Thinking Like a Christian
A
series of Scripture meditations on what the Bible teaches about the
Christian life.
by Pastor Pete Beck III
These meditations are copyrighted,
but feel free to download them for
personal use or to forward to friends.
the perplexing complexity of the desire to be under legalism
My children — I am again undergoing birth pains until Christ is formed in you! 20 I wish I could be with you now and change my tone of voice, because I am perplexed about you. 21 Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not understand the law? Galatians 4:19-21 (NET1)
For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace. 5 But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us. 6 For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love. 7 You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth? 8 It certainly isn’t God, for he is the one who called you to freedom. Galatians 5:4-8 (NLT)
Why did the Galatian church so quickly abandon the true gospel of grace in order to adopt the legalism of the Judaizers? Why are people so easily captivated by a works based version of Christianity (which is not Christianity at all)? Why do we have such a hard time understanding and believing in grace? These questions are perplexing and reveal the depths of depravity that lurk deep within our hearts.
The Law was given for three reasons: to define and expose our sin and hold us captive until our Savior appeared to deliver us. Paul wrote to the Galatians that the Law was a "child conductor," a pedagogue, whose job was to escort the child from home to his tutor (Christ).
Before the way of faith in Christ was available to us, we were placed under guard by the law. We were kept in protective custody, so to speak, until the way of faith was revealed. 24 Let me put it another way. The law was our guardian [pedagogue] until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. 25 And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian. Galatians 3:23-25 (NLT)
The writer of Hebrews made it clear that it was impossible for the Law to actually save us because we are fatally flawed at our core.
If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it. 8 But when God found fault with the people, he said: “The day is coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. 9 This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt. They did not remain faithful to my covenant, so I turned my back on them, says the LORD. 10 But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day, says the LORD: I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 11 And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the LORD.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already. 12 And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.” Hebrews 8:7-12 (NLT)
We do not have the capacity to actually obey the Law. The New Covenant ingeniously skirted this problem by bypassing our persistent sinfulness. Instead of our having to obey the Law, God's Son came to do it for us. He lived the perfect life of obedience in our stead. He also died the criminal's death of the transgressor of the Law in our place. As a result, our death sentence has already been paid. The Law has no more power to condemn us because you cannot die twice.
So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. 5 When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. 6 But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit. Romans 7:4-6 (NLT)
When Jesus died, we died. When He rose, we rose. We now live in the power of his resurrection through the enablement of the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Spirit within us motivates us to obey as dear children who want to please their father. We no longer obey in order to have right standing with God: instead, we obey because we have right standing with God.
The Christian life is not a trial period in which God discovers who will belong to him at the end of the trial because of his or her steadfastness. Instead, we remain steadfast because we belong to God and have His Spirit living inside us. Instead of being a test to see who will measure up and pass into heaven, life is a test that reveals who are his true children and who are not. Those who are really born again will show it they are by how they live.
Now you have every spiritual gift you need as you eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. 8 He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be free from all blame on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns. 9 God will do this, for he is faithful to do what he says, and he has invited you into partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:7-9 (NLT)
Now to some, what I have just written may seem as if I am splitting theological hairs. After all, practically speaking, how much difference is there in the end between the person who is serving God in order to gain or remain in right standing with God and the one who is serving because she knows she already has right standing? Perhaps the results may be the same, but not the motivation, and motivation is a very important component of our obedience. The legalist is motivated by fear; while, the person who understands grace is motivated by appreciation and love. One comes from fear and the other from faith, and we know that only that which comes from faith is pleasing to God and only that which is motivated by love has any value in God's eyes. So there really is a huge difference between serving God legalistically and serving him by grace.
Churches who buy into legalism deny the true gospel message by basically saying that Christ opened the door to salvation, but it is incumbent upon us to keep ourselves thereafter by maintaining our faith and obedience. The true gospel teaches that Christ not only opened the door to faith, but his death and resurrection actually accomplished our complete salvation.
For they don’t understand God’s way of making people right with himself. Refusing to accept God’s way, they cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the law. 4 For Christ has already accomplished the purpose for which the law was given. As a result, all who believe in him are made right with God. Romans 10:3-4 (NLT)
Yes, we must participate and cooperate with God's grace, but ultimately everyone will concede that it was God's work, not ours.
But whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his special favor on me—and not without results. For I have worked harder than any of the other apostles; yet it was not I but God who was working through me by his grace. 1 Corinthians 15:10 (NLT)
The pride of the legalist prevents him or her from receiving this amazing message of freedom called the gospel. The legalist cannot believe salvation is accomplished by God alone because he cannot believe his depravity runs so deep as to render him helpless to save himself.
Legalism preys upon our deep insecurities. It is hard for us to really believe that grace plus nothing not only gives us entrance to the kingdom of God but thereafter will keep us and bring us safely through the last judgment.
Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. 24 God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful. 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (NLT)
Deep down inside our sinful pride wants to be able to claim some credit for saving ourselves. The legalist has complex root of self-righteousness that fuels his insistence that he can indeed keep God's Law. Surely, now that we have the Holy Spirit and our sin nature has been rendered powerless through the cross, we are able to obey God satisfactorily. Yes, this sounds perfectly reasonable, and in fact is true if we derive our power from grace. If however we seek to derive our ability from ourselves, and God knows the difference even when we do not, we will fail miserably. We will experience the Romans 7 irony: the more we try, the worse we do. You see God is not only delivering us from the power of sin: he is also delivering us from ourselves and the insidious religious pride that fuels legalism. It is only when we give up on ourselves that we finally learn what grace is all about.
In reality, the legalist still does not understand the gospel nor has she seen Christ as He really is or herself as she really is. The legalist has failed to appreciate the depths of her own depravity and helplessness, and consequently has failed to appreciate the wonders and depths of God's love and grace as revealed through Christ. When we finally wake up to our own sinfulness and inability, we are ready to become true believers.
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