Written by Mark J. Larson |
Sunday, May 12, 2024
The Jews, steeped in the mentality of legalism, once asked Jesus, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” (John 6:28). This is the typical question of the unsaved person who does not know the gospel: What work of righteousness shall I do? How can I be good enough to  enter heaven? Jesus’ response is crucially instructive: “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (John 6:29). Luther properly maintained, “The first, highest, and most precious of all good works is faith in Christ” (Treatise on Good Works). 

Legalism holds its grip upon the minds and hearts of countless numbers of people in our time. It was no different in the sixteenth century when Martin Luther drew a radical distinction between the gospel of grace and the legalism of all other religions outside of biblical Christianity. As Luther contemplated religions of works in his time, he immediately thought of Judaism, Islam as exemplified by the Ottoman Turks, late-medieval Roman Catholicism, and various heretical splinter groups. He declared in his Commentary on Galatians: “If the article of justification be once lost, then is all true Christian doctrine lost. And as many as are in the world that hold not this doctrine, are either Jews, Turks, Papists or heretics.”
Sad to say, the ancient Jewish leaven of legalism even infected the church in the first century. Let us reflect upon this phenomenon and then draw out some practical applications.
The Legalism of the Pharisees
The Pharisaic movement of the first century demonstrates the tendency of legalism to slide into fanatical excess. Even as Jesus pronounced woe upon the Pharisees, he reflected upon their lack of balance: “You tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” (Matthew 23:23). As we read the Gospels, we are continually astounded. We are presented with blind, nitpicking fanatics who could not see the glory of the divine Messiah Jesus who ministered in their very midst. Jesus, for example, was “grieved by the hardness of their hearts” when “they kept silent” after he asked them a simple question, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” (Mark 3:4–5). Their response to Jesus healing a man with a withered hand was diabolical: “Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him” (Mark 3:6).
Paul acknowledges that he too had been an angry man, a violent aggressor, even while clothed with the garments of outward religiosity. His assessment was an insider’s perspective, for he himself had been a Pharisee, and “as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless” (Philippians 3:6). He had excelled at dotting every letter i and crossing every letter t in the Pharisaic rule book of man-made religion. His heart, nevertheless, was far from God. He makes a startling admission for one who was “advanced in Judaism” beyond many of his contemporaries, “being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions” of the fathers (Galatians 1:14). He felt that he needed to make this confession: “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man” (1 Timothy 1:13). Indeed, he had consented to the murder of Stephen (Acts 8:1). He is presented as “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). He “persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it” (Galatians 1:13).
Grace, though, brought radical change. Paul became a new man. He came to embrace a truly Christian perspective regarding law righteousness, the righteousness that a person seeks to build up by meticulous keeping of the law of God and the tradition of the elders. This was a righteousness that tended to lead to pride and a spirit of self-congratulation. Jesus, in fact, spoke a parable in which he described a Pharisee who trusted in himself that he was righteous and viewed others with contempt: “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank you thatI am not like other men.” “I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess” (Luke 18:9–12).
He came to regard his past religious achievements as dung—as the King James Version of 1611 translates the Greek skubalon in Philippians 3:8. Everything that he did by way of outward religious observance was tainted due to his unbelief. As he himself said, “Whatever is not from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). He would have concurred with Jesus’ woe of judgment which rested upon hypocrites who outwardly appeared to be righteous before men, but inwardly were full of hypocrisy and lawlessness (Matthew 23:28). He knew that the way of salvation came by faith appealing for mercy.
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Reformed theology understands that God has chosen to relate to us by means of covenant — a relationship established by a promise. There are two divine covenants, namely the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. Witsius wrote: “[The law] served the covenant of works of old: and still it serves the covenant of grace.” Obedience to the law became the condition of what was promised in the covenant of works – do this and live, a covenant broken by our first parent’s sin. God’s redemptive way of relating to his people is through the covenant of grace in which the law still has an important place.

I was sitting across the table from my pastor when he asked what I thought the weakest part of his preaching was. As someone who is prone to a critical spirit I was hesitant to answer. But, at his prodding, I gave my opinion: “I think the weakest part of your preaching is that you’re scared to tell Christians what they need to do.” He responded by saying: “That’s a very fair observation.” He went on to admit that he’d rather tell people what Christ did for them than tell them what they need to do for Christ.
It’s a short anecdote but it illustrates what is often a perceived tension in preaching — the distinction between law and gospel. This distinction is important in Reformed theology. In his excellent book Conciliatory or Irenical Animadversions, Dutch theologian Herman Witsius helpfully defined the “strictest notion” of both words. He wrote: “The law signifies that part of the Divine word which consists in precepts and prohibitions, with the promise of conferring a reward upon them who obey, and threatenings of punishment to the disobedient.” He went on to say: “The gospel signifies the doctrine of grace, and of the fullest salvation in Christ Jesus, to be received by elect sinners by faith.” According to these narrow definitions we might say that law is command and gospel is promise.
The distinction between law and gospel finds its way into many questions — not the least of which is pulpit ministry. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once famously quipped that preaching the gospel faithfully will likely get you accused of being antinomian — that is, anti-law. But the reciprocal is true too. Faithfully preaching the law can get you accused of being moralistic or, what is sometimes called neonomian — making the gospel a new law. Neonomianism and antinomianism are significant threats to the truth of Jesus Christ. On the one hand, those who pervert grace to lawlessness are designated for condemnation (Jude 4, and Matthew 7:23, Titus 2:14, 2 Peter 3:17, and 1 John 3:4), and on the other hand those who undermine grace by works are also under a curse (Galatians 3:10, see also 2:16 and Romans 3:20, 28).
How should law and gospel relate in preaching? One simple answer might be to say that the law should be used to show us our need for Jesus — the law is preached in order to make hearers desire the promise of the gospel. To borrow the expression of the Apostle, that is a lawful use of the law. After all, this same Apostle said: “I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, ‘You shall not covet’” (Romans 7:7).
But this simple formula — preaching the law to preach the gospel — isn’t the only way that law and gospel should relate in the pulpit. Here, Herman Witsius is a great guide as he lays down several things that aid an understanding of preaching law and gospel.
First, while it’s true that law and gospel can be defined strictly, it’s also biblically true that they can be defined more broadly. Witsius says “all who are acquainted with theology” recognize a more extensive definition.
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Because of the distinctive lives of many early Christians, and because of the early church’s focus on teaching and training its people in the basics of Christian theology and the requirements of Christian ethics, many in the surrounding culture were drawn to these strange and counter-culture people. May we live strangely attractive lives as well.

I’ve never been asked this question, but apparently it’s been quite the trend on social media. It turns out that 21st century men (and women?) think about the Roman Empire quite a bit. The reasons vary, but Christians, at least, should think more often than they do about how their ancestors in the faith lived, worked, and worshiped in the latter days of the Roman Empire.
Historians and scholars have long puzzled over how a movement led by marginalized Jews could have eventually overwhelmed one of the largest and longest-lived empires the world has ever seen. Others have pointed out the similarities between our cultural moment and the end of the Roman Empire. By examining some of the ways that the early church defined itself in the late Roman world, Christians today can learn valuable lessons for how to live in our own rapidly re-paganizing culture.
We often forget how odd the Christian movement was. Historian Larry Hurtado reminds us: “In the eyes of many of that time, early Christianity was odd, bizarre, in some ways even dangerous. For one thing, it did not fit what ‘religion’ was for people then. Indicative of this, Roman-era critics designated it as a perverse ‘superstition’” (Destroyer of the Gods, 1-2). Yet, this strange new religion quickly grew and conquered the Roman Empire. Early Christianity was simultaneously “perverse” and strangely attractive. What made the early Christian movement so attractive? What can Christians today learn from our fathers and mothers in the faith?
Faithfulness–Not Relevance
The early Christians focused more on being faithful, and in creating a distinct culture, than on being “winsome” or “relevant.” In his book, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire, historian Alan Kreider argues that several factors set apart the early Christian movement, and ultimately led to its surprising growth. Of primary importance was an emphasis on patience. Kreider writes:
Patience was not a virtue dear to most Greco-Roman people, and it has been of little interest to scholars of early Christianity. But it was centrally important to the early Christians. They talked about patience and wrote about it; it was the first virtue about which they wrote a treatise, and they wrote no fewer than three treatises on it. Christian writers called patience the “highest virtue,” “the greatest of all virtues,” the virtue that was “peculiarly Christian.” The Christians believed that God is patient and that Jesus visibly embodied patience. And they concluded they, trusting in God, should be patient–not controlling events, not anxious or in a hurry, and never using force to achieve their ends (1-2).
Perhaps paradoxically, this emphasis on patience led to high standards of life and morality in the early church, which created a distinctive Christian subculture. This is bound up in what Kreider terms habitus. Habitus is “reflexive bodily behavior” (Patient Ferment, 2). Early Christians focused less on winning arguments and more on winning others through their habitually patient behavior: “When challenged about their ideas, Christians pointed to their actions. They believed that their habitus, their embodied behavior, was eloquent. The behavior said what they believed; it was an enactment of their message” (Patient Ferment, 2).
Thirdly, Kreider notes the importance of catechesis and worship. “The early Christians were uncommonly committed to forming the habitus of their members” (Patient Ferment, 2). Pagans needed to be re-trained, and needed to develop different habits. On this score, the early church was probably too restrictive. New converts entered the catechumenate, a time of training and probation, which could last years. They were excluded from the latter part of the church’s worship service (the prayers and Eucharist). No doubt this increased the sense of awe and mystery, and created a sense of anticipation, but this already displays the unhealthy tendency to split the church into two tiers of those who are more holy/advanced Christians and those less committed or less mature. Our churches today veer to the opposite extreme, welcoming everyone with no standards at all for admission and inclusion. Surely there is wisdom in walking between these extremes. Groups like the Catechesis Institute are seeking to renew and apply the ancient patterns of catechesis to the contemporary church. Learning from the past requires creativity–not just a cut-and-paste approach. As Mark Twain put it: “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.”
Fourth, the early church embodied what Kreider calls “ferment.” Although this was not an early Christian term or concept, it helpfully captures aspects of how the early church grew and how it interacted with the surrounding culture. “It was not susceptible to human control, and its pace could not be sped up. But in the ferment there was a bubbling energy–a bottom-up inner life–that had immense potential” (Patient Ferment, 3).
Kreider’s book is full of insights about how the early Christians lived their lives differently than the surrounding Greco-Roman culture, and how their radically counter-cultural lifestyle (“habitus”) was attractive and compelling to their pagan neighbors. Here’s one of the key takeaways: “Unlike many churches today, the third-century churches described by the Apostolic Tradition did not try to grow by making people feel welcome and included. Civic paganism did that. In contrast, the churches were hard to enter. They didn’t grow because of their cultural accessibility; they grew because they required commitment to an unpopular God who didn’t require people to perform cultic acts correctly but instead equipped them to live in a way that was richly unconventional” (Patient Ferment, 149). The Gospel calls us to live in a way that is noticeably different from our non-Christian neighbors. Like the early church, this will be either attractive, or will bring persecution. The early church can remind us of how to be faithful in both eventualities.
Revolutionary Sex
Another aspect of the early Christian witness is even more relevant to our hedonistic culture. In a world of sexual license, the early church preached–and tried to enforce–sexual purity and abstinence. In opposition to the pagans, Christians taught women and men that sex was a God-given gift, to be exercised only in marriage. Pagan cultures, as with most non-Christian cultures throughout history, had a double-standard. The purity of women was closely guarded, while men had much more freedom. Slaves, including children, were at the mercy of their master’s lusts. The first sexual revolution was the Christian moral revolution, as Kyle Harper points out: “The heightened place of sexuality in the overarching structure of morality, the respect for the human dignity of all persons, and the insistence on the value of the transcendent and sacred over the secular and the civic—these all went hand in hand in the growth of Christian culture” (“The Sexual Revolution”).
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