Using legalism for legalism

The charge of Pharisee by legalists for their legalism

The other day I made a statement, in passing, which I thought was not all-together controversial. I hold to a permanence view of marriage which means I believe it is not permissible for a Christian to get a divorce. I stated this in the conversation.

It is not controversial for believers to hold diverse views on this point. The evangelical church is largely split on this manner and there are many positions. Anyone with an inkling of the state of the theological milieu would know this is a common position. The response in this circumstance was surprising.

First, I was immediately met with pushback. This can be expected, as there is always disagreement on this point, but the pushback was in the form of “I'm pretty sure the Bible says you can” with nothing substantive for feedback. Having memorized Matthew 5, I quoted Jesus to bring to conversation to a biblical perspective. I was then met with a surprising rebuttal.

“Well, isn't that a little legalistic?”

I was shocked. “It's the literal words of Jesus,” I responded.

“Well, yeah. But isn't that a little judgemental and not taking the entire picture into perspective?”

I circled the conversation back to the original point and moved on, not wanting to get sidetracked.

Thinking back on the exchange, I've discovered that I was being charged with legalism, with being a Pharisee, but this charge is itself a form of legalism. It isn't being legalistic to embody and follow the teachings of Christ—that’s called being a Christian. Legalism is working the law to get your way, which is what the charge of legalism is used for these days.

From now on, when someone brings this up as an argument, I'm going to charge them with being a Pharisee right back.