Author: Dave

I'm a Christian who has been saved and is being transformed by Jesus Christ and his gospel. Elder and Associate Pastor at Squamish Baptist Church in Squamish, BC, Canada.

While we’re on the subject of legalism…

After yesterday’s post on how to become a legalist Christian in three easy steps, I thought you might want to see what real-world advantages legalism can give you. Check this out:

According to a study, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the “licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behaviour”, otherwise known as “moral balancing” or “compensatory ethics”.

Thanks to this article from the Guardian, now you can see that feeling righteous about obeying self-invented moral standards will allow you to sin in other areas and still feel good about yourself! That’s right—legalism makes a great smokescreen to hide your sin from yourself and sometimes other people as well. If only it worked for God, too, then you’d be all set.

Why does legalism work so great? Well, this unrelated quote from Tim Chester’s book You Can Change (relayed by Take Your Vitamin Z) explains everything:

We all have a strong tendency to want to live by a list of rules—it’s called legalism.

Legalism is appealing for two reasons. First, it makes holiness manageable. A heart wholly devoted to God is a tough demand, but a list of ten rules I can cope with. That was the motivation of the expert in the law who asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” He wanted to justify himself, to tick the “love for neighbor” box. But Jesus’ story of the good Samaritan blew his manageable system apart. Second, legalism makes holiness an achievement on our part. “Yes, I was saved by grace,” the legalist says, “but I’m the godly per- son I am today because I’ve kept this code of behavior or practiced these spiritual disciplines.” One of its by-products is comparison with other people. We check whether we’re holier than other people or look down on those who don’t appear to be as good as we are.

No one thinks of himself as a legalist. Such persons just think of themselves as someone who takes holiness seriously. After all, it has the “appearance of wisdom” (Colossians 2:20–23). But if you want to see a legalist, take a look in the mirror. Deep in the heart of all of us is the proud desire to prove ourselves. Sin is wanting to live our lives our own way without God. The terrible irony is that we even want to overcome sin our own way without God. The struggle against legalism was not done and stored away two thousand years ago in Galatia or five hundred years ago at the Reformation. The battle with legalism takes place every day in our hearts.

This means we need to repent not only of our sin but also of our “righteousness” when we think of it as our righteousness, which we do to prove ourselves and which we think makes us better than other people.

Posted on by Dave 1

Become a legalistic Christian in three easy steps!

I know what you’re thinking! “Dave, it’s been my lifelong dream to become a legalist! How can I do it in three steps? Tell me now!” Well, today’s your day. As someone who has a lot of experience in being a legalistic Christian, I can offer you a few tips on how to become one yourself.

Most people think it’s really hard to be a legalist. They think that being a legalist means attending a King James Only church, wearing a suit and tie or a frumpy dress all day, sporting a crew cut, and complaining about how irresponsible all the “kids” are these days. But I say, “Why go to all that trouble?” You can be a legalist without having to do anything hard!

Here’s the secret. Being a legalist is about putting law above Lawgiver. It’s much easier than the alternative. Why bother pressing on to know Jesus Christ, letting his gospel transform the way you look at the world, and eagerly obeying his commandments out of love? Just become a legalist instead! In fact, you don’t even need God’s law to be one. Here’s a tried-and-true method to help you.

Step 1: Find something good that you feel passionate about.

Are there any political or social causes that you support? Are there any means of self-improvement that you’re working on? Here are a few suggestions:

  • Removing violence, sex, or language from movies
  • Protecting the environment
  • Healthy diet and exercise
  • Prayer
  • Social justice
  • Cleanliness
  • Theology

Step 2: Make up an arbitrary standard of behavior for this area.

This step works best if it’s a standard that you can meet, whereas other people around you don’t measure up. That way, you can feel better about yourself at other people’s expense. Here are some possible rules you can invent:

  • It’s wrong to watch R-rated movies.
  • You’re behaving immorally if you don’t recycle.
  • People who don’t exercise are not worth respecting.
  • A good Christian prays for at least an hour a day.
  • If you’re not donating money to stop AIDS, you are an unloving person.
  • Anyone with a messy house is an irresponsible slob.
  • If you can’t articulate exactly what is meant by the term propitiation, you’re not really a serious Christian.

Step 3: Judge everyone around you by this standard.

Here’s the rewarding part. You can sit back and gloat as you consider how inferior everyone is to you. Or you can work yourself into a frenzy of self-righteous outrage. Either way, you win!

There are plenty of other ways to become a legalist. In my opinion, though, this is one of the easiest methods. Just follow these three steps, and before long, you too will be a stuck-up, self-righteous jerk who doesn’t need a Savior!

Posted on by Dave 20

Jesus is the enemy of legalists (Mark 3:1–6)

One of the challenges of creating a sequel to a good movie is that you have to preserve the feel of the first installment while upping the ante somehow. Sometimes, this is accomplished by exploring the personalities and relationships among the characters (such as The Empire Strikes Back). Sometimes, the stakes of the conflict are raised (Rocky II). And often, the director tries to wow the audience with stunts and special effects that top whatever the first movie contained (every Michael Bay sequel). In today’s passage, we’re going to find a bit of a sequel that does all three of these things.

Last week, as we continued our journey through Mark’s story, we saw the Pharisees getting upset at Jesus because his disciples were violating the Sabbath. Or at least, they were violating the rules the Pharisees had made up about the Sabbath. By turning to the authority of scripture, Jesus pointed out that God’s law was not meant to be an end in itself; rather, it was meant to be a means to help us obey our Lord. That Lord is Jesus himself. The Pharisees had made the mistake of putting law above Lawgiver.

Today, we once again find Jesus clashing with the Pharisees over how the Sabbath day should be observed. It’s the same premise as last week’s conflict. This time, though, we’re going to get a closer look into the mindset of Jesus and the mindset of his opponents. The confrontation will be public. And now Jesus is going to back up his claims with a miracle.

The last time Mark records Jesus speaking in a synagogue, he portrays Jesus as captivating his audience. Both his teaching and the exorcism which followed demonstrated an authority that the people had never seen before. At the time, everyone seems to have approved of Jesus, and he quickly gained celebrity status in the backwater region of Galilee. This time, however, not all of Jesus’ audience is receptive to what he has to say. Through all of chapter 2, Jesus has been questioned by the Pharisees, the Jewish religious leaders who are increasingly troubled by the God-like authority this man is claiming for himself. Now, the conflict reaches its first climax—a tense confrontation in a local synagogue.

When Jesus enters the synagogue, he sees a man there with a withered hand. It seems a little convenient that this man is showing up when all the Pharisees are there to watch Jesus. It’s possible that this man is a plant, placed by the Pharisees “to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.” Regardless, Jesus is faced with a dilemma. Either he heals the man, doing “work” on the Sabbath and condemning himself before the religious leaders, or he ignores the man and does nothing to help him.

Jesus knows a trap when he sees one. He says to the man, “Come here.” The man stands up in the middle of the synagogue. Then, Jesus poses a question which pierces to the heart of the matter: “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” With this rhetorical question, Jesus demonstrates the hypocrisy of his enemies. They have turned the Sabbath into a burden, weighing people down with rules that they have to keep if they’re going to be good Jews. Their rules would prevent this man from being healed! The Sabbath should not be a day of moral drudgery but a day of rest, healing, and reconnection with the Lord. God’s law liberates his people; man-made laws only enslave them.

Of course, the Pharisees can’t say anything in response. Then, Mark records, “He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart.” Jesus responds with mixed emotions. On the one hand, he is furious at the Pharisees because they have perverted God’s law and are using their own laws to prevent a man from getting the healing he needs. Jesus is deeply offended by this self-righteous legalism. On the other hand, he is heartbroken that these religious leaders are so resistant to the good news that would free them from their bondage. He feels sorry for them as they wallow in their miserable condition.

“Stretch out your hand,” Jesus commands the man. He obeys, and the hand is restored to health. Jesus hasn’t done this just for the sake of the man; Mark makes it clear that he’s done it for the sake of the Pharisees. They need to see that the way of life promised by Jesus is superior to their own legalistic habits. They need to see the supremacy of Jesus. Following Jesus is not about inventing a bunch of rules to make you feel more righteous. It’s not about inventing ways to look good before God. It’s about following the God-given law of the Bible with a sincere, teachable heart. You must lay down your old way of living and follow Jesus, your new Lord. Your old wineskins can never hold his new wine without bursting apart.

Sadly, the Pharisees don’t get it. Mark tells us that “they went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.” The Herodians wanted the Jews to conform to the pagan Roman culture; they stood for everything the Pharisees opposed. Yet the Pharisees joined forces with them to get rid of Jesus. And that’s the thing about legalism—eventually, it will lead you to align yourself with the enemies of Jesus and his gospel. You will inevitably find yourself opposed to his kingdom. This is the only path available to a self-righteous person who insists on inventing rules rather than following Jesus Christ.

Posted on by Dave 1

Jesus is the cure for legalism (Mark 2:23–28)

If you hang around evangelical Christian circles long enough, you’ll eventually hear one angry person label another as a legalist. “Uh…what the heck’s a legalist?” you wonder. Well, that depends on who you talk to. In the opinion of many Christians, a legalist is simply someone who wants you to follow a rule that you don’t like. If anyone tries to tell you that you are doing something wrong, then that person is clearly a grim legalist who has not attained your state of blissful enlightenment. I recently sat down over coffee with a man who defended his decision to live with his girlfriend and neglect being a part of a local church on the basis that he wasn’t legalistic about it. Needless to say, I wasn’t as impressed with his righteousness as he was. If I insist that a professing believer follow God’s law, that isn’t legalism; it’s exhortation—and it’s commanded by God (e.g. 1 Corinthians 5).

So what is legalism, really? Well, that’s what we’re going to find out in today’s passage. Even better, when we do find out, we’ll get to know Jesus a little more.

» Read Mark 2:23–28

Our story takes place fairly early in Jesus’ ministry. Up until recently, Jesus has been popular among the Jewish people, and he’s fit their expectations of a Messiah—the Anointed One sent by God to rescue his people and set up his kingdom on earth. However, beginning in Mark chapter 2, Jesus has started doing things that upset the religious leaders of Galilee. He’s claimed all sorts of authority for himself—authority to forgive sins, to associate with sinners, to introduce a whole new life system in place of Judaism. What takes place on this particular day is going to anger them even further.

It’s Sabbath day, which means that it’s a day on which God has commanded the Jews to rest from their work (Exodus 20:8–11). Now, a popular religious faction of Jesus’ day, known as the Pharisees, are especially zealous about obeying God’s commandment. That zeal is a good thing! But the way they go about it is a problem. They’ve created a strict set of commandments which detail what one can and cannot do on a Sabbath day. For example, the Mishnah (Jewish oral tradition) prohibited weaving two threads together, tying a knot in a cord, writing two letters, kindling a fire, or even putting out a fire (!). The Pharisees obsess over defining what work means; obeying the Sabbath law at any cost has become a singular obsession to them.

Not surprisingly, they get upset when they discover that Jesus’ disciples have been gleaning grain from a field on a Sabbath day. Presumably, his disciples got hungry and wanted a snack. The Pharisees are shocked by this egregious violation of their man-made rules; they confront Jesus, sputtering, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”

Jesus responds by insisting that God’s Word be the basis for making moral decisions. He’s not interested in their opinions of what’s right and wrong; he calls them to an absolute, objective standard. “Have you never read what David did?” he asks. This must have infuriated the Pharisees, since many of them probably had the entire Old Testament memorized! Apparently, though, they hadn’t learned much while reading it. Jesus explains the case of David eating the bread of the Presence in an emergency situation when he and his men were hungry (1 Samuel 21:1–9). Only the priests were supposed to eat this bread (Leviticus 24:5–9)! How could this possibly be “lawful”?

Jesus draws a parallel between the bread of the Presence and the Sabbath. In both cases, God had laid out the rules that his people should follow. However, he didn’t want them to adhere to the letter of the law while ignoring the spirit of the law. When obeying the rules would prevent a person’s physical needs from being met, it was lawful in that case to break the rules. Above all, the Lord wanted justice, kindness, and humility from his people (Micah 6:8).

Jesus insists, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The Sabbath is God’s way of getting his people to slow down their busy lives, to rest and remember and reconnect with him. The Sabbath was made for the benefit of his people. It’s not an ultimate thing; it’s just a means to an end. It’s a little like the speed limit on a highway; speed limits are a means to a greater end—safety on the road. If you’re fastidiously keeping under the speed limit of 55 mph, but everyone around you is exceeding 75 mph, you’re not really following the law, because you’re creating an unsafe driving environment. Similarly, the Sabbath is a law that’s meant to benefit man. Jesus is telling the Pharisees, “Keeping the Sabbath is about what’s good for you—not about overloading people with a bunch of man-made rules.”

Then, Jesus adds something of tremendous importance. Considering the fact that the Sabbath was created to serve man, he says, “So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” Jesus is the Son of Man, the messianic figure from Daniel 7:13–14; he has been given a kingdom so that all nations will serve him. The Sabbath was made for mankind, and mankind was made for Jesus. He is Lord of all mankind, so therefore he is Lord of the Sabbath. He gets to define how the Sabbath should be carried out. Jesus is claiming tremendous, cosmic authority for himself.

The Pharisees are obsessed with the law, but they’ve forgotten who the law was written for. They’ve placed law above Lawgiver. And that’s the essence of legalism. We aren’t supposed to follow God’s law out of a grim sense of moral responsibility; we’re supposed to follow it because we love and worship a Person. Don’t obsess over the law. Obsess over a Person—Jesus of Nazareth, Lord of the Sabbath.

Posted on by Dave 2

Jesus will not be the cherry on top (Mark 2:18–22)

Back in high school, I used to work the drive thru at a local Steak n Shake restaurant. True to the name, Steak n Shake has two specialties—steakburgers, which are basically glorified hamburgers, and milkshakes. I definitely developed a taste for Steak n Shake food after working there for a year and a half. I tried out all the shakes and made up my mind which was the best (side-by-side strawberry and orange). To this day, a milkshake just doesn’t seem complete to me unless it’s topped with whipped cream and a maraschino cherry.

I know not everyone likes those cherries, but I love ’em. They’re just the thing to complete a milkshake or a sundae or just about any dairy dessert. They’re a perfect complement to all those death-inducing sugar-and-fat concoctions. The cherry really doesn’t change the dessert all that much. You simply toss it on top to make it a little bit better than it was before.

The temptation for us is to treat Jesus like that cherry on top. Sometimes, we are willingly deceived into believing that Jesus doesn’t demand all of our lives. We think we can go on living how we’ve always lived, while tacking on Jesus as sort of a bonus that makes us feel all warm and spiritual inside. For example, I may go to church on Sunday and call myself a Christian, but in my heart I may find my identity in my career; I’m willing to sacrifice any relationship in order to advance in my field, my performance review is more important to me than God’s evaluation of me, and my mood depends almost entirely on how my day at work went.

That doesn’t sound very attractive, does it? Let’s take a different approach, then. Perhaps I think that pleasing God is all about doing all the good Christian things that good Christians do. I give exactly 10% of my money to the church, take notes from the sermon, listen to Christian radio, vote Republican, and look down my nose at everyone who doesn’t line up with my self-invented religious ideals.

» Read Mark 2:18–22

The really dedicated Jews of Jesus’ day—the Pharisees—would have fit this description pretty well. One of the things a good Pharisee did was fast twice a week. In the Old Testament, the only time fasting was commanded was on the annual Day of Atonement, when the sins of the nation of Israel were atoned for by animal sacrifice. Any other fasting was voluntary. However, there’s a funny thing about voluntary good deeds—they end up being reshaped into moral standards by people who want to look better than others. So naturally, fasting twice a week became the sort of thing that any respectable Jew would do.

Jesus, on the other hand, wasn’t interested in perpetuating a man-made system of righteousness. He had authority over men, so he would not submit himself to their arbitrary rules. His fellow Jews became concerned about this, and they asked him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” Like any good rabbi, Jesus responded to their question with a question of his own: “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?” Jesus leaves no doubt that he is the bridegroom in this analogy. Weddings were a big deal in that culture; they were a time of feasting and celebration and joy. No one—not even the most austere rabbi—would ever fast during a wedding feast! So Jesus can answer his own question, “As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.”

That’s why Jesus doesn’t want his disciples to fast. The practice of fasting is not a custom expressing celebration; it’s a custom expressing need. It communicates a longing for something, whether a longing for forgiveness or divine help or favor with God. Jesus says that those who truly follow him will direct their fasting toward him; they fast because they long for him to be among them and to act on their behalf. And in fact, he says, “The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.” For the first time, Jesus predicts that he will be killed, and then his disciples will mourn their loss of him. Once again, they will fast. But for now, he is with them, and there is no need to fast.

Then Jesus introduces an unexpected twist. He compares the Judaism of the Pharisees to an old garment or an old wineskin. When a new patch is sewn on an old garment, it shrinks and tears the garment. When new wine is put in an old, brittle wineskin, the new wine ferments, expands, and bursts the skin. In the same way, Jesus is explaining, “You can’t just add me to your religion. I will burst it apart. You can’t keep fasting unless your fasts are directed toward me as an expression of longing for me to be with you. You have to abandon your old way of trying to please God and start following me instead.”

Jesus will not be the cherry on top of your old way of doing things. If you try to fit him into your good, moral lifestyle, he will burst it apart. He will tear your life to pieces. He doesn’t fit. Jesus insists that you identify yourself with him, that you long for him more than anything or anyone else. If you try to follow his commandments, to love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself, you will quickly find yourself a broken failure. Turn to him for help, submit to his authority, cry out for the Holy Spirit to empower you, and you will find the joy of being with the Bridegroom.

Posted on by Dave 0