Fear Factor of Legalism

God’s Grace is eternal – providing comfort and reassurance to the believer. Legalistic grace is volatile and fleeing – generating constant fear for the victim. As a young boy, our family took summer vacations. They weren’t like your typical vacation; but that’s another story for another day. With our return from one of those summer trips, my mom and dad had engaged in a dispute over something – the subject of which I no longer recall. But when we pulled into the drive, everyone grabbed their belongings and went their own way.
However a short time later, I had a need for my mother and went looking about the house for her. (If there was a saint in our family, it was my mother – even to this day.) She was no were to be found. No one knew her whereabouts. No one else seemed to care. Then a fear, like I’m never experienced before, gripped my heart. The Rapture had occurred. My mother had been taken and the rest of my family had been left to face the wrath of God. I was petrified by the thought.
My mother did return to the house a short time later. She had been over checking on our elderly neighbor. But that fear of the dying or missing the Rapture; then facing God’s wrath remained constant into my young adulthood. There is no reassurance with an investment in legalistic theology, only gnawing fear. The legalistic believer can only hope that at the moment God calls – he or she has been living in the window of acceptance. With even the tiniest of sin in your heart at that moment, your theology promises you – eternity in Hell. Plus every time, the Legalist turns to discover a loved one suddenly no longer in sight, that moment of panic strikes and you fear the worst. Have I been left behind?