The danger of legalism lurks wherever we would relax God’s law from its high-as-heaven standard, dragging it down to a standard low enough for us to keep. Beware the leaven of the Pharisees! The painful truth is that none of us can reach God’s perfect standard. Rather, before his standard, we must tremble, crying out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:24).

In every age, the church must be vigilant to avoid legalism. We must never be like the Pharisees, who “tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger” (Matt. 23:24). God tells us that his commandments are not burdensome (1 John 5:3), but to add to God’s commandments would indeed be burdensome.
The danger of legalism is one that all true ministers of the gospel of Christ must take with the utmost seriousness. Nevertheless, do we really understand what Christ was condemning when he warned us to “Watch and beware the leaven of the Pharisees” (Matt. 16:6)?
In this article, I want to raise the question of whether we understand the spirit and nature of legalism correctly, and to explore whether this misunderstanding may seriously skew our gospel ministry.
The Legalism of the Pharisees: Not too Strict, but too Lax
What exactly was the legalism that the Pharisees were teaching? A common thought is that the Pharisees were legalistic by being overly strict about the law, while the Sadducees were overly lax about the law. That is, the Pharisees are commonly characterized as legalists, and the Sadducees as libertines. While this view is both common and convenient as a way of categorizing the two groups, it does not match either the historical records or the biblical records, especially regarding the Pharisees.
Both Jewish and Christian historians have recognized that the Pharisees were trying to simplify the law, rather than complicating it. So, the Jewish scholar Alexander Guttmann writes:
Emerging from the ranks of the people, the rabbis spoke in terms intelligible to the populace and were therefore able to lead the people in accordance with their teachings, a feat the Prophets had been unable to accomplish. Uncompromising idealists, the Prophets demanded perfection and the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth in their own time; therefore, they were doomed to failure. Prophetic Judaism never became a reality but remained only an ideal, a goal, like Plato’s Republic. The rabbis were idealists, too, but they were at the same time pedagogues. In guiding their people, they took the realities of life (among them the weakness of human beings) into consideration. They upheld the Torah as the divine code, but at the same time they recognized the need for harmonizing the Torah with the ever-changing realities of life.1
The mission of the Pharisees was not to create a set of extra rules to prop themselves up—even if this may have been the eventual result. Rather, the mission of the Pharisees was to boil down the law to principles, practices, and techniques that normal people could understand and keep.
To be sure, the Pharisees were legalists. Their legalism, however, was the result of trying to reduce the law down to something manageable in the lives of the people. This did not leave them to become too strict, but, far too lax in comparison to the fullness of what God required. 
The Bare Text of the Law vs. The Full Ethics of the Moral Law
Old Testament scholar Gordon Wenham helps to see this point by observing that the text of the law does not give us a complete accounting for the fullness of what the moral law actually requires. Or, as Wenham puts it, there is a “gap” between the bare text of the law in the Bible and the fullness of the ethics (moral law) required by the Bible.2 So, the bare text of the law “sets a minimum standard of behaviour, which if transgressed attracts sanction,” but the “ethical ceiling is as high as heaven itself, for a key principle of biblical ethics is the imitation of God. Man made in God’s image must act in a godlike way: ‘Be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy’ (Lev. 19:2).”3
From this, we can see that the legalism of the Pharisees manifested itself in two ways: (1) they sought to keep the bare text of the law, rather than the fullness of the biblical ethic (moral law) of what it means to imitate God; and (2) they boiled down the full biblical ethic of the law into manageable principles that seemed to make the law possible to keep.
New Testament scholar J. Gresham Machen makes this point powerfully:
The legalism of the Pharisees, with its regulation of the minute details of life, was not really making the Law too hard to keep; it was really making it too easy. Jesus said to His disciples, “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.” The truth is, it is easier to cleanse the outside of the cup than it is to cleanse the heart. If the Pharisees had recognized that the Law demands not only the observance of external rules but also and primarily mercy and justice and love for God and men, they would not have been so readily satisfied with the measure of their obedience, and the Law would then have fulfilled its great function of being a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ. A low view of law leads to legalism in religion; a high view of law makes a man a seeker after grace.4
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1 Alexander Guttmann, Rabbinic Judaism in the Making: A Chapter in the History of the Halakhah from Ezra to Judah I (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1970), xii. Cited in Moisés Silva, “The Place of Historical Reconstruction in New Testament Criticism,” in Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon, ed. D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986), 120. I am indebted to Silva’s article for much of what I have written about the nature of legalism here.
2 Gordon J. Wenham, “The Gap between Law and Ethics in the Bible,” Journal of Jewish Studies 48, no. 1 (1997): 17–29.
3 Wenham, “The Gap Between Law and Ethics in the Bible,” 18, 26.
4 J. Gresham Machen, The Origin of Paul’s Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1921), 179.

Written by Jeffrey T. Riddle |
Saturday, November 12, 2022
At one point he makes reference to the inherent binary convictions of traditional Christianity when he writes, “Christianity make a clear distinction between those who follow Christ and those who fail to believe” (134). Key to his argument is the idea that even those who reject traditional borders, paradoxically invent new ones to replace them. This recalls Paul’s insight that even pagan Gentiles “which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law…

Frank Furedi, Why Borders Matter: Why Humanity Must Relearn the Art of Drawing Boundaries (London and New York: Routledge 2021): 193 pp.
The mere title of this book might lead one to think it is about immigration, a topic much in the news these days. In fact, however, though applicable to immigration, this book is about much more than that. It is about borders or boundaries as a salubrious sociological phenomenon meant to establish order and promote flourishing in human individuals and societies. Borders are important not only in distinguishing one nation from another, but in demarcating boundaries in numerous other crucial areas of life, including the differences between the public and private spheres, adults and children, males and females, and even humans and animals. The author, an Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent in the UK, brings the requisite expertise required to examine this topic with authority. This work challenges the contemporary promotion of a “borderless spirit” as ideal.
Review of Content
We begin with a summary of the book’s content. In the opening chapter (Introduction) the author suggests there is a contemporary “paradox of borders,” epitomized in those who reject border walls, on one hand, while decrying “cultural appropriation,” on the other. Contrary to the spirit of the age, Furedi suggests that the creation of boundaries is vital. He notes, “The marking out of space and the tendency to draw lines constitutes humanity’s need for signposts and guidance” (5). This is true not just of physical but also of symbolic boundaries, including moral ones. “When symbolic borders lose their meaning, a cultural crisis ensues” (7). According to Furedi, “Western society’s estrangement from borders is not an enlightened step forward—rather it expresses a self-destructive sensibility of estrangement from the conventional sign posts that guide everyday life” (12).
Chapter two addresses challenges represented by the modern value of “non-judgementalism,” presented “as an enlightened and liberal attitude towards the world” (19). Furedi defends “the act of judgement,” however, as “a deed through which people can establish connections and develop a shared understanding of one another’s outlook” (20). The condemnation of moral judgment has led to moral indifference.
Chapter three examines “openness” as a predominate modern value: “In popular culture, openness supposedly rejects preconceived notions, refuses to possess durable commitments and ideas, and does not abide by fixed points and permanent boundaries” (31). The convergence of openness with non-judgementalism has resulted in “a mood of moral malaise” (33). Oddly enough, advocates of these values often express “bitter hostility” that is “visceral and characteristically militant” to any who see value in “closed communities” based on “ties of kinship, family, friendship, religion, and community membership” (36-37).
Chapter four further addresses how these values have challenged notions of national sovereignty, democracy, and citizenship. It questions “the project of delegitimizing territorial borders” (49). According to Furedi, belonging to a particular people inhabiting a bounded place constitutes “an important source of solidarity” and provides “moral significance for members of a national community” (53).  There can be no democracy without a demos. Advocates for the new values, however, promote “global citizenship” preferring “a heterogeneous space to a homogeneous one” (65).
Chapter five addresses the erosion of boundaries between the public and private spheres. “Personal and emotional openness are regarded as cultural ideals and promoted through media and popular culture” (73). The “classical virtue of stoicism” has been replaced by public and unrestrained “emotionalism” (74). He cites as an example “the relentless drive to ‘normalize,’ routinise, and demystify the domain of sex” (76). “Pornography,” for example, “has become a culturally, even socially, validated fetish” (76). The old value of reticence is dismissed as prudishness. In contrast, Furedi suggests, “The protection of the private realm is essential for the conduct of a healthy public life” (85). He concludes:
Once the space for secrecy is lost, the individual’s capacity to question, doubt, and act in accordance with their inclinations is undermined. In this area as in others, the        flourishing of freedom is inseparable from the maintenance of limits and boundaries (88).
Chapter six addresses how the erosion of the public and private distinction has had unsettling effects in public life. This has included the development of “identity politics” and charges of “micro-agression” (100).
Chapter seven addresses how the “boundaryless spirit of our time” has created confusion for “intergenerational relations” (112). In the post-traditional world, the self is made rather than “passively inherited” (113). One result has been “a diminished sense of adult responsibility” and the “phenomenon of infantilization” (115), leading to the erosion of parental authority, the tendency to treat children as adults, and of adults to act like children. A side effect has been failure to socialize children and confusion as to what values to transmit to them.
Chapter eight addresses current hostility against the practice of binary thinking, and its dismissal as “morally wrong” (130). “Binary thinking is sometimes presented as a psychological deficit—a symptom of anxiety, and a marker for intolerance of ambiguity and complexity” (132). According to Furedi, however, binary thinking is not simply a “cultural tool” but a fundamental feature of the practice of human conceptualization” (136). He notes, in particular, how “anti-binary activists” have attacked the basic human distinction between men and women. They have attempted “de-authorising not just gender but also the difference of biological sex” with “the character of a religious duty” (142).
Chapter nine suggests that the rejection of conventional boundaries has, in fact, ironically resulted in “new ways of drawing lines in everyday life” (151). This includes emphasis on “personal boundaries,” the “Me too” movement, and the desire for “safe spaces.”
The book ends with a conclusion noting again that, “Hostility towards conventional boundaries and borders coexist with the demands for new borders” (165). Furedi notes that some are even challenging the boundaries between humans and animals. Human morality is dismissed by some as “an anthropocentric conceit” (165). He concludes that “the decisive influence” is the West’s unwillingness to affirm clear borders in all areas, resulting in “a lack of clarity about the moral values that underpin the self” (173).
Final Analysis
This is a work of sociology and not theology, and yet it contains many helpful insights for the church today. Furedi offers a compelling description and analysis of the contemporary Zeitgeist and its rebellion against traditional boundaries or borders, with respect not only to nations (cf. Acts 17:26) but also with respect to the fundamental differences between men and women, adults and children. At one point he makes reference to the inherent binary convictions of traditional Christianity when he writes, “Christianity make a clear distinction between those who follow Christ and those who fail to believe” (134). Key to his argument is the idea that even those who reject traditional borders, paradoxically invent new ones to replace them. This recalls Paul’s insight that even pagan Gentiles “which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law… Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts….” (Rom 2:14-15). This book challenges the Christian reader to consider not only how to understand and resist the spirit of the age as it works upon us, but also how to extend a winsome alternative in Biblical Christianity to a confused world.
Jeffrey T. Riddle is Pastor of Christ Reformed Baptist Church in Louisa, Virginia.
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The old man took his place in the center of the rock and seemed unfazed by the whipping winds. But the young man began to cry out in despair. He was dashed against the rock, wave after wave. He began to swing wildly at the weather and shake his fists, but still he was beaten and bruised. Finally, the old man came to him saying, “Son, take shelter in the middle of the rock!” The young man shouted, “I am cast down! The breakers and the waves have gone over me!” The old man held out his hand and said, “When you pass through the waters, He will be with you; the waves shall not overwhelm you.”

The old man welcomed the young man to the rock in the middle of the sea. “How long have you been here?” asked the young man. “As long as I can remember,” he replied. “I know that the rock is sound. We are safe in the middle of the sea,” said the young man confidently. “Yes,” said the old man, his eyes glistening.
As they talked, they both marveled at the beauty of the sea. They commented about the perfect sun and the salty air. They spoke of birds and fish and the sky peppered with clouds. They laughed and rejoiced in the bounty that was provided from the sea. They never tired of talking from the safety of the rock. The old man taught the young man to fish and make fire. The young man began to grow strong and confident on the rock in the middle of the sea.
One day the clouds turned a darker shade. The birds slowly began to disappear, and the bright sun became dark. The air began to chill. “Does the weather often turn like this?” “Yes,” said the old man. “But we are on the rock, so we are safe.”
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