2: Systems, Rules, Observances
Olympia, WA. October 2, 2009

(A single Adobe Acrobat PDF file with all three talks' notes is available here.)

Main text: Romans 10:1-4

Introduction/ illustration

In one church I pastored I met the quintessential rule-keeper. He was truly obsessed by his law-keeping, and absolutely convinced he had achieved salvation on merit. Not that he would say he was perfect, since he knew that would be viewed as a sinful act. So he encouraged others to say that about him!

He preached a sermon on the evils of vinegar. He complained about a young girl wearing patterned hosiery. He objected to about anything you could think of—from the symbol of the cross to Christmas to

His was the religion of “true grit.” If it wasn’t hard and painful, it wasn’t the true way.

Once I visited him and asked how he saw salvation. This is a summary of what he told me:

“We can only please God by keeping his law. So the Bible says. So I have done what I am required to do, and now God has to do his part. It’s nothing to do with all that cheap grace nonsense. I have done my part, and so God has to let me in. Obedience to the law is the only way. If we do not walk the way of the cross there can be no reward.

“God is my only repose through all of life’s trials, my only consolation. No, I’m a true Christian. Called to suffer and bear all this mistreatment. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. That’s what it’s all about. Drinking from the cup of bitterness and woe, just like the Master. But I shall endure just as He did. For he that overcomes to the end shall be saved.

“We have to work out our own salvation. That’s what the good book tells us. The more we suffer, the more we prove to God that we merit salvation. Our pathway is along the rough way bedewed with tears, and our heavenly reward is just compensation for all we’ve had to endure here. Being happy is a tool of the Evil One to lead us into pleasure-seeking and worldliness. I have set my face against all the allurements of unrighteousness and look to the stern justice of the Returning Judge. Then we’ll see whose right—oh yes, then we’ll see. When all those who’ve done wrong get their just deserts. Oh yes, that will be the day!”

God’s salvation isn’t meant to be Nasty Medicine—the idea that if it’s to do you any good it must be distasteful and unpleasant. Nor do we have to make sure we suffer like a fakir on a bed of nails. (Maybe that was why he thought kneelers and padded pews were so wrong. If praying and sitting in church were painful activities, then surely they were doing you some good, right?)

Self-preoccupied “true grit” salvation? Never in a trillion years! We should be happy with our God and his offer of rescue and redemption, of re-creating us in his glorious image to live with him forever in fullness of joy.

But this rule-keeping believer just didn’t want to know. He wanted to suffer and be depressed. He gloried in his misery as if God’s gift of free and full redemption and healing was the most unpleasant thing imaginable. Just another brand of upside-down salvation that strikes at the heart of what God really wants!

Demonic opposition

The truth of Jesus brings demonic opposition that tries to blot out not only Jesus as individual but also the God he reveals. For the reason the religious leaders want Jesus dead is because his message of grace is totally opposed to their teachings of ritual and requirement.

For them, the freedom offered by Jesus is heresy of the worst kind—for it undermines their elaborate structure based not on grace, but on rules and observances and traditions. Such a system blinds such believers and provides a justification for hatred and anger—for Jesus is seen as the destroyer of all they value.

The emphasis of the scribes and Pharisees—in fact all of the religious establishment—on legality and form of religion is the very opposite of Jesus’ life and teachings. Their attitude led to the killing of Jesus precisely because he did not appear to obey the letter of the law.

You who call yourself a Jew and rely on the written law—you claim to have a special relationship to God. ^You say you know what he wants you to do and how to choose what’s right from what you’ve been taught from the law. You’re absolutely sure that you’re a guide to the blind, a light to those in darkness, ^someone who can set ignorant people straight, a teacher of “children”—knowing from the law all the truth there is to know. So if you’re teaching others, why don’t you teach yourself? Romans 2:17-21 FBV.

Fatal logic

Take a “for instance”:

Around that time Jesus was walking through the fields on the Sabbath day. His disciples were hungry and started to pick ears of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw it they said to Jesus, “Look at your disciples—they’re doing what isn’t lawful on the Sabbath! Matthew 12:1, 2 FBV.

Jesus is confronted by incensed and offended religionists. Their belief structure is one based on what is lawful. That’s the first question “Are you allowed to…?” This is not legalism necessarily, but a stress on legality—the first point of reference is to ask what the law says. So the disciples’ action of simply picking and eating grain is to them a violation of Sabbath law. They see no farther than what they perceive to be a clear breaking of a holy law. Nothing more needs to be said. The law is beyond debate.

Theirs is a fatal logic. Since picking a head of grain is to be equated to reaping, and rubbing the grains between hands is the equivalent of threshing, the disciples are working on the Sabbath. They do not think to ask if this is real work. They would not even dare to inquire why work on the Sabbath was prohibited by God in the first place. If they had done so, they might have decided that picking and eating a few ears of grain was not the same as everyday manual labor. For why did God say not to work? Was it not so we could spend time with Him? And the disciples were already with God in Christ, speaking and listening to him throughout the Sabbath day.

But this is not the absolutist logic of the Pharisees.

In his answer Jesus points to the higher “law” of fulfilling not legal requirements but rather fundamental principles, referring them to the actions of David and of the “work” done by priests on the Sabbath, concluding that:

But I tell you that someone is here who is greater than the temple! If you’d known the meaning of this Scripture, ‘I want mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you wouldn’t have condemned an innocent man. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. Matthew 12:6-8 FBV.

The Pharisees, the self-proclaimed keepers of the law—already incensed—would hardly have taken such words easily. Jesus is claiming to be more important, and to supersede, the very temple—the shrine of the law. And he even claims supremacy as Lord of the Sabbath.

Those Jesus spoke to who were so observant about legal trivia they would strain out gnats, but could not recognize and accept Jesus as God in their presence. They missed the point that:

Clearly whatever the law stipulates applies to those who are subject to the law so that every objection is silenced, and to make sure everybody in the whole word is answerable to God. For no one is made right before God by doing what the law says. The law only helps us understand what sin really is. Romans 3:19, 20 FBV

Mercy not sacrifice

“For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” Hosea 6:6 NIV.

Jesus quotes this verse in responding to the Pharisees’ complaint that he does not observe the laws of not associating with “known sinners”:

As Jesus left there he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth. Jesus said to him, “Follow me!” He got up, and followed Jesus. While Jesus was eating at Matthew’s home, many tax-collectors and sinners came and sat down at the table with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this they asked Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?”

When Jesus heard the question, he replied, “People who are well don’t need a doctor, but those who are sick do. Go and find out what this means: ‘I want mercy, and not sacrifice, for I didn’t come to call those who do right, but sinners. Matthew 9:10-13 FBV.

Those who see themselves as keepers of the faith, observers of the law, and guardians of the received truth—they do not see themselves as sinners. And they are offended by any suggestion that they are not “righteous,” since they are the ones who have defined what is “righteous.” But the truth is very different:

We’re convinced that people are made right through trust in God, not from legal observance. Romans 3:28 FBV.

For God’s promise to Abraham and his descendants that the world would belong to him was not based on his law-keeping, but because he was made right through his trust in God. ^For if the inheritance is law-based, then the issue of trusting God is not valid, and the promise is pointless… Romans 4:13, 14 FBV.

Is it Lawful?

But back to the Sabbath story. After saying he is the Lord of the Sabbath and more important than the Temple, the shrine of the law, Jesus goes ahead and proves it:

Then Jesus left and went to their synagogue. There was a man there with a crippled hand. “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” they asked him, looking for something to accuse him with.

^“If any one of you has a sheep and it falls into a hole in the ground on the Sabbath, don’t you grab hold of it and pull it out?” Jesus asked them. “Surely a human being is worth much more than a sheep! So then it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” Then he said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” The man held out his hand, and it was cured, just as good as the other hand. Matthew 12:9-13 FBV.

The law-based believers are only looking for a cast-iron example of Jesus’ flouting of their religious regulations. The test question is a reflection of their preoccupation: “Is it lawful?”

Jesus’ response is not a rabbinical debate, but a practical demonstration that really upsets the law-minded Pharisees. For Jesus goes to the heart of the question—not dealing with their perceptions of what is or is not acceptable, but what is the purpose of the Sabbath and the meaning of any laws surrounding it. Pointing out the hypocrisy of permitting the saving an animal—a valuable possession—but rejecting the saving of a human being from illness, Jesus shows that customs, regulations and rituals must be judged by the clear principles of right and compassion. “Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath,” he concludes, as if that needed to be said at all!

To prove the point Jesus does just that. He does good. He performs a miracle of healing.

The reaction of the legally-preoccupied is not of joy in the man’s healing, but bitter outrage at this deliberate infraction of Sabbath rules. After all, could Jesus not have waited until after Sabbath, they might have argued. It was not as if a deformed hand was a life-or-death emergency. One more day was not going to make any difference.

It is this attitude that Jesus deliberately confronts. Because Jesus wants to point out what is the right approach to God. Not a contractual law-observance, but a free acceptance of transforming grace.

But they see things very differently, and are furious at this affront to their methods. They see Jesus’ action as a direct attack on their very basis for divine acceptance. Consequently, they just want him dead:

But the Pharisees met together to plot how to kill Jesus. Matthew 12:14 FBV.

Killing Jesus

Here is revealed in complete clarity where obsession with legality leads. Jesus in his deliberate act showed the consequences of such beliefs, and how different this thinking is from God and His gracious salvation. The reaction of the self-appointed defenders of the law is to demand retribution, to exact vengeance, to require that the ultimate penalty be paid.

In Mark’s account, the attitudes and feelings of Jesus to the stubborn Pharisees are apparent:

“Is it legal to do good on the Sabbath, or to do evil? Should you save life, or kill?” he asked them. But they didn’t say anything.

After looking around at them in exasperation, very disturbed by their hard-hearted attitude, he told the man, “Stretch out your hand.” The man stretched out his hand, and it was healed. The Pharisees left and immediately began plotting with the Herodian party as to how they might kill Jesus. Mark 3:4-6 FBV.

Mark adds this mention of the Herodians—the ruling political party. Interesting how religionists and politicians, traditional enemies, join forces to destroy Christ…

Luke gives the feelings of the Pharisees as they reacted to the situation, and the immediate turning to less than spiritual thoughts in dealing with Jesus:

But the religious teachers and the Pharisees became completely mad with rage, and began planning among themselves what action to take against Jesus. Luke 6:11 FBV.

Killing grace. For when the challenge comes to your religious prejudices, the usual response is to strike back. For you feel you have invested so much in the system, you dare not even consider the possibility it could be wrong. Instead you would rather destroy the challenger.

So when grace is displayed for all to see, the controlling religionists take it upon themselves to plot to kill such grace, grace that they see as license and compromise. For if they let Jesus continue, they argue, then they will lose everything.

John explains the telling story, one of subterfuge and expediency that leads to rejection and betrayal. Immediately after the amazing resurrection of Lazarus—proof if ever it was needed of Jesus’ life-giving power—the reaction is plot and intrigue and conspiracy.

As a result, many of the Jews who had come to comfort Mary and saw what happened put their trust in Jesus. Others went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

The religious rulers and the Pharisees met in a council and wondered, “What shall we do? This man is doing many convincing miracles. If we let him continue, everybody will put their trust in him. Then the Romans will take away both our religious system and our nationhood.”

“You don’t understand a thing!” said Caiaphas, high priest for that year. “Don’t you realize that it’s better for you that one man die for the people so that the whole nation isn’t destroyed.” (He didn’t say this just on his own behalf, but as chief priest for the year he was making a prophecy that Jesus was about to die for the nation. And not just for the Jewish nation alone, but for all God’s people scattered abroad, that they might be brought back together into unity.)

From then on they plotted to kill Jesus. John 11:45-53 FBV.

They try all they can to make a legal case against him. The recourse is to law, to their concept of punitive penalty, and they are willing to compromise honesty, truth and justice to accomplish their objective. Strange how such observers of the law could so easily sacrifice such fundamental principles.

So when the end comes, the religious leaders accuse Jesus of law-breaking, even though they have a hard time getting false witnesses to agree, and even though pagan Pilate cannot find any basis for such charges (see Matthew 27:12, Mark 15:3, John 19:7). Jesus dies an outlaw, one who is paying the penalty for legal infraction. Having disposed of the Lord of the Sabbath by making sure he dies before the Sabbath, the law-keepers then go to their homes to keep the Sabbath.

If they had listened to the Sermon on mount, if they had taken to heart Jesus’ “you have heard that it was said… but I say to you,” if they had seen the foolishness of a religious system that made observance more important than relationship, they would not have crucified their Lord. Jesus’s message illustrated how the stress on legality must transformed into the acceptance of grace through the graciousness of God. As Paul says later: “There’s no way I can turn God’s grace into nothing, for if we can be made right by keeping the law then Christ died a pointless death!” Galatians 2:21 FBV.

Set free

The truth is that Jesus came to set us free from all of that. The law is not bad, it just reminds us how we are enslaved to sin. Jesus’ mission is to release us from sin’s power, to heal us from its damage, and to set us free to make true choices, willing us to choose God and his truth for all eternity.

But now we’ve been set free from these legal obligations, and have died to what bound us, so that we can serve in the newness of the spirit and not the old letter of the law.^ What should we conclude? That the law is sin? Of course not! Even so, I wouldn’t have known what sin was unless the law defined it Romans 7:6, 7 FBV.

We are set free from the system, this misguided approach to God that says all he wants is legal observance and for us to follow the obligations of the law. Instead there is a new law operating:

The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus set me free from the law of sin and death. What the law couldn’t do since it was powerless due to our sinful human nature, God was able to do! Romans 8:2, 3 FBV.

System or Salvation?

This is the sad story of killing grace and the immense dangers of setting up a system of ritual observance and legal contract. The Pharisees thought they were special, repositories of God’s system of salvation. But theirs was no system of salvation at all, rather a means of enslavement that led to mechanical worship and personal guilt. That’s why Jesus reserved his strongest condemnation for such “true followers of God,” calling them hypocrites and white-washed sepulchers. For there is nothing life-giving in such a crippling system of punishment and penance.

To save their system they were willing to sacrifice one man for the sake of the people, to forfeit the principles of truth and right and love, and to engineer the cruel death of an innocent man.

Their merciless plotting illustrates just how far we will go to defend our own systems of salvation. In the process, we kill grace, and crucify afresh the Son of God and put him to an open shame (see Hebrews 6:6).

Strange how often we forget, and how we take out our sharpened knives of criticism and condemnation, especially to deal with those in theological opposition. How often come the stories of individuals cut down by other members, of fellow workers mistreated, of characters assassinated, all in the name of some ‘system’ that demands such tributes, such pagan sacrifices.

Even our own theological systems are marred by the ‘judicial’ concepts that led to the rejection of Jesus. That God demands appeasement. That the relationship is based on legal contract. That rule-keeping is more important than understanding.

The terrible danger is not that we may have an imperfect and incomplete awareness of truth, and especially of salvation, but that we seek to make our faulty and even totally wrong concepts the definition of truth. False ideas of God, His character and nature, and the way in which He saves, led the religious systematizers to kill Jesus. The risk for us is that we do the same. Doing evil in the name of good is the ultimate blasphemy.

To reduce God’s wonderful offer of free and full salvation to a set of mechanical concepts, to make a loving relationship into a legal contract, to turn truth into error—all of this is as easy as setting up a system based on human concepts of appeasement, satisfaction, penalties, payments, retribution, justification, punishment, and reparation.

Those who reject the “legal satisfaction” system are easily denounced as heretics, and as easily disposed of, since “right” is on the side of such a system—and as “justified” as Shylock wanting to collect on his pound of flesh.

The preoccupation with legality and systematized “justice” led to Jesus’ death on the cross, since it was “better” that one man should die than the whole system be compromised. The demonic hatred of the scribes and Pharisees that led to their conspiracy to kill Jesus came from their commitment to a false idea of God and his saving methods. Could it be that we share some of these feelings and purposes that come from our own false ideas about God and salvation?

After all, if God were looking for a people that were meticulously observing the regulations, then it should’ve all been over a couple of millennia ago! As Paul writes about the Jews, his own people:

My brothers and sisters, how my heart longs for the salvation of my own people! That’s my prayer to God! ^I can testify to their fervent dedication to God, but it’s not based on knowing him as he is. They don’t understand how God makes us right with him, and they try to make themselves right. They don’t accept God’s way of making people right. For Christ is the fulfillment of the law, setting right all who trust in him. Romans 10:1-4 FBV.

God’s grace is supposed to bring happiness and acceptance, not hostility and anger and plotting. If our theological system leads us to fight fellow believers, to use intrigue and deceit to damage others with whom we disagree, to think that the end justifies the means, then we need to think again.

In the end it’s our concept of God that moulds us. If we see him as harsh and stern, arbitrary and legalistic, we’ll be that way too. We try to make our way into his heaven by rigidly observing all he demands.

But if we understand God to be love personified: holy, pure and absolutely right love, then he will always explain his reasons, and want us to agree with him that his way makes the best sense of all. That way we obey out of love, not out of fear or compulsion.

© Jonathan Gallagher 2009