(Validating and Illustrating the Gospel in Weddings)

By Albert N. Martin (Copyright 2012 Chapel Library)

Postscript

Some who have read these pages may be thinking that the directives here amount to legalism and a blatant violation of their Christian liberty. They would do well to consider a proper meaning of the term legalism. While it is not a biblical term, the term has been put to good use to identify several attitudes and practices that are clearly condemned in the Bible. For instance, when people attempt to base their acceptance with God on the stuff of their own performance, we may rightly label their delusive effort as classic legalism. The parable spoken by our Lord concerning the two men who went up to the temple to pray (see Luke 18:9-14) illustrates this erroneous notion with pristine clarity. The Pharisee was the legalist in that parable. He thought that what he did not do in the way of moral conduct and what he did do the way of religious performances gave him favor with God and formed the basis of his being accepted as righteous before God. In that sense, he was indeed a pathetic but clear example of a legalist.

The counsel and the standards contained in this manual are in no way set forth as having anything to do with the basis of one’s acceptance with God. It is assumed that those couples who read the manual, being true Christians, gladly confess that the only basis of their acceptance with God is to be found in the perfect life and substitutionary death of the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ (see Philippians 3:7-9). Serious consideration and prayerful implementation of this manual’s counsel will not in any way contribute to or detract from a person’s standing before God as a justified man or woman in the righteousness of Christ, and neither will refusal to implement any of these directives necessarily bar someone from the kingdom of God. To suggest otherwise would indeed be a crass form of real legalism.

The second way in which people are legitimately dubbed as legalists is when they, like the Pharisees, add the traditions of men to the clear precepts of the Word of God as morally binding ethical norms. Our Lord sharply condemns this practice in passages such as Matthew 15:3-9.

However, the efforts of pastors who are protecting the integrity and consistency of their gospel ministry and the church’s testimony by insisting that any wedding of professing Christians that they perform in the church’s building accurately and patently be shaped by biblical norms should not be labeled as legalism or a restriction of Christian liberty. When a pastor stands in a church building conducting a service that is essentially a service of worship, all of the people of God who are present have a right to assume that the officiating pastor approves of the substance of the words that are spoken in the vows, the words and tunes that are sung in praise to God, and the standard of dress in which the bridal party appears.

Also, the unconverted who may be present have a right to assume that the gospel preached in that church on the Lord’s Day produces what they see and hear in that wedding service. Ordinarily, less than a week before the wedding, the bride and groom standing in front of them were sitting in the very pews in which they sit, professing to believe what that church believes and preaches. Now the occasion calls that same couple to demonstrate and validate the truth they profess to believe in every facet of their wedding service. Pastors who insist that the verbal, visual, liturgical, and musical content of the wedding service must accurately validate and illustrate the truth of God’s Word and the practical implications of the gospel are not legalistic. They are men seeking to exercise a vigorous, God-honoring, and commendable biblical discipleship and churchmanship. Couples planning a wedding should understand that these pastors, as sincere and noble men, are striving to be both the salt and light Jesus says to his followers are to be in a fallen world.

Would it be considered legalism or an infringement of Christian liberty if a pastor refused to conduct a wedding in which all of the groomsmen made it known beforehand that as a surprising joke directed to the groom they planned to appear in the wedding ceremony dressed in yellow T-shirts, purple cargo short pants, bright red Nike sneakers and plaid socks? The answer to that question is self-evident. The pastor’s refusal to conduct the wedding under those circumstances would not be based primarily on the issue of modesty or of Christian liberty (these are biblical issues), but because of the social impropriety of the groomsmen’s proposed dress. Should social propriety have a greater influence in conducting business in the house of God than gospel validation? Remember, the church is “the pillar and ground of the truth,” constituted as such, not only responsible and privileged to make a clear verbal confession of orthodox truth but also to embody and express that truth in every facet of its corporate life, including church weddings.

There is a third way in which the term legalist or legalistic is used, albeit improperly and without valid warrant. In our day, some apply the term legalist to the Christian who is passionately concerned to render careful, even meticulous and universal obedience to God in every detail of his life and conduct. However, when a professing Christian takes seriously the divine mandate that whether we “eat, or drink, or whatsoever [we] do,” we are to “do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31), he is frequently labeled “overly scrupulous,” a “legalist,” or a partially crippled Christian who has yet to understand and appreciate the privileges of his or her “Christian liberty.” The manual that you have just read was written to help an earnest Christian couple plan and participate in a wedding ceremony that will indeed bring maximum glory to God as the entire wedding ceremony illustrates and validates the objective truth and the practical application of the gospel of the grace of God.

The gospel is declared to be “the power of God unto salvation”—a salvation that, among many other wonderful realities, delivers true disciples from desiring to be “conformed to this world” in every area of life, including the kind of wedding service that they plan and in which they anticipate participating (see Romans 12:1-2). 

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