If we ever want to look for someone completely missing the point, we never have to look farther than the Pharisees. Matthew’s account of the gospel in particular is full of exchanges between the Pharisees and Jesus. At a passing glance, these exchanges can seem almost comical (quite frankly, they are funny), but on closer examination there is a chilling reality to them.
In one exchange in Matthew 12, the disciples are hungry and eat some heads of grain as they walk to satisfy their hunger. And the Pharisees pounce. They come to Jesus all worked up, pointing out that his disciples are technically working to harvest food on the sabbath. A rule has been broken and they want to know what Jesus is going to do about it.
Consider how many miracles the Pharisees were witnessing regularly and how authoritatively they were hearing Jesus preach. Dead have been raised, the crippled have been healed, and never mind the sermon on the mount. Miracle after miracle has been performed in front of the Pharisees, and they’re standing there saying “Yeah, but did you do work for a snack on the sabbath?”
I don’t know that it is possible to miss the point more thoroughly than this.
This wasn’t a problem that had just started. From the early days of the law, religious leaders had started adding on their own rules. Their thinking was if it was so bad to break a particular rule, they’d better add a rule around that rule to keep them far away from even maybe breaking the original rule. But then why stop there? Why not put another rule around that bonus rule to keep even farther from breaking the original rule. On and on it went over hundreds of years until the rules were so tight they could hardly breathe.
So then, to simply get a little wiggle room, the religious leaders started creating loopholes in their own rules. We’re not allowed to travel far from home on the sabbath? Well our stuff is now considered our home. So as long as we leave a trail of stuff between home and our destination we can go wherever we want on the sabbath. I’m not kidding. That was an actual loophole the pharisees came up with.
Worse still, these loopholes were most accessible to the religious leaders who could breeze through and easily condemn the lowly who couldn’t keep up. It was the ultimate and complete abuse of legalistic power.
That’s who Jesus was dealing with when his disciples had a snack in their hunger.
It’s no accident that Matthew dedicates so much time to these exchanges. As a Jewish man who had been working as a much abhorred tax collector he understood the devastating effect of legalism of faith. He spends so much time on this because he determined to show that Jesus is the fulfillment of the law and that no one need be trapped by legalism anymore. Legalism is nothing more than a well worded stumbling block to your faith.
Hear this, Christian, legalism is not God’s will for your faith. He is not a God who only loves you as long as you’re following the rules perfectly. He is not a God just waiting for you to stumble so he can shake his head in disappointment. His character is not one of legalism. A God obsessed with arbitrary rules and regulations doesn’t send his son to die for your sins. That would simply not be consistent with such a nature. God’s plan to send his own son to redeem the world indicates a love that goes far beyond rule following.
And I know. Legalism leaves deep scars. Whether through broken leadership in a church, dysfunctional relationship with parents, or some other power struggle, we’ve all felt the condemning weight of rules we just can’t seem to meet. It’s easy to distort our view of God to one of just another set of rules to follow. But this is not the case.
While God does call us to a high standard, rules and rule following are not the measure of our salvation. The most ardent, dedicated rule follower could stand before God feeling unblemished but if they can’t claim allegiance to King Jesus they have no hope. Conversely, the most broken deviator from rules and regulations can brokenly sob “Christ is my only hope” and hear the words “Well done my good and faithful servant.”
We are not saved by rules. We are saved by the king who lowered himself to save us.
May we not become 21st century Pharisees, lost in the importance of our own rules. May we never forget that we don’t follow the law but the perfecter of all law. We are saved by the ruler, not the rule.
Let’s find some joy,
A
Avalon Robinson Author 