The reason some Pharisees tithed and fasted is the same reason some German university students take off their clothes and lie around naked in the park in downtown Munich. The moral legalist is always the elder brother of the immoral prodigal. They are blood brothers in God's sight because both reject the sovereign mercy of God in Christ as a means to righteousness and use either morality or immorality as a means of expressing their independence and self-sufficiency and self-determination. And it is clear from the NT that both will result in a tragic loss of eternal life. So the first meaning of legalism is the terrible mistake of treating biblical standards of conduct as regulations to be kept by our own power in order to earn God's favor. It is a danger we must guard against in our own hearts every day.
But the church is not man's institution. It belongs to Christ. He is the head of the body, and he alone should set the entrance requirements. That is very important!
And this I know beyond the shadow of a doubt: God hates legalism as much as he hates alcoholism. If any of you still wonders why I go on supporting this amendment after hearing all the tragic stories about lives ruined through alcohol, the reason is that when I go home at night and close my eyes and let eternity rise in my mind, I see ten million more people in hell because of legalism than because of alcoholism. And I think that is a literal understatement. Satan is so sly. "He disguises himself as an angel of light," the apostle says in 2 Corinthians 11:14. He keeps his deadliest diseases most sanitary. He clothes his captains in religious garments and houses his weapons in temples. O don't you want to see his plots uncovered? . . . Listen as I uncover one of his plots. Legalism is a more dangerous disease than alcoholism because it doesn't look like one. Alcoholism makes men fail; legalism helps them succeed in the world. Alcoholism makes men depend on the bottle; legalism makes them self-sufficient, depending on no one. Alcoholism destroys moral resolve; legalism gives it strength. Alcoholics don't feel welcome in church; legalists love to hear their morality extolled in church. Therefore, what we need in this church is not front-end regulations to try to keep ourselves pure. We need to preach and pray and believe that "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, neither teetotalism nor social drinking, neither legalism nor alcoholism is of any avail with God, but only a new creation (a new heart)" (Galatians 6:15; 5:6). The enemy is sending against us every day the Sherman tank of the flesh with its cannons of self-reliance and self-sufficiency. If we try to defend ourselves or our church with peashooter regulations, we will be defeated, even in our apparent success. The only defense is to "be rooted and built up in Christ and established in faith" (Colossians 2:6); "Strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy" (Colossians 1:11); "holding fast to the head from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together, . . . grows with a growth that is from God" (Colossians 2:19). From God! From God! And not from ourselves.
-Piper, in "Flesh Tank and Peashooter Regulations"
...You cannot legislate righteousness or make people more holy by having laws, one any more than another . . . I faced and saw the weakness of legislated righteousness years ago. I cut my eye teeth on preaching against THE BIG FIVE—dancing, drinking, smoking, gambling, and theater going. I heard messages against these things by the dozen. I heard very little about gossip, covetousness, a hateful spirit, etc. I observed that people who adopted this separated life often become pharisaic and proud of their separation, and I heard very few sermons against such pride. For example, one preacher I knew observed that while some women thought separation meant wearing long hair, they often had tongues as long as their hair!So, while the problem is surely not a simple one, I think if I had a church and wrote my own constitution, I would word it positively, perhaps saying, "It is expected that all members will abstain from habits and life styles that fail to honor Christ and will seek to perfect holiness in the fear of God doing everything in word and deed to His honor and glory." Something like that, anyhow. And then leave it to the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the word to effect the right results . . . (last quote from John Piper's dad in a letter dated November 10, 1981)
