LEGALISM, SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND THE RABBIS

When I was a young Christian and wasn’t certain about what I should believe and where I should place my trust. I concluded that the safe thing to do was to cover-all-the-bases and to place my trust in both Jesus and my good deeds. However, I later realized that to place my trust in anything in addition to the Savior and His dying for me on the cross would disqualify me:

·       Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind. (Colossians 2:16-18 ESV)

Here, Paul warned about two things that could disqualify us from salvation – trusting in asceticism (a severe form of self-denial or self-punishment) and the worship of angels. I began to see that, to some extent, I too had been trusting in myself and my moral merit to earn me salvation.

I too had believed that I could make myself worthy of God by denying myself. This is common in perhaps all religions and even in sects of Christianity. However, self-punishment is a denial of the fact that Christ had paid the price for all of our sins forever. Instead, asceticism insists that we have to pay the price.

We do this in subtle ways. I would only indulge in a milkshake if I felt deserving. Getting an “A” on a test would make me feel deserving. Otherwise, indulging would make me feel anxious and unworthy. If I spent more than two minutes in the shower, I would also feel anxious.

Masochism is a form of asceticism. We hurt ourselves as a way to reduce stress and feel entitled to enjoy ourselves. Why? Our conscience correctly tells us that there is something wrong with us and that we have to pay a price for our unworthiness. However, once I learned that Jesus paid the price for my sins in full, the need to prove myself worthy of His love and mercy began to decrease.

Some Christians value asceticism in another way. They believe that the discipline of self-denial is transferrable to spiritual matters. If we learn to discipline our bodies as an athlete or a soldier, we can then transfer this discipline to combat the temptations of sin. However, Paul had argued against such reasoning:

·       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. (Colossians 2:20-23)

Paul denied that physical training would help us resist sin. While he didn’t dismiss the value of bodily discipline and exercise, he refused to prescribe it for spiritual matters:

·       Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. (1 Timothy 4:7-8)

The “worship of angels” is a matter of placing our trust in anyone – even in ourselves – in addition to Jesus. Therefore, Paul had warned:

·       Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision [to become a Jew in order to trust in Law-keeping], Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified [or made righteous] by the law; you have fallen away from grace. (Galatians 5:2-4)

When we trust anyone in addition to Jesus, we are not truly trusting Jesus but in ourselves or someone else. To worship angels is to trust in angels.

Trusting in anything in addition to God is forbidden, even in the Hebrew Scriptures:

·       He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken…For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. (Psalm 62:2, 5-8)

Israel was to trust in God alone and not in themselves, foreign gods, or in their own righteousness:

·       Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.” (Jeremiah 17:5-7; Psalm 2:12; 25:2; 34:8; 71:5; 125:1)

To trust in our own abilities, strengths, or righteousness represented a failure to trust in God. To trust in anything in addition to our Savior is spiritual adultery. It is as acceptable as having an adulterous relationship. However, we commit spiritual adultery when we place unqualified trust in anyone else. When we go to spiritualists for answers, we are no longer trusting in God:

·       And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. (Isaiah 8:19-20)

Trusting in God was always a matter of putting trust in His Words and in doing them, the way to fulfill His Covenant. However, Israel consistently added to the law against the commands of God:

·       You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you. (Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32)

These became known as the “Traditions of the Elders” in Jesus’ time. There is nothing the matter with traditions as long as they are not elevated to a status equivalent to the Word of God. There is nothing wrong with a family tradition of celebrating birthdays as long as it is not elevated and made mandatory as if from God. Jesus castigated the religious leadership for doing this:

·       “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” (Matthew 15:7-9, citing Isaiah 29:13)

Consequently, their heart-less worship was for naught. It reflected the fact that they didn’t really trust in God but in their own doctrines. When the heart is right towards God, we place His Word above all else. Unless our heart is right towards the Lord, all of our external piety is also for naught. It is merely a grotesque show. Even our prayers were unacceptable to God if we are not devoted to Him through His Word:

·       “The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master's crib; But Israel does not know, My people do not consider…Bring no more futile sacrifices; Incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies--I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting. Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; They are a trouble to Me, I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands [in prayer], I will hide My eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes.” (Isaiah 1:3, 13-16)

Even today, superficial law-keeping is extoled among some Orthodox groups. The Lubavitchers, one sect of the Hasidic community, have often stopped me on the street to ask if I am Jewish and to invite me into their van to put on the prayer shawl to perform a ritual. When I’d explain that I cannot do it because I do not believe in it, they respond, “It doesn’t matter. You will be blessed if you do it.” I then refer them to Isaiah’s warnings against superficial, faithless law-keeping.

For them, God’s blessings can be earned apart from a faith-filled relationship with God. Instead, we must believe and trust in God:

·       But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6)

This is also a principle deeply embedded within the Hebrew Scriptures:

·       For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart-- these, O God, You will not despise…Then You shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering; then they shall offer bulls on Your altar. (Psalm 51:16-19)

To have a contrite and broken heart is to grieve over our sins (Matthew 5:3-6) and to humbly confess them to God. If one’s heart is right towards God, then the prayers and offerings would be gladly received. However, this required that God had to be Israel’s first concern:

·       “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.” (Jeremiah 29:13-14; Matthew 6:33)

A relationship with God was always intended to arise from a sincere heart, as David had counseled his son Solomon:

·       “And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.” (1 Chronicles 28:9)

However, the Lubavitchers have rejected this all-important principle. Paul had explained that the Jews of Jesus’ day were convinced that they could attain the righteousness of God on their own:

·       …Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone [Christ]. (Romans 9:30-32)

This belief that in our own righteousness actually reflects the entire history of humankind.