The Spirit and the Law: Defining and Escaping Legalism (Stan Choate)

The Spirit and the Law: Defining and Escaping Legalism

This book is unique in that it seeks to deal with the subject of legalism by defining it, rather than by name-calling.

Perhaps one of the single, greatest reasons people find themselves in legalistic practices is because they simply don’t know how to rightly identify legalism.  In light of this, Stan Choate is seeking to address this issue among the people of God. Legalism is a very real danger, and the Scriptures deal with it directly, though the Bible never uses that specific term. Christians often use the phrase carelessly and usually in an accusatory manner, resulting in a shallow and sloppy understanding that doesn’t actually bring any clarity or help in our spiritual battles. The conviction of this book is that just like any other issue in the Christian life, we ought to remain confident that God has truly given to us all things pertaining to life and godliness in Christ, and that His Word is sufficient as a guide for us if we will pay attention to it. Therefore, by the guidance of Scripture and the Spirit of God, we ought to address this issue and learn first how to escape it ourselves, and second, how to help those around us to do the same.

Stan Choate is a pastor at Christ Fellowship of Hannibal, MO. His insights on this topic, resulting from his earnest study of the relevant material within the Bible, have proven invaluable for many. We commend it to you as a source of clarity on a little-understood topic. Further, for anyone actually in the midst of legalistic practices, the contents of this book will, with the help of God, help them to escape such things and to instead live more squarely in the freedom, holiness, and maturity God intended for His people. Our prayer is that all who read it will benefit greatly by doing so.