KEEPING PEOPLE BOUND BY THE OLD TESTEMENT LAW
Acts 15:1-5
1And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, “ Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.”
2When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question. 3And being brought on their way by the church, they passed through Phenice and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles: and they caused great joy unto all the brethren.
4And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them. 5But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, “That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses .”
We’re told here the explaining of the Word of God to do with law and grace when it spread to the early church was received gladly.
These new converts loved God and were filled with joy because their sins were forgiven, and they had experienced the indwelling presence of God in their lives.
They were also enjoying the fellowship of other people who received Jesus Christ into their lives and were growing in the faith with them. Even the persecution they faced from friends and family did not cause them to reconsider their decision to follow Christ.
But then something unexpected happened; a small group of zealous, Jewish Christians from Jerusalem came to pay a visit. They were born Jews and had carefully followed the Jewish faith, in observing all the laws of Moses and the traditions of Judaism.
But when they accepted Jesus Christ as their Messiah, they assumed that they should continue to follow all the Jewish laws and traditions. [Which is works]
When these Jewish Christians came to Antioch, they tried to impose these rules on the new Christians.
The first thing they said to these new Christians was: v.1“Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.”
Instead of helping to open up the way to Christ, they put boulders of does & don’ts in their path. They made the way to God more difficult, instead of more accessible. They created unnecessary obstacles, instead of removing them.
This often happens in the life of a new Christian. Some people feel it is their business to remind them of all the things they are no longer supposed to do. They put shackles around the feet of new Christians.
They become the religious police, so to speak, investigating new believers to make sure they are not doing anything wrong.
This new believer needed to understand that to come to Christ means a whole new way of living, and that there are moral laws that are important to observe. But the danger was that they made it appear that a person still must do certain things in the Law of Moses to be saved.
They made it sound like a person’s relationship with God was dependent on how well they kept the law, rather than by the free gift of his grace through Jesus Christ.
Legalism is seeing the Christian life as a list of things to do, and also a list of things, which you are not permitted to do. It makes it appear that a person is justified before God by one’s own obedience, rather than the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
Legalism acts as though a person earns their salvation, rather than receiving it as a free gift of God.
Legalism sees the Christian life as a list of rules rather than spiritual principles. Legalism majors on prohibitions rather than emphasizing positive transformation. Legalism looks at the letter of the law, rather than the spirit of the law. It looks at outward observances rather than an inner change of heart.
Legalism is a scourge in the church because it is not real Christianity.
· Why is legalism such a problem in the church?
There are several reasons, but the first is:
Legalism turns a relationship of ones love of God into a religion of laws. Primarily, our relationship with God is supposed to be a relationship of love, instead of going by a list of laws.
Let me point out right here, that Gods moral laws are still in force today, [the10 commandments of Exodus 20: with the exception of the Sabbath day law which is altogether Jewish] there is the “mosaic law of does & don’ts, [lev, -duet] there is the ceremonial laws, there was the civil laws, these were all for the Jewish people, Gods chosen people, He meant for them to be a separated people unto Himself. Ps. 147 19He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. 20He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the LORD.
–The moral laws are for one and all, Christians included, just because we are saved by Gods grace does not give us a free ticket to commit sin, if we sin after we’re saved God will chasten His children according to Hebs.12:
There are people who say that their saved by Gods grace and that they can carelessly live any way they please, believing that because we’re saved by grace that God automatically forgives us for anything and everything.
So lets not forget that rules are necessary, and the laws of God are good. In fact, the purpose of the laws of God are not to hinder us and make our lives difficult; they are the guidelines which show us how to get the most out of life and enjoy it to the fullest extent. If you want to be an unhappy Christian break any of the moral laws of God. It is a formula for certain disaster. God’s laws are the result of his love.
But lets not mistake God’s laws as being at the heart of our relationship with Him. Neither can we make the mistake of thinking that we are made right with God by obeying his laws or the rules that man often adds to them.
That is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Christian faith. We are not saved by never sinning, rather we are made right with God by admitting our sin and receiving his forgiveness as a free gift, which was made possible by the atoning death of our Savior Jesus Christ.
And when we receive this free gift, we find a new love for God growing in our hearts. The whole reason for the creation of the world, and the reason for Jesus Christ coming to earth to die for us, was that we might have a relationship with God, and he with us.
This great truth is seen in John 3:16 -1716For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
God wanted people to love Him and He wanted a people to love. That is why you & I are here. That is our divine purpose on earth.
But there have always been those who misunderstood and tried to take this relationship of love and turn it into a code of conduct.
The Pharisees were the perfect example of this. But the Pharisees tended to emphasize the ‘oral law’ of the Torah [the first five books of the Old Testament]. This oral law was made up of a great number of interpretations and explanations of the Old Testament, which over the years continued to grow and grow.
Tragically, the oral law increasingly focused on trifling details.
For instance,- the command not to work on the Sabbath was expanded and illustrated with hundreds of explanations and exceptions. According to the Pharisees, a person was allowed to spit on rocky ground on the Sabbath. But he could not spit on soft or dusty earth; the spittle might move the dirt and that would constitute plowing, for it might make a furrow ” If it made a furrow it could be considered plowing, and plowing was obviously a type of work — all because you spit in the dirt.
That’s legalism at its ridiculous extreme. Paul told the Colossians: Colossians 2:20-22 20Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, 21(Touch not; taste not; handle not; 22Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?
Lets not take this beautiful relationship that we are privileged to have with God and codify it and reduce it to a list of rules.
Listen, today I can drink all the intoxicating drinks that I want to, and I do, the happy fact is I don’t want to, so I don’t, I drink all I want, and that none.
The lord is my witness, not a drop since April 9th 1983.
Jesus has come to save and love us, not to turn us into religious robots that are all alike.
But we still need to confess our sins every day; there are sins of commission, that’s when we have willing committed sin. There are sins of omission, that’s when we have omitted, failed to do something that we know we should have done.
We don’t need a list of rules to make us do that.
James 4:17Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
· The second problem with legalism is:
Legalism turns people from encouragers into faultfinders.
There are Christians who would never consider drinking alcohol, but think nothing of being mean and critical.
They come across as proud and arrogant and cause conflict wherever they go. Being holier than thou do not attract people to Jesus.
So often the world sees us as finger pointing, fault-finders rather than people who are holding forth the Word of life.
There’s often a lot of spear throwing from the pulpit,
Let us be people who are interested in helping others become transformed into the people God wants them to be.
The Bible says, Philippians 4:4-5 4Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. 5Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand
It is the joy of God that should be seen to others, not our anger and judgmental spirit.
James said in Acts 15:1919Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:
So lets not make it difficult for people to turn to God. Open the way instead of standing in the way with our list of rules. Moral law is important, and they will get there soon enough, but we don’t have to try and be the Holy Spirit for people. The Holy Spirit can change people without our help.
In the end, the leaders of the church there in acts 15: wrote a letter to the new Gentile converts and said in a nut shell, “Avoid idol worship and sexual immorality. Other than that, enjoy your new life in God.”
When the church becomes a place filled with religious police, it is no longer safe to be genuine and authentic. People start pretending to be someone they are not and wearing masks so that they will not be judged.
Jesus warned us, Matthew 7:3-5 3And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 4Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? 5Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.
· The third way that legalism is a problem is:
It emphasizes outward conformity rather than inner transformation. Here is the real problem with legalism — it misses the point of the Christian life. Christianity is a relationship with God to be enjoyed, not a set of rules to keep.
At the heart of the Christian faith is a loving God who wants a relationship with us — a relationship based not on fear, but on love and trust. God loves us even when we fail.
But his purpose is not to get us to conform to a moral code written on tablets of stone. his purpose is to change us inwardly so that our obedience comes from the heart.
In the scripture today, the legalists who arrived in Antioch telling everyone to conform to the Law of Moses somehow missed the fact that God had changed the heart of these people.
They were demanding outward conformity and didn’t see that there had already been an inner change and transformation. God’s purpose had always been to create a heart within us that was in love with him and eager to do his will.
God said, through the prophet Jeremiah: Jeremiah 31:33 33But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
It seems that it is very hard for us to get it into our heads that we are not made right with God by being “good people.” If we could do that, we would not need a savior, we could save ourselves.
We are made right with God through the atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross and nothing else. Nothing you could do would be good enough to earn your giveness and entrance into heaven. Ephesians 2:8-9 8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Paul wrote to Titus: Titus 3:5-7 5Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; 6Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; 7That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Jesus Christ is not interested in our outward conformity to a moral code, he is interested in transforming our heart.
