Guarding Against Legalism
Legalism also may exist in practice, even if grace is trumpeted in theory. Religionists may easily proclaim the primacy of grace and actually live as if the determining factor was human effort. The history of the Christian church amply demonstrates that a theology of grace does not preclude legalism in practice …
Theology, however, is not measured only by formal statements but also by what it stresses. Any theology that claims to stress God’s grace but rarely mentions it and that elaborates human responsibility in detail inevitably becomes legalistic in practice, if not theory. This principle applies to rabbinic Judaism and to Christian churches. A church outwardly lauding grace as primary and fundamental may practice the most virulent legalism.
(Thomas Schreiner, The Law and Its Fulfillment, 115)
