As I have written before, I think, that legalisms gets a bad rap. People tend to automatically condemn it because they have heard it condemned so many times. I will concede that real legalism needs to be condemned. The question is what is real legalism, or for that matter what is legalism period?
I submit that the problem with legalism is not the law, but the attitude that is applying the law. What kind of attitude I am talking about is one which does not honestly look to see how a law is meant to be applied, but looks to find ways to manipulate and distorted what is actually said in order to get the conclusion you want. Those people claim the commandment that says “Thou shall not steal”, applied originally to the idea of kidnaping people to sell into slavery. Although there might be some application of that thought, it has nothing to do with the original commandment. Yes, kidnaping is stealing. But this is not a command about kidnaping. It is about stealing in general.
This is the kind of nonsense that legalists get into. They distort laws to fit their preconceived system. And then they distort the distortions. All of it works towards fitting others for straitjackets and take away their freedom.
The purpose of meditating on the law is not defining ways to tie a noose for others. That is legalism. Or should I say the evil form of legalism? The purpose of meditating on the law is also not looking for your own personal application to make yourself look better. The time you spend meditating on the law is when you let your mind roll across scripture in the sense of gestalt. You are looking to see how this specific verse or idea applies to the thinking of God.
For instance, suppose you came across the clear statement in the law,
(Deu 16:21 KJV) Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the LORD thy God, which thou shalt make thee.At least it seems a clear statement. I don’t know what the Rabbis made of this but let me put on my Rabbi hat and get legalistic. This would be expanded to include any kind of foliage. You would of course need to decide how many trees were required to be a “grove”. Some ambitious Rabbi might declare how many paces away from the temple this applied. Another would spend pages defining what a pace was. Another might declare this demanded that no wood implement come into contact with dirt. Still another might declare you could not have anything made of wood near the altar. And so forth, you can see how this works.
Someone who is not a legalist might simply say, “Okay, I won’t plant any trees near the altar.” If you were a serious Bible scholar you might actually read the verse in another translation and see that the word for “grove” was really the name of an idol to a local goddess. You might then declare that pagan idols were to be kept out of the local church. That would get you branded as a legalist.
You also need to look at the condemnation that Paul gives to the law. He repeatedly declares that Christians are not bound by the law, that it is death. Note from the first chapter of Galatians,
(Gal 1:8-9 KJV) But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.This false gospel was being pushed by Judaizers who were demanding obedience to the law, specifically circumcision. Paul seems set on this.
Then notice what he writes later, also in Galatians,
(Gal 5:19-21 KJV) Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.He who declared you were accursed for keeping the law lays out a pretty long list of laws and declares that if you do any of them you will not inherit the kingdom of God.
This would seem to be an inconsistency on Paul’s part and in a sense it is. He might have been clearer in what he said earlier. It can still be resolved if you consider what Paul meant by the law. Notice what he says here about himself,
(Gal 1:14 KJV) And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.A key to this is the phrase “traditions of the fathers”. This refers to the volumes of distortions of the written law of God by the Rabbis and collected in the Talmud. Trying to follow the Rabbinical law of the Talmud was an impossible task. It was deliberately made that way by the Rabbis, yet the Judiazers were trying to lay it on the gentile Christians.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Jesus declared the traditions of the elders were corrupt. Paul declared them corrupt. In spite of that seeming condemnation of the law both called us back to following the essentials of Godly, moral living. We are called to live in righteousness and not in lawlessness.
That is my opinion. I would say I am sticking to it but who knows what I will learn tomorrow.
homo unius libri