Legalistic religion is the enemy of true relationship with God. Legalism is rooted in pride. The idea that man can somehow produce enough goodness to represent God well in the Earth is legalism. A man came to Jesus and point blank asked a question that should forever resolve our understanding of how God wants us to please Him.

Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

(John 6:28-29 ESV)

Every good work of man will flow from the center of an abiding relationship with God through Christ. By watching the advanced track videos above on the book of Acts you will come to understand the story of Paul and how Jesus appeared to Him on the road to Damascus. Paul was a classically trained religious Pharisee. All of his religious learning led him to murder Christians who believed in Jesus. Religion apart from Christ often makes people mean and bitter. Jesus Himself appeared to Paul and knocked Him off His horse and blinded Him. Jesus personally revealed Himself to Paul as the messenger to the non-Jews. Jesus wanted to use a legalistic Pharisee to help people understand how to receive the true message of the gospel which is the essence of the New Covenant. Paul wrote the book of Galatians as a letter to the churches who were caught between the Old and the New Covenant and could not make their way across the finish line.

Jesus told a parable about trying to mix the old with the new.

No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

(Matthew 9:16-17 ESV)

The book of Galatians clearly teaches us that the New Covenant is not based on the Law. It also teaches us that God has not set aside the law because the law has a purpose. It’s purpose is always to bring us to see our need for a relationship with Christ. Once that purpose is accomplished it has served it’s purpose. We who are in Christ are no longer under the law. In fact, non-jews were technically never “under” the law. They showed the work of the law “written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to it.” Jesus said I did not come to abolish the law because the law still today has a purpose.

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

(Romans 3:19-20 ESV)

Paul called the Galatians “foolish” because they were stumbling over the stumbling block of trying to earn God’s acceptance. Israel was so deeply rooted in pride that they thought they could somehow be good enough to earn their right standing before a holy God.

What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

(Romans 9:30-33 ESV)

Paul said trying to live under the law was equal to being “under a curse.”

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”

(Galatians 3:10-11 ESV)

Paul explains that God originally made His promises to Abraham and Abraham “believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.” The promise (covenant) with Abraham preceded the conditional covenant made to Israel through Moses.

This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.

(Galatians 3:17-19 ESV)

The law was given because people sinned. Notice that it was given “until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made.” Jesus said “I did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.” He fulfilled the law completely and yet He still wants the law to be taught because it shows people their need for a savior. It points them to Him. Like a mirror, the law is designed to show us we have something on our face. Once we see that we have something on our face we don’t wash ourselves with the mirror. We set the mirror aside and we use soap to wash our face.

Christ is the soap and the law is the mirror. Don’t try to measure God’s acceptance of you by your ability to keep the law or you will fall into the legalistic type of religion that Paul warns the Galatians about. External observance of rules misses the point that God wants to express His heart in and through us by the Spirit of God which brings forth what Paul calls the fruit of the Spirit. For this fruit to be cultivated we must develop humility, surrender and dependence in our relationship with God. He will represent Himself well in the Earth if we learn how to get out of the way.