Christian Behaviorism

“I am not a legalist!”

That is the declaration of many mainstream pastors, Christians and leaders, including many fundamentalists and evangelicals. They think that following the Law, or following the laws they think are important, does not make them legalists.

Well…yes, it does.

When Jeremiah announced that there would be a New Covenant established, he went on to say that the Law would no longer be that which was written in stone but would be written on our hearts. In Hebrews, Paul (and I believe Paul wrote Hebrews as a commentary for the Jews on Romans) spent five chapters explaining to the Jews how the Old Covenant had been superseded by the New Covenant, who is Jesus.

Perhaps in the recesses of their minds those legalistic pastors, Christians and leaders don’t recognize their legalism as what it is. Maybe they have worked out which laws are to be followed and which ones are sort of no longer applicable to today. Or more insidiously, maybe they have substituted another world view for their thinking: Spiritual Behaviorism.

Spiritual Behaviorism is characterized by the use of Scripture as a series of proverbs, thoughts for good living or rules for Christians. It seeks to make Christians conform to a specific way of dealing with various life situations based on a passage here and/or a passage there.

For the sake of example, consider the abortion issue. Understand that there is no specific Scripture that expressly says, “Thou shalt not remove a fetus from the womb before it is born.” Yet pastors will preach long sermons about the evils of abortion. They will try to justify their sermons with innocuous (as far as this topic is concerned) passages that relate to God knowing us before we are born, etc.

Abortion is wrong. Those who have God’s love and law written on their hearts know it is wrong. God gives life, and therefore life has intrinsic worth and meaning. But anti-abortionism is not the message of the Bible or of the New Covenant. The message of the Bible is of God’s character, His love for His creation, and His plan for its redemption.

The Spiritual Behaviorist, nevertheless, continues using the pulpit to tell Christians, who are supposed to be led by the Holy Spirit, what they can and cannot do and still please God. The truth is there is no behavior that will please God, except accepting His Son as Lord and Savior. That is what the “without faith it is impossible to please God” principle in the Bible is all about.

When you understand sin and what it really is, you recognize that you will never be able to please God by one behavior or another, for God demands absolute perfection to even come into His presence, let alone to please Him with our deeds. That is because sin is any thought, attitude or action that is not 100% in the absolute center of God’s will. Therein lays our problem to begin with and the truth that required Jesus to become sin for us, covering our sin with His blood shed at Calvary.

People who are not grounded in the actual message of the Bible often question whether a certain action is a sin or not. In years past the main questions were: Is it a sin to smoke? Is it a sin to dance? Is it a sin to drink? Later the questions became: Is divorce a sin? Is homosexuality a sin? Is abortion a sin?

The answer to each of those questions is that if that activity is not dead center in God’s will it is a sin. People ask those kinds of questions because God’s law and love have not been written in their hearts. That is the substance of the doctrine of the total depravity of man. (Most Christians believe in the almost total depravity of man, but not in all of it.)

Well, if the Bible was not written to show us which activities are sinful in the sight of God and which ones are not, why was it written? The answer is that it was written to reveal to us the character of God, to demonstrate man’s propensity for sin and to show us God’s one and only solution to sin in Christ.

In the end, Spiritual Behaviorism IS a form of legalism, and is totally inappropriate as a reason for a sermon, lecture or training course. Our message (our only message) is the gospel of Christ. He is our reason for being. He must be the in all, of all and through all of everything we are and do. And His love and law must be written on our hearts, or we are not His children, regardless of our behavior.