Good afternoon church,

We as humans intuitively know that legalism is a bad thing. We recognize it in other people very easily. Many revolutionary movements in our culture have attempted to overcome legalism. I think of the sexual revolution of the sixties. The thought was, we can escape the rigid legalism of religious norms by abolishing the Biblical sexual values and become free. This is the human solution to legalism – throw out the law. In Christianity, we have also seen attempts to throw out the law to escape legalism. We think we just need to get away from so-called ‘religion’ or unhitch the Old Testament with all its rules. I believe this is done because we feel the awful weight of the slavery of legalism. The problem is that with every attempt to throw out the law, there is always a new law that comes to fill its place. It seems that the harder you struggle against the law, the more tightly it grips you. Maybe you feel this grip on yourself today.

The Galatians had also become enslaved to legalism by relying on the law (Galatians 3:3,10). And yet Paul’s solution is quite unexpected. He does not come to the Galatians saying, ‘you know what Galatians, don’t worry about the law all you need to do is love Jesus and it’s all good’. Paul’s solution to the Galatians’ legalism was not to throw out the law but rather to bring them face to face with the law and all its demands as we see in verse 10, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” I think of the movie quote from Tom Cruise, ‘You want the truth, you can’t handle the truth!’ Paul is saying to the Galatians, ‘You want the law, you can’t handle the law.’ God’s Law is holy and demands perfection. Commit one sin, and you fall under God’s curse and eternal Judgement.

In doing this, Paul is pulling out the very root of legalism which is deep self-confidence and trust in our own goodness. This is why on Sunday, I walked us through four of the ten commandments. You may not think you’re a bad person because you have not done anything really bad, but Christ says that the law says that if you get angry with a brother or sister you are a murderer and are in danger of hell fire (Matt 5:21-22), or if you have lusted you have committed adultery in your heart (5:27-28). The law also says the whitest lie is an affront to God and that any theft no matter how small is wrong. It should make us tremble to see the law condemn us for our sin. Many times, we fail to treasure the preciousness of Christ and his work on the cross because we do not feel the true weight of the law and our sin. We do not realize the holy wrath of God against sin and so we do not realize what it meant for Christ to bear that curse for us.

It is only as we face the law and the realities of sin and judgment that the lie of self-righteous legalism is destroyed. All hope in the law is lost and we can put our confidence fully in Christ who kept the law perfectly and yet became a curse for us. That lie you told or that hateful thought you had – Jesus took those sins and the just wrath of God on himself on the cross so that through faith you can be righteous in Christ and experience eternal blessings in Christ. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1 ESV). We need to be reminded of this again and again because though we may have believed this once, over time we, like the Galatians, can gradually shift our confidence from Christ back to ourselves. Let our confidence be fully in Christ this week and what he has done. We know that Christ “is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb 7:25 NKJV).

God Bless,
 Taylor Ewert