When reading the letters that Shaul (Paul) wrote, we often come to the problem he faced with believing Jews telling the neophyte believing Gentiles they must perform every Jewish ritual in order to be saved. This is known as “Legalism”, and most people think it started at that time.
But they are wrong.
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Let’s first make sure we are all on the same page when it comes to understanding what legalism really is: it is a performance-based salvation, meaning that you earn salvation by doing what the Torah says you should do. Faith is secondary to performance, and often doesn’t even come into the picture.
Now, let’s also realize something that traditional Christianity has taught which is wrong: you CAN be saved if you completely and always obey the Torah. How can I say that? Easily- someone proved it to be true, and that someone was Yeshua (Jesus). He lived a sinless life by obeying the Torah completely and after he died, he was raised to eternal life in God’s presence, which is what being saved means.
The fly in the ointment, so to speak, is that Yeshua was the only human able to live the Torah completely, all the time, so he was able to do what a human born of man and woman cannot do. God knew that, and he gave us the Torah so we would know right from wrong while at the same time provided a means of receiving forgiveness when we screwed up, which is the sacrificial system. Yeshua did not do away with that, he simply replaced the need to bring an animal to the temple to be forgiven by sacrificing himself, so that through what he did we can ask for forgiveness, even though the temple no longer exists.
Now, as for legalism before Yeshua’s time, we can go all the way back to the days of the Judges. We read how so many times people were worshipping other gods along with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They believed that so long as they went to services, or made the wave offerings, or sacrificed their sheep, goats, or oxen they would be OK.
The best example of this are the Samaritans, the left-overs in the Northern Kingdom after the Assyrian conquest. When Shomron (also called Israel) was defeated, Assyria disbursed most of the Jews throughout the Diaspora, leaving a remnant behind and adding to that remnant some of the peoples from other nations they had already conquered. After time, the religions of the Samaritans were bastardized collections of the different religions of the different people who lived there. That is why Samaritans were looked down upon by the Jews in the Southern Kingdom who were (supposedly) still worshipping God correctly.
When Elisha cured Naman of his Tzara’at (leprosy) in 2 Kings 5:10, Naman took some of the dirt back to his homeland so he could worship God, explaining that he will still have to worship the gods of his people when required to by his king. That is a form of legalism, thinking that by taking the dirt he is, somehow, doing what will allow him to also worship Adonai correctly.
Another example is when Nebuchadnezzar declared Adonai, the god of Daniel, the most powerful God of all (Daniel 2 and 4) he didn’t convert to Judaism. He still worshipped all his non-gods, but he acknowledged the existence and power of Adonai. He did what he thought would make him right in the eyes of the God of the Jews, but he was not faithful or obedient; he was trying to cover his tuchas, that’s all, and that is (essentially) what legalism is.
Later when Cyrus allowed the Jews to go back to Israel, ending the exile, he was doing what he thought would get in in good with their God, even to the point of providing supplies and funding the rebuilding of the temple… Legalism at its best, doing what will earn favor instead of doing from faithful trust and love.
We also can look to Constantine, who never truly converted (from what I have read), but simply legalized Christianity, adding it to his list of gods and religions he already followed. He might have done what Christians did, but if so, I am pretty sure (and yes, I am speculating) he only did it to be correct, not out of any real love or devotion to the one, true God.
Today there are still many in both Judaism and Christianity who believe doing what you should is what saves you, faithfully obeying their religion and as such, misplacing their devotion to worship and obey man-made traditions and tenets instead of trying to do what pleases God.
And I will help anyone who wants to know how to please God with this simple plan of action: do what he says, which is only found in one place, and that place is the Torah.
But don’t do it because you have to! If you don’t want to do as God says out of love for God and desire to please him, then don’t bother.
Think of obedience to the Torah not as a means of being righteous, but as a demonstration of your love and respect for God- if it isn’t a labor of love it will be impotent.
Why impotent? Because (as I’ve already pointed out) no human being can be 100% obedient to the Torah 100% of the time.
Finally, we need to realize that legalism not only existed way before Shaul, but it still exists today. Halacha (The Way to Walk) is a rabbinical collection of what to do to be correct in God’s eyes, and the “church” has so many different traditions and holidays and ways of worshipping that you MUST do (or you go to hell!) that faithfulness to God is replaced by faithfulness to a religion!
As I have said many times before, and will continue to say… GOD HAS NO RELIGION!
God has given the world his instructions for how to worship him and how to treat each other through his chosen priests, that’s us Jews (Exodus 19:6). Those aren’t just rules; they are a lifestyle and when we do what God says because we want to please him.
If you are the kind of person who is willing to do anything to please those you love here on earth, and that is the same reason you want to obey God, then you will never be legalistic.
I truly believe God isn’t as concerned with what you do as he is with why you do it.
Thank you for being here and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.
That’s it for today, so L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!