Demanding a book, chapter and verse for Christian practice is a very unpopular occupation today. When someone dares, they are almost immediately tagged a legalist and spiritually quarantined. The productive debate or discussion of disagreements that might have ensued is then instantly replaced by prejudice and bias.

However, the idea of derogatorily labeling someone a legalist is questionable at best. If someone is not a legalist, what is he? Would he not then be an “illegalist!” If not, why not?

Undeniable is the existence of “the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Does not James refer to Christ’s teaching as “the perfect law of liberty” (James 1:25)? This law must be “fulfilled” (Galatians 6:2) and we will be “judged by” it (James 2:12). Therefore, it follows that if one’s practices are not legal, then they are illegal. Has illegal become good and legal become bad? Isaiah warns, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter” (Isaiah 5:20)!

The folly of such thinking is more fully exposed when using Biblical terminology. For example, if one is not lawful, is he not then lawless? “Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). Many who profess to love the Lord will find themselves condemned for lawlessness in the judgment day (Matthew 7:21-23). Jesus died to redeem us from every lawless deed (Titus 2:14). The lawless one is according to the working of Satan (2 Thessalonians 2:9). No one in their right mind would want to be declared lawless. It is folly. Why not label one who strives to abide by the law of Christ a “lawfulist”?

Instead of prejudicially labeling someone who is striving to please the Lord and keep His commandments a legalist, perhaps everyone naming the name of Christ should make certain they are not illegalists!