Dear Friends,

  Legalism is in all likelihood the single most devastating joy-killer to a vibrant Christian contentment.  Once it sinks its sharp fangs into us it is never satisfied.  Paul addressed this relentless demand of legalism in the seventh chapter of Romans in significant depth.  While many commentaries never consider the personal pronouns that Paul repeatedly used in this chapter, they struggle to find a meaningful interpretation of this lesson when the true lesson is so obvious.  Paul introduces the lesson with an analogy of marriage.  Biblical marriage vows should be for life.  However, if one spouse dies, the surviving spouse, according to Paul in this analogy, is free to marry someone else.  He then applies the analogy.  The people to whom he particularly intended these words had at one time been “married” to the Law of Moses.  But Paul assures them that with the death and resurrection of Christ the Law was now dead.  They were effectively “widows” to the Law and free to marry the Lord Jesus Christ.  From that point through the remainder of the chapter Paul takes these people by the hand and reminds them in painful detail exactly what life was really like with that “old husband,” Mr. Law.  He always criticized them.  They could never please him regardless of the efforts they made to do so.  Paul effectively is reminding these people; “If life with Mr. Law was so miserable—and it was—why, now that he is dead, do you want to continue living as if you are still married to him?”  Beginning in the eighth chapter of Romans, Paul will show these same people how joyful and contented life with their new Husband, the Lord Jesus Christ, can be.  By contrast of the two “marriages,” Paul is showing these people how utterly senseless their present conduct really is.  

  If legalism is so devastating to joy and Christian contentment, why do so many Christians fall under its hypnotic spell?  This question is one of the major points that Paul confronts in chapters nine through eleven of the Roman letter.  In our study verses for this week he equates legalism to the righteousness which comes from the Law and a healthy and correct attitude toward God he describes as “the righteousness of faith.”  

  Belief in the doctrines of grace does not immunize us from the toxic poison of legalism.  It alters the dynamics that legalism uses to enslave us, but we cannot wholly inoculate ourselves against its invasive and infectious effects.  The most detailed description of exactly what first century Jewish Christians believed in contrast to the truth of the gospel appears in the fifteenth chapter of Acts.  It appears by a reading of the whole chapter that the people in Antioch who caused the unrest were members of the Jerusalem Church .  Based on the initial description of the problem, the errant teaching they advocated ( Acts 15:1 ), we might interpret their ideas as either teaching eternal salvation by works or as teaching that, to be a true disciple of Jesus, one must first convert to Judaism, become a good Jew, and only then convert to Christianity.  Given the details of the letter that Jerusalem Church sent to Antioch as recorded later in Acts 15 , it is my belief that the latter idea is in fact the real problem that Paul and Barnabas opposed.  If this was the dominant idea in the Antioch-Jerusalem controversy, it is quite likely that either the same idea, or something quite similar, was the problem in the Galatian churches, as well as in Rome .  Because of the infectious nature of legalism, regardless of our theology, in this week’s study I examine the characteristics of legalism both as it impacts one who holds to Arminian beliefs (eternal salvation by human cooperation with God) as well as its effects on one who holds to the doctrines of grace.  

  Modern talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw makes a logical point that we can only correct what we consciously acknowledge.  As long as we deny and pretend that we have no problem, we are paralyzed in any effort to control or overcome it.  Only when we “confess” or acknowledge a problem can we gather the resources to analyze and defeat it in our lives.  How true this point really is regarding the nature of legalism in our own lives.  As I wrote this week’s chapter, more than once I found myself looking in the mirror of self-reflection, and, to be honest, I didn’t always like what I saw!  None of us can claim immunity from the effects of the “legalism virus.”  May each of us take these thoughts from Paul and conduct a careful—even if painful—self-investigation to be sure that we have not sleepily allowed some subtle form of legalism to invade our lives and to render us joyless and anemic in our efforts to serve our God and His people.

By His grace,

Joe Holder

The “Righteousness of Faith” Speaks

 
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.  ( Romans 10:4-11 )  

            What is the “righteousness of faith” of which Paul writes in these verses?  How does it “speak” to us?  Those are interesting questions, but the passage before us leaves those questions unanswered.  It deals with the more relevant question.  What does it say?  What does it not say?  Contextually Paul has been contrasting two quite distinct attitudes toward God, one that he characterized in the closing verses of the ninth chapter in terms of people seeking to please God either by “the righteousness of the law,” seeking but failing to “attain to the law of righteousness,” and seeking to attain this state “…as it were by the works of the law.”  To this insidious form of legalism Paul contrasted what he there ( Romans 9:30-33 ) described as a righteousness “…which is of faith.”  Paul closes the ninth chapter with the observation that those who sought their goal by legalism stumbled, their failure causing them shame and offending God.  The Rock that God made the Chief Corner Stone became to them a stumbling stone because they refused to seek that Rock by faith. 

            Before developing the active influence of the righteousness of faith, Paul revisits the question that he surfaced in those closing verses of the ninth chapter and continued in the early verses of the tenth chapter, For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.  ( Leviticus 18:5 )  Moses’ point in this passage had nothing to do with dead sinners doing something to gain eternal life; rather his point was that we “keep” God’s statutes and judgments by “doing them,” by action, by practicing them in our ordinary conduct.  We can’t claim to “keep” them by committing them to memory and quoting them accurately when someone asks about them, all the while never practicing their teachings in our personal conduct.  If we truly “keep” them, it means that we practice them as a way of life.  Paul uses the passage to make the same point here.  In the second chapter of Romans he confronted the contemporary self-righteous Jews who were quite familiar with the words of Moses’ Law, but they refused to practice what they had committed to memory.  Paul here holds these people to the high standard that they impose onto others.  If they really want to claim Moses’ Law as the basis for a right standing before God, they must prove their standing by consistent lifestyle, by “doing” those commandments in their routine conduct.  We note that in the third chapter of Romans Paul concluded that such an attainment was impossible ( Romans 3:9-20 ).  Even there ( Romans 3:21-22 ) Paul drew a contrast between the empty pretense of keeping the Law without failure and the “…righteousness of God without the law,” a term which he there describes in a way that would lead us to believe he is referring to the personal life of the Lord Jesus Christ, God Incarnate.  There, as in our study passage, one effort proved utterly futile and failed, while the other effort draws its adherents into warm fellowship with God. 

            But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise….  In whatever way it speaks the righteousness of faith that Paul here describes starts its “speech” by telling us what we should not say, what we should not do.  Apparently there is something to which we are inclined that is toxic to a healthy, God-honoring faith and lifestyle, and this “righteousness of faith” first warns us to avoid it by all means. 

            Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)  First we notice that the righteousness of faith addresses what we say in our heart.  Could it be that this righteousness of faith is speaking to us at the “heart level” of our being?  “Who shall ascend?” and “Who shall descend?”  Paul uses these questions to identify how the material or sensual orientation of legalism (fixed, tangible, and external standards by which salvation is measured and or monitored) has the effect of neutralizing Christ’s sacrifice as a finished work in the mind of the legalist.  We should have no doubt; nothing we do can factually neutralize the effects of what Jesus did for His chosen people in the atonement for their sins and in His securing their eternal bond in the love of God ( Romans 8:38-39 ).  Thus Paul must be using these words, these questions, in a figure of speech.  So what is his intent?  When Jesus prepared the disciples for His departure (first in the Gospel of John, chapters 13-7 and then throughout the forty days of His presence with them after the resurrection and before His ascension ( Acts 1:1-11 ), He repeatedly assured them that the Holy Spirit would come to them in a way that they had not formerly known or experienced, “…another Comforter…” one of the same kind and quality as Himself ( John 14:16 ; 14:26 ; 15:261 6:7).  Did they believe it?  They likely didn’t at all, but after the ascension, He shortly provided them with ample evidence that His promise was fulfilled (beginning in the second chapter of Acts and effectively recorded throughout the Book of Acts). 

            On the Mount of Transfiguration three of the disciples had heard the words from God, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.” ( Matthew 17:5 )  In the passages from John chapters 14-16 Jesus assured the fearful disciples that they should trust and “hear” the “Comforter” fully as much as they had been directed to “hear” Him.  We need not pursue the mystical in order to understand the practical implications of these passages to the first generation of believers and also to us.  I heartily believe that Scripture teaches that the Holy Spirit personally and individually “speaks” to us through a transformed conscience from the point of regeneration till our death ( 1 Timothy 3:9 ; Romans 2:14 , 15 ; Romans 8:16 ; Romans 9:1 ); I also believe that we must test our “impressions” or beliefs carefully through the testimony of Scripture ( 1 John 4:1 ; John 5:39 ; 2 Timothy 3:16, 17).  The Holy Spirit Who inspired some forty to forty five men to write the books of the Bible across multiple cultures and fifteen centuries will not today “speak” to us with a different truth or sentiment than He clearly and repeatedly revealed to those men—and to us through the testimony of Scripture. 

            We have not been to heaven to conduct a personal investigation of that place, to interview Jesus, or to gather evidence of its existence.  We have not been to the grave, death, to know its true impact so that we might return with hard evidence with which we can contemplate its future impact on us.  The question asserts more than simply interviewing Him.  It is to bring Him down from heaven, perhaps to proved He is God or maybe to require more sacrifice?  The implication of legalism is that Christ’s original sacrifice is not enough, that further evidence is needed to ensure (or to self-assure) that one is truly saved.  This thought seems to be a common thread in both questions.  However, we have the testimony of One Who lived, died, went to heaven, and returned to give us His testimony.  Do we believe His testimony and live by it, or do we ignore His testimony and seek to gain fellowship and access to God apart from Him through Moses’ Law or any other pathway that fails to build itself on Him and on His personal testimony? 

            “Who shall ascend?” presumes that either Jesus did not ascend or that He has not sufficiently given us the evidence and assurance of His ascension, so we must do something to gain more insight into, and access to, His ascension.  “Who shall descend?” presumes that, though He may have died, He has not sufficiently informed us of the impact of death or of His neutralizing it for us, so we must investigate it and take personal steps to avoid its dark effects on us.  First, “Why shall ascend?  The underlying issue is what accomplishes salvation.  Is salvation by finished work of Christ alone or is it a combination of work by Christ and man?  Paul says, it is not faith that motivates one to think the latter.  “Say not in thy heart, ‘Who shall ascend….’”  In other words, the testimony of faith does not persuade us that we must go get Christ in order for Him to save us.  This attitude matches the Arminian argument of a personal decision to receive Christ in order to be saved.  The personal decision to accept Christ is akin to one going to get Him from heaven to enable His death to cover our sins.  Secondly, “Who shall descend….”  This second question embraces what Dr. Tom Constable referred to as “backdoor works” that are necessary to affirm that we “really are saved.”  “Yes, Christ came down and died for sins, but now you must empower his sacrifice by your good works, or else he never really rose from the dead for you.”  In this errant view the evidence of his dying for you is not his resurrection from the dead three days after he was crucified.  It is you raising him from the dead by your good works, by your imitating his life in your own conduct; this view holds that all who are saved will prove it by thus raising him from the dead in their own behaviors. 

            Those who deny that Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection sufficiently satisfied the Father for our sins certainly fall short of this testimony of the “righteousness of faith.”  In that they claim the necessity of their personal faith and good works to ensure their entrance into heaven they reject the testimony of Scripture that comforts us with the full success of His finished work ( John 17:2-4 as just one of many such Biblical testimonies) . 

            I suggest for your consideration that those of us who believe in God’s grace may well put ourselves in almost the same unenviable position through our own refusal to believe the testimony of Scripture that directs and gently leads us to follow the gracious message of the “righteousness of faith” in our lives.  In earlier chapters of this work I quoted from Dr. Tom Constable and others who observe that those who believe in grace, but who put an exaggerated emphasis on “assurance of salvation” or on “perseverance” effectively “backload” the impact of the doctrines of grace and thereby reduce their belief to something frighteningly akin to the doctrine of those who believe that their personal belief and good works gain their salvation.  While several old and respected confessions of faith deal with the doctrine of “perseverance,” when read fully, they consistently affirm that God through the finished work of Christ will “persevere” in “preserving” His chosen people in Christ and in His love so that none of them shall ever be finally and eternally lost.  The modern “morphing” of this doctrine of which Dr. Constable writes shifts the emphasis of this doctrine away from God and from the finished work of Christ to the believer, who is told that he/she can only be certain of his/her eternal destiny so long as he/she is “persevering” in faith and good works.  Advocates of this view carefully word their message to cast doubt on a person’s salvation as a means to coerce their followers into complying with their legalistic standard of behavior.  There’s more to their message than simply being assured that one is saved by observing their good works; there is an explicit threat.  It is, “if you are not presently persevering, there is no evidence to me that you are saved.”  This errant attitude emphasizes self instead of urging confident reliance on what Jesus did.  Our good works are not primarily designed to benefit us, either in greater assurance or in other ways, but they are intended to provide us with a motive of unselfish love for God that motivates us to the greatest degree of self-sacrificing love and service, both to Him and to His people. 

Do not overlook the profound shift in the presentation of this doctrine away from the certain effects of the finished work of Christ onto the behavior of the believer.  Scripture is not so obtuse with this concept.  Never in the entire King James Bible does the word “perseverance” ever appear except as an exhortation to believers to continue in their faithfulness (In fact it only appears one time, Ephesians 6:18 ; specifically, an exhortation to “persevere” in prayer).  At the same time Scripture also consistently affirms that God’s grace shall “preserve” His elect so that nothing can possibly separate them from God’s love ( Romans 8:38-39 ; 1 Peter 1:3-4 ; and Jude 1:1 , as only a few examples).  Typically conjoined with this morphed teaching on “perseverance” is an imbalanced emphasis on “assurance of salvation” that advocates of these twin morphed ideas use more often to control people than to comfort them.  “I can’t give you assurance of your salvation unless you persevere in faith and good works” is a recurring theme in the teaching of those who follow this school of thought.  Scripture affirms that God gives us assurance in Scripture and in the gospel, and that we may assure our own hearts before Him, but it is strangely silent on one man having the incredible power either to give or to withhold assurance from another person. 

            Now we are ready to examine what the righteousness of faith in fact says to us.  But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.  When the righteousness of faith “speaks,” its first word affirms the already-resident presence of God within, “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart….”  By the time it speaks, it is already present within us.  Our belief or confession does not cause it to take up residence in us. It is already there!  The logical and reasonable conclusion if the righteousness of faith is already indwelling this person is that the person is already born of God.  “…confession” is not the act of a criminal that causes his guilt, it is the acknowledgement of the fact.  In this case one can only make “confession…unto salvation” if salvation has already occurred, if it is already a fact.  Despite this point, Paul tells us that the message of the “righteousness of faith” assures us (something in this context that no mortal can possibly do) that our confession and belief in Christ shall in some way or form save us.  We are already saved, but we need yet more, or another salvation.  From what does the righteousness of faith save us if we are presently born of the Holy Spirit?  In the context of the closing verses of the ninth chapter and the verses in the tenth chapter leading up to this passage, we may conclude that our confession and belief in Christ holds the potential to “save” us from shame ( Romans 9:33 ).  It has the potential to save us from ignorance of the full and true nature of God’s righteousness ( Romans 10:1 ).  It holds the potential to save us from a blind and ignorant zeal ( Romans 10:2 ).  In the “big picture” scope of Paul’s message here, the righteousness of faith is capable of saving us from the hopeless and depressing futility of trying to access and to please God by our own actions or abilities.  It holds the potential of directing us to the Person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ, the righteousness of God without the law, apart from the Law of Moses, but a nobler and fuller expression of the same code of conduct; in short to “the righteousness of faith”!  What incredible deliverance!  It directs us to rely on our crucified, buried, but risen and victorious Savior alone.  It directs us to live our lives according to His example, not according to our ever-increasing complication of Mosaic Law or any external code of conduct.  It saves us by hope ( Romans 8:24 and context) from the utter despair of a fatalistic view of the trials and tribulations of life, as if we are nothing more than sheep awaiting slaughter ( Romans 8:36 ), to a sweet assurance that by the finished work of Christ we are more than conquerors.  Legalism is wholly irrelevant, counter productive (Rather than giving assurance, it actually robs us of legitimate assurance in Christ), and unnecessary!  We discover every joy, experience the meeting of every need, and celebrate the incredible assurance of God only as we embrace and live by the righteousness of faith, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, not faith in our faith or confidence in anything other than Him and His finished work for us.  Hallelujah! What a Savior!