After yesterday’s post on how to become a legalist Christian in three easy steps, I thought you might want to see what real-world advantages legalism can give you. Check this out:

According to a study, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the “licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behaviour”, otherwise known as “moral balancing” or “compensatory ethics”.

Thanks to this article from the Guardian, now you can see that feeling righteous about obeying self-invented moral standards will allow you to sin in other areas and still feel good about yourself! That’s right—legalism makes a great smokescreen to hide your sin from yourself and sometimes other people as well. If only it worked for God, too, then you’d be all set.

Why does legalism work so great? Well, this unrelated quote from Tim Chester’s book You Can Change (relayed by Take Your Vitamin Z) explains everything:

We all have a strong tendency to want to live by a list of rules—it’s called legalism.

Legalism is appealing for two reasons. First, it makes holiness manageable. A heart wholly devoted to God is a tough demand, but a list of ten rules I can cope with. That was the motivation of the expert in the law who asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” He wanted to justify himself, to tick the “love for neighbor” box. But Jesus’ story of the good Samaritan blew his manageable system apart. Second, legalism makes holiness an achievement on our part. “Yes, I was saved by grace,” the legalist says, “but I’m the godly per- son I am today because I’ve kept this code of behavior or practiced these spiritual disciplines.” One of its by-products is comparison with other people. We check whether we’re holier than other people or look down on those who don’t appear to be as good as we are.

No one thinks of himself as a legalist. Such persons just think of themselves as someone who takes holiness seriously. After all, it has the “appearance of wisdom” (Colossians 2:20–23). But if you want to see a legalist, take a look in the mirror. Deep in the heart of all of us is the proud desire to prove ourselves. Sin is wanting to live our lives our own way without God. The terrible irony is that we even want to overcome sin our own way without God. The struggle against legalism was not done and stored away two thousand years ago in Galatia or five hundred years ago at the Reformation. The battle with legalism takes place every day in our hearts.

This means we need to repent not only of our sin but also of our “righteousness” when we think of it as our righteousness, which we do to prove ourselves and which we think makes us better than other people.