The Scourge Of Racism
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Those in these latter days that dare to challenge the rebellious departures from God’s Word being made by many professed Christians and their chosen leader/teachers are very often accused of legalism. I know this because it has happened to me. Microsoft Encarta Dictionary defines legalism as “strict adherence to a literal interpretation of a law, rule or religious moral code.” Amazingly, I have never heard the Lord Jesus called a “legalist” and He had no concern about this for Himself in literally interpreting and applying God’s Word.1 My accusers, no doubt, are only attempting to escape their sin guilt from corrupting, compromising, setting aside and/or disobeying God’s Word.
The confusion involved with religious legalism goes all the way back to Eden when the serpent negatively restated God’s actual directive to Adam and Eve added words to it (compare Genesis 2:16-17 and 3:1-3). Obviously, God intended for Adam to give strict and literal adherence to His specific command. There was no room for exceptional situations or conditions in His command to Adam; God meant for Adam to give absolute and full obedience to what He had commanded him. The consequence of death was also clearly stated to the man for this very reason. Thus, strict obedience to God’s specific commandments and instructions is not legalism, but righteousness!
Satan’s deceitful restatement of and Eve’s added words to God’s very concise and save one prohibitive element, permissive command to Adam presents factors for the first time in human experience that lead especially to religious legalism. God’s Law and all commandments to mankind are always to be understood as for our good and beneficial. Prohibitions exist to help us avoid sin and its consequences. Himself a rebel against God, Satan negatively frames God’s Law and commandments as stifling rules and regulations that we now as sinners by nature, also reflexively rebel against (Romans 8:7). Rebels want their way and hate all rules righteous or not!
Even so, very oddly, mankind has been historically drawn to negatively framed religion. Like Eve and Israel’s religious establishment by the time the living “Word of God” become flesh arrived on the scene, they add to, embellish or arrogantly set aside God’s Law and commandments and expect the result to be legalistically kept (John 1:1, 14-18; Mark 7:1-13; Colossians 2:20-23, NKJV). In their self-made religion they appear to want to outdo God in wickedly attempting to impress Him with their outward show. But the Lord Jesus was not impressed and repeatedly challenged the areas of 1st century Israel’s invented religious legalisms involving God’s Law, commandments and Judaic rituals.
For example, Israel was specifically commanded by God in the Ten Commandments to keep the Sabbath Day holy to Him and cease from all of their normal work to rest (Deuteronomy 5:12-15). However, 1st century religious legalism went beyond God and made it a matter of law breaking to do a good deed such as healing (or being healed) and showing mercy on the Sabbath all of which the Lord Jesus did and rebuked them in the process (Matthew 12:1-8; Mark 3:1-6; Luke 13:10-17; John 5:1-16). As “Lord of the Sabbath,” the living Word perfectly knew God’s good intent in the Law was for and to bless and refresh Israel with rest in the divine presence (Mark 2:27-28, NKJV).
As the perfect Fulfiller and Interpreter of the Law along with all of the whole Old Testament’s spiritual, moral and ethical instruction, the Lord Jesus Christ continually showed the fullness of divine good intent in them (Matthew 5:17-48). In many cases, the Lord with His literal interpretations and applications in spiritual depth and required actions went impossibly well beyond what the Law on the surface demanded and sinful human nature was willing or able to do--or who really desires to love a known enemy? But this brings us to where the Lord Jesus is the bridge between the terms of Israel’s Old Covenant embodied in the written Law and those of the New Covenant (Matthew 26:26-28).2
In ushering in the New Covenant with Israel through His blood, the Lord brought into play its terms announced by God through Jeremiah the prophet which still involved the written Law and commandments (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Now, though, God would supernaturally place His Law ‘“in their minds, and write it on their hearts’” as the New Testament writer of Hebrews also affirms while celebrating the sacrifice of Christ for sin and its forgiveness that makes it all possible (Jeremiah 31:33b; Hebrews 10:11-18, NKJV). Along with producing a new heart (nature) in them, the Holy Spirit would be the Agent of placing God’s Law in their minds and writing it on their hearts (Ezekiel 11:19-20, 36:25-27).
1 See the September 16, 2018, Justifying The Means By The End, under the category, Instruction.
2 For a discussion of the New Covenant, read, God’s New Covenant, under the category, Holidays and my two-part post, Party Of The Second Part, under the category,
The Faith all in January of 2014.
Still thinking about young 21st century church planters,1 I am not unaware that many do set out with sincere determination to answer God’s call to go, preach the Gospel, make disciples and plant a church. However, some go wrong when they start to believe it depends more on them than God. As a result, they seek to help the Lord and speed up the process of church building with people pleasing compromises of God’s Word and flesh generated ideas. In this edited 2010 Commentary, the Lord leads me to remind all of us that He is concerned about the end and the means. Aspiring strong men of God in the image of Christ are to never do evil to bring about His intended good end.
Originally Published September 2010
It used to be a matter of routine morality that people were just as concerned about how an achievement was made as the achievement itself. Apparently, this is no longer true. In the world and among many Christians today, the end is exceedingly more important than the means used to arrive at it. Justifying the means by the end as a philosophy has saturated every fabric of our society. The character and specifically integrity of Christ in the aspiring strong man of God, precludes his compromising what is right in the sight of the Lord to arrive at even the noblest of ends.2 He knows God is just as much concerned about the means to the end as He is the end itself.
Having abandoned a biblical worldview of life and morality, athletes cheat using performance enhancing drugs for fame and bigger paydays. Teachers adjust student test scores to the end of showing progress and keeping their jobs. Activist judges hide behind legalese and formality to advance immoral social agendas in important rulings while lawmakers bribe each other with money deals to pass needed legislation. Corrupt preachers twist God's Word to justify covetous desires while deacons and trustees steal church money to pay themselves for their hard work. Churches tolerate the known immoral lifestyles of choir members and musicians to keep services jumping.
Professed Christians justify disobedience to God's Word to show the world they love them. The Bible's steps to salvation through repentance and faith are altered by the same folk to fill churches with warm, unsaved bodies. After all, the end game is packed out church worship services. Professed Christian mothers murder their children in the womb to justify timing issues and career ambitions. The Lord, they say, "understands my situation." Professed Christian men lie, steal and commit other crimes justifying their deeds by claiming expediency in the need of the moment. Never mind that the Lord they profess to follow taught no such precept or set an endorsing example.
Indeed, the Lord Jesus Christ was given many opportunities to achieve ends by varying means other than what His Father laid out for Him. For example, at the outset of His ministry He was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1-11). After He had completed a 40-day food fast, the Lord was very hungry. The devil approached and suggested He turn stones into bread to prove He was the Son of God. But the Lord told him, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God,'" (Matthew 4:4, NKJV). Interestingly, Jesus had no concern here about being legalistic as He declared God’s Word!
It is also clear the Lord was not going to prove Himself or use His own power to satisfy His need. He would wait and rely on His Father for all of His needs! In the evil thinking of our day, many would be okay with the Lord Jesus taking care of His need for food and showing off His power to boot in order to silence the devil. But the devil would not have been silenced. As the accuser, he would have immediately charged the Lord with acting independent of His Father and sin for he also knew the Scriptures. The means the Lord would have used to the ends of eating and proving His identity was not righteous. He, therefore, chose not to use it!
The other two temptations the devil brought thereafter were likewise designed to get the Lord Jesus to achieve ends by means that were wicked. In those cases too, the Lord refused to do so standing on and honoring God's written Word! Even in the final hours before His suffering when He sought the Father if there might yet be another means to save us, He submitted to His Father's no and went to the cross as the noblest of ends ever in the history of the world (Matthew 26:36-46). Every aspiring strong man of God in the image of Jesus Christ must in like manner willfully choose moment by moment to achieve every end by means that will also please our heavenly Father. The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
1 See the September 9, 2018 post, Old Versus New School Church, under the category, Instruction.
2 Learn more about the character of the aspiring strong man of God in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics. It is available at all major internet booksellers,
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