How To Spot a Legalist

And as you are spotting legalism... Just be sure you don't turn into a Pharisee.  It's easy to be the "Thank God I'm not like that idiot who doesn't have their grace-filled theology straight like I do" guy and not even realize it.  Humility will be your refuge.

That being said, these ten points from Greg Stier are very important.

1) They cheapen grace by focusing on what we must do rather than on what Christ has done.

2) They’ll say non-sensical things like, “Salvation is free but it will cost you everything you have.”

3) They are “fruit inspectors” and hypothesize how much spiritual fruit a person must produce in order to truly be saved.

4) They focus on things like turning, trying and crying instead of faith alone in Christ alone for salvation.

5) Their “gospel” could never be falsely accused of being a license to sin (like Paul’s was in Romans 3:8!)

6) They scare others with assertions that, if you preach too much grace, people will run amok.

7) They conveniently avoid or mis-exegete large portions of gospel-centric New Testament books like Galatians, Romans and John.

8) They blend justification passages with sanctification passages and then try to get us to drink a heresy smoothie.

9) They bake the same works-based righteousness cake that Mormons and Muslims do but cover it with evangelical frosting.

10) They use the phrase, “You mean to tell me…” a lot. Then they create worst case salvation scenarios of those who claim to be Christians but abuse the grace of God. “You mean to tell me that someone can be saved and still….?”

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