Legalism and Post-nuptial Constancy
I have a couple of things in mind today and regardless of whether or not they can be called related, I decided to put them both together anyway. My first set of thoughts has to do with the idea of legalism (as I mentioned a while back) and its definition. The second has to do with the idea of constancy in marriage and our identity before and after the vows are exchanged.
First off, I have heard it said that our church, pastor, and/or Reformed theology is legalistic. It’s a curious label; especially considering that I gravitated towards this way of thinking specifically because it unfettered my performance-oriented way of thinking as it concerned my Christian faith. Since embracing this system, I have found myself liberated from what I discovered was a very narrow view of our faith and history. Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t mean to imply that everyone that does not embrace a Reformed view of their theology is narrow. It’s just to say that I was served by an overly modern and very individualistic faith. By “modern”, I don’t mean to suggest that the standard needs to be hymns and cathedrals; but rather that modern culture had so bled into my frame of reference as it concerned my faith, that little could distinguish it from the world at large. The Christian life had become a sort of decaffeinated version of pop culture reality. After a while, this did not seem to me to be of much substance so I gravitated toward something a little more tried and true.
Before I go further, let me suggest a definition of terms from Webster’s:
legalism: strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious or moral code
Now “excessive” is a term that is probably somewhat subjective. What may be excessive to one person, may not be to another. Also, which aspects of the religious/moral code is one going to exercise a strict conformity to? In our tradition, there is much emphasis put on God’s sovereignty, the doctrines of grace, covenant (including infant baptism), and translating the culture through the lens of Scripture instead of vice versa. To some not used to these issues, these emphases may come across as “religious” or “legalistic”. However, I can’t help but think the same thing about those that think that being a true Christian means you always vote Republican. Or that drinking alcohol is a sin. Or that those who say the occasional cuss word shall not enter the kingdom of Heaven. We all have our little token sins that we like to hone in on to the exclusion of other, much more heinous sins. The point is, we all hone in on sin to some degree or another. Therefore we all tend to emphasize God’s law in relation to that sin, to the point where perhaps we may come across as practicing a “strict conformity” where others may not be inclined to do so. Does that make us all legalistic?
I could probably dance on this subject for quite some time but I can already tell that this, like most other attempts to quickly dismiss things we disagree with by smacking an unfavorable label on them, will ultimately not provide any further understanding of where we are all coming from in our faith. I don’t think we gain any ground in our attempts at living at peace with one another and pursuing the unity of one Lord, one faith, one baptism if we are casually dismissing each other with convenient labels to remove any necessity of actually thinking about what is being said. There is little follow-through in the church these days and it gets quite irritating. Then again, I can certainly understand what it is to be limited by your own worldview, to the point where it’s often hard to see eye-to-eye with a believer who has a different one. You end up spending half of your conversation just trying agree on a definition of terms.
So I suppose in the end, all any of us can do is try and be patient with one another and hope that our competing definitions get ironed out. I don’t think I am any more legalistic than any one else. I do know what I believe and why, as well as what I don’t believe and why. I try to live my life accordingly but like anyone else, I am a hypocrite even on my best days. There isn’t a person alive who is perfectly able to consistently live what they believe but that shouldn’t keep us from trying. I can only hope that I exercise my faith in a strict sense, as long as it is only as strict as Scripture is. Let’s not be more pious than God and try and make mountains out of molehills. God grant us the grace to believe the right things about the right things and take them as seriously as we should. In my book, there’s nothing legalistic about that, especially since most of it involves God’s grace poured out to sinners, cleansing us from all unrighteousness and dressing us up as saints.
On to subject number 2…
Speaking of hypocrisy, it may not be off the cuff to segue into the idea of being everything your spouse thought they were marrying. Lately I have been stricken with the reminder of what I always wanted to be for my wife. And who she claimed to be when we courted. Anyone who has ever been involved in a serious relationship, especially marriage, knows that we human beings are quick on the draw when it comes to the first impression. About the worst sin any of us can commit is to turn out to be something else after we have wooed our spouse (who wooed who notwithstanding). So I find myself, after almost four years of marriage, reflecting on what I am now and wondering if it matches the impression I gave my wife before I asked her to marry me. Did she get the man she thought she was getting? Do I do the things I displayed then that she fell in love with? Or am I getting stale already?
Naturally, I can’t help but think of the faith parallel. It’s a bit cliche, I know, but since God so often refers to His people as His bride and Jesus constantly uses the imagery of a wedding feast in the end, it is not hard to see the similarities between our faithfulness to our spouses and our faithfulness to Christ. Anyone who has grown up in the church can especially relate to the idea of the relationship going stale. Sure, you say and do all the little token things to jump-start your faith again but in the end, it often seems that real life wins out (another reason why I’ve wanted to get very familiar with the doctrines of grace). However, the apostle Paul tells us (and I have to constantly remind myself of this) to never grow weary in doing good. We all think about our faith that way, but what about thinking about our marriages that way? Never grow weary in doing good for your spouse. Never grow weary in growing deep and wide in your faith so that you can serve your spouse the way you should. Never grow weary of growing in grace and knowledge of Christ, taking steps toward healing and trust, and getting over yourself so that you can continue to be the person your spouse was attracted to in the first place (and hopefully an ever-increasing version of it!).
I for one am finding myself rethinking what I knew and thought about marriage. Humbling myself and giving to my wife, regardless of her reaction or reciprocation, has become priority one for me and I’m realizing what a miserable failure I am at it half the time. I want things to be “fair” after all. I want to get as much as I give. Or get more than I give. I suppose we all grow self-absorbed over time but I am hoping to thwart that process with continuing to grow and not allowing myself to be content with a status quo life for the sake of my wife. For that matter, I’ll do it for the sake of my children, my marriage, and my own sense of self-worth too (recognizing that self-worth only makes sense in a biblical context). It’s a challenge to be sure, but I want to be an increasingly better version of the vision my wife had when we were married. I hope she continues to find me just such a man. I hope everyone else does too.
Peace…