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Why Diets Don’t Work, Especially For Christians

To start to see why diets are especially unsuccessful for Christians, let’s look at a passage from Colossians.  See if parts of it sound really familiar to you.

Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle!  Do not taste!  Do not touch!”?  These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings.  Such regula­tions indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.[i]

Remind you of anything?  How well I remember the lecturer at a diet program class I attended telling us to avoid having certain foods in our homes, to avoid even touching or seeing these foods.  Rules, rules, rules.  Diets, no matter how much they label themselves “lifestyle changes,” consist of varying amounts of rules by which you are to regulate yourself.  But look at how that passage in Colossians ends.  “Such regulations ... lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence” (emphasis mine).  The rules don’t work!  But why?  In this chapter, we are going to explore why diets do not work, especially for Christians.  In order to understand why this is, we will look at an overview of the concept of legalism, an often subtle and insidious opponent to our walk with God and to living in dependence upon him.[ii]

We are going to look at three main concepts involved in legalism: “the Law,” “religious legalism” and “standards.”  First, when referring to “the Law” this means all the rules and regulations that are spelled out in the Old Testament.  In Romans 7:12, the Apostle Paul tells us that the laws of the Old Testament are “holy, righteous and good.”  Paul also says of the Law that its purpose was to point us to Christ:  “So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ . . .”[iii]  How did the Law lead us to Christ?  By proving to us that we were incapable of keeping it and thus incapable of living up to God’s holy standards.  Therefore, that we were brought to the realization that we were in desperate need of a Savior.  No one (but Jesus) has ever been able to totally fulfill all the requirements God laid out for a holy life.  Therefore, no one has ever been able, through keeping the law, to achieve righteousness that would allow him or her to live in union with a holy God.  Without some special intervention on God’s part – without the sacrificial death and miraculous resurrection of Christ – we cannot achieve holiness and righteousness.  We could not do this on our own, no matter how hard we tried to follow all the rules.  The rules were right, but we went wrong.  The rules actually pointed out to us how far afield we were from holiness.  And that was a good thing, because it created in us an awareness of our need for Jesus.

With the advent of Jesus Christ – in light of his atoning death that, through faith, enables us to enjoy his righteousness and an eternal union with God – how are we then to view the Law, the Old Testament rules and regulations?  First, we can see that the Law is an outline of how things were intended to be.  The Law provides us with wisdom and understanding about the parameters of life as God made it.  (See Deuteronomy 4:5-8.)  We realize that God never intended for us to worship anyone or anything other than him.  We understand that God made us in such a way that it is healthy for us to engage in sex only within the confines of marriage, that lying to one another and stealing from one another is harmful to all involved, that getting rest on a regular basis and stopping to worship God is absolutely necessary to our well-being, along with many other guidelines for living.  As Bill Gillham says, the Bible is the “manufacturer’s handbook” for how people were designed to run smoothly.[iv]

In looking at the Old Testament dietary laws from a New Testament perspective, we see that Jesus himself rescinded them.  See Mark 7:18-19 and Acts 11:7-9.  And, all of the sacrificial laws are completely fulfilled by the “once and for all” sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.  See Colossians 2:13-14 and Hebrews 10:1-12.  All of the moral and ethical laws are totally fulfilled by Christ living in us and having written his laws on our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit.  See Galatians 2:20 and Hebrews 8:10 and 10:14-16.

So, to summarize this first concept regarding legalism, “the Law,” for the believer, the Law gives us understanding about life and is fulfilled, summed up and lived out by and through Jesus Christ.

In turning to the second concept, “ religious legalism,” we see in 1 Timothy 1:8, that the Law can be used improperly.  The improper use of law is religious legalism.  Religious legalism occurs when a person believes that acceptance by God is only available through keeping the Law.  This makes performance the basis of acceptance by God rather than the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross.  Legalism puts the emphasis on self effort and promotes the belief that man actually can fulfill God’s righteous standards.  The Pharisees of Jesus’ day did this.  They even made more laws to help them stay well within the parameters of “the Law.”  As Jesus pointed out, though, they failed to actually keep the Law because their hearts were not right.  They appeared compliant on the outside, but they were still corrupt on the inside.  Not only that, but they had so much faith in their adherence to the Law that many of them totally missed the fact that they needed a Savior, even though he was right in front of them!

What happens with religious legalism and those who practice it is, because no one can possibly live up to God’s laws, they have to contort the laws to fit what they can fulfill.  Legalists emphasize those rules they are able to keep and turn a blind eye to others that they fail at.  Look at the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.  When Jesus said, “You have heard it said ...  but I tell you ... ,” he was telling the religious legalists that they were only keeping part of the Law and not all of it.  Haven’t you known someone who, for religious reasons, refused to go to movies but thought nothing of watching television or renting DVD’s?  This is an example of how religious legalism engenders inconsistent behavior and hypocrisy.

When you read the Bible as a set of “oughts” and “shoulds,” you get caught up in trying harder and harder to do all those “oughts” and “shoulds.”  Eventually, you either fail and give up completely by leaving what you perceive to be “the faith,” or you have emotional problems from the stress of trying to live the Christian life in your own strength.  This is exactly what happened to me when I was in my early 20’s.  I tried desperately to adhere to all the “laws” I felt I had to keep in order to be a “good Christian.”  I couldn’t do it.  I collapsed.  But, before I came to the end of myself, I experienced all of the typical symptoms of legalism: panic attacks, bitterness, work-aholism, depression, resentment and being hyper-critical. 

Finally, to understand the overall concept of legalism, it is important to examine a third concept, “standards.”  Standards are the rules people have for themselves that may or may not be based on Scripture.  These rules are what people feel they must do in order to gain acceptance from others, God or just from themselves.  Standards are usually “caught” from our families, the culture, peers, authority figures, the media and religious training.  We are often told in life, either directly or tacitly, that when we do “thus and so,” we will be thought of as a “good” person.  The basic belief is that “I must be accepted and approved of by others in order to feel good about myself; therefore, I must do ‘this.’”  A prime example of standards is how women have “bought into” the culture’s standard that they must be reed thin in order to be acceptable to themselves and others.  Many women even feel this is God’s standard. 

Symptoms of legalism – either the religious kind or the kind that’s based on keeping one’s own standards – include smugness (“I keep my standards but others don’t.”), high expectations of others (“If I have to, why don’t they have to keep this standard too?”), being critical of others (“They really don’t have very high standards, do they?”), a low tolerance of people making mistakes (“He should have been able to keep that standard!”), fear of failure (“I’ll hate myself if I fail at keeping this standard.”), and self-punishing behaviors (“I didn’t keep that standard, so I deserve to eat a ton and make myself fat.”).  These symptoms are very often evident in women who are on diets.

Even for those who become convinced that legalism is negative and not productive (even counter productive), it is difficult for them to let go of their standards because they believe their legalism is the only thing keeping them in line, keeping them from going off the deep end and getting totally out of control.  The funny thing is that just the opposite is true.  Not only do laws and rules “lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence,”[v] as Colossians 2:23 says; they actually lead us to sin more, not less.  As we saw in the last chapter, according to Romans 7:8-9, there’s nothing like a “Do Not Walk on the Grass” sign to arouse a strong desire in us to tromp on that grass!  As Paul said, “ ... when the commandment came, sin sprang to life ...”[vi] and “ ... the power of sin is the law.”[vii]  Think about how totally luscious everyday things like butter and mayonnaise seem when you’re on a diet that forbids or limits those foods. 

So, if rules, laws and standards don’t enable us to live a godly, moderate life, what does!?  Read Galatians 3:3,5,10-14 and 5:16-25.  The alternative to legalism is living life “in the Spirit,” living in constant and total dependence upon the indwelling Christ, humbly asking him go guide you and being confident that he will and does.  The emphasis at the beginning of this book on understanding one’s new identity in Christ as a “new creation” was to serve as the underpinning for grasping why it is we can trust that the Holy Spirit is at work in us to guide us into right behavior.  We do not need to constantly crack the whip and toe the line in order to make sure we live as we “ought.”  Instead, we need to humbly rely upon God and his work within our lives.  We can accept that he has given us a new heart, that we are motivated from within to be holy and moderate.  We can follow the promptings of the Spirit that direct us to do things like pause and ask God for help in figuring out why we’re wanting to eat even when we’re not physically hungry.  As Galatians 5:16 tells us, “ ... walk and live habitually in the (Holy) Spirit – responsive to and controlled and guided by the Spirit; then you will certainly not gratify the cravings and desires of the flesh – of human nature without God.”[viii]  “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”[ix]

So, why don’t diets work, especially for Christians?  Because diets are a form of legalism, and legalism is the polar opposite of how we, as new creations in Christ, are designed to live our lives.  When we try to follow a set of rules and regulations, we cut out the Holy Spirit and we’re engaging in legalistic self effort.  Women who struggle with overeating and overweight have prayed and prayed that God would enable them to stick to their diets.  But God doesn’t answer their prayers as they’d like because he wants us to fail at self effort.  He wants us to realize that the only way to live life as he designed it is to live in constant communication with and dependence upon him.  He didn’t design you to control your eating through rules.  He created you to respond to inner urgings, not only physical but also spiritual, that would so much more perfectly and individually direct you than any one-size-fits-all diet program possibly can. 

Reflection Questions

1.       In what areas of your life do you currently have discipline and why do you think you have it in those areas?

2.       What are some of the reasons you are motivated to “do right” (avoid sin, do loving acts, pursue a relationship with God, treat others with kindness, etc.)?

3.      What would happen if you never, ever dieted again?  What would happen if you continued to diet?