June 20

“Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full  of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.”    

—MATTHEW 23:27

It is possible to be right, yet to have totally lost the plot, the purpose, and the experience of what the Gospel is about. Throughout history, legalism is again and again one of the great barriers to the Christian life. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian, was put to death in 1945 for his role in the resistance against Adolf Hitler. He had asked the renowned question, “What might Christianity look like without the trappings of religion?” He spoke of the need for a radical revision of Christianity in a secular age where it has for too long been bound by rules and regulations of men and not by the presence and activity of God.

When God gave the law to Moses on Mount Sinai, it was in a context of a deep relationship and intimacy with Him. But over time, the content of the law replaced the context in which it was given. Jesus said of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, “They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them” (Matthew 23:4). The heavy loads were the commandments, which Jewish leaders had expanded to 613 laws, layer upon layer of new rules to qualify the commandments. These laws may have been conceived by people who sincerely believed that in keeping them they were pleasing God, but instead, they were restrictive, oppressive, heavy and above all, controlling.

Any understanding that the Christian Gospel imposes a heavy burden is actually the opposite of what Jesus came to do. In Matthew 11:28, He said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” If we’re not enjoying a personal relationship with God where we talk to Him, hear His voice and enjoy His presence, we will substitute the context of the law for the content, and in the process end up being more concerned about how well we keep the rules. 

With the indwelling Spirit of Christ, the context of the law is what enables us to keep the content, because it is Jesus in us who is the empowering. Without Him, all we have is a shell of the commandments on tablets of stone that become a burden. As Christians, we are meant to enjoy a meaningful relationship with Christ, free of the condemning and burdening restraints of religiosity, which is always the unremitting antagonist of the Gospel.   

PRAYER: Dear Heavenly Father, I am grateful for your indwelling Spirit. Thank You for freeing me from the burden of religiosity and giving me freedom in Christ.

TO REFLECT UPON: Am I weighed down by God’s laws or resting in the sufficiency of Christ to make keeping them a reality in my life?