Newsletter Vol.2, #35—September 17, 2006

Matthew 9 ¹⁶“No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. ¹⁷Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved."

 
One Liners..... Think About Them for a Moment, Please?

Prayer:

28. Don't give God instructions -- just report for duty!

29. The task ahead of us is never as great as the Power behind us.

30. The Will of God never takes you to where the Grace of God will not protect you.

31. We don't change the message, the message changes us.

32. You can tell how big a person is by what it takes to discourage him.

33. The best mathematical equation I have ever seen: 1 cross + 3 nails= 4 given. (concluded)

Glenn Warner here in Co. Cork, Ireland with some quotes I've come across in my reading that you'll hopefully enjoy:

Epictetus writes: Have courage to look up to God and say, “Deal with me as Thou wilt from now on. I am as one with Thee; I am Thine; I flinch from nothing so long as Thou dost think that it is good. Lead me where Thou wilt; put on me what raiment Thou wilt.” Barclay p.118 The Letter to the Romans

The single greatest obstacle to the impact of the Gospel has not been its inability to provide answers, but the failure on our part to live it out. Ravi Zacharias Masthead quote

We stand before God in the awful loneliness of our own souls; to God we can take nothing but the self and the character which in life we have been building up. Barclay p. 205 The Letter to the Romans

“Law and Legalism”

By H. E. Phillips (Deceased)

Law is: “A general rule of action or conduct established or enforced by a sovereign authority; as, a law of Caesar; a law of God” (Webster’s Twentieth Century Dictionary, Unabridged). Webster says of legalism: “Close conformity to law.” Law and legalism are not the same. “Law” (nomos) means “… anything established, anything received by usage, a custom, usage, law.” The New Testament uses the word as “a command, law; ... of any law whatever” ... “a law or rule producing a state approved of God” (taken from Henry Thayer’s Lexicon). It is a rule or principle established by authority.

The law of Christ is His word: the truth by which men are made free (John 8:32). It is that perfect law of liberty which will convert the soul (James 1:25; Psalm 19:7). It is the inspired scriptures that is sufficient to perfect a man unto all good works (2 Tim.3:16-17). The only way this law will make one perfect unto all good works is to obey it. How else could it be done?

Legalism: Just what is it?

“Legalism” has several different definitions, opinions and views. The word is more often used by those of ultra-liberal attitudes toward the authority of Christ, and obeying all the commandments of God for the remission of sins, worship, etc. Some will deny this conclusion, but hundreds of quotations from books and magazines are available to prove it. Their writings and preaching bewail the idea of “keeping the letter of the law” and conforming to a rigid code of rules to be perfectly obeyed in order to obtain the blessings of salvation promised by God upon obeying him. The nature of law, the purpose of law, and the author of law make little difference to those who shrink from the very idea of obeying divine law. Law keeping they say, smacks of Phariseeism.

I want to give the definition of “legalism” from one who stands opposed to obeying “a code of rules” for the remission of sins. Harold Key wrote in an article in Mission Messenger of February, 1963, under the heading, “The Threat of Legalism.”

What, then is legalism? Legalism is the attempt to reduce the will of God to a code—to a list of commandments rather than the God whose will the commandments attempt to express. Legalism is obviously an attempt to be related to God upon the basis of law. It is a legal rather than a personal relationship. It holds the position that justification and eternal life are rewards of fully and correctly doing all that the law requires” (Volume 25, Number 2, page 17). He says further, “Legalism tears the very heart and soul out of the New Covenant” (ibid., page 20).

What if there is no attempt to reduce the will of God to a “code—to a list of commandments”? Take it just as it is! What if there is no attempt to concentrate upon the commandments rather than the will of God? (How could one do that, anyway?) What if one simply obeyed the commandments from the heart, as he must do to obey the will of God? “... but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness” (Rom. 6:17,18). Would that make him a legalist? If yes, what is wrong with that? That is what I am: call me a “legalist.” The person who does not obey the law of Christ is under condemnation from the word of God (2 Thess. 1:7-9).

This definition pretends to judge the heart and motive of the one obeying the law of Christ. There is no way to be related to God but by his word—his law. One must be born again to be related to God, and that requires obedience by baptism by faith (John 3:3,5; 1 Pet 1:23).

Robert Meyer edited a book entitled Voices of Concern, published by Mission Messenger, Saint Louis, Missouri, in 1966. In his Introduction he gave his motive for publishing several articles from men and women who left the church of the Lord. In part he said: “Thousands are restless and dissatisfied with the aridity of exclusivism and authoritarianism. Bright young minds are refusing to be put off with answers that have no more to commend them than the hoary beard of antiquity” (page 3). His goal is: “The book obviously means to urge no one way of religious expression, but to plead from such evidence as is here the need for unity in diversity” (page 5). The boredom and dissatisfaction of bright young minds to the aridity of the straight and narrow way of Christ (Matt. 7:13,14) does not commend them to the “hoary beard of antiquity” and therefore they turn to freedom of any religious expression that pleases them, and the “unity in diversity” concept of Christianity. That is the reason the author gave for his book. That is rejection of the will of God any way you look at it. These minds do not know God and understand nothing of the “love of God” as revealed in the Bible. If that is the alternative to legalism, I am what they call a “legalist.”

One of the writers in Voices of Concern, was J.P.Sanders. On pages 40 and 41 he says this of legalism: “We have seen that the priest seeks an exact system of faith which can be the basis for the sect, and he seeks it through the authority of the church or the authority of literal Biblical interpretations. This system is a code of requirements, or what is often called “the plan of salvation.” To be continued …