Well said!
With few exceptions, reformed Protestantism is rife with legalism; more over, most are works oriented. One example is baptism; often times it must be done, and it must be done "just so", yet they consider it "symbolic only" with no efficacy what so ever... I never could get my head around that one.
"Have
you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?"
"Have
you invited Jesus into your heart?"
I struggled for around the first twenty years of my life wondering if I had truly meant it when, at nearly the age of four, I had "invited Jesus into my heart". I struggled to know if my desire and want to follow Jesus was truly genuine. In childhood and adolescence I wanted so deeply and so badly to know that God had truly forgiven me. I was rarely at peace. So I flung myself wholly into making sure that I could "feel God" on Sunday morning, that I could "feel the Spirit moving" during worship. If I didn't, then I didn't know what to do with myself.
I prayed and prayed for God to give me the assurance of my salvation that I had been told I was supposed to have. I was told that I did have assurance of my salvation if I had accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior and meant it. But how could I know if I truly meant it? I was only four years old, I didn't understand the weight of what I was doing, in fact I had misunderstood my parents and right after saying the Sinner's Prayer my folks told me that having Jesus in my heart wasn't a guarantee that I wouldn't die, so tried to "shoo" Jesus out of my heart.
At the age of eight, I remember having a fit during church and my dad took me outside of the sanctuary and we had a talk and I told him that I was terrified that I hadn't truly meant it. So he led me through the Sinner's Prayer for the second time in my life, when he asked me if I had meant it then, I told him I didn't know. I didn't know how I could know, with something that important, how could I know that I truly believed? I accepted that it was all true, and I wanted to really mean it, but didn't Scripture say that even the devils believe?
By the age of twelve we had changed churches to a Charismatic/Pentecostal setting. We had an evangelist visit the church one weekend and during one of the evening services anyone who wanted to receive the "Baptism with the Holly Spirit" was invited to come forward to receive it. So I went forward with a number of the other youth, and the evangelist laid hands on me, and I fell backward and began making consonant sounds. Had that been genuine? Or had I, in the heat of the moment and the expectations of everyone else simply gone along with it? That added to my concerns.
Nothing that I had been taught had sounded "legalistic", nobody said I had to earn brownie points with God. But my conscience was continually plagued anyway. I had been told since I was able to walk and talk that it was "grace alone" that saved me, by "faith alone". And so I wanted to believe. I wanted that faith. I wanted God's grace which alone could save me. Since nothing I could do could help, only faith, true belief, could save me I wanted that true faith, that true belief. So I spent my life yearning to have real faith, real belief, a faith that I could be absolutely certain about so that I could know I had truly committed my life to Christ.
Then I read this:
"I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith; even as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith; in which Christian Church He forgives daily and richly all sins to me and all believers, and at the last day will raise up me and all the dead, and will give to me and to all believers in Christ everlasting life. This is most certainly true." - Small Catechism, Section II, Article III
I read the Scripture where the Lord said, "You did not choose Me, I chose you."
My salvation was not about my choice, my will, my failing and broken and sinful me; it was all about, in fact entirely about, Christ's all-sufficient work on Mt. Calvary.
I wanted assurance that
I had meant it, because the locus of importance had been placed on
my coming to Jesus,
my committing myself to Christ.
Instead:
Because
Christ came to us.
Christ committed Himself to us.
Christ gave Himself for and to us.
Christ died for us.
Christ chose us.
So, I guess I just find it a
little ironic to refer to Lutheranism as "Legalistic".
-CryptoLutheran
