What an interesting story about the early church The Word of God has just spread to the Gentiles (non-Jews and people from other lands), and they have responded enthusiastically to its message. There were thrilling stories of healings, miracles and dramatic conversions. These new converts were in love with God and 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 happened for which they were not prepared. 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, observing all the laws of Moses and the traditions of Judaism. When they accepted Christ as their Messiah, they assumed that they should continue to follow all the Jewish laws and traditions. And to some extent they were right, at least concerning the moral code, but Jewish tradition had interpreted Mosaic law and added considerably to it. When these Jewish Christians came to Antioch, they tried to impose these rules on the new Christians who hardly knew who Moses was. The first thing they said to these new Christians was: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” This was not exactly good news to adult male Gentiles.
Instead of helping to open up the way to Christ, they put boulders 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 prohibitions — the things they are no longer supposed to do. They put shackles around the feet of new Christians so they cannot dance with the Savior in the new life he has given them. They become the religious police, investigating new believers to make sure they are not doing anything wrong.
It was important for these new believers 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 is saved (i.e. made right with God) by keeping the law. 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 an equal, if not larger, list of things which you are not permitted to do. It makes it appear that one is justified before God by one’s own obedience, rather than the work of Jesus Christ upon 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 that enable us to enter into kingdom life. 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 authentic Christianity. Why is legalism such a problem in the church? There are several reasons, but the first is: Legalism turns a relationship of love into a religion of laws. Primarily, our relationship with God is supposed to be a relationship of love, rather than adherence to a list of laws. I want to be careful here, since we live in a society which often has the opposite problem of the one which are talking about today. In our culture, we have emphasized grace to the point where many people seem to feel that obedience to a moral code is not really necessary. To talk of moral failure is passe. Our culture does not have a problem with legalism as much as it does legalism’s opposite, something I call “Gracism” — that is, an overemphasis on grace to the point that we believe it is not important whether we obey God or not. We carelessly live any way we please, believing that we live by grace and that God automatically forgives us for anything and everything. We almost rejoice in our brokenness and use it as an excuse. We have talked so much about the love of God that we cannot imagine him be so mean as to judge our sin. So let me say in the beginning 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 person break any or all the laws of God. It is a formula for certain disaster. God’s laws are the result of his love.
But we cannot 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 we have added 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. The Gospel is encapsulated in the verse that says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). God wanted your love and wanted someone like you to love. That is why you are here. That is your 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. The Teacher’s Commentary tells us: “The Pharisees were earnestly concerned with the Law and with keeping its minutest detail. But the Pharisees tended to emphasize the ‘oral law’ of the Torah [the first five books of the Old Testament]. This oral law was composed of a vast 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: “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” (Colossians 2:20-22). The biblical principle can be summed up as: All things in moderation.
We don’t want to take this beautiful relationship that we are privileged to have with God and codify it and reduce it to an absurd list of rules. Jesus has come to love us, not to turn us into religious robots who are all alike. Saint Augustine used to say, “Love God and do as you please.” By that he did not mean that you could love God and sin all you want. He meant that when you love God, your pleasure is to do what gives God pleasure . It pleases you to do what pleases him. You don’t need a list of rules to make you do that, it is an obedience that comes from the heart. One lover is doing what pleases the other Lover.
The second problem with legalism is: Legalism turns people from encouragers into fault-finders. I have known Christians who would never consider going to a movie, dancing or having a glass of wine, but think nothing of being mean and critical. They come across as proud and arrogant and cause conflict wherever they go. Bean counting rule keepers do not attract people to Jesus. So often the world sees us as finger pointing, guilt-mongering, fault-finders rather than people who are holding forth the Word of life. And I have to admit that is often how I have come across at times in my life. We should be people who are interested in helping others become transformed into the people God wants them to be, but sometimes we are guilty of merely shaming them. Here is how the world often sees us. This is a picture of Gladys, Ruth Buzzi’s character as the little old lady from Laugh In who loved to go around wacking people with her purse when they upset her. She kept a scowl on her face, her hair pasted down, and had really bad taste in fashion. I keep seeing the “Church Lady” — Dana Carvey’s character on Saturday Night Live — when I think of this. The world paints us as rigid and joyless. They think we don’t know how to have a good time. But these caricatures of Christians are not without some legitimacy. We have often been pointing our finger at the people of the world instead of putting our arms around them to lead them to Christ. Legalism turns us into uptight people who turn others off to Christ rather than turning them onto him. Our task is to be encouragers
How is it that our disposition can be so sour when the Bible says, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near” (Philippians 4:4-5). It is the joy of God that should be our badge of distinction, not our anger and judgmental spirit. If we had read the whole 15th chapter of Acts today, we would hear James respond to the intrusion of these legalists by saying, “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God” (Acts 15:19). He would say the same thing to us today: “Don’t make it difficult for people to turn to God.” Don’t miss the obvious reality that someone is turning to God because you are so anxious to get them to observe laws or merely Christian tradition. Open the way instead of standing in the way with your 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 quite well without our help.
In the end, the leaders of the chrch wrote a letter to the new Gentile converts and said, “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, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5).
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. Rather, 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: “‘This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33).
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 forgiveness and entrance into heaven. The hymn says, “Could my tears forever flow, Could my zeal no languor know, These for sin could not atone; Thou must save, and thou alone. In my hand no price I bring; Simply to thy cross I cling.” The Bible puts it like this: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Paul wrote to Titus: “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).
Jesus Christ is not interested in your outward conformity to a moral code, he is interested in transforming your heart. It is an inside job. And when your heart is transformed, you will fall in love with God and want to do his will. It will not be a burden, but a delight. Demanding that people obey rules can’t begin to touch what God is really wanting to do for them. Just keeping the law misses the point completely.
A pilot was taking his family in a light seaplane into British Columbia. When he attempted to land offshore in the ocean, the plane’s pontoons caught and flipped the plane into the icy waters. The pilot and his family managed to get out of the plane, but it quickly sank, and they had to swim a half mile to a small island. They were injured from the crash, and had to survive three cold days before being found. Another plane saw them, quite by accident, as it was flying over. An official search was initiated at the time of the accident because of the distress signal, but the searchers arrived at the scene just as the airplane was sinking and assumed no one survived. The man in charge of the rescue called off the search almost immediately. When the family was eventually brought back safely, the official in charge of rescuing people defended his decision to call off the search, by saying: “They (the people whose plane crashed) did all the wrong things; they left the scene of the accident and left no indication which way they had gone.” Here was a man who could follow rules, but who could not follow the leading of his heart. Technically, he had followed the rules and done things correctly (since he had read in a manual that you should never leave the scene of an accident, and if you did, you should somehow indicate where you have gone), but no one in their right mind would believe he did the right thing.
I have known a lot of people who were extremely good at following all the rules — dotting all the “I’s” and crossing all the “T’s,” but who missed the bigger picture of kindness, love and decency. You can be exactly right when it comes to following the rules, and all wrong when it comes to following the heart of God. Jesus warned us not to be like the Pharisees whom he described in this way: “Do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them” (Matthew 23:3-4).
Rodney J. Buchanan
September 12, 2004
Mulberry St. UMC
Mount Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
The Scourge of Legalism
(Questions for September 12, 2004)
1. What experience have you had with legalism? What was your response?
2. What about the opposite danger of “gracism”? What happens when people believe that rules are unimportant?
3. Read Galatians 5:1 & 5:13. How do we find a balance between legalism (I have to earn my way to heaven through good works) and gracism (I’m living by grace so I don’t have to worry about obeying any rules)?
4. Read Galatians 2:4. What is Christian freedom? Do you believe most Christians are living in this freedom?
5. Why is it sometimes hard not to judge?
6. Is it judging to recognize that someone is actually living contrary to a clear moral law? What is our attitude to be toward them?
7. How does the church become a welcoming community with compromising its moral stance?
8. Grace allows us to become authentic and stop wearing masks to impress other people. How can we be more of an authentic community?
9. So often the world sees the church holding a list of “should not’s.” How can we help them to understand the positive reality of being a Christian?
