Tag: 1 Peter

Legalism – Making Them Jump the Fence

“Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” (2 Cor 3:17)

We like to reverse this and say “Where the Lord is, there is a crushing millstone of Law to hang around your neck.” We tend to think that if the doors are left open, sin will just waltz on through.

The church is called to be holy, a light to the world, and the moral behavior of its members is one of the ways it can do this. There is a difference, however, between moral principles and legalism. One helps in fostering life and fellowship.  The latter tears down and separates. The latter lifts one up at the expense of others.  The latter crushes the spirit under a weight of guilt. “The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.” (2 Cor. 3:6) Worst of all, legalism destroys unity with arbitrary rules of supposed holiness, separating the light into smaller and smaller candles, and content to enjoy the warm glow under the bushel.

Legalism takes good principles and attempts to stomp out sin by imposing additional regulations that are nowhere found in Scripture, and then pretends that fulfilling these regulations actually fulfills the full council of God. But often, they are just the external trappings, whitewashed tombs. They never reach the heart, and because of that, they have no real value to curbing the lusts of the flesh.

Christians should love the standard, and not be caught up in loving the external appearances of the standard.

Confusing the Externals

Here are some examples to show the difference:

1. Modesty in dress. The principle in Scripture is laid out in the following verses, mostly directed at women.

likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. (1 Tim. 2:9,10)(ESV)

Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. (1 Pet. 3:3-4)(ESV)

And then there is the general thinking of not being conformed to this world, and not being a snare of lust for fellow brothers.

The person who loves the standard of Scripture will keep these things in her heart as she chooses a wardrobe, always dressing with discernment. This may mean different apparel for different occasions.  There probably won’t be hard and fast rules. If in doubt, they will ask older women of the congregation. (Titus 2:3-5, )The advice she receives will vary.

The legalist comes along and says:

  • Don’t wear pants at church.
  • Only wear shorts if they are below the knee.
  • No tank tops.

The list goes on.  And if you do these things, you will be modest in my eyes.

While these might be wise and prudent measures, they are no where found in Scripture. And what’s more, following all of these rules doesn’t even mean one is being modest. Pretending that that’s the case just distracts from the real point of the passages: to not be distracted from having internal beauty and to be clothed with good works

2. Forsaking the assembly.

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Heb 10:24,25)(ESV)

The legalist steps in and says that if you miss any scheduled service of your local church, for any reason other than sickness or uncontrollable circumstances, you are violating this passage. On the flip side, if you do attend these services, you are just fine, and are healthy spiritually.

Even though there are no details given.  This is not referring to some special, definitive “assembly.”  Using it in this way also stretches the word “forsake” into realms that make no sense. If I miss dinner a few times per month, does that mean I am forsaking the practice of eating?

The verse is simply talking about getting together with other believers.  Legalizing around the principle (treating attendance at official church meeting times as a measure of spirituality) distracts from the principle. 100% attendance doesn’t really say anything about the heart.

Let’s take a typical church that has two Sunday services with Bible study, and then one meeting time midweek. That’s about four hours.  There are 168 hours in a week. Take out 56 hours to account for sleep, and all the assemblies make up only 3.6% of your time.

So if you are only assembling during the established church meeting times, what are you doing with the other 94% of your time? Maybe only assembling 3.6% of the time is “forsaking the assembling of yourselves together.”

The one who loves the standard will love meeting with other Christians, and yes, that probably includes the scheduled times of the local church. But it also includes so much more.

3. What goes into a man’s mouth.

There really is nothing new under the sun.  Despite much Scripture that says the contrary, people still decide to determine the level of someone’s faith and standing with God based on what they eat and drink.  The most obvious illustration are attitudes toward alcoholic beverages. It can also be seen when looking down on people who don’t partake of only “fair trade” goods or organic food, or don’t eat only “free-range” meat that hasn’t been sacrificed to the idols of American mass consumerism. These are the same quarrels.

Paul calls this worldly thinking, and the Scripture against it is numerous and clear.

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—  “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” ( referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. (Col. 2:20-23)(ESV)

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. (1 Tim. 4:4,5)(ESV)

it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person. (Matt. 15:11)(ESV)

And there is the entirety of Romans 14.  It also deals with abstaining for the love of a brother, and that is important, but an entirely different issue.  Choosing to voluntarily abstain out of love is a far cry from looking on another in condemnation because they don’t abstain from what you abstain from.

Again, you can make an argument that abstaining from something might be wise and prudent.  But, based on Scripture, you cannot make it a hard and fast rule, nor a basis of fellowship or dis-fellowship. Who are you to judge another man’s servant?

Besides, it’s always possible to out legalize a legalist.  There are always ways to make up rules and pretend to look more righteous than others.  That’s part of why its such a danger to unity.

Oh, you don’t use a single loaf of homemade, made from scratch, unleavened bread for the Lord’s Supper?  Tsk, tsk. If your mother asked you to pick up bread for dinner, would you come back with saltines? Is God less important than your own appetite?

See how easy that was?

The Moral Playground

Enforcing moral principles means putting a child into an elaborate, fenced in playground, with swings, slides, monkey-bars and tunnels. The only rule is to stay inside the fence.

The legalist puts a child into the same playground, and then tells them they can either sit on the bench or play on the slide.  And if they play on the slide, they can only go down feet first. And worse, they look at the other children doing other things in the playground, and then claim that they aren’t really playing in the same playground. It nullifies the grace of God.

The first encourages wisdom and responsibility. The second, besides eliminating joy, leaves no room for freedom. There is no real discernment of the principle.  As soon as the legalist isn’t there, the child is probably going to run and jump the fence the first chance they get, trying to find a “better” playground.

A good rule of thumb: when looking at yourself and the planks in your own eye, have exacting, uncompromising standards.  When looking at the specks in other people’s eyes, grace should reign.

Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. (Rom. 14:4)(ESV)

And don’t be what Paul calls a false brother and spy on the freedom of others. (Gal. 2:4)

What other examples of legalism have you come across?  What is the true principle behind them? How can we learn to love the standard and see that love in others?

What’s that?  You don’t read at least seven chapters of the Bible every single day?  You must not really believe the words of Psalm 119.

Pilgrims in the Promised Land…Just a Passing Through?

It is appropriate that Abraham, the father of our faith, should be listed in Hebrews 11 not just once, but twice. The writer gives more words only to Moses. The first time deals with Abraham’s call to leave his father’s house.

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (Heb 11:8-10)

Abraham was a sojourner.  A pilgrim. More than that, he was a sojourner in a land that God promised him, and since God promised him, he knew that, in a sense, it belonged to him already. God blessed him so much that the Hittites called him a mighty prince (Gen. 23:5), powerful rulers sought to make alliances with him and his offspring (Gen 21:22,23), and he defeats an alliance of five kings with only 318 men (Gen 14:15). Not bad for a sojourner.

Not bad, at least, when compared with the kind of sojourner we normally assume the New Testament writers are talking about, especially when referring to Christians. Peter tells us to “pass the time of your sojourning here” (1 Peter 1:17) and then again saying “I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11).

A whole tradition has grown from the idea of being a pilgrim or alien of the world, sharpened by Paul’s language of citizenship, and colored with Greek and gnostic philosophy in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries. It can be summed up nicely in the song “This World is Not My Home.”

This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through.

In essence, our true home is in the heavenly realm, and someday, we will finally leave this wicked, corrupt world and be able to return home.  Our pilgrimage will be over. The rest of the world can literally go to Hell.

But is this the picture we get? Is this really what being a pilgrim in the world means?

Was Abraham, the first sojourner of faith and the context for the New Testament use of these terms, just a passing through the promised land?

To ask the question is to answer it. Abraham even performs a symbolic act of staking his claim in the land of Canaan.  He buys a field from one of the Hittites to bury Sarah, and then his own bones are laid to rest in the same tomb.  The conquest didn’t start with Joshua.  It started with Abraham after the death of his wife.

Abraham is a pilgrim in the promised land, which means he is called a pilgrim in his own land.  And he knows it.

How does this relate to the children of the promise today?

First, we must realize that just as Abraham buying a plot of land was a symbolic act of conquest, the later conquest of the promised land by the Israelites was also a symbolic act of something greater.

For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. (Rom. 4:13)

Abraham was not just promised Canaan.  He was promised that all of the nations through him would be blessed, and according to Paul, this means that he would inherit the world.

And we are inheritors of the same promise.

And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Gal 3:29)

Christ himself says that the meek will inherit the earth. How much time have we spent explaining away the plain sense of this beatitude, when the plain sense fits so well with the promise of Abraham?

Christ has risen.  All authority has been given to him in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18). The new order has been established, God has named his king, and his king will rule at his right hand until all of his enemies bow in homage (Psalm 110:1). And what is the domain of the king?

Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. (Psalm 2:8)

Through Christ, the promise of Abraham will come to fruition. We are pilgrims now in the promised land, heirs of the promise.  But that means we are the advance guard, building wells and establishing alters like Abraham our father, knowing that we wander in our inheritance. For he “hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth” (Rev. 5:10). Creation itself longs for the final victory.

For the creation waits with eager longing forthe revealing of the sons of God. For the creationwas subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know thatthe whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. (Rom. 8:21-22, ESV)

As someone once said, the world is not God’s Vietnam.  He is not scrambling to bring the troops home from a theater of war that is crumbling, in some kind of strategic retreat.

Pilgrimages of the people of God don’t end with a whimper and a sigh.  They don’t end with a rescue.

They end in conquest. They end in victory.

“That God may be all in all.” Amen.

What about you? Have you viewed the call to be a sojourner in this world as a call to simply “hold down the fort?” Do you believe the promises that “the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world”(1 Jn. 4:14)?