The Legalist's Question: Seeking Permission to Sin

When a so-called “Lordship” proponent asks, “Are you saying I can just do whatever I want and still be saved?”—they are exposing more than a doctrinal disagreement. Whether they realize it or not, they are seeking permission. This is not a petty insult, but a sober diagnosis. The one who denies the gospel of grace, refusing to believe it as it stands, is not regenerated. Or, if they are regenerated but have fallen from grace, they are insulated from the Spirit—their only hope for overcoming sin is cut off.

Without the gospel, there is no new nature—no heart constrained by love for Jesus. Instead, all that remains is the law and its terrors, and a vision of Christ as a distant, demanding master. Such a person is left to fight the flesh with the flesh. But the flesh never ceases to lust, to thirst, to hunger. “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.” (Romans 7:18) Law, as a rule of life, does not sanctify; it only stirs up the desire to test boundaries and seek what is “permissible.”

I witnessed this firsthand after fifteen years as a believer, when I encountered a group of zealous, young, Reformed Christians. For the first time, I met those who openly declared that the moral law was our rule of life. Their legalism was not subtle; it was worn as a badge. Yet, for all their intellectual rigor and doctrinal debate, they were the worldliest group I had ever met. Their Christianity was marked by endless discussions about vaping, microbreweries, wine, pipes, and cigars. There was no evidence of sanctification—only a fixation on the outer limits of what they could get away with. Moderation was their watchword, but their hearts were set on finding how close they could come to indulging the flesh without crossing some line.

Everything was framed by the law: What is allowed? Where is the boundary? Their debates revolved around how much of the world they could safely embrace. They were ignorant of the law of sin in their members, the very principle that will, given time, take them captive and force them to do its will. This is not a theoretical danger; it is an inevitable outcome. The legalist, focused on self and law, is always on the edge of worldliness, never free, always negotiating with the flesh.

Let no one imagine that this is a harmless error. The inevitable fruit of this mindset is not holiness, but worldliness and, eventually, gross sin. Many who walk this path end up backslidden, overtaken by the very desires they thought they could manage. The law, far from restraining sin, provokes it. The flesh, emboldened by the absence of grace, finds its opportunity.

But here is the paradox: for some, this collapse is the very thing that positions them to finally reach for grace. When the legalist falls—when the one who trusted in law and self-effort is overtaken by sin—they are brought to the end of themselves. Only then, stripped of every illusion of self-mastery, can they grasp the grace of God as their only hope. This is not a secondary matter. To miss this is to forfeit the very heart of the gospel: justification by faith, sonship, and the inheritance secured by Christ alone.

If you accept the legalistic error, you lose everything that matters. You lose the new nature, the Spirit’s supply, the power to overcome sin, and the assurance of sonship. You trade the finished work for endless negotiation with the flesh. You forfeit the inheritance and the rest that comes only by faith in Christ’s accomplishment.

True sanctification does not come by law, nor by fleshly striving. It comes only by the gospel of grace, by regeneration, by the Spirit’s work in those who believe. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2) To return to law is to return to bondage; to stand in grace is to walk in freedom.

The choice is stark and inescapable: trust in the finished work of Christ and receive the Spirit, or remain trapped in the endless cycle of permission-seeking, worldliness, and defeat. There is no middle ground. Only grace regenerates, only grace sanctifies, and only grace secures the inheritance of the sons of God.