If you were to look up on most Christian websites what a “legalist” is, you would find a definition that reads something like this:

A legalist is someone who believes that their law-keeping, their behavior, their right or legal acts have some benefit in their salvation. In other words, a legalist is one who believes they can, by their own law-keeping, merit salvation.

Another, and perhaps a more subtle form of legalism, is when the believer acknowledges that they cannot save themselves by their own law-keeping, but that they must prove to God they deserve His grace by their own law-keeping. In other words, they acknowledge salvation is through Jesus, but they believe their law-keeping makes them worthy of what Jesus did.

Most Christians recognize that both of these views are fraudulent, that God’s grace is freely given and we cannot earn it. But these two forms of legalism, in my understanding, are not the most destructive form. There is another form of legalism that is deeply rooted in Christianity and which many professed followers of Christ are caught up in and don’t even realize it—primarily because they have been taught that legalism is exclusively what is described above; this other form, they are told, is not legalism.

However, this other form of legalism is the form of Christianity that the apostle Paul warned Timothy would be prevalent at the time before Christ’s return:

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them (2 Timothy 3:1–5 NIV84, emphasis mine).

Paul is not talking about deniers of God, but those who claim “godliness.” He is speaking of a form of Christianity that has no power to transform lives, for it is infected with a deep-seated legal lie that cheats followers of the true transforming power of Christ.

Epidemiological data confirms this is the state of Christianity today: in homes that identify as Christian, there is no difference in child abuse rates, spousal abuse rates, addictions, and porn use than in homes that do not identify as Christian. How is that possible? Because by and large, Christianity has replaced reality with a legal fraud, which has moved the work of Christ for our salvation out of hearts and minds and placed it in a legal setting, a heavenly courtroom, built upon a law system that functions like Rome—made-up rules requiring legal enforcement.

Legalism is any belief system that is legal in nature. If your religion teaches that what Jesus did is penal/legal in nature, rather than reality-based healing and transformation, then that is legalism. Preoccupation with legal status, legal records, legal punishments, legal payments, legal adjustments in God’s books, legal declarations from God’s throne—all of this is legalism.

True Christianity is not about legal claims, written records, payments, or legal status changes—it is about the sinner being reborn in Christ, with a new heart and right spirit that, in reality, functions on new principles and motives.

Real Christianity is described by Jesus Himself in this way:

I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. … I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit (John 3:3, 5, 6 NIV84).

We are all born into this world animated by the spirit of fear and selfishness inherited from Adam (Psalm 51:5; Romans 5:12; 2 Timothy 1:7). This condition is a terminal condition; it is incompatible with life in God’s universe. Thus, the Bible teaches that we are dead in trespass and sin (Ephesians 2:1). This is not a legal problem; it is a lethal problem!

Good works cannot replace the spirit of fear and selfishness with a sinless spirit of love and trust. And neither can a legal declaration from God!

Salvation requires that we receive, in reality, in the actual operations of our being, a new life that animates us with the motives, desires, and methods of God.

This is exactly what the Bible teaches salvation is in reality throughout all its pages:

• Removing our stony heart and replacing it with a tender heart (Ezekiel 36:26).
• Circumcision of our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Jeremiah 4:4; Romans 2:29).
• Washing us and making us clean (Psalm 51:7; Ezekiel 36:25).
• Creating in us pure hearts and renewed spirits (Psalm 51:10).
• Creating in us the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16).
• Writing on our hearts and minds His law (Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 8:10).
• We become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).
• Christ lives in us (Galatians 2:20).
• We become the righteousness of God! (2 Corinthians 5:21).

This is not a legal work!

It is the reality-based restoration to righteousness work that is accomplished by God through Christ in those who “trust.” We are saved by God’s grace (all His freely given love, truth, actions, interventions, and achievements accomplished through Christ and applied through the Holy Spirit) through faith. In other words, faith, which is trust, is our opening of the door to our hearts to allow God’s Spirit to enter with divine power and the life of Christ to reanimate us with His Spirit. God, through Christ, has provided everything for our salvation, but what God cannot provide for our salvation is our trust, our choice to say yes to Him. And this choice is not a legal choice; it is a functional choice, a choice of the soul to surrender the spirit of fear and survival that drives one to seek to hide and protect self, and instead says to God, “Into your hands I surrender my life—my sin-sick spirit of fear that drives me to run and hide from you.”

Why is this the case? Because of how reality works. God either makes free intelligent beings, or He makes robots. As God, He can do either. But once God makes a free intelligent being, He cannot make the choices for that free being and that being still remain free! There is no requirement that God makes free beings, but if He does, then He cannot choose for that being what they will believe, whom they will trust, whom or what they will love, and what character they develop.

And when free beings (angels and humans) chose to use their freedom to break away from the laws of life, the laws of health, the laws that the Creator has built into the operations of reality and life, then the reality-based result has been and is deterioration, degradation, decay, and death—unless intervened upon and remedied by God.

For God to save sinners, the sinful being must be recreated, reborn, reanimated with a sinless life, a sinless spirit, and no descendant of Adam and Eve could do this. No law-keeping by a sinner can replace the corrupt spirit with a sinless one. This is precisely what Jesus accomplished for us! (For more on why Jesus had to die to save us from sin, see our magazine Salvation and You: What It Really Means to Be Saved.)

There is no salvation for any sinner who clings to the life of fear and selfishness and refuses the new life freely provided by Jesus—even if they claim Jesus as their legal substitute, who took their legal punishment in a heavenly court system. In fact, that way of thinking inculcates the lie that keeps the spirit of fear alive; it undermines trust in God, and people, instead of exercising their faith in God, place their faith in the various mechanics that function to hide and protect them from the god they believe will torture and kill them if these legal mechanisms were not available.

This is the hidden legalism, replacing actual regeneration, recreation, healing, restoration of our hearts and minds with a legal adjustment in the courts of heaven.

Heavenly Legalism

Heavenly legalism stems from the lie that God’s law functions like human law, made-up rules that are enforced through legal oversight and infliction of just punishments.

This lie causes people to believe sin is rule-breaking, which is recorded in legal registries in heaven, which require God to use His power to punish appropriately so that justice is served. In this system, it is taught that Jesus came not to reveal God to win us to trust, overcome, and destroy sin and death, purging the spirit of fear from humanity and replacing it with His sinless life, thereby restoring humanity, in reality, to sinless righteousness—but instead to be punished by His Father in our place to pay a legal demand of the law.

Instead of teaching what John the Baptist taught, that Jesus is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29 NIV84), the false legal view teaches that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away God’s punishment for the sin of the world!

Once the lie that God’s law functions like human law is accepted, then God’s “justice” is punishing law-breaking; He becomes the source of torture and death for justice’s sake, and it is falsely taught that Jesus came to take our punishment for our sins. This then leads to the heavenly legalism that salvation is getting the legal payment of Jesus’ blood on our heavenly record and getting a legal adjustment in the heavenly court system.

This leads to the false theologies that become the substitute for saving faith. Instead of placing actual trust in God and praying like David for God to search and see the wicked way within and create a new heart and right spirit, this false system leads people to place their faith in various interventions to hide them from God.

Placing faith in these false legal theologies interferes with salvation because it undermines actual trust in God and keeps the spirit of fear alive and active. Such worshipers do not trust God; they are afraid of Him and believe that if He were to see them, their sins, their corruption, then He would become angry and be required by holiness, justice, and His law to torture and kill them. So they place their faith in the theologies that function, in their minds, to hide them from God and, thereby, make them feel safe—such things as:

• Hidden by the robe of Christ’s righteousness so the Father can’t see their wickedness.
• Hiding behind Jesus as mediator to the Father; Jesus pleads His blood to the Father to pay for their sins.
• Applying the blood of Jesus to their heavenly record to erase the record of their sins.

But none of these theologies changes reality—God is omniscient; He knows all things. Nothing is hidden from Him. In reality, these false theologies do not hide sin from God; they hide God from those who believe them. Their minds are clouded by these false legal distortions, and the spirit of fear thrives in such darkness; they are terrified of standing in God’s presence and being seen by Him.

Thus, these heavenly legalists believe salvation is getting a legal pardon from God through the legal payment of Jesus’ blood, which legally adjusts the record books of heaven, so that in the legal judgment, God will make the legal declaration that they are legally declared to be righteous even though in reality they remain unrighteous. (Note how this legal view has God declaring something that is not in reality true; thus, they end up worshiping a god who is a liar. Why? Because this theology is the theology of the father of lies!)

This is heavenly legalism—a fraudulent system of Christianity, predicated upon the lie that God’s law functions like human law. They claim salvation through legal adjustment in heavenly records, and, thus, they close their hearts off from God, keep the spirit of fear alive, and have a form of godliness with no power.

This is why in the book of Revelation, Jesus sends an end-time message to prepare the world for His return, and His message is a call for people to return to worshiping God as Creator and to stop worshiping Satan’s twisted version of a god who is like a creature, a being who makes up rules and uses power to punish rule breakers. This requires that we recognize that God’s laws are the laws upon which the universe and life exist and operate, and that life is only possible in harmony with His laws of life.

Praise be to God that when Adam and Eve broke God’s design laws, corrupted themselves with the spirit of fear and selfishness, God did not abandon us, but sent His Son to restore in humanity life—by giving us His very own life shared with us and available to all who trust Him.

Salvation is not a legal declaration; it is a reality-based transformation that is experienced only through trust.

I invite you, if you haven’t already done so, to reject the imposed-law lies, reject the heavenly legalism, and return to worshiping God as Creator and Sustainer of reality, whose laws are the very protocols of life. Surrender in trust to Him and experience the rebirth, the renewal, the transforming and recreative power of Jesus living in you. This is life, this is love, this is truth, this is salvation—and none of it is penal/legal; it is reality!