By the Law Is the Knowledge of Sin
- Sabbath and The Law
- 176 Replies
You have identified the main element of legalism. It is an attempt to be declared righteous (i.e., justified) by God on the basis of one's obedience to His laws. His laws include all His dictates that distinguish right from wrong. The first and greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, mind, body, etc. The second greatest one is to love your neighbor as yourself. Perhaps the third and fourth greatest ones are the commands to be perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect and to be holy as He is holy. There are obviously many other laws in addition to these.What do you mean by "legalism"? If it is legalism for God to graciously teach us to obey His law and it is legalism for Jesus to graciously set a sinless example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to it, then legalism would be a good thing, but that is not what I think it means.
Jesus made it clear that fulfilling these laws is not reduced to carring them out in the flesh. Hatred and lust, for instance, break the laws concerning murder and adultery. Certainly, the societal impacts of physical murder are greater than murder committed only in the heart, but that doesn't aquit a person of breaking the law when he hates someone. What this means is that the declaration of a person as righteous must also include a declaration that the person's thoughts and intents are righteous in addition to his physical actions.
You say nobody is perfect, and you are right about that. I think we also would agree that nobody is perfectly holy, that nobody is perfectly righteous, and nobody perfectly obeys God's laws. And if we could discern the thoughts and intents of peoples' hearts, then I am sure we would be even more convinced of these facts.
What does this tell us? As you have already agreed, it tells us that "no one is justified (i.e., declared righteous) by the law in the sight of God" (Ga 3:11). God does not declare people to be righteous on the basis of their obedience to the law because no person passes that test. He knows the truth of the matter better than we do, and even we can sense that nobody is perfect, especially ourselves.
So, back to the question... Legalism is seeking to be declared righteous by God on the basis of our obedience to His laws. It is not simply a declaration from us that we are righteous because we obey God's laws. It is asking God, who knows everything and sees everything, to put His stamp of approval on our thoughts, intents, and conduct and declare that we are in full compliance with His laws. And those who preach legalism tell other people that they should seek God's declaration of righteousness through their obedience to His laws.
If you are not doing this, then fine. There is nothing wrong with trying your best to love God, to love your neighbor, to be perfect, and to be holy (etc). But everyone should understand that God will not look at us and declare us righteous on the basis of our success. He will only declare us righteous if we trust that Jesus' sacrifice for our failures to obey is sufficient for us.
Psalms 145:17 The LORD is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works.
What exactly do you think is being communicated by saying that God's nature is righteous if there is no connection to God's works?
You're welcome.
I stated that there is no such thing as someone being righteous apart from also being a doer of righteous works in obedience to God's law. I did not state that there is no concept in Scripture that faith is counted as righteousness. While the only way for someone to become righteous is through faith apart from being required to have first done enough righteous works in order to earn it as the result, what it means for someone to become righteous is for them to become a doer of righteous works. In Isaiah 51:7, the righteous are those on whose heart is God's law, and in 1 John 3:4-7, everyone who is a doer of righteous works in obedience to God's law is righteous even as they are righteous.
While it is true that Abraham believed God, so he was declared righteous (Genesis 15:6), it is also true that he believed God, so he obeyed God's command to offer Isaac (Hebrews 11:17), so the same faith by which he was declared righteous was also embodied by being an obeyer of God, but he did not earn his righteousness as the result of His obedience (Romans 4:1-5). In James 2:21-24, it quotes Genesis 15:6 to support saying that Abraham was declared righteous by his works when he offered Isaac, that his faith was active along with his works, and that his faith embodied his works, so he was declared righteous by his works insofar as they were embodying his faith, but not insofar as they were earning a wage.
No, the fact that we are declared righteous by faith apart from works does not abolish our need to be a doer of righteous works, which is not righteousness through obedience to the law.
People in the Bible stated that someone else was more righteous than them (Genesis 38:26, 1 Samuel 24:17), so righteousness is not all or nothing, but rather for someone to be righteous means that their life is direct at being a doer of righteous works. Someone being righteous does not mean that they always do what is righteous, but that it is the goal that they are aimed at and when they have not acted righteously, then they repent. Likewise, someone being courageous does not mean that they have always acted courageously, but that their goal is to act courageously and they repent when they have not.
In Titus 2:14, Jesus gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so the way to believe in what Jesus spent hi ministry teaching and in what he accomplished through the cross is by repenting and becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to God's law. We can do works that embody our faith, such as with James 2:18 saying that he would show his faith by his works, so everyone who is a doer of the same works as James has faith in Jesus. The significance of our obedience to God's law is not that is is part of something that we are required to have successfully done first in order to earn becoming right with God as the result, but rather the significance is that it is the way to embody our faith, and it is by that faith that we are made right with God. In Revelation 14:12, those who kept faith in Jesus are the same as those who kept God's commandments. Repentance is inherently an act of faith by turning away from doing what is right in our own eyes towards trusting in God with all of our heart to correctly leads us through His law and he will make our way straight.
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