Greg Boyd on Legalism
Greg Boyd has quickly become one of my favorite theologians because of writing like this.
People like the Pharisees who keep a pretty nice polished image of themselves are much more apt to think that they’re pretty holy on their own and thus are capable of earning God’s acceptance by a good performance. So they’re more inclined to hear Jesus’ teachings as a challenge for their self-righteous effort. The more difficult the teaching, the more strenuous their effort. So when they hear Jesus say “be as perfect as God,” they don’t crumble up and cry out for mercy: they desperately strive to actually do this! And for them, salvation hangs on this.
This is not only a serious misunderstanding of Jesus’ teachings, it is also extremely destructive. If one really believes that his salvation hangs on his own goodness, he can only live with himself by convincing himself that he is in fact “perfect enough” for God. But since everyone is sinful, in their heart and mind if not also in their behavior, this perfectionism entails that such religious people must become experts at living in self-deception. … They must systematically suppress every introspective thought which might tell them that they are failing to meet Jesus’ “challenge.” This is why legalistic religious people are usually very shallow — the leaders more so than the others because they are the ones who have “proven themselves” to be “successful” at this self-deceptive game. Everything that doesn’t fit the religious image these people want so hard to maintain must simply be “shoved in the closet.” It must go below the surface of their consciousness.
This is simply sick. It means that every problem that needs addressing in these peoples’ lives, and every wound that needs healing, can never be addressed or healed. All emotional and spiritual sickness is treated like an indictment and is therefore covered over by religious pretense. And the consequences of this are obviously very destructive. Every neurosis, Scott Peck says, is the result of refusing to confront the truth. You can temporarily cover over reality with a polished appearance, but reality, in the end, always wins. This is why legalistic individuals and churches are frequently so dysfunctional. They stuff everything which needs to be exposed. What happened with Jimmy Swaggart is, I suspect, a classic case-in-point.
In any case, I think it is perfectly clear that the central thrust of Jesus’ teaching was to do just the opposite of what legalism does. Rather than inspire giant feats of self-effort which result in denying the sinful reality of our inner life, Jesus was trying to bring about the end of all self-effort by getting us to examine the sinful reality of our inner lives. And it works, if one hears Him rightly.
When one hears the impossibility of Jesus’ ideals, when one finally gives up on his own self-effort as a means of impressing God, when one finally realizes that all he is and ever shall be before God is due to God’s performance, not his, then one is free to be real with what is going on in one’s life. One is free to be open and honest about all his faults, shortcomings, sin, etc. One can see that nothing hangs on pretending he’s something he’s not. As a friend of mine (Jeff Van-Vondren) says a lot, “Only when how things look is irrelevant can how things are be addressed and changed.” And this, every psychologist will tell you, is the central ingredient to all mental and emotional (and spiritual) health!
From Letters From A Skeptic: A Son Wrestles with His Father’s Questions about Christianity by Gregory A. Boyd and Edward K. Boyd, pp. 173ff.
