Thus I grew up with a conscience that did not allow card playing, drinking, or smoking. Later, as I studied the Scriptures, I learned that these things in themselves are not sinful. I came to view them as falling into the arena of Christian liberty. Although I still have some pangs of conscience about enjoying these things, I soon learned that my Christian brethren had the freedom to enjoy them, and I always respected that fact.

For many young Reformed men raised with a similar background as mine, when they find out that they can enjoy these things without the fear of sinning against God, they act like young kids with a new toy. Not only do they enjoy them, but often they want everyone else to know how much they enjoy them. They don't mind making their newfound liberty public - not at all!

My response was different.
Partially because of my own personal experience, I have come to be very defensive about man-made laws. The Westminster Confession of Faith states the doctrine of Christian liberty effectively when it says in Chapter 20, Section 2, "God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in anything contrary to his word, or beside it, in matters of faith and worship." The Confession warns of two dangers. First there is the danger of the tyranny of the rules of men that are contrary to God's Word, and second, there is the danger of the tyranny of the rules of men that are along side of, or in addition to, God's Word. Both are a threat to Christian liberty.

There are two questions that I pose in deciding whether a person's rules are Biblical or are simply his own rules whereby he is seeking to bind the consciences of other Christians, sometimes with all good intention.

Two Crucial Questions
First, I always ask the question, "Is it explicitly expressed in the word of God?" Give me the text! "Thou shalt not move thy neighbor's boundary mark…" (Dt. 19:14). This is a very clear statement in the Scriptures that binds my conscience. "Someone has his father's wife" (1 Cor. 5:1). This is wrong. This binds my conscience.

The second question I ask is whether the rule that is being presented to me is "a good and necessary deduction" from the Scriptures. If there is not a clear propositional statement, then we enter the arena of deductions. Again, I find the Westminster Confession helpful here. The Confession states in Chapter 1, Section 6, "The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deducted from scripture…." Thus, in addition to the first question, I ask secondly whether it is a good and necessary deduction from the Scriptures. First, is the deduction good? Secondly, is the deduction necessary?

Some deductions may be good but not necessary. It may be a good deduction in the sense that good things result from the deduction, but it may not be necessary in the sense that it must be a universal law for every person in every circumstance. If you seek to make a deduction a universal law, you had better be very apt at it. I'm not easy to convince. As you can see, apart from express statements in the Scripture, my standards for judging the validity of deductions from Scripture are very stringent.

The New Legalism
Having laid down my own method of analysis in regard to detecting man-made laws, I now mention that I am afraid that the Old Legalism of no drinking, no smoking, and no card playing is being replaced by a New Legalism in Reformed circles. Lately, I have been hearing a lot of new rules that if they are not binding on everyone else, then at least they claim to demonstrate a holiness that excels everyone else's. To break one of the new rules of the New Legalism is often considered sin, no less than the sinfulness in the Old Legalism associated with drinking, smoking, and card playing. The number of new rules is sometimes astounding. Let me state just a few of them. To vote for George Bush is sin. To send your children to Christian schools rather than home school is sin. To have your children in public schools, even if there may be very unique circumstances, is definitely sin. To bottle feed a baby rather than breast-feed is sin. To limit the number of children in your family in accord with your economic status is sin. To separate children into Sunday school classes according to age is sin. To put your children into a nursery during church is sin. To follow any model but the courtship model is sin. To send your daughter off to college is sin. For a mother to work outside the home under any circumstances is sin. To use throwaway diapers rather than cloth diapers is sin. Here is one more for the record. Believe it or not, I once was told that to play golf was sin for me since I am an ordained minister and it was a waste of my valuable time. So much for man-made laws!

These may all be good deductions in the sense that the deductive laws may result in good things in themselves, but they are not absolute and necessary deductions from Scripture. These cannot be made absolute laws for the church universal. Personally, if another man's conscience brings him to these convictions, that is fine. I honestly respect such men much more than they realize. I honestly consider them real champions of the Faith. What I protest is the angst of many of them in mandating these as infallible rules for me and everyone else.

The Little Popes
If Christians believe that the failure of others to obey their rules is really sinful, I have two recommendations for them - both recommendations, by the way, are expressly set down in Scripture. If they are really convinced that I am sinning because I don't fit their model of expectations, then the first option they have is to cover my sin and stop their public criticism, for the Bible explicitly says, "love covers a multitude of sins." (1 Pet. 4:8). If they are not able to do this, then they need to follow Matthew 18, step by step, where it explicitly lays out the procedure to deal with sin that cannot be covered with love. If the church officially declares that I am living in sin, then I will have to respect that and deal with it. However, that's a whole different matter than little popes making pronouncements on their own without the wisdom of the church body as a whole.

I was raised as a child bound by rules that were man-made. I have had a most difficult time overcoming the guilt associated with these man-made rules. I thought I had escaped that bondage when I came to the light and freedom of the Reformed Faith. Now, I find myself in that battle again. A New Legalism has replaced the Old Legalism. I refuse to bow down to man-made laws. I refuse to submit to this new bondage. This time I hope I am wise enough to resist the tyranny of the laws of men that I might enjoy the freedom that is in Christ Jesus.

Larry Ball, a graduate of Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, was born and raised in the coalfields of West Virginia. He has served as pastor at Bridwell Heights Presbyterian Church in Kingsport, Tennessee for 22 years.
Reprinted with permission from "Christian Culture" A publication of the Center for Cultural Leadership, P. O. Box 70, La Grange, CA 95329.