Yves Perriard: Legalism Uncovered - What Paul Really Said
Read the transcript below, or watch the teaching's video by Yves Perriard.
What you will hear in this video may completely change the way you understand the law and therefore how you see God, yourself and others.
So, if you saw my last video, you should be convinced that the law is good and righteous, and this explains why Paul and most believers kept the shabbat, followed the feasts and basically made little separation between Judaism and Christianity.
But if you examine the new testament you see as well many verses that seem to present the law in a very negative light. In fact they are so many, and they are so strong that it seems that Paul was against the law. For instance he wrote that:
The law’s expectations are never enough
In Galatians 5:3 he says that "Every man who lets himself be circumcised is obligated to obey the whole law.”
The law leads us to a great frustration
James 2:11 "Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking the whole law!"
The law is a burden
Galatians 5:1-6 "If we put ourselves under the law we are under a 'yoke of slavery'", Paul wrote.
The law cannot make us righteous
Romans 3:20 - “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law”
The law leads us to pride and self-righteousness
You all remember in Luke 18 this Pharisee who looked down on the Tax Collector for not being as zealous in his practice of the law?
The law brings divisions
In the fifth chapter of Galatians Paul says: "Watch out or you will be destroyed by each other", and his conclusion is: "Walk by the spirit because you are not under the law!"
The law brings a curse
Galatians 3:10 - “For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.'”
The law brings wrath
Romans 4:15 - “The law brings wrath”
The law brings death
Romans 7:10 - "I have found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life, actually brought death."
All the verses and many others seem to lead to one shocking conclusion:
There is nothing good to be under the law!
So if the law is good as we saw last time, then how can we explain this apparent contradiction ?
I will give you an answer that is very simple and which explains this puzzling dilemma:
Paul was not against the law; he was against legalism!
Now let me ask you a challenging question: What is legalism? How do you define it?
The webster dictionary will tell you that legalism is a strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law. Others will tell you that it is to keep external laws without having a living relationship with God. Some will argue that it is putting your own laws above God’s laws, or to depend on your own discipline instead of being totally motivated by grace, by faith or by humility.
In my view all those definitions are wrong!The reason is that they all present a strict obedience to the law as being legalistic and bad. They all end up saying that either you follow the law, or you follow grace and faith, you cannot do both at the same time. I believe that when people get caught in this dichotomy, they completely misunderstand what Paul wrote.
Let me give you the key verse that perfectly defines what legalism is all about. Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 1:8 : "We know that the law is good, if one uses it properly." Or as the complete Jewish Bible translates it, “We know that the Torah is good, provided one uses it in the way the Torah itself intends.”
In other words, legalism is NOT in following the law, even to the letter, but in the wrong application of the law.
We see this when some believers in Galatia and in Rome tried to impose the Mosaic law on others so that they could appear more righteous before God and before others. This in turn gave them the right to condemn others and in turn it led to all kinds of tensions within their communities.
To this Paul answered the following: “OK. You want to obey the law to its maximum in order to become the most super-righteous Christians? I warn you it will never be enough. There will always be something more, you will feel increasingly burdened and enslaved by your desire for more obedience, and eventually you will fail. The bottom line is you will never be fully righteous, neither before yourself, before men nor before God, so you should stop with your attitude of self-righteousness and judgement! If you want to live out the law, do it with a completely different motivation”
In other words, Paul wrote that legalism is not having many, even difficult laws by which you try to sincerely live by.
Legalism is trying to impose those very laws on yourself and on others so you can elevate yourself before God and before others. And when they fail, you can judge them and exclude them.
Let me give you an example from my personal life to explain what legalism is all about: When I was a young believer, I joined a denomination that called all their members to have the following lifestyle: Every day you were encouraged to pray and read your Bible. Every day you were supposed to go out, evangelize and find disciples whom you would baptize and personally train. Every day you had to build relationships of discipleship. Most people sincerely practiced those principles, lives were radically changed, and our churches all grew at a phenomenal rate.
But with our numerical “success” those expectations slowly became unwritten laws, and they became the spiritual norm by which we could define 'true disciples'. This in turn gave us the right to put any kind of pressure on weak members and judge every other Christian outside of our denomination. The spirit of love and enthusiasm of the early years slowly left, and heavy legalism came in. So eventually I left but I felt very confused. The reason is that their rules were biblical, but the spirit in which they practiced them was not. They had biblical expectations, but they were all infected by a spirit of control, self-righteousness and judgment.
This, in my view is exactly the same problem that Paul faced. In essence he said: “The law is good, but your motivations and its applications are not! God loves you unconditionally as you are, so love others in the same way!”
This is why Paul came up with a lengthy and elaborated theological filter against legalism. So every time you read the New Testament and find a verse that seems to present the law in a negative light, you know that Paul is not talking about the law, he is talking against legalism. But the genius of his theological model is that it goes beyond the law of Moses. Paul was against any system of rules that would bring any righteousness outside of Christ! He saw legalism everywhere, whether it was in following a certain pagan calendar (Col. 2: 8), in keeping a certain ascetism (Col.2:20), in eating only certain foods (1 Cor.14), in having a certain social status or even in being a man or a woman! (Galatians 3:28). We humans love to use rules so that we can makes ourselves look better than others.
Yes legalism is one of the most deeply ingrained problems of the human race. You will find legalism in every branch of Christianity, where people have taken verses from the New Testament and come up with all kinds of rules to judge others. You see it even in Judaism where the Orthodox have burdened themselves with all kinds of laws to form their own ghettos, and in fact you will discover it in every religion on earth.
And what makes it so powerful and so dangerous is that most of us are completely blind to its influence! We can easily see around us sins like greed, immorality or laziness, but how often do we see legalism? Have you ever heard anybody in your life confessing, 'I'm struggling with legalism'? Or self-righteousness ? Personally I have never heard anybody saying that, and this shows how deceitful and invisible this sin is. This is why Paul took so much time and wrote so many warnings against it.
So what is the conclusion of all this? You want to follow the law, that is the Torah with all its feasts, customs and ethical precepts, and even all the traditions of the Oral law? Great. You will definitively experience all the blessings that are attached to them.
You even want to follow all the of unwritten laws of your church whether for instance you drink alcohol or not, how you dress or how you worship God, no problem.
You want to follow any religious laws that in your conscience help you to better love God and others? Wonderful.
But in all this, watch out to never fall in the trap of legalism. God loves you to death, literally. 'So since He has accepted you, serve one another humbly in love.' Paul says. 'For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”'