THE DANGER OF LEGALISM
INTRODUCTION
A. (Gal.4:8-11) Within our text we have Paul asking the Galatians a question – “But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage?”
B. Many view the Galatian epistle as a warning against turning from the Christ to the Law of Moses. But this is not the case. It was something that Paul said they were turning unto “again” !!! The background of the Galatians was paganism, not the Law of Moses.
a. the Galatians’ “weak & beggarly elements” were summed up in the phrase “You observe days & months & seasons and years”
b. “the weak & beggarly elements” are simply those things by which people attempt to earn God’s approval by doing good & avoiding bad
c. this is the core difference between a perverted gospel & the unadulterated gospel (some simply accept God’s favor as a free gift while others try to earn it)
C. The unadulterated gospel is simply grace. The gospel plus something else is always more than the gospel alone & opposed to it.
D. It is crucial that we understand grace, & understand how it can be undermined in our lives by its arch enemy – LEGALISM.
a. legalism - essentially any attempt to improve on what God has done for us by adding things that we do for him
b. rather than accepting & being pleased with the approval that he freely offers us because Jesus has earned it for us with his perfect sacrifice, a legalist depends on his obedience to get him to heaven
c. has one foot in the grave – always doomed to failure because we are imperfect and the God that we seek to impress is perfect
d. robs us of freedom, peace & joy (no security)
e. satan’s most effective tool is to undermine the true nature of the gospel
f. one of the reasons that legalism is particularly dangerous because it can look “holy”. But its focus is on externals
I. THE GALATIANS WERE BEING TROUBLED BY A PERVERTED GOSPEL
A. (Gal.1:6,7) Often misapplied by our preachers.
B. Some pharisaic Christians were perverting the gospel of grace, turning it into a different gospel corrupted by Jewish legalism.
a. by today’s standards the pharisees would be considered “Bible believing Fundamentalists.” They had the right “Bible,” believed their Bible was the very word of God & took it literally, spent countless hours reading & studying it, believed the promise of the coming Messiah, believed in angels & the spirit world, and held to every other fundamental doctrine found in their Scriptures.
b. to the Jewish public they were devout, dedicated, godly, & “orthodox,” each a model or example for the common believer
c. ironically, when the God they claimed to serve came to them in person they didn’t recognize Him, and in less than four years they were so opposed to Him they caused His death!
d. their “godly” & “devout” appearance did not reflect the truth. Even though they had a reputation of being extremely consecrated & devout, Christ reserved for them His most searing remarks & criticism. He sternly & publicly rebuked them for their pious attitude & hypocritical behavior while He exercised kindness, grace, & compassion towards those who were publicly branded as “sinners.”
e. today, too many church leaders fall into the mode of being pharisaical
C. (Gal.1:8,9) Perverting the gospel is a SERIOUS matter. So Paul uses the strongest possible warning against it.
D. The people who brought a perverted gospel to ancient Galatia were probably Pharisaic Jewish Christians who just could not bring themselves to fully trust in God’s grace for their salvation.
II. PAUL’S GOSPEL OF GRACE CAME FROM GOD
A. (Gal.1:10-2:10) The evidence of Paul’s conversion, apostleship, & gospel coming directly “through the revelation of Jesus Christ”. The evidence for this consisted of:
a. Paul’s radical change
b. the fact that he did not confer with the other apostles, yet when they got together they observed their messages were the same
c. how the other apostles accepted him as one of them & gave him & Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, infers that they have been embraced in the work
d. God used Paul to rebuke Peter
B. Paul’s rebuke of Peter’s hypocrisy that would have compromised the gospel (Gal.2:11-21).
a. if unchecked, would send the wrong message about the gospel of grace
b. Peter had contradicted the gospel by his actions. The gospel proclaimed that salvation for both Jews and Gentiles was by grace. But Peter’s separation from table fellowship with Gentile Christians implied that salvation for Gentiles required strict adherence to the law and incorporation into the Jewish nation.
c. Paul led Peter back to his own deepest convictions by asking him a question: “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?
d. by his practice of eating with the Gentile believers when he came to Antioch, Peter had already demonstrated that, even as a Jew, he had complete liberty to live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. (In other words, Peter had already made it clear that his convictions permitted him to be free from Jewish food regulations. But now his separation from table fellowship with the Gentile believers forced Gentiles to follow Jewish customs. So while Peter, a Jew, had the freedom to live like Gentiles, his recent act of separation from Gentiles robbed them of their own freedom to live like Gentiles! They were being forced to live like Jews if they wanted to remain in the same church with the Jewish Christians.)
e. Peter’s action was adding work to the gospel & when something is added, it destroys it
III. FOLLOWING CHRIST DOES NOT MAKE ONE A LEGALIST
A. Simple test to check whether you are prone to a legalistic thinking:
a. ask yourself, “How does God feel about me today?”
b. if your answer is anything other than, “He loves me more than I can comprehend”, then you are falling into the trap of thinking that God’s attitude toward you is determined by your performance rather than by His loving character (you’re thinking as though God’s favor is earned rather than freely given)
B. If you are legalistic, then you need to do what Sarah told Abraham to do to the slave woman & her son Ishmael (Gal.4:21-31).
a. “Get rid of that slave woman and her son!” Like Abraham’s Sarah, we must be uncompromisingly brutal in flatly refusing to accept the Ishmael of legalism
b. legalists will bully the Isaac of grace if we allow him to
c. (Gal.1:10; 6:17)
C. Legalists refuse to accept the freedom the true gospel gives. They want to live in bondage to law, so they pervert the gospel of grace into a system of law.
a. they like to be policemen over others
b. they do not understand what keeps one from living a sin-dominated life (Gal.5:13,14; Rom.6:12-14)