“The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people.” Luke 20:19 (ESV)
Legalists of any kind used to make me angry. Knowing the letter of the law is good. But as soon as the law hits the ground, grace and mercy, much less compassion, seem absent from the mind of the legalist. The one who clings to God’s law for their own salvation engages in brutality to the spirit of people. Lashing people to letter of the law as the basis of Christian spirituality creates lasting generational trauma. Who among us is without sin? No one is clean. All need salvation. For all have fallen short of the Glory of God. (Rom 2:23) Yet the legalist will press their position of righteousness to the great harm of others. And now, as I’ve realized, to their own detriment.
First, a story…
We prayed for years for a certain young man to come and worship with us on Sunday morning. He’d come to the house and enjoy meals with us and our kids; we considered him family. But he was hesitant to turn up on a Sunday morning. Knowing his story, I guessed it was shame or embarrassment that kept him away. Then one day he showed up. He came into the building and sat in the back. He had on a t-shirt, jeans and a ball cap. We have no notion of a “dress code” in our Church. We only expect clothes to be worn. We were excited to see him there and during our time of greeting each other in the service, we went to him and welcomed him.
It was a Sunday the kids in our children’s ministry had prepared a special song to sing during the service. So that day, there were grandparents and other relatives who’d joined us to see their young one’s sing. During the greeting time a man, someone’s grandfather, who’d never been to worship with us, and hasn’t been back since, went up to our young friend. He told him it wasn’t appropriate for him to wear a ball cap in Church. He said he should go home and come back when he was ready to dress in the right way. Our young friend left the gathering immediately. He hasn’t been back.
Why?
Why did that grandfather feel it was his role to correct our young friend when he’d never been a part of our community? What is it about legalistic misjudgments, like the taboo of wearing a hat in Church, which move people to place someone outside of propriety in the gathering of the Church? The answer I’ve found, as bent as it sounds, is that the grandfather was trying to protect my young friend. The grandfather believed that hats in Church were an offense to God and the people in the gathering. Likely, the old man was a part of a Church where “head-coverings” (1 Cor. 11:4) were prohibited on Sunday mornings. Maybe he grew up in such a community. I can imagine him as a boy being chastised, like my young friend, for coming into the gathering wearing something deemed inappropriate. Maybe it really hurt him. I also can imagine the acquiescence of the grandfather as he came of age, wanting to belong to a community without pain, and conforming to all their legalistic notions.
I’ve developed pity and compassion for legalists for this reason. They are trapped. They are confined to a prison of behavior, of outward appearance and speech. In so desiring to live according to what’s good, right and true, they’ve missed the best and most life-giving aspect of our relationship with Christ. They do not understand the freedom of living in mercy and grace. Unmistakably, they will cite mercy and say the word grace. But these words are used in abstract as things awarded to us by God when participating, something conveyed upon effort or mental realization. But they don’t understand that we breathe still on this earth due to grace. We continue to exist and have opportunity to know God through His Son Jesus Christ because of the merciful stay of His hand.
It’s a pitiful state the legalist endures. But the misery becomes worse when legalists pile up into communities. Jesus called them a “brood of vipers”. (Matt. 23:33) That phrase brings an image. For me it’s a crowded five-gallon bucket of snakes swimming in their own venom, biting each other and anyone who enters the brood. It’s a community of righteous veneer with painful social and mental penalties for those who confess their transgressions and unrighteousness. On the outside, I’ve seen legalistic communities appear to have deep fellowship until one of their own inevitably fails. And if one fails publicly, the resulting carnage then reminds the rest never to confess or even acknowledge their sin. To do so would subject them to being penalized socially and devoured.
The grandfather saw a young man who’d obviously never been in Church before. And when he told him his cap wasn’t appropriate, he was trying to keep him from being devoured. Grandfather was trapped in a non-Christian belief wrapped in Christianity. But certainly, the lesson was hard learned for the grandfather from a community of vipers someplace else. In the Bible, it says the scribes and chief priests, the religious experts who lived in their own bucket of venom, “feared the people”, when Jesus’ parable seemed to implicate them. The parable described how the tenants of the vineyard owner abused and mistreated the children of their master. It was fear the scribes and priests experienced when the truth of their behavior confronted them.
Fear. Not faith.
Fear is the basis of legalism. If one doesn’t adhere to the law perfectly, then punishment will inevitably and assuredly come to the law breaker. This is anti-Gospel because it’s not so in Christ. The mercy of God is present; His grace is made real in our lives because Christ satisfied the law on our behalf. The exist in legalism is an attempt as self-salvation. But like any attempts of saving ourselves, they only turn to chains.
I pray daily for those caught in the prison of legalism to be set free. I pray for their point of grace. I pray they will understand the depth of God’s love by knowing the profound and complete ways He’s covered all our sin through Christ. (Gal. 6:1)