One of the things mentioned last time was that Phariseeism turns people away from Christ. We look at how in this post.
Phariseeism, legalism, and 200%ism seems to put law above all else. So, is it the law that is turning people away from Christ? Certainly, legalism can move us to be overly strict and add too many unimportant, self-serving ‘fences’, and traditions which would turn people away from Christ. This would make them hate the law, as well as be afraid of God whom they now would view as hard and austere.
Or, did the Pharisee’s dumbed down explanation of the law turn the people away from Christ?
The Reformed Protestants say it is the law itself. That’s why they want the law separated from the gospel, and removed from the message. They say that since the law does not save (and it doesn’t), it should not be preached. Admonitions, threatenings, and warnings belong only to the Old Testament. They say that the law is not needed because obedience springs unsummoned from a grateful heart whereupon the law is now written.
The Pharisees were too lax
The Pharisees were teachers, and “they [rightly] upheld the Torah as the divine code, but at the same time they recognized the need for harmonizing the Torah with the ever-changing realities of life.” Alexander Guttmann, Rabbinic Judaism in the Making: … (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1970), xii.
Their mission was to boil down the law into principles, practices, and techniques that average people could understand and keep. They did not plan to prop themselves up, even though this was a result of their approach to teaching the law.
And, to be sure, they were legalists. But their legalism, and subsequent 200%ism, was the result of trying to reduce the law down into lots of little manageable and attainable pieces. The more they studied the law, the more doable little steps they could insert.
Instead of being too strict, they were far too lax in comparison to the fullness of what God required. This removed Christ, and belittled his work of active obedience for our salvation. Understand active obedience here, here and here.
Too lax?
“The bare text [the letter] of the law ‘sets a minimum standard of behaviour,’ … but the ‘ethical ceiling [the spirit of the law that Jesus taught] is as high as heaven itself’, for a key principle of biblical ethics is the imitation of God”. Gordon J. Wenham, Journal of Jewish Studies 48, no. 1 (1997): 17.
The ethical ideal is to imitate God. As members of God’s covenant, we, and Israel, are to behave in a godlike way, Lev. 11:45 & 19:2. And we are to do so from a perfect heart, which Jesus did.
How laxness and legalism fit together
The legalism of the Pharisees manifested itself in two ways. First, they sought to keep the bare text of the law, rather than the fullness of the biblical ethic (moral/heart) of what it means to imitate God; thus teaching mere outward compliance. Secondly, they dumbed down the full biblical ethic of the law into manageable principles that seemed to make the law possible to keep; even though it was actually impossible. Thus, they put man in Christ’s place regarding obedience. And they made Christ’s perfect obedience as nothing.
Dumbing down the law into doable pieces made the law easy to keep outwardly. That was the point of Jesus about the outside of the cup. He commended them for keeping the law as strictly as they did, “... unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees”, Matt 5:20. Yet, Jesus demanded perfection, ‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect’. Matt 5:48.
Jesus was critical of the Pharisees, not because they obeyed the Torah too strictly. But, because they interpreted it too loosely and left out the full biblical ethic of the law, Matt 23:28. They taught that partial keeping of the ethical requirement was good enough.
By leaving out the full biblical ethic they did two things. First, they separated the law from the gracious and loving character of God. This pits law and grace against each other. Secondly, they left out the requirement of perfection; and thus, the need for the cross.
No wonder no one was looking for the right kind of Messiah: the Christ … on a cross.
The Pharisees’ low view of the law
“If the Pharisees had recognized that the Law demands not only the observance of external rules but also and primarily mercy and justice and love for God and men, they would not have been so readily satisfied with the measure of their obedience. And the Law would then have fulfilled its great function of being a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ. A low view of law leads to legalism in religion; a high view of law makes a man a seeker after grace”. J. Gresham Machen, The Origin of Paul’s Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1921), 179. emphasis mine.
The Pharisees hated Jesus because his Sermon (Matt. 5-7) exposed the impossibility as they should have presented it; and as it was presented by God in the OT. They lowered the law to be an attainable contract, a covenant of works.
Their emphasis on outward keeping of the law divided the law away from the gracious and loving character of God who gave the law in the first place. Obedience from the heart, the ethical aspect of law-keeping, is the covenantal connection. The law was not given to show God’s austerity. It was given with a view to Christ who would come and keep it perfectly and from the heart. It was given in covenant love for God’s people.
This ethical aspect is what joins the law to the gracious, loving character of the Giver of the law, God Himself. Eve, and then Adam, failed to obey from the heart. As God’s beloved Son, Jesus met the ethical standard and obeyed with a perfect heart. Thus, proving that the law was no mere contract but the expression of covenant life. Keeping the law knits our hearts to our Father in our consciousness.
A cheap game
These teachers made law-keeping a cheap game, even as Dewey thought it was. The Pharisees made it a game that they were sure to win since they not only created the fences for everyone else; they created the loopholes. The average person couldn’t know these loopholes; thus, they hated the law even more.
As a cheap game, the Pharisees made the law a thing to be weary of, to turn away from, and to even hate. By boiling down the law into attainable pieces, they taught the people, “you’ve got this”. In teaching the people that they could keep the law; they made the law oppose the good news of Christ.
