This is a paper I wrote some time ago against a popular error that states we must preach to ourselves because we are always in a state of legalism. I completely and emphatically disagree with this. In fact, I think it is a form of bondage and that it brings a Christian into, what many call, hyper Calvinism.

Are We Always Trying to Earn Our Salvation?

A primary part of our relationship with the almighty God is knowing when our motives are true Gospel motives and knowing when they are legalistic motives. Legalistic motives come in two primary flavors, which we will discuss in the following two sections.

Note: Before we begin this discussion I would like to say that I do in principle believe the primary reason Christians become legalistic is because they attempt to either prove themselves to be Christians (which is ultimately just a lack of “assurance”), or they attempt to prove themselves to be mature; both, though, are a lack of faith. If it is a lack of assurance, I would say that they are attempting to prove to their conscience that they are saved. This is a big difference from “trying to earn your salvation,” as many will claim that believers are trying to do. I believe the believer is not trying to “earn” but trying to “prove.” Proving is directed to the intellect and the earning is directed to the almighty God, which He does not accept.

1. OVERWORKING

An example of a legalistic motive is when a person seeks to earn a position within the context of justification or sanctification by working in a purely external fashion, i.e., doing good deeds outside of grace (though it is impossible to work completely outside of grace as a believer); working for a selfish motive; working to gain glory, pride or status; or, working simply to avoid penalty.

Justification: A person (I say person because I don’t believe this problem applies to the elect) that is attempting to earn their justification clearly shows that they have no love for the atoning work of Christ and His death on the cross. Whenever there is a self-justifying motive within an individual, this doctrine of Christ’s atonement is not being understood and there is little or no sympathy for Christ. This self-justification is popular with the “American Moralist” and his truncated view of the Gospel. Many Americans have just enough of the medicine to only make them think that that are healed. This is due to much of the Low Church Arminian teaching that claim we are saved by works and that the church has little to nothing to do with salvation.

Sanctification: A Christian that is attempting to earn their sanctification clearly shows that they have a lack of Love for God’s goodness (as does the self-justifying person) but in a post-conversion context – since sanctification is post-conversion. Those that are fully aware and in belief of Christ’s atoning work can in fact still do good works with ill motive. Only the ill motive does not rob from Christ’s atoning work (justification), the ill motive robs from the sanctifying work of faith. As Calvin and also as Paul the Apostle say, if we are not working in faith then we are in sin.

Why the Distinctions: There is a huge difference in these two motives above. The first (justification) is a sign of unbelief since it is an issue of whether or not the person believes in the Gospel. The second (sanctification) is a sign of immaturity since the person has wavered from working in faith; something that can be easily done but does not mean that they no longer believe or are having troubles in believing in biblical justification; although, this lack of faith would definitely be a sign of an immature understanding of justification.

What’s the difference, you ask, between the two improper motives of justification and sanctification? And since all biblical spheres lead to justification, why not just say that we are having a problem with our view of justification? The reason for the distinction is that when we blanket our ill motives under the justification notion we inadvertently deny the power of sanctification being a direct result of justification. We truncate our view of the Gospel’s power because the person who is struggling with sanctification has already been justified and if we imply or blur the fact that they are justified by teaching them that they are always defaulting to pre-conversion/justification status (legalism in the sense of justification rather than sanctification), then we deny the power of justification. Justification and sanctification become blurred together; a problem we have had for most of church history.

*The question that I propose is: does an elect Christian still attempt to earn his justification or his sanctification? I believe that the answer is his “sanctification,” because non-believers are attempting to earn their salvation, not believers. It is impossible to un-believe what you are believing. To un-believe your justification – because that is what you are doing if you are TRULY trying to earn it – is to lose your salvation; something that we do not believe as genuine Protestants. As Christians, we are always believing in our justification, but we are not always loyal to our justification - a huge difference!When we are not loyal to our justification we begin to placate our sanctification, because that is what being disloyal is; it is to dampen, distance, and smother our relationship/sanctification with Christ.Will our remedy of all this lead us right back to remedying our view of justification since all hinges on justification? Yes, but it is a remedy of an immature view rather than a heretical view, which is what believing-that-you-are-earning is, heretical. The struggle of justification resides in the matter of what side of the fence you are on. If you are on Christ’s side, it is an immature view. If you are on the world’s side, your struggles of justification are a false view.

The remedy: is not necessarily that we need to repetitively preach the Gospel to ourselves (what many Baptists are claiming). The “gospel” is much more than a doctrinal rhetoric. You can preach “the Gospel” in its rhetorical form to yourself until you are blue in the face but it will do very little to heal your legalism. The remedy is that we need to STUDY and MEDITATE on the Gospel in its entirety. Paul does not say the gospel is purely rhetorical, he mentions many other facets of the Gospel such as the Sacraments, good works, and submission.

What About Paul in Galatians?

When Paul taught the church of Galatia that they should not believe that salvation is by works, he was not saying that we always have a desire to earn our justification. He was warning us not to be swayed by false teachers. He was refuting the Judiazers and those that were following them. He specifically and emphatically states that the problems in the church at the time were brought forward because of the heretics (2:4) not because of an inevitable inward struggle of trying-to-earn-your-salvation. Paul says that we have a tendency to sin, which does defame the doctrine of justification, but he does not say that we have a tendency to fall away and believe in works salvation. He actually says just the opposite. In Galatians 5:13 and Romans 6:1 he says that we should not take advantage of grace by ignoring God’s commands to “let grace abound.” This would more likely be the tendency of the heart – the sin that we struggle with most would more likely be that of taking advantage of God’s grace by becoming liberal – if you will.

2. UNDER-WORKING

The other legalistic motive picks off where we just left off. It is when you think you are being sanctified by actually not doing good works in order to prove to your conscience and God that you are not works-based. It is erring on the side of liberalism to prove not to be legalistic. It could go as far as paralleling with what Paul warns us about in Romans 6 by saying that we shall not sin to let grace abound.

A Simple Sign of either of these legalisms can be found when there are inconsistencies in the Christians ethics. The inconsistencies show that there is a form of self-sanctification happening - Christians drawing up there own ethical systems to appease their conscience. It is inevitable to become inconsistent when this happens because the ethics wont come from the Law, they will come from the individual’s own autonomy.

To Err or not to Err

I do not believe we need to completely err on either side of overworking or under-working. Actually, I believe that any solid Christian will err on both sides. Sometimes it is better to do good works even if we don’t have the proper motive yet, i.e., murder, stealing, rape, etc. But there are other times where a Christian should wait till the motive is pure and cease from working until God clarifies the motive, i.e., occupational choice, choice of spouse and church, etc. These are decisions that are much more personal and do not have an immediately drastic affect on the brethren. But other choices such as murder – or lets take it a step closer to today’s church – homosexuality, fornication or licentiousness - should not be embraced even if there is not a Gospel motive yet, primarily because these types of immoral acts spread throughout the church and cause much grief, frustration and even temptation to do the same.

Knowing

Because salvation is by faith we sometimes have doubts that we have been redeemed. It’s not that we have ceased to believe because believing is synonymous with regeneration, something that cannot be taken away. Therefore, what we struggle with is within our intellect and our conscience, as we have studied earlier.

We can know that we are saved through the word of God and through His Spirit by faith. But if we want any more than that we will have to pray for a theophany, which is extremely unlikely for us to receive.

A Tribal Example

To prove through a common example that even the nonbelievers are not “legalists” by nature I would like mention the fact that remote and tribes whom have never seen a biblical civilization are not attempting to earn their salvation through God’s Law. On the contrary, they are living in complete licentiousness. It seems that many natives attempt to offer sacrifice, naturally; but not moral sacrifice. It makes sense. After all, they are behind the veil. The moral law is written on their hearts, but that causes them anxiety rather than obedience since they are not empowered by the Spirit. Therefore the chase is not toward obedience God’s moral law; rather it seems to be toward whatever environment encompasses them.