The ironic thing about legalism is that it doesn’t make people work harder, it makes them give up. —Burk Parsons
Legalism - thinking that we can, and are supposed to, merit or maintain God's favor through our own efforts and works - is a spiritual dead end.
It will eventually lead to one of two equally sad ends.
Either we will think we have succeeded and become prideful, looking down our moral noses as people who are not as "good" as us.
Or we will fail miserably, and simply dive up in despair of every being in a right relationship with God.
The Gospel frees us to confess as we hopelessly fall short of God's holy perfections, but it upholds us in hope that God has done for us what we could never have done for ourselves, and He has done it unfailingly.
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