Is Christianity a Legal System? # 2

Now, I began by saying that there is a document in the New Testament which sets forth the answer to that question, and I expect many of you have already come to the conclusion as to what that document is. If you are not sure about that, let me say at once, it is the Letter to the Galatians. It is now fairly or generally believed that this letter was the first letter that Paul wrote. And I used to say that. But further investigation has led those who know very well that the Galatians Letter was probably the first letter. Now I am not going to argue out that matter this morning. Yo can believe it or you need not believe it. But, if that should be true, how significant it is that that should be the first great issue about which the apostle wrote. And if you read that letter, and feel the strength with which the apostle wrote it, you can discern how serious he felt this question to be. He saw that there was that which was threatening the whole nature of Christianity. And so he set himself to do this work. That is, to preserve the pure spiritual nature of what had come in with Jesus Christ.

Now before we proceed to consider what is in this letter, there are two basic things which must engage our intention. First of all, what the apostle himself meant by this letter, and that is contained in chapter one, and verse eight, "But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any Gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema" (ASV). The whole letter is gathered into that one sentence. "The Gospel which we preached." He says that what he is dealing with is the nature of the Gospel. He says we preach the Gospel to you. This letter then is a restatement of the Gospel. Now various names have been given to what is in the New Testament. It is called by many Christianity, and that is a very comprehensive term; or it is called the Christian Faith, or the Christian religion. In the New Testament, it is known by none of those names. The New Testament never speaks of this as Christianity; it never speaks of it as the Christian faith; it never speaks of it as the Christian religion. It is known just by one name. Everything that is in the New Testament and which came in with Jesus Christ is just called The Gospel. 

Now here is something that we need to carefully notice. You see, we draw a distinction between what we call the Gospel, and fuller teaching for believers. By the Gospel, many mean that which is for the unsaved, and what we give to the saved, well, it is something else. Suppose you are going to have some gospel meetings at the end of the week and they are not for believers, they are for the unsaved. That is an altogether artificial distinction. Everything in the New Testament for the unsaved and for the saved is called "the Gospel." It is not a religion. It is not a philosophy of life. It is not a system of truths and practices. It is just THE GOSPEL. And that word means: "Good News." It is given various connections, such as the Gospel of our salvation. But there is one over-all and inclusive thing about this word, and that is, "The Gospel of God concerning His Son Jesus Christ" (Romans 1:1-3). So when we divide between the Gospel for the unsaved and something else for the saved, do you see what we are doing? We say, we have left the ground of God's Son, and we have come on to some extra grounds for Christians. The Gospel is comprehensive of everything in Christ. You will never get to the place where you will cease to discover something new concerning God's Son; and although we may be discovering more throughout all eternity, it would still be the Gospel.

Do you think the Gospel ends when you are born again? Do you think the Gospel ends when you leave this world and go to the Lord? If you see the great multitude, which no man can number around the throne, and you listen to their song, they are singing a gospel hymn, "Worthy is the Lamb." But they  have come into a very very full understanding of God's Son. See, the Gospel is the Gospel of God concerning His Son for all time, and for all eternity. The Gospel is something infinitely bigger than salvation from sin; it is infinitely bigger than deliverance from judgment and death. The Gospel comprehends all that is in Christ. It was that for which the apostle was fighting. It was not just for the salvation of these people, but that they should understand what they are saved into. That is the battleground. He says, "The Gospel which we preached." And what does it amount to? A whole letter is crowded into that one sentence. The Gospel is emancipation from all legal bondage. It is emancipation into the liberty of the sons of God. That is the theme of this letter; Emancipation from all legal bondage. Emancipation into the liberty of the sons of God. And Paul says, "That is the Gospel which I preached."

In this letter, Paul calls legalism a yoke of bondage. He cries, "Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage." When he used that word "yoke," he was using the same word as Jesus Himself had used in Matthew eleven, verses twenty-eight through thirty. Jesus looked out on the multitude, He said, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. Take My yoke upon you, and learn Me. My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." He was speaking to the multitudes who were under the yoke of Jewish legalism. He said to be under that yoke is to be in labor and heavy laden. He says, "My yoke is easy," by which He meant: I will liberate you from the yoke of Jewish bondage. I will set you free from all this toil under legalism.

The scribes and the Pharisees had thousands of interpretations to the Old Testament Scripture. They had taken the law of Moses, and they had put two thousand interpretations upon every law. Everything that God had said, they had interpreted it to mean a thousand different things. And so they had taken the Word of God and given to it an interpretation which became a great burden to bear. Not only had God said, "Thou shalt not," the scribes and the Pharisees had said, "Now that means, "thou shalt not this; thou shalt not that; and thou shalt not a thousand things." Not only had Moses said, "Thou shalt," the scribes and Pharisees said, "Thou shalt a thousand things." Jesus said, "They bind heavy burdens and put them on men's shoulders." That is always the effect of legalism. Under a legal system, you just do not know what you may do. You are always asking: 'Now, really, may we do this? If we do this, shall some judgment come upon us? And if we don't do it in that way, shall we fall under the judgment of God?'

That is how it was then, and Paul himself had been under that burden. He tells us about it in the seventh chapter of the Letter to the Romans. And he ends that terrible story with "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this dead body?" That whole system is a system of death, but then he adds, "I thank God through our Lord Jesus Christ. I now meet all in Christ." Now that is the battle of this letter to the Galatians. So this is what Paul calls the Gospel. And as I have not the time to go to the second thing this morning, I am going to leave it there. I mean the second fundamental thing that lies beneath this letter. If the Lord wills, we will speak about that tomorrow. But let him who runs, read; and let him who reads, run. Run out of all this sort of thing into the liberty wherewith Christ makes us free. [this whole series was given at a conference - that is why he says he will "continue" tomorrow.]

Now what I have done this morning is just to present the great question. This great question as to the true nature of Christianity, or of that which came in with Jesus Christ. But I must say this as I close, do not take what I have said as everything; that is only the beginning. We have really got to see what it is that we are in, in Christ. In general, we are in liberty. But we have got to see what that means. So do not go away and say: 'Well, he said this.' Just say, "There is something more that we have got to learn about this.' I leave that with you for this morning, but it is a glorious Gospel - the Gospel of our liberty in Christ. And we refuse to be brought back into bondage by any man.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 3 - "The Great Distinguishing Mark Between a Legal System and A Spiritual Life is by Direct Revelation of Jesus Christ")

[the next post will still be titled: "Is Christianity a Legal System?" but the sub-title will change to "The great distinguishing Mark between ...."]