Legalism is like a malignant disease; the more you try to cure it, the worse it gets. Hundreds of laws become confusing, so you try to arrange them in order of importance. And to do this you have to introduce a few more laws: 1. Laws to tell you which laws are most important.
2. Laws to tell you which law to break if you are in a spot where you can't help breaking one law or the other.
By the end of the Old Testament period there were 613 different rules or laws, in addition to explanations and oral traditions about them. And in time the oral traditions came to be as much "laws" as the original laws themselves. Here is how it worked:
The Law: "In the Sabbath [you] shall not do any work" ( Ex. 20: 10).
Question: Very well, but what is meant by "work"? Just what things are forbidden on the Sabbath?
Answer: There are 39 different kinds of work prohibited on the Sabbath [and the list of the 39 kinds would be given].
Question: Yes, but aren't some of these things almost work but not actually work? How can we tell the difference?
Answer: On those questionable details, you must get a special ruling, so that you don't break the law. For example, it is all right for a woman to tie a knot in her sash on the Sabbath; that is not work. But if the same woman should tie the knot in order to carry water jugs from her waist, that would be work, and it would be wrong.
What happens?
It is very clear what happens. You become so worried about breaking one of the rules, or one of the rules about one of the rules, or one of the rulings about one of the rules about one of the rules -- that all your time is taken up with a meticulous observance of these details. And the notion of a living personal relationship with God (which is what the law was originally all about) is lost and forgotten. So is the idea of loving your neighbor -- who would dare to do a spontaneous act of kindness for his neighbor when such an act might violate one of the demands of the law?
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