It was a lively sense of God's holiness and deep conviction of sin that prepared the Reformers to appreciate the light on justification by faith. Protestantism has grown fat and flabby. Luther warned that people would become secure and lazy by the continual preaching of grace. To make matters worse, Protestantism's reaction against legalism has made the church very suspicious of law. In a recent article, Professor Gordon H. Clark shows that even the word legalism has evolved a new meaning.
Amorphous love replaces definite commands.
This enables the liberals to transfer the odium of legalism in its historic sense to the evangelical view that is not subject to such a criticism. The church today is not too concerned with the great Reformation article of justification largely because the law has fallen into disuse. Justification is a legal word, a law term. Dr. Strong defines it as being set right before the law. But this is a very permissive age.