There’s a rival to the gospel in the church that goes largely unnoticed. It’s not another religious point of view. It’s not a political situation. It’s not popular culture. It’s actually a subtle distortion of the gospel that we too carelessly assume and too quickly embrace. Which makes it, I think, a more dangerous opponent to the gospel than another religious viewpoint, political situation, or cultural phenomenon. What it is, then? Moralism.
“Woah, now hold on here. Is not the church about moral behavior anyways? Don’t beat a dead horse…” Sorry… This is no dead horse beating. And the fact that so many Christians immediately associate ‘Christianity’ and ‘morality’ as synonymous terms is not just beating a dead horse. It’s even worse: it’s beating their own dead religion. It’s already evidence of defeat.
Sure, Christianity undeniably teaches a distinctive morality, and that’s because it projects a distinctive God who is the ultimate source of all distinctive moral right and wrongs. However, to falsely assume that Christianity is primarily about your moral behavior, personal transformation, or individual betterment is the same thing as to falsely assume your salvation. I know…this is serious stuff. But let’s also remember that God thought it was so serious that He died in light of it. If it’s that serious, you can be sure that He doesn’t want you to miss it.
So what is legalism/moralism and why is it so dangerous and destructive? Moralism denotes the idea that God’s love, approval, and acceptance are based on our moral performance for Him. It says that your good deeds set the relationship status between you and God. Moralism says that the amount of favor and blessing God will send your way is directly proportional to your amount of obedience to Him. Essentially, your identity and self-worth ride on how good of a person you are.
To be sure, many churches will not explicitly say this. But the messages and culture of the church overflow with these moralistic implications.
A gospel-centered church, on the other hand, is the exact, stark opposite. It’s the arch-enemy of moralism. A gospel-centered approach denotes the idea that God’s love, approval, and acceptance are based on Jesus’ moral performance for God, for us—not our own. It says our relationship status with God was based on Jesus’ works—not ours. And our identity and self-worth are determined by how great God loves us—and Jesus’ sacrificial life and death are proof of that. These are counterintuitive, counter-religious truths. It’s this gospel that makes Christianity different from every other religion.
So how can one distinguish a moralistic impulse from a gospel impulse in the church?
Moralism will diagnose our problems as behavioral or circumstantial, but it won’t really identify our functional problems beneath the behavioral or circumstantial dimension (the need for love, approval, acceptance, validation, and security). As a result, moralism will prescribe our solution as behavioral or circumstantial, but it won’t identify our practical solution for the Savior who provides all functional needs in full.
To be more specific, moralism will say our problems are anger and pride and lust and greed. And then it would say our practical solutions are peace and humility and love and generosity. Practically, it will diagnose sin as character flaws and bad living, and will prescribe checklists for behavioral solutions and better living.
Conversely, the gospel will diagnose character flaws and bad living as our sinful nature, and will prescribe Jesus for heart solutions and stronger living. It says that anger, pride, lust, and greed are problems—but that they are merely fruits of a deeper problem. And like any tree rooted in poison, fixing the fruit will not help the problem. You must fix the roots to get to the root of the problem. And the deeper root to each of these behavioral problems is our lack of understanding of our right standing with God through Christ. It says the deeper root to each of these solutions is our restored and fully accepted, fully loved, fully approved relationship with God through our Savior, who is the ultimate source and ultimate example of peace, humility, love, and generosity after all.
Therefore, moralism will say, don’t be angry when people unfairly attack you, because you’re an important person and you should love them back. The gospel says, don’t be angry when people unfairly attack you, because your ultimate sense of approval and validation is from God, and if you have that, it doesn’t matter what others think—their opinions change like the wind anyways. But love them undeservedly anyways, because I have loved you undeservedly in the most ultimate sense; so love me back by loving them like I love you.
Moralism will say, be humble because it’s the best thing to do, it blesses others, and God opposes the proud; here are 5 ways to be a more humble person. The gospel says, be humble because in light of God’s holiness, you have absolutely nothing to boast in; your best morality is filthy rags stained with sin; your greatest talents and opportunities are gifts of God; you’re equally sinful as everyone else, equally needing of a Savior, and equally receiving of this Savior. The only thing you contributed to your relationship with God was your sin and fundamental sameness all other humans—therefore, be humble and boast in Him. And so forth.
In essence the main moral difference between moralism and the gospel lies in its incentive. Moralism says ‘Do!’ because it’s the moral thing. However, the gospel says ‘Do!’ because Jesus has already said ‘Done!’ on the cross to lovingly fulfill the moral obligations to God we unable to pay ourselves.
Moralism primarily emphasizes Christian-living. The gospel primarily emphasizes Christ dying for our failure to live Christ-like.
Moralism is good advice. The gospel is good news.
Moralism promises something it actually can never deliver. For instance, it makes you inevitably self-righteous when you succeed and makes you despair when you fail. If you’re a generally moral person, your position before God is because of your ability to do good works; so you boast in yourself. And if you’re a generally immoral person, your position before God is because of your inability to do good works; so you despair in yourself. Therefore, it’s an inevitable moral dead end. You can’t really be moral with this approach.
But the gospel makes a promise and actually delivers even more: it promises a Savior for your badness, and your understanding of such grace is actually the empowerment to transform your heart of rebellion toward God and cause you to love him, thus becoming moral. The gospel, thus, breeds a culture of confidence, not self-righteousness—because Christ gained all that is to be gained. And it also breeds humility, not despair—because we’re all equally undeserving, all equally forgiven, and all equally cherished.
Moralism eclipses the grandeur of Christ with human moral performance because it moves the spotlight away from Christ and places it on Christians. But the gospel enhances the grandeur of Christ because it moves the spotlight to Christ, and makes Christians premier reflectors of this Light. In the same way that an in tact mirror can only reflect light in one direction—but a broken mirror can reflect light in many directions—so also do broken Christians who own their brokenness reflect the Light more profusely than those who act like they are in tact.
Moralism inevitably produces Pharisees who love their appearance, improvement, and morality. But the gospel produces people who genuinely love God, with or without the moral spotlight.
Moralism is exclusive—only the good get ‘right’ with God. But the gospel is inclusive—all people can get right with God because of Jesus.
So what does this all mean, functionally? Do real Christians simply neglect morality, then? No. Here’s the paradox of Christian morality: if you treat Christianity primarily as a morality, you won’t get Christian morality or its Christ. But if you go to Christianity’s Christ and relate to him on his terms, you’ll get both. If you primarily seek the law over grace, you actually won’t get either. But if you seek Jesus, you’ll get both.
In Galatians 2:16-21, you will specifically see in one place where 1) we cannot be justified by our own morality (in italics) and 2) where it’s Christ work for us that compels in us good deeds for him in light of his love for us (in bold italics).
We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
To conclude, it’s a shame that churches emphasize step-by-step solutions for problems instead of primarily the Jesus who took an infinite amount of steps towards us in love through his incarnation, life of obedience, substitution, and resurrection. The deeper, functional needs beneath all problems is the reality that sin has made us feel self-sufficient for supplying our own sense of self-validation, self-worth, approval, acceptance, and security that our heart so desperately longs for. All these things we try to find apart from God will keep killing us, too.
I love what Tullian Tchividjian has said in his book, Jesus+Nothing=Everything: “The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.” Therefore, providing behavioral solutions to solve heart problems is like trying to write an English paper with a calculator. Because only the gospel gives us everything our heart really needs, only it is fit to be the solution for our every need.
Thus, we need first a good news that all these heart longings have been given ultimately, unconditionally, maximally, and permanently in Christ. This gospel is the blueprint and foundations for any ‘practical message’ we will ever hear from the pulpit anyways. In fact, a practical message unfounded on the gospel is a house of sand that will eventually crumble down with circumstance. But the gospel gives you a firm foundation, an anchor for the soul, that remains just as immovable in the greatest of storms as in the calmest of calms.
