Definition
Legalism is the religious attitude in which law-observance, ritual duty, or moral performance occupy the center of the spiritual life at the expense of the inward freedom and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Legalism reduces the life of faith to external conformity and blocks the transforming operation of the Spirit from within. Warnock positions legalism and antinomianism as the two opposed extremes that frame the biblical pneumatology of Spirit-leading: the Spirit liberates from both.
Usage in the Corpus
George Warnock
Warnock sets legalism against the liberation wrought by the law of the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2). The Spirit of life does not only overcome the law of sin and death; He also surpasses the external law as a method of sanctification: “‘If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law’ (Gal. 5:18).” Freedom from legalism is not antinomianism — it is vital union with Christ, in which the Spirit guides from within. Warnock uses the metaphor of the north wind (discipline) and the south wind (Song 4:16) as a type of the Spirit’s working: God’s order is “first darkness, then light. First chaos, then order. First barrenness, then fruitfulness. First weakness, then power. First death, then life.” The south wind of the Spirit brings fruit precisely after the north wind of discipline has done its stripping work — not through external law-keeping. [Warnock, Evening and Morning, Ch. 4]