that is in all of us once we have surrendered our lives to Him, and He is our hope of glory. The term “Christ in you” refers to the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The scripture is clear. “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature,” says Galatians 5:16. This is how God wants us to overcome sin: not by legalism but through the Holy Spirit. This is one of the most fundamental doctrines of Christianity.

How do we live to please God without living legalistically? Live life in the Holy Spirit. Join us next week, when we look more at life in the Spirit.