Book - Against Christian Legalism

 

The recent posts that have been presented on this blog are also available in paperback book format. If, like me, you prefer to browse a book rather than scroll on a phone or computer, then this book is available to buy on Amazon.

From the very beginning of the Protestant Reformation, when it came to Christians living a clean, divinely approved life day-by-day - some Christian leaders directed Christians to ‘divine Law’ as a ‘spur’ to being set-apart from the values and principles of the world.   

This became an ‘orthodox’ approach for many Protestant Christians, and a legacy of ‘Christian legalism’ that has come down to some Evangelical Christians today. Christian legalists divide Covenant law into ‘Ceremonial law’ – fulfilled in the Messiah, and ‘Moral law’ – that remains in force. Is a Christian stealing? Then Christian legalists direct them to the ‘Moral law’, like the Ten Commandments, which say ‘You shall not steal’, so as to drive such a Christian to the Lord in repentance. Christian legalists argue that to challenge this procedure is to challenge the word of God itself, to risk engaging in permissive ungodliness and excessive freedom, and they even cast doubt on the persistent challenger’s faith and loyalty to God. 

But did the Apostles actually teach this approach? Is this how they exhorted Christians to live a godly life day-by-day? Remaining faithful to Scripture, this study by Rob Laynton explores some key New Testament passages that challenge ‘Christian legalism’, so as to set out the principles of holiness that the Apostles taught.

 

I Timothy 1 v 19b – 20 - Excommunication [2]

 In Corinthians Paul says, ‘…hand over one from of this sort to close beside Satan, penetrating towards the aim of the ruination of the flesh in order that the breath is being delivered to safety within the Day of the Lord’ (I Corinthians 5 v 5). Paul places his focus on the Day of the Lord which is associated with the fair Judgement of God by means of His Messiah, when secret matters of the heart and things done in darkness will be revealed. For the Apostle the Day of the Lord is in many ways the time of completion and fulfilment for Christians. It is the time of rousing up from out of the dead, standing up again, full redemption and the allotment of divine rewards and inheritance to Christians as sons and heirs in God’s house. 

 

The ‘breath’ being delivered is often interpreted by commentators to refer our ‘soul’, by which they tend to mean an immortal incorporeal ‘true self’ sheathed by our physical body. That’s according to orthodox Christian tradition anyway. I am proposing that our ‘breath’ is our inner ‘direction and movement of energy’, related to life, sensitivity and responsiveness to God. 

I suggest that if Christians are regarded and treated as an ‘outsider’ as a result of their excommunication, then this leads them to ‘necessary proportionate recompense of their wandering off course’ (Romans 1 v 27b). This recompense, this proportional and appropriate payment for wandering off course, may take a number of forms. Such an individual may become materially wealthy and/or successful – but lose their breath – their energy and sensitivity to the Lord and thus suffer loss within the Day of the Lord. Or they may suffer illness, or loss of their favourable situation or reputation, or experience adversity, regret, a sense of abandonment or isolation, or any number of such things. By experiencing such adverse circumstances the aim is that they come to see that they have turned to ‘broken cisterns’ instead of the ‘water of life’. The hope is that as a result they may turn back in repentance towards obedient trust in and sensitive responsiveness to God and His Messiah, thus delivering their breath now, at this present time, and thus receiving the beneficial future consequences of this within the Day of the Lord.

There we are, Paul is quite consistent. He was no legalist, nor was he a permissive liberal. Nor was he anti-law in the sense of opposing or negating the principles and aims of divine law. Christians are placed under the free gift of God by means of the Messiah, who fulfils the requirements of divine law on their behalf and pays the price required by law for their self-forfeiture. Paul was therefore against Christians referring to the external written codes of Levitical law as a means of godliness, arguing that Christians are not under Levitical law, or any written system of law for that matter. Rather, Christians have been transferred into a royal priesthood of the order of Melchizedek with Jesus the Messiah as their High Priest. The principles of divine law are written in the Christian’s deep inner core, and borne witness to by the indwelling Breath. So Christians are exhorted to walk around day-by-day within the sphere of the Breath. In other words, in this respect, the locus of the dynamic of the Christian life is within, rather than by reference to and imposition of external written codes. The focus is on union with the Messiah as their Lord and Saviour, and on the Breath enlightening and illuminating the Christian’s perception of unseen realities. It is on Christians co-working with God by exercising their mind, such that they reason things through to their proper conclusion. It is on carrying these enlightened principles and conclusions across from within into their speech and behaviour in practical beneficial love, especially to fellow Christians, so that they speak and behave consistently with their calling, and bring forth the primary Fruit of the Breath. In the process they are being transformed into the image of the Messiah as the Breath opposes the impulses of the Christian’s fleshly constitution. 

I Timothy 1 v 19b – 20 - Professing Christians, Serious wayward behaviour and Excommunication [1]

 Because they were persistently blaspheming, ‘Hymenaeus and Alexander, [were] yielded up to Satan, the adversarial accuser, in order that they may be trained not to blaspheme,’ (I Timothy 1 v 19b – 20). A similar phrase is used in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. ‘Delivering to Satan’ conveys the same idea as when Jesus said, “If he is continuing to disregard the fellowship [then] he is to you just like the ‘outsider’ and [like] the one who gathers taxes from the Jews for ‘outsiders’”. In other words he or she is serving the opposition. At Corinth the Christian leaders and assembly were to regard the man who was excommunicated as separated away from them. As cut off from the Kingdom of God, like foreskin is cut off in circumcision, as belonging within the orderly arrangement of the world under the delegated authority of Satan. To exclude someone from the Kingdom of God is by default to place him or her into the dominion of Satan.

Paul says that the purpose or aim in handing Hymenaeus and Alexander over to Satan was that they will be trained, educated and disciplined not to blaspheme. We are not to interpret Paul’s action as a punishment, or as an attempt to make them pay off the debt that their improper speech incurred. Rather it is about training and education towards godliness and cleanliness. And about the maintenance of the cleanliness of the assembly and reverence for God and the gospel. 

In Corinth the aim was to bring the excommunicated man’s physical body and its fleshly raw passions to ruination and loss. He was not being handed over for the destruction of his body, or to die. Rather he was being handed over for the ruination of his flesh. For bringing about the end result of his fleshly passions – the proportionate recompense within himself - so that he might be humbled and brought back to the path of godly cleanliness and be recalled to virtue by means of his suffering, discomfort and loss. The aim was that this man’s mind and body would be shaken, buffeted and afflicted such that he would be brought to his senses regarding his gross sexual behaviour, and then repent of it by making humble acknowledgment of it and turning away from it. 

Paul teaches that this affliction and torment, this ruination of the flesh, is the work of Satan. He presents Satan as the author of bodily diseases such that even of himself, Paul says that ‘in order to keep me from becoming conceited I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me’, (II Corinthians 12 v 7). Similarly, we also have this statement regarding Jesus healing on the Sabbath: ‘a woman was there whom a breath had crippled for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.... [Jesus said] “Shouldn’t this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free?”’ (Luke 13 v 11, 16).

The divinely disapproved-of and God-opposing speech, attitudes and behaviours of both the man in Corinth and of Hymenaeus and Alexander, were extremely unacceptable. They were opposed to God and public. Their behaviours were not ‘hidden away out of sight’ but were clearly known about and heard both within the Christian assemblies and by ‘outsiders’. More than this, these three men, who declared that they were Christians, were disregarding the assembly and in many ways serving the purposes of those were opposed to God. For these reasons they had to be removed from the fellowship, they had to be dis-identified with and separated away from the assembly in order to protect the honour of God and the reputation of the fellowship. But the aim was that they might turn around and away from such speech and behaviours.

I Timothy 1 v 18, 19 - Elders and Christians bringing the gospel into disrepute

 In verse 15 Paul stated the good news of the Messiah very succinctly. In verses 3 – 7 he stated that some were missing the mark with regard to this good news or gospel. Some were becoming absorbed in myths, others in endless genealogical details, and others wanted to be experts in Covenant law. Paul explained that divine is law is good but that it is not intended for the righteous. It is for the unrighteous and lawless. Paul agrees that before he became a Christian he was very lawless. He persecuted and oppressed Jews who were embracing Christianity. But he says that he acted in ignorance and despite his behaviour, God’s mercy through His anointed son, Jesus, super-abounded.

I have stayed with Paul’s account to Timothy because Paul now moves on to two Christians who had fallen into behaviour that also openly opposed the gospel and was bringing it into disrepute. How did the Apostle deal with these two Christians? Did he quote Levitical law and the Ten Commandments to them? That is what legalists would do. Let’s see what Paul did in the next three verses. 

‘I place alongside this injunction to you Timothy my child, down from the prophecies going before you, that you serve as a soldier within them, the good military service. 19 possessing entrustment and a good conscience', (I Timothy 1 v 18, 19a). First of all, Paul gives an exhortation to Timothy who is a ruling elder in this assembly. This exhortation was either based either on some earlier assessments by fellow Christians in relation to Timothy, or (more probably) on the basis of some revelations that Paul, or some other believers had received concerning Timothy. Paul tells Timothy to serve as a good soldier of the Messiah within the Ephesian assembly, particularly within their leaders. He encourages Timothy to hold on to faith and a good conscience. This leads Paul to make a statement about some of these leaders and especially about two wayward Christians named Hymenaeus and Alexander. 

Paul says that ‘some have pushed away, causing a shipwreck around entrustment', (I Timothy 1 v 19b). They have pushed away from the basic teaching of the gospel that Paul had announced to the Ephesians, as we have just seen. Hymenaeus and Alexander were two Christians who had a tendency to blaspheme – to defame, revile, to speak evil and irreverently. In other words, they were acting like ‘outsiders’ and bringing disrepute upon the gospel, God and Jesus. All of these people were causing a shipwreck around entrusting and being persuaded of the Messiah. They were creating opposition and resistance to the gospel. Thus Paul begins by exhorting Timothy not to be like them, but rather to ‘serve like a soldier holding on to faith and a good conscience’.

So what did Paul do with regard to Hymenaeus and Alexander? Did he refer them to Covenant law? No, although the principle and aim of Covenant law no doubt informed his decision. Christians are not summoned by God to then behave in a way that causes resistance to the gospel. Such behaviour is not down from the Breath of God. Christians ‘walking within the Breath’ do not regularly and persistently ‘rubbish’ God, Jesus or the gospel. Such speech and behaviour brings the gospel and the assembly into negative criticism and leads ‘outsiders’ into dismissal of the gospel. Paul’s decision was that since they were behaving like ‘outsiders’, opposing the gospel and bringing God and His Messiah into disrepute, he ‘handed them over to Satan’. They were no longer acknowledged as being associated with the Ephesian assembly. Help, support and fellowship was withdrawn from them and they were ‘back in the worldly arrangement’.

I Timothy 1 v 15 - 17 - The good news or gospel

 Paul brings his previous excessive opposition together with God’s free gift ‘Faithful the saying and deserving all acceptance, that Jesus Messiah came into the orderly arrangement to save and make whole self-forfeiters, of whom I am foremost’. (I Timothy 1 v 15). Paul by no means denies his previous behaviour but rather refers to his excessive opposition so as to reinforce the superabundant mercy of God in sending His only begotten son to deliver one who had such strong opposition. 

So what is the end result? ‘But by this means I was shown mercy, in order that within me, the foremost [self-forfeiter], Jesus Messiah might show forth absolutely all patience, as a pattern for those about to be believing on the basis of him, penetrating into perpetual life. 17 And to the King of the ages, incorruptible, invisible, solitary God, honour and praiseworthiness penetrating into the ages of the ages. Amen.' (I Timothy 1 v 16, 17). In effect, Paul says, ‘If God has shown mercy to me, who was such a prominent self-forfeiter opposing the gospel, then this is a pattern for those who are about to entrust Jesus. If I have been delivered from condemnation, then this is an encouragement to those who have not entered into such a degree of opposition, it means that they will also be delivered by entrustment in the Messiah'. Paul then breaks out into praise to God as King of the ages and seasons.