Legalism Quotes

• When there's something in the Bible that churches don't like, they call it 'legalism.'

  Leonard Ravenhill

  Christian, Christian Inspirational, Church

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• At its heart, legalism is a desire to appear holy. It is trying to be justified before men and not God.

  David Wilkerson

  Heart, Men, Desire

  42 Copy quote

• Legalism is looking to something besides Jesus Christ in order to be acceptable and clean before God.

  Timothy Keller

  Jesus, Order, Christ

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• Legalism says God will love us if we change. The gospel says God will change us because He loves us.

  Tullian Tchividjian

  Lawyer, Gods Will, God's Love

  Twitter post from Jun 17, 2014

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• Moral stupidity comes in two different forms: relativism and legalism. Relativism sees no principles, only people; legalism sees no people, only principles.

  Peter Kreeft

  Two, People, Stupidity

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• Legalism lacks the supreme sense of worship. It obeys but it does not adore.

  Geerhardus Vos

  Doe, Worship, Adore

  Geerhardus Vos (2017). “Hebrews, the Epistle of the Diatheke”, p.70, CrossReach Publications via PublishDrive

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• We've replaced the proclamation of Christ with an easy-listening legalism of do more and try harder.

  R. C. Sproul

  Listening, Trying, Christ

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• Jesus reserved his hardest words for the hidden sins of hypocrisy, pride, greed and legalism.

  Philip Yancey

  Jesus, Pride, Hypocrisy

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• Legalism insists on conformity to manmade religious rules and requirements, which are often unspoken but are nevertheless very real... There are far too many instances within Christendom where our traditions and rules are, in practice, more important than God's commands.

  Jerry Bridges

  Religious, Real, Practice

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• Legalism breeds a sense of entitlement that turns us into complainers.

  Tullian Tchividjian

  Entitlement, Complainers, Turns

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• To be risen with Christ means not only that one has a choice and that one may live by a higher law - the law of grace and love - but that one must do so. The first obligation of the Christian is to maintain their freedom from all superstitions, all blind taboos and religious formalities, indeed from all empty forms of legalism.

  Thomas Merton

  Christian, Religious, Mean

  Thomas Merton (1975). “He is risen”, Tabor Pub

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• The ironic thing about legalism is that it not only doesn't make people work harder, it makes them give up. Moralism doesn't produce morality; rather, it produces immorality.

  Tullian Tchividjian

  Giving Up, Hard Work, People

  Tullian Tchividjian (2013). “One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World”, p.91, David C Cook

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• Only Christ can free us from the prison of legalism, and then only if we are willing to be freed.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Prison, Christ, Willing

  24 Copy quote

• People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

  D. A. Carson

  Prayer, Thinking, Self

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• If you feel that you can follow a few little rules or some clever gimmicks to make you a mature Christian, then you have fallen into a subtle trap of legalism.

  J. Vernon McGee

  Christian, Clever, Littles

  J. Vernon McGee (1984). “Genesis through Revelation: 5 Volumes Genesis - Revelation”, p.7596, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• Struggling against the legalism of simple obedience, we end by setting up the most dangerous law of all, the law of the world and the law of grace. In our effort to combat legalism we land ourselves in the worst kind of legalism. The only way of overcoming this legalism is by real obedience to Christ when he calls us to follow him; for in Jesus the law is at once fulfilled and cancelled.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Jesus, Real, Struggle

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2012). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.83, Simon and Schuster

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• If love is the soul of Christian existence, it must be at the heart of every other Christian virtue. Thus, for example, justice without love is legalism; faith without love is ideology; hope without love is self-centeredness; forgiveness without love is self-abasement; fortitude without love is recklessness; generosity without love is extravagance; care without love is mere duty; fidelity without love is servitude. Every virtue is an expression of love. No virtue is really a virtue unless it is permeated, or informed, by love.

  Richard Rohr

  Love, Christian, Heart

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• A low view of law always produces legalism; a high view of law makes a person a seeker after grace.

  John Gresham Machen

  Views, Law, Grace

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• There prevails still a subtle form of legalism which would rob the Saviour of his crown of glory, earned by the cross, and would make of him a second Moses, offering us the stones of the law instead of the life-bread of the gospel.

  Geerhardus Vos

  Offering, Law, Crowns

  Geerhardus Vos (2015). “Grace and Glory”, p.63, Booklassic

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• Tolerance is not a spiritual gift; it is the distinguishing mark of postmodernism; and sadly, it has permeated the very fiber of Christianity. Why is it that those who have no biblical convictions or theology to govern and direct their actions are tolerated and the standard or truth of God's Word rightly divided and applied is dismissed as extreme opinion or legalism?

  John Stott

  Spiritual, Biblical, Tolerance

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• You do not become a master musician by playing just as you please, by imagining that learning the scales is sheer legalism and bondage! No, true freedom in any area of life is the consequence of regular discipline. It is no less true of the life of prayer.

  Sinclair B. Ferguson

  Prayer, Discipline, Musician

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• There is something childish and legalistic about churches in which all of the saints observe precisely the same standards. When all lives begin to sink into the same mould of denial and exercise of liberty, something is amiss.

  Walter J Chantry

  Exercise, Church, Liberty

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• Are not laws dangerous which inhibit the passions? Compare the centuries of anarchy with those of the strongest legalism in any country you like and you will see that it is only when the laws are silent that the greatest actions appear.

  Marquis de Sade

  Country, Passion, Law

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• Believers have just as much to fear from legalism as from waywardness. The first detracts from the beauty of the message, while the second mars it content.

  Max Anders

  Mars, Messages, Firsts

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• On many occasions I have been asked if I think persecution will come to the Western church. My answer might surprise you. I believe that if you find yourself enslaved inside a controlling church structure of legalism and bondage, then you are already being persecuted! So many Christians seem impossibly distracted from hearing God's voice. Instead of listening to that still, small voice that brings true peace and joy, they blindly follow the voices of mainstream religion. The worst kind of persecution for a Christian is when you are separated from the joy and presence of the Holy Spirit.

  Brother Yun

  Christian, Believe, Thinking

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