The entire worldview of Karl Marx was built upon the idea of destruction. He saw world history as cycle of conflict between two classes: the oppressors and the oppressed (originally, the bourgeois and proletariat); and believed that this conflict would someday lead to a Utopia called Communism

Cultural Marxism is a modern adaptation of the social and political theories of Karl Marx. That’s why it is sometimes referred to as Neo-marxism. Marx lived over a century ago, so a brief historical orientation may prove helpful here. The industrial revolution changed everything in the nineteenth century. With the development of technology, the invention of machines, and the building factories, millions of people moved away from the country and into the cities to work.
Those who owned the machines and factories quickly became wealthy as everyone else worked long hours with low pay. Remember, there were no unions back then and OSHA did not yet exist, so life as a worker was hard.
Deep bitterness set into the heart of many workers and they began to despise the rich. This is called the sin of Envy. It is more than discontentment and even more than jealousy. It is when you see what another man has and feel the need to destroy it.
The entire worldview of Karl Marx was built upon the idea of destruction. He saw world history as cycle of conflict between two classes: the oppressors and the oppressed (originally, the bourgeois and proletariat); and believed that this conflict would someday lead to a Utopia called Communism (i.e., a state in which there is no private property, where men share all things in common, and where the workers own the means of production, thus having equal share in all the products). This was Marx’s dream, his hope, his eschatology, and he honestly believed that it would eventually come to pass.
Another prophetic voice of communism was Vladimir Lenin and he agreed with Marx on all but one thing. Rejecting the concept of eventuality, he began a violent revolution. The blood of the rich and powerful flowed. Even the blood of poor farmers soaked the soil as some refused to surrender their land rights to Lenin’s Bolshevik army.
Others, like Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong took the same bloody approach in an attempt to realize their Communist eschatology. To date, over one hundred million people have been killed in the name of Marxism or Communism and while the Christian might well grieve over such numbers, the Marxist does not because this is their means of grace. This is, in fact, their god and we shall explore that more fully in our next article.
Christian McShaffrey is a Minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and is Pastor of Five Solas Church (OPC) in Reedsburg, Wis.

Wisdom, as in the Old Testament, is a God-given and God-centered discernment regarding the practical issues in life. Wisdom comes from prayer for God’s help. God gives generously (with “single-minded” liberality) and without reproach (he does not want anyone to hesitate to come to him).

All commentary sections adapted from the ESV Study Bible.
1. Proverbs 1:7
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;fools despise wisdom and instruction. Read More
This is the core maxim of the book: the quest for wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord (cf. Ps. 9:10 and Ps. 111:10, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom”). “Knowledge” and “wisdom” are closely tied together in Proverbs: “knowledge” tends to focus on correct understanding of the world and oneself as creatures of the magnificent and loving God, while “wisdom” is the acquired skill of applying that knowledge rightly, or “skill in the art of godly living”. On the fear of the Lord, see notes on Acts 5:5; 9:31; Rom. 3:18; Phil. 2:12–13; 1 Pet. 1:17; 1 John 4:18. The reason that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of both knowledge and wisdom is that the moral life begins with reverence and humility before the Maker and Redeemer. The idea of a quest for knowledge sets biblical wisdom in the broad context of the ancient Near Eastern quest for truth, and this verse also validates such a quest as legitimate and good. Thus it affirms a kind of “creational revelation,” the idea that one can find moral and theological truth through observing the world.
At the same time, it distinguishes the biblical pursuit of knowledge and wisdom from those of the surrounding cultures, for it asserts that submission to the Lord is foundational to the attainment of real understanding (cf. Ps. 111:10; Prov. 9:10). By using the covenant name “the LORD” in preference to the more generic “God,” this verse makes the point that truth is found through Israel’s God. In addition, the verse asserts that fools despise wisdom and instruction, thus setting up the alternative between the two ways of wisdom and folly. This contrast dominates the entire book, as the way of wisdom, righteousness, and the fear of the Lord is set against the way of folly, evil, and scoffing.
2. Proverbs 3:5–6
Trust in the LORD with all your heart,and do not lean on your own understanding.In all your ways acknowledge him,and he will make straight your paths.* Read More
Subordinating one’s own understanding to the Lord is in keeping with the major thesis of Proverbs, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Trust in the LORD is necessary for fulfilling any of the wise ways of life taught in Proverbs; trusting the Lord is closely connected to “fearing” him (cf. Prov. 1:7; 2:5; Prov. 9:10; Prov. 15:33; Prov. 19:23; etc.). “With all your heart” indicates that trust goes beyond intellectual assent to a deep reliance on the Lord, a settled confidence in his care and his faithfulness to his word. “Do not lean on your own understanding” further explains trusting in the Lord. One’s “understanding” in Proverbs is his perception of the right course of action. The wise will govern themselves by what the Lord himself declares, and will not set their own finite and often-mistaken understanding against his.
To make straight a person’s paths means to make the course of the person’s life one that continually progresses toward a goal. In Proverbs, the emphasis is on the moral quality of one’s life path (here, its moral “straightness”).
3. James 1:5
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. Read More
Believers are to have an undivided faith, asking for wisdom from their ever-wise and all-generous God. James addresses the believer who lacks wisdom in handling trials. Wisdom, as in the Old Testament, is a God-given and God-centered discernment regarding the practical issues in life. Wisdom comes from prayer for God’s help. God gives generously (with “single-minded” liberality) and without reproach (he does not want anyone to hesitate to come to him).
4. Ephesians 5:6–10
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Read More
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In our attempt to uncover the roots of legalism, we must look ultimately at our own lives. Incurvitas keeps us from seeing our true need. It tricks us into thinking we are basically good and only need to be better. Legalism is truly damning and rather damaging. Legalism can even catapult us to its opposite, to a life of license and a life, ultimately, of rebellion.

One of Martin Luther’s many contributions concerns the Latin word incurvitas. This sounds like something a dentist might say to you as he pokes and prods in the molars. But it’s not. It means “turned inward.” It means that we are naturally selfish, self-centered, and self-absorbed. While all of those are damning enough, this condition of incurvitas has an even more telling effect. Because we are turned inward, we think we can achieve righteousness entirely on our own. So we strive, white-knuckling it, to achieve a right standing before God.
How many times have you heard someone say that as long as our good deeds outweigh our bad ones, God will welcome us open arms? How many religious systems are built upon works? How many people feel trapped by their incessant failed attempts to achieve perfection? Those are all cases of incurvitas. It’s an epidemic.
Understanding this concept of incurvitas so well, Luther said, “It’s very hard for a man to believe that God is gracious to him. The human heart can’t grasp this.” If we don’t look to grace, we look to ourselves and to our own efforts.
Therein lie the roots of legalism.
The roots of legalism are in the sinful and fallen human heart itself. The heart manifests its sinful condition in our crippling desire to lean on our own merits and our own abilities in the attempt to somehow climb out of the miry pit of sin and reach all the way to heaven. We find grace to be far too bitter of a pill. It tells us we can never be good enough.
Curiously enough, the opposite of legalism also stumbles over grace. The opposite of legalism is antinomianism. This word includes the Greek prefix anti-, “against, in place of,” and the Greek word nomos, “law.” Theologically speaking, antinomians run away from any obligation to law or to any divine command. Antinomians are like James Bond: they have a license to sin. But that is the sad lie of antinomianism. It’s not liberty—it’s license.
The solution to legalism is not antinomianism. The solution to antinomianism is not legalism. The solution to both is grace, that thing Luther told us was hard to grasp. Exploring the roots of legalism further will serve not only to expose it, but also to display the brilliant and stunning contours of its solution, the grace of God.
Legalism in Scripture
The clearest expression of legalism in Scripture comes in the stories of the antagonists in the Gospels, the Pharisees. In fact, thanks to them, we have the term pharisaical, defined as “hypocritical censorious self-righteousness.” Not one of those three things is a good thing. Taken together, we get a really bad thing. Another definition informs us that the term pharisaical means an extreme commitment to religious observance and ritual—apart from belief. Both aspects of the definition are crucial. The first is the striving and white-knuckling it to heaven. The second part takes us back to Luther’s quote and our aversion to grace—it just can’t be as simple as belief.
Christ confronted this tendency to be pharisaical on about every page in the Gospels. One such place is the parable concerning the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18. “I thank you that I am not like other men,” the Pharisee prays. There is the self-righteousness. The Pharisee further protests that he fasts and tithes. There is the external obedience.
In this parable, the Pharisee is contrasted with the tax collector. The tax collector simply prays, “Be merciful to me, a sinner!” There is the cry for grace.
A few verses later, the rich ruler comes to Christ. He too plays the part of a Pharisee. He too protests his self-righteousness. It seems that everywhere Christ goes, He meets Pharisees.
The opposite of legalism is not license. It is liberty.
Ironically, the Pharisees, though they thought otherwise, were not truly concerned with the law of God. They actually set up a whole system of regulations to enable them to get around God’s law. They were experts at setting up loopholes. They had a man-made system of law to avoid the divine law. And they led Israel astray. Hence, we see why Jesus so vehemently opposed them and called them the false shepherds of Israel, as in the series of “woes” unleashed in Matthew 23.
Before his conversion, Paul was one such false shepherd. Paul was the consummate legalist. In fact, you would be hardpressed to find another person so zealous for the law. He had firsthand knowledge when he declared, “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight” (Rom. 3:20). He had firsthand knowledge when he lamented, “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse” (Gal. 3:10).
Paul also had firsthand experience with grace. So he joyfully declared, “God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law” (Gal. 4:4–5). It is impossible to study Paul without coming into contact with grace. So we read in Romans 5 that all our striving comes to an end in Christ. We can only attain peace with God by faith in Christ—the only one who kept the law perfectly.
Legalism in History
As we turn to the pages of church history, we see the church’s focus on grace eclipsed by legalism. This happened on a grand scale after the controversy between Augustine and Pelagius. In the aftermath of that controversy, the seeds were sown that would eventually result in a full-blown system of works as the medieval church’s view of salvation. A key here is the shift from the biblical teaching on repentance to the church’s teaching of penance.
Repentance is illustrated by the tax collector in Christ’s parable. The repentant one simply prays to God, “Have mercy; I’m a sinner.” Penance is the list of things to do that will put you right with God. By Luther’s time, the list had grown rather long. So, Luther vainly tried to reach God by being a good monk. Luther even went into the monastery as a sorely misguided attempt to please God.
Only one thing resulted from Luther’s ardent work: he found himself even further away from God and mired in anxiety. Later in life, he even suffered physically from his earlier attempt to attain righteousness by these efforts. But in His grace, God reached down to Luther. We can’t grasp grace naturally. That’s why grace grasps us.
One branch of the Reformation initially celebrated this glorious truth of grace and then departed from it. In Zurich, there arose the Anabaptists. In addition to their other beliefs, they advocated withdrawing from society and living in segregated communities. They would soon develop a dress code and rules for how they would live and work. They called themselves the Mennonites, as they followed the teachings of Menno Simons (1496–1561). In 1693, Jakob Ammann broke from the Mennonites over the practice of “the ban”—shunning those who transgress rules. His followers would be known as the Amish. They went beyond the gospel to regulations and traditions.
The same dynamic occurred in the twentieth century in various pockets of fundamentalism. I remember walking into a church in the 1970s and being confronted with two large diagrams showing acceptable hair and clothing guidelines for men and for women. Christianity was reduced to lists, mostly of what not to do.
As Christ confronted legalism on nearly every page of the Gospels, you can find legalism throughout the pages of church history. So, too, you can find the opposite. Antinomianism thrived during the Reformation. It also thrived and continues to thrive amid pockets of fundamentalism. Sadly, we can tell the whole story of mankind’s misguided quest for God by tracing these ever-present threads of legalism and antinomianism.
Legalism in Life
The opposite of legalism is not license. It is liberty. Luther called Galatians his “Katie.” “I am betrothed to it,” he would say. That is a compliment that goes two ways. It reflects how deeply he loved his wife, and it reflects how deeply he loved the message of Galatians. It is the “Epistle of Liberty.”
In our attempt to uncover the roots of legalism, we must look ultimately at our own lives. Incurvitas keeps us from seeing our true need. It tricks us into thinking we are basically good and only need to be better. Legalism is truly damning and rather damaging. Legalism can even catapult us to its opposite, to a life of license and a life, ultimately, of rebellion.
The reality is that we are not good. How ironic that part of the “good news” of the gospel is that we are not good at all. And because we are not good, we could never look to ourselves but must look to the One born of a woman, born under the law. He is the only righteous One. He kept the law and bore its punishment for those who trust in Him. God pours out His grace freely upon us because of what Christ has done for us. Christ has set us free (Gal. 5:1).
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