Sunday: The Mastery of Legalism
WEEK 36
SUNDAY
THE MASTERY OF LEGALISM
Romans 3:20-26
We come now to consider another mastery in the Acts—the mastery of legalism. Jesus had to put the gospel into the framework of a people whose religion was a vast legalism. The center of that faith was the Law. That Law, which was good, degenerated from Law to laws. To the central core of moral Law they added innumerable ceremonial laws. Soon the ceremonial laws took precedence over and obscured the moral Law. Jesus struck at this when he said:
How terrible it will be for you blind guides, who say, “If people swear by the temple, it’s nothing. But if people swear by the gold in the temple, they are obligated to do what they swore.” . . . You say, “If people swear by the altar, it’s nothing. But if they swear by the gift on the altar, they are obligated to do what they swore.” You blind people! (Matt 23:16-19)
All that confused and irrelevant legalism, which resulted in an outwardism, of which the Pharisee was the perfect example, had to be replaced by a “new covenant, not based on what is written but on the Spirit, because what is written kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3:6). The people of this new covenant “weren’t written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God. You weren’t written on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Cor 3:3). The new law was written within. The outwardism was replaced by an inwardism, which became the law of love. The spring of conduct was not in duty but in love. “Love God and do as you like” became the expression of a love that would make you like what God loves; and you would do it out of love for God.
As Jesus had to replace the first covenant—which had become a legalism—with a new covenant—which was the law of love—so he had to replace the Jewish Sabbath with a new kind of Sabbath. The old Sabbath was so overburdened with intricate and impossible and irrelevant restrictions that Jesus couldn’t redeem it. So he replaced it by a Christian Sabbath with a new basis and outlook.
O Christ of the Discerning Heart, we thank you that you are the Great Emancipator, freeing us from the irrelevant little to the relevant big. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I shall base my life, not merely on the restrictions of law, but on the release of love.