Steve McCoy has apparently ruffled quite a few feathers recently with his “Open Letter To Southern Baptist Seminary Students.” In it, McCoy argues that “the greatest poison in our convention, fundamentalism/legalism.” McCoy argues that the recent “IMB policy issues and the continued push for alcohol abstinence by SBTS leadership and Jack Graham (to name two) are symptoms of a convention concerned with power, control, and extra-biblical rules and righteousness.”

I have not “peed next to Danny Akin,” as has McCoy, but I have heard him carelessly instruct an entire chapel audience to gather “your Calvinist posse” and come debate, because, he’s “your huckleberry,” but that’s another issue altogether. I won’t argue McCoy’s basic concept that legalism is indeed a “poison,” and that it is rampant particularly in the SBC.As a pastor I encounter various forms of legalism in daily life. It typically takes either the positive or negative approach, either “you must do this” or “you can’t do this,” that much is obvious. However, the more I compare the legalist mindset to Scripture, I’m becoming convinced that legalism is a symptom of deeper issues.

The real question ought to concern the cause of legalism; from what does it flow? How does this mindset manifest itself that artificial lists of do’s and don’ts become the gauge of holiness rather than the actual process of sanctification and our Christ-likeness?

The more I look at it, I think that the roots of legalism are actually two-fold. First, it stems from a (possibly subconscious) denial of the sufficiency of Scripture. While this seems shocking at first, think about it. Any time we add to the requirements put forth by Scripture, we’ve in essence said that God didn’t say enough. In truth, we’re arguing that we know better than God what is holy, what is acceptable and what is not. Though Scripture argues that we must not be drunk, we seem to think that if we take it a step farther and call for complete abstinence that we’ll receive bonus points in heaven. Yet if God wanted total abstinence, He would have called for total abstinence.Legalism is a denial that Scripture says what Scripture mean and actually means what it says. Though it might be subconscience, it is the conviction that Scripture does not actually go far enough, and that we in our wisdom know what it really should have said.

This denial of the sufficiency of Scripture is actually a byproduct of pride working its deceit in the human heart. It is striking that in the face of so many televangelists preaching the gospel of self-help that we never find, as Stuart Scott points out, “the Scriptures saying, ‘Come on now, you’re thinking too poorly of yourself’ or ‘What you need is to consider yourself more.’”

In his booklet From Pride to Humility, Scott defines a person as prideful “who believes that they, in and of themselves, are or should be the source of what is good, right and worthy of praise.” Legalism looks to its regulations as the measure of holiness, and is therefore looking to the self rather than to God.

The legalist suffers from pride on at least two levels. First, they deny Scripture by arguing that we actually ought to go farther than prescribed, in essence saying that we know what God really meant. No, it might not say that the teetotaller position is the only acceptable position, but it certainly means that. The legalist places his/her own conscience as the judge of Scripture and others. Second, the legalist looks to what they either do or don’t do as a source of holiness, and thus as an accomplishment which only furthers the cycle of pride. They believe that their regulations achieve holiness and they then perpetuate them, all the while patting themselves on the back while condemning anyone not adhering to their specific list, whatever it might contain (we all have different lists, don’t we?). The SBC, as do we all, ultimately suffers from pride.

While I applaud McCoy’s sentiments, they do not go far enough, they don’t get to the heart of the issue. Legalism never occurs in a vaccum. It might create one, but it never occurs in isolation and it is always a symptom of deeper issues. Legalism denies that Scripture goes far enough and it measures holiness by accomplishments (either in the positive or the negative).

The cure for legalism is not liberty but humility. As Scott notes, “humility is so rare because it is unnatural to man.” We must walk in the footsteps of Christ who described Himself as “meek and lowly” (Matthew 11:29), and who did not come to be served but to serve (Mark 10:45). Only once we are truly able to consider others as more important than ourselves (Philippians 2) will the poison of legalism be neutralized.

• Read An Open Letter To SBC Seminary Students by Steve McCoy.
• Read From Pride to Humility by Steve Scott.
• Read Humility: True Greatness by C.J. Mahaney.
• Read A Scandalous Freedom by Steven Brown.