My first real experience of Legalism came when I went to a summer camp when I was a young teenager. Friends of our family had invited my sister and I to a wilderness camp in Wisconsin. Unfortunately, the church that sponsored it was bound in legalism. The examples of it were numerous, but let me share just one. Bondage for yourself and others.
Legalism is a cheap substitute for the real thing.
Unfortunately it is a system which leads to pride, arrogance and judging others. It is no accident that Jesus sharpest criticism was levelled at the legalism of the Pharisees and that Paul's strongest rebuke came to the legalistic Christianity of the Judaizers in Galatian. One who lives in license, isn't particularly concerned about what God or others think. In license, a Christian falsely defines freedom as the ability to do what I want to do. But sin is never freedom, it is always bondage.