“But Zach,” some will say, “what about all the passages that tell us to perform our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12), to be perfect (Matthew 5:48), to fight for holiness (Hebrews 12:14), to show our faith through our works (James 2:18), and much more?” Here`s what you need to keep in mind – every passage that encourages you to do works should be applied by someone who already understands that they are saved by faith alone! As a legalist, I tend not to be able to rest in grace because I will remember the passages that tell me to do good deeds and use them to fight against the passages that teach me grace. However, these commandments can only be applied to Christians who have already heard and accepted the gospel of grace. I don`t give my son orders to become my son. I give him orders because he is already my son and I already love him. We cannot go back those two things. In principle, there is nothing wrong with isolating oneself or abstaining from certain foods. God calls people to a life of celibacy and to give up certain foods for a while. Paul was such a person (1 Corinthians 7:8; 8:13). The problem arises when we tell others that they must do works to be a true Christian. When we do this, we practice legalism. But legalists like to set up extra-biblical rules by which they can judge those who do not respect them. It is an emphasis on the outside, not on the heart before God. Thus, a man may be secretly enslaved by pornography or greed, but if he follows the rules that everyone can see, he is considered spiritual.
Jesus accused the Pharisees of this kind of thing. They honored God with their lips and rules, but their hearts were far from Him (Matthew 15:1-9). And I fell in love with the Galatians. Nearly 25 years later, I have preached or taught through the Galatians five times and read it meditatively dozens of times. Nevertheless, I have not exceeded my need to walk on a path paved with the grace-saturated words of this letter. I suspect I`m not alone, so here are six reasons why I will never be able to leave the Galatians behind. They compare their performance to others and cannot believe that God wants to have anything to do with others because they do not meet the standards that they themselves do not meet. Although they say that they know and can quote that Jesus died on the cross for their sins so that they would not be judged by their works, they operate from a meritorious mentality. They suffer from Christian legalism. These fake teachers were caught in the shadows, but they ignored reality! They were in all kinds of rules, but they were not in Christ. It would be like admiring a famous person, but when you met him, instead of looking at him, you fell on the sidewalk and said, “Oh, look at that shadow!” That`s what these bad teachers did.
They were so captivated by the ceremonial aspects of the law that they lacked the One to whom these ceremonies and laws were reported! They embraced His shadow, but they missed Christ Himself! “Hi Zach,” replies a group of people sitting in a semi-circle, “thank you for sharing with us tonight.” Paul adds that these false teachers (the singular pronoun, his own, may refer to a major teacher, but more likely is a generic way of referring to them all) “took a stand on visions he saw, inflated for no reason by his carnal mind.” Perhaps they based their worship of angels on visions they had supposedly seen. And they were swollen with pride in their visions. But Paul says they were only bragging about meat. Most likely, if we are confronted with those who believe in legalism, they will not take it well and will even be hostile to us. Even if this is the case, it is better to educate the ecclesial community about the truth of legalism and the many flaws it contains. When legalism enters the Church, it begins to cause divisions between those who believe in legalism and those who do not. As those who know that legalism is false and unbiblical, we must help point out to others that legalism is not right. And from the Garden of Eden, we have tried (with Satan`s help) to rewrite the gospel to somehow incorporate merit. As human beings, we are addicted to the rules.
Just as a daughter obeys her Father, we are asked to obey Heavenly Father. We persecute God because we know that we have been redeemed from the futile ways we inherited from [our] ancestors, not with transitory things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18). Peter`s education resembles war. We prepare our minds for action and fully direct our hope to the grace we have in Christ (1 Peter 1:13), which is not legalism but faith. I would like to make three observations that emerge from our text to help you understand legalism: 2. I believe that we can easily fall back into legalism because we want things to be simple. 6. Show grace. In fact, you`re harassing people with that. Show it off when you don`t feel like it, when it doesn`t make sense, and especially if you`d feel better off doing it differently.