Page 78 which he holds. The legalist fails to distinguish between Divine commands and personal application. He universalizes his own personal standards of what is morally acceptable to God. At heart, he is a Pharisee. Consequently, he judges and condemns his fellow brethren in Christ who disagree with him. He also puts pressure on them to adopt his convictions. Paul exposes these three kinds of Christians in the above passages. I’d like to raise the standard that Paul raised. It is as follows: 1. Each person should have a personal conviction about the matter (Rom. 14:5). Another translation puts it this way: ,Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. Develop your own convictions on how to apply God’s moral will. If you can act in faith that a particular action is permissible, then go ahead with it. If you cannot, abstain from it. It is as simple as that. 2. Receive your brother and sister in Christ even though their convictions may differ from yours. The only criteria for Christian fellowship is this: Has God received this person? If God has received someone into His family, then who are you to reject them? If someone trusts in the Savior, Jesus Christ, then God has received them. 3. Do not judge your brother or sister. God’s evaluation of a person comes at the end of the construction project. We are not to judge the
It is not easy to get the law killed. Something of a legal disposition remains even in the believer while he is in this world. Many a stroke does self and self-righteousness get, but still it revives again. If he were wholly dead to the law, he would be wholly dead to sin. But so far as the law lives, sin lives. They that think they know the gospel well enough betray their ignorance. No man can be too evangelical [gospel-centered]. It will take all his life-time to get a legal temper destroyed.
Ralph Erskine