Legalism, Liberalism and the Gospel

Ben Toh; June, 2018

Legalism (conservatives, generally“older”) “Jews”	Licentiousness (liberals, generally “younger”) “Gentiles”	The Gospel
God is holy – shape up.	God is love – be yourself	God is holy and love.
Man is a soul. Spiritual life important.	Man is a body. Physical life important.	Man is both body and soul.
Just teach the Bible (evangelism). Focus on the soul and eternal life.	Just do social justice. Focus on caring for the present life of all people.	Do both.
Sin is very serious – beat yourself up and/or beat up (criticize) sinners.	Sin is no big deal – ignore sin, minimize sin in yourself and others.	See Christ on the cross – he took your sin very seriously and still loves you.
Repent of “sin.”	Repentance? What is that?	Repent of sin, especially self-righteousness.
Reject physical pleasure. “Deny yourself.”	Satisfy your physical desires. What feels right is right.	Physical enjoyment is good, but live wisely.
Hard to embrace unrepentant people – people  who don’t change.	Embrace people with no consideration of whether they change or not.	Embrace people with prayer and tears for their repentance/conversion.
You must do this. You must do what I say.	You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do.	Do what is right in love (grace and truth).
You must earn righteousness.	You don’t really need righteousness. Who knows or cares what that is anyway.	Receive God’s perfect righteousness.
Critical, condescending, condemning, censuring, conditional.	Embracing, welcoming, unconditional, non-discriminatory. Ignore and overlook issues.	Face and confront issues with unconditional love.
Critical of (hates) liberals - too loose.	Critical of (hates) conservatives - too rigid, inflexible.	Critiques both. Loves both.
Impatient. Absolute.	Tolerant. Relative.	Gracious. Kind. Absolute and tolerant.
Just change.	People don’t need to change.	People can change, but it takes time. There are no quick fixes.

Either my way of the highway. Anyway is okay. Jesus says, "I am the way."