Is Christianity a Legal System?

Is Christianity a Legal System On the Earth, Or is it a Spiritual Movement from Heaven?

We are asking the Lord to help us in these mornings to consider some of the most vital matters of our Christian life. In our New Testament we have a number of documents. But among those documents, there is one which stands related to perhaps the most vital question that has ever risen in relation to Christianity. In the matter of space, it is not a very long document. Indeed, it is one of the shorter ones; but into its brief space the writer has crowded the very essence of Christianity. He took up his pen to write this document with an intense determination to settle this great question. So he concentrated into a short space the very essence of Christianity. I do not think the apostle ever wrote anything under a greater sense of importance and necessity. This letter just throbs with the sense of his passion about this particular matter. A great question had arisen. That question threatened to destroy the real nature of Christianity. The question was this: What is this thing which has invaded this world by the coming of Jesus Christ? For in the coming of Jesus Christ into this world, God had broken into history, and God had broken into history to make an immense change in everything. So the great question was: What is it that has come into this world with Jesus Christ? Is it just the continuation of an old system with some things added to it? Is it a legal system shaped on the basis of the old Jewish system? In other words, is it just the continuation of Judaism with something added to it? Or is it an entirely new, living spiritual movement from heaven? Is the old garment of Judaism just to have some new patches put into it? Or is it to be an altogether new garment? Is it the old wine-skins of Judaism to have new wine put into them? Or is it to be an altogether new wine-skin? This was the great question.

This great question represented a vast difference, and that difference became a great battlefield between the old and the new. This question just wrought Christianity into confusion. For a time, everybody but a few were in a sense of uncertainty about this. It led to very serious divisions among the first apostles themselves. Peter, the leader of the twelve, had a great battle over this question, and at one time he came into serious conflict with the Apostle Paul on this matter. James, who was one of the brothers of our Lord on this earth, had serious reservations about this matter. The first Christian martyr died on this very question; Stephen was martyred because of this very matter. Wherever Christianity went, this dispute followed it. We, in our time, are not able to realize how tense was this strain over the matter of the real nature of Christianity.

Although this particular document to which we refer did settle it very largely at that time, the nature of this controversy has persisted right through into our own day. Is Christianity a legal system, or is it a spiritual life? It was in relation to that question that the Risen and Ascended Lord broke through from heaven and laid His hand on the Apostle Paul. Jesus came right out of heaven, right through from the glory, and put His hand on this man Saul of Tarsus. It was not a small thing for the Lord Jesus, Who had sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, to get up off the Throne and come back here again. He must have seen that there was a very serious matter involved. So He did not send an angel or an archangel; He left His place in glory and came down to that man on the road to Damascus, and He laid His hand upon him. Afterwards, Paul described it as being apprehended by Christ Jesus. You know what that word "apprehended" means? Well, I hope you do not know what it means s far as the law is concerned. When the policeman is after a criminal and he finds the criminal, he puts a very strong hand on him. And that is the word that the apostle used. He said, "I was apprehended. I was arrested by Jesus Christ." And it was in relation to this specific question. The Lord arrested Paul as the instrument through which He was going to answer this question. So serious did the Lord regard this matter, that it is impossible to understand the Apostle Paul's ministry unless we recognize this particular connection. The whole of the Apostle Paul's ministry related to one issue: And that issue is the true, spiritual, heavenly nature of Christianity.

Now Paul by that mighty act from heaven had come to see this great difference. He had come to see that a great divide had been created between old Judaism and new Christianity, between the old earthly Israel and the new heavenly Israel. He had come to see that these were two distinctly different nations. He had come to see that this question divided the ages. What had existed in the past ages was now terminated.  And something new had been introduced to be the nature of things for all the eternal ages. When the Apostle Paul himself came to see that, when that broke upon him from heaven, that is, the vast difference between the legal and the spiritual, he threw himself into that battle to the last drop of his blood.

That battle began immediately when Paul was saved. When he had been met by the Lord, and entered the city of Damascus, after being baptized and receiving the Holy Spirit, he testified to them that Jesus is the Christ. Recognizing what that meant where this man himself was concerned, recognizing that he had changed his ground, that he had left the ground of legalism, the ground of Judaism, that he had taken the ground of Christ: THEN THE BATTLE STARTED.  And right through the thirty years of his life, everywhere he went he was found in that battle.

The last chapter of the Book of Acts, which leaves Paul in prison waiting the sentence of death, finds him still in the battle. The Judaizers are with him in his prison. He seeks to reason with them, but then he has to turn from them and say, "It's no good, I must turn to the Gentiles." The battle was on from the beginning to the end of his life; and this battle was on one mighty issue: Is Christianity a legal system on this earth, or is it a spiritual movement from heaven?

~T. Austin-Sparks~

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