Why is this so foreign to the spirit of the New Testament? Why is it so strongly attacked there? Let us summarize the objections:
Objection One: Legalism forgets that religion is an active relationship with God in love. It reduces religion to "keepingthe-rules-so-you-won't-get-caught." It makes outward behavior more important than inner attitude and motivation. It takes the spontaneity out of Christian living.
Objection Two: Legalism misunderstands the nature of God's love. It makes God's love something you have to earn by keeping the rules, whereas the whole claim of the New Testament is that God's love cannot be earned; it is a free gift, offered to people who are not worthy of it.
Objection Three: Legalism shifts the center of religious concern from God to man. Your number one concern becomes saving your own skin, doing all you can to gain your salvation. It assumes that you can save yourself, whereas the New Testament proclaims that salvation is God's gift to you, and that you are to be concerned about God and his children, rather than being so wrapped up in yourself.
Objection Four: Legalism makes the individual proud. You are likely to start thinking: Say, I'm really doing pretty well. Broke only four rules today, out of 613, and that's batting well in any league. Not bad, old boy; you're really coming along. The minute a person begins to talk this way he is done for. For this is the danger that always threatens the lives of "religious" people -- the danger of smugness, or self-satisfaction (particularly when you compare yourself with certain people you could mention). Jesus' denunciations of the "good" people of his day should be required reading for anyone who thinks he is a cut above his buddies because he goes to church regularly, or reads his curriculum book, or gives a few dimes to the Red Cross. (Take a long, hard look at Matt., ch. 23, as a speech addressed to you.)
Objection Five: One of Paul's main complaints is that legalism has no power. It may tell you what is demanded of you, but it doesn't give you the power to fulfill the demands. All that legalism could do for Paul was to intensify his misery. Paul, in fact, went even farther, in a statement that scandalized his contemporaries: "If it had not been for the law," he says, "I should not have known sin. I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet' " ( Rom. 7: 7). It may be (as most thoughtful Jewish thinkers would argue) that Paul is being unduly harsh as he looks back on his preconversion state. But it is still true that there is something enticing about forbidden activity. "Do anything you want in the kitchen," Mother says to Junior, "but don't put beans up your nose." Immediately Junior, who never thought of putting beans up his nose, can think of nothing more exciting, and spends the afternoon trying to carry out the forbidden experiment.
The one real value of the law, Paul went on, was that it was self-defeating. The more you tried it (as he knew from personal experience), the more you realized that it didn't work. But it could be a "tutor" or a "schoolmaster" unto Christ. By this he meant that if you finally realized that the law was a blind alley, you were more likely to turn to the new liberty for living, which had been procured by Christ. This Paul called standing fast in the freedom for which " Christ has set us free" ( Gal. 5: 1). It was his answer to the futility of living by rules.
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