Do you remember laughing over those outrageous laws still on the books in some cities? Like, it's illegal to walk a pig across the street on Saturdays in Podunksville! We laugh and wonder how anyone could seriously make such ridiculous laws. Then we look back on some Christian "laws" of the past century and laugh a little less loudly, but still wonder how anyone could seriously have proposed them: no mixed bathing, no shopping on Sabbath, no shaving for married men. The Christian who ridiculed these customs experienced considerable pressure to conform or was excluded from close spiritual fellowship.
Jesus regularly encountered and withstood similar issues. Among the Jews, keeping the Sabbath was a major issue. It governed their lives almost as rigidly as Monday night football in the U.S. governs the lives of some people. The keeping of the Sabbath was the ultimate mark of a faithful Jew. From sundown Friday to sundown Saturday faithful Jews celebrated the sacred Sabbath. Rituals of family worship and the prohibition against any work controlled the day. Even when the Jews were captives in a foreign land, observing the Sabbath gave them a sense of identity and dignity as a people.
Jesus showed that God's intention for the Sabbath had been obscured by legalistic rules. Three gospels (Matthew 12:1-8; Mark 2:23-28; Luke 6:1- 5) record the incident of the grain fields. The disciples were hungry, so as they walked through the field, they stripped grain off the standing stems and ate it. The Pharisees were there to confront them. Jesus directly answered these "enforcers," using King David as an example. Hungry and weary from battle, David entered the House of God and ate the consecrated bread.
Jesus stated both a principle of the Sabbath and of any legalistic rule: "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Consequently, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27-28).
Later the Pharisees tested Jesus by seeing whether He would heal a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath. Jesus did heal him, challenging them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save a life or to kill?" (Mark 3:4). Jesus tried to break through their tradition to the heart of what God intended.
Through the centuries people have built up traditions, rules, and laws to govern the activities of Christians. Human beings gravitate to rules so they do not have to think for themselves. We at once both resist and value the rules. We resist rules because we tend to rebel against any restraint, we value rules because they provide boundaries for conduct whether or not we intend to observe them.
Living under grace is almost too great a freedom. Thus churches and other Christian groups set up various rule systems for Christian conduct. We may laugh at the puritanical practices of the past, but we also need to examine the rules we impose today, which may be laughed at by the next generation.
At this point it would be easy to embark on a "hit list" of rules and traditions that need to be destroyed, but that would be fruitless. It would make some of you angry both at what was on the list and what was not. We all have our favorite excesses and our favorite touchstones of external fidelity to Christian living.
The issue is deeper, much deeper, than specific rules. The real issue is legalism. Legalism systematically attacks and destroys the purity of the gospel. It substitutes rules for faith, traditions for spiritual thinking, boundaries for freedom, and law for grace.
Legalism often grows out of well-intentioned guidelines for living. A few godly people pray and seek God's will as to how they should live. They set certain patterns for themselves. Were it to end there, all would be well, but it doesn't. Usually they then impose those same guidelines on others, depriving them of the invaluable experience of seeking God for guidance in their own conduct.
Unfortunately, many of these legalistic rules have no clear biblical basis. Instead, they are secondary or derivative extensions of biblical principles usually from passages on the care of the body, the weaker brother, or association with the world.
They often become hopelessly confused with commonly held traditions of a specific culture.
Legalism obscures and confuses grace in the mind of the unbeliever causing him to live by law or fear, though saved by grace. He sees the rules and concludes that keeping them makes one a Christian. The unbeliever then either rejects the rules and turns away, or accepts them, becoming duped into believing that he is now saved.
Look around you at churches where the rites of membership blind people to the truth of grace. Think about the rituals of many cults. They all began with small excursions from the truth that seemed so harmless at the outset. Then they grew into rules and rites of fellowship.
Paul saw this so clearly in the Galatians' church: "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel" (Galatians 1:6). A different gospel? Was it not just a little dispute over circumcision and association with Gentiles? Didn't Paul overstate the case? No, he saw clearly that anything added to the gospel creates a different gospel.
Surely a believer could choose to be circumcised. It would do no harm. But soon his son or neighbor might be circumcised, thinking it was the ritual initiation into salvation. "Do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1), Paul declared, recgnizing that the law enslaves. Only grace frees.
I can preach and teach on grace, but I am still a legalist at heart. In one occasion my wife and I were traveling in 100-degree heat in northern Texas, and Mary was six months pregnant. It was our anniversary. Where did we go that night? To church, of course, in a strange town and in misery. I was constrained! I was legalistic. It took some time for me to realize this and then to begin a process of change. Yet that change was necessary for me to grow in a deeper understanding of grace.
Every time I interact with my four children on issues of conduct I am torn between setting rules I think are right for their good and the danger of legalism. I remember many discussions on conduct for which I had no significant foundation. I meant well. I still do. And some restrictions are still in place. Yet I squirm as I write this for I see some of my own inconsistencies and especially my history. I am still learning.
Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath and of all those rules that we allow to be placed upon us. When we live under His lordship, we freely choose to do or not do many things. We avoid sin and worldliness. We long for holiness. We want to be truly like Him. But we cannot force someone else to conform to our leading from Christ.
To leave the discussion here could create considerable confusion. Remember, the topic is legalism any action, activity, or rule that I perceive will earn grace with God. But rules or rituals can never do that.
Are there rules that a group may accept as guidelines for conduct? Yes, but very carefully, rarely making them a test for fellowship. We do want to influence people to holy living, but not mandate the externals. We want to grow from internal conviction, not external rules.
When Christ is truly Lord of my life, I see others not according to their observance of rules, but by their spiritual hunger and growth. When there are actions or issues they should abandon, let it be like the shedding of a butterfly's cocoon the natural outcome of growth.
Jerry White writes from Santa Barbara, CA.
