LEGALISM HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT
LEGALISM HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT
by: Jack Guyler
Jesus told a parable (a made up story to illustrate a spiritual principle) about two boys and their father. One boy was honest about his displeasure and desire to get out on his own. So one day, this Jewish boy just comes right out and tells his father he wants out. He asked his dad for a portion of his inheritance early so he had money to spend – actually to waste – so he could hit the road and get out on his own. Being a young guy, he took his money and wasted it on the typical things a teen or guy in his 20s would waste it on – alcohol, girls, parties, junk food and other things.
One day when this boy runs out of money, he realizes the “good times” were over. He had no friends and he had no one to help him out. The only person he could think of to turn to was his father. He knew it would be a stretch given how he disrespected his father and left home in a flurry. But that is exactly what he did. And to his surprise, before he reached home, he saw his father waiting with open arms in the distance to greet him. When he finally arrived home, his father was full of smiles, hugs and embraces. He announced to everyone that his lost son was home and that he was going to throw a big party for him. And that they did…they partied and celebrated his home coming!
Well, not everyone! Almost everyone celebrated this younger brother’s home coming. The one person who surprisingly didn’t celebrate was his older brother. In fact, not only didn’t he celebrate, he was just plain sour, angry, resentful and bitter!!! What was his issue? He had many, but his main complaint was that while his younger brother went off having a foolish time and wasting all of his dad’s money; he stayed back at home serving his father and being faithful to their family. I think most of us can see his point. We hear this all the time in families. We especially see it when a parent is ill or dying and you have siblings, and one does most of the care taking and handling the responsibility of the sick parent while the others don’t do much. There tends to be resentment and anger over this sort of thing.
This made-up family was no different. The older son became embittered that his father not only welcomed the younger son back with no consequences, but actually gave him a party! But Jesus of all people, didn’t let the older son off the hook.
Most times when you hear this story told, the emphasis is on the younger son departing home and then returning. But legalism is found in plain sight in this story through the older son. Though the younger son was irresponsible, rude and disrespectful in every way, the real issue in this story is the older son. You see, the younger son realized the error of his ways, came back to his father, and was both repentant and truly sorry. His heart changed – the same way God calls all of us back to Himself for a changed heart.
But the older son’s heart had not changed. It grew harder. It grew further away from his father, not closer as the younger son’s heart did. As I said, this was a made-up story to illustrate how legalism can harden and ruin our hearts and eventually our relationship with God. We see it happen in this story. Let’s break it down and see how legalism can worm its way into our lives so we can better identify it and see if it is infecting us:
1. The older brother was using faithfulness and closeness to the father to get and gain from his father in a subtly way. Legalists are more concerned about the blessings, status and position than relationship
Key Question: Am I more concerned about knowing God or getting things from God?
2. The older brother’s response to the father when he celebrated the younger son’s home coming was to remind his father of how he didn’t leave home and all he did for the father. He believed his goodness exempted him from pain and correction.
Key Question: Do you believe your personal faithfulness or goodness is the basis of your relationship with God?
3. The older son was blinded by his own goodness or righteousness to his real spiritual condition of having a hardened heart. Jesus indicates throughout his teachings that it is this condition, rather than total dependence on God, that keeps people out of heaven.
Key Question: Is your spiritual goodness actually keeping you out of heaven?
4. The older son felt he should directly be rewarded for living a good life while the younger son should have been directly punished for living an irresponsible life? The older son was using his goodness to control his father and the things that happened to him. The younger son, though more irresponsible at least in the beginning of the story, had greater compassion and was actually more faithful toward his father.
Key Question: Do you use your own goodness or righteous living to control God and what happens to you?
5. The older brother was more about appearance and reputation than having a good heart toward his father. Some people live double lives, have repressed anger, end up impulsively exploding and causing a lot of damage and not ending life well. We don’t know what happens to the older son in this made-up story, but he was on track for this type of life.
Key Question: When you are honest, are you more about what other people see or about what is in your heart that God sees?
6. The older brother was driven by insecurity, fear and guilt. This caused him to feel inferior and inadequate around his father and his younger brother. This drove him to become angry, judgmental, narrow-minded and hypocritical. He became angry with his father and resentful toward his brother and probably poured out bitterness and negativity toward most people he came in contact with. When people who attend church come across people like the older brother, it ends up turning them off to church and Christ.
Key Question: Do you relate to the older son in this story? Are you becoming the type of person who in trying to be righteous is turning others away from Christ because of your bitter heart?
7. The older son couldn’t enjoy seeing his brother come home because in order to feel better about himself, he had to put his brother and father down. He couldn’t be happy without trying to rain on their parade and making them feel miserable. He couldn’t see that he lived in a broken world and that he himself was broken and played a part in the broken world. He felt he was standing apart from the world in his own righteousness.
Key Question: Are you unable to share in the happiness and joy of others because you always think they are wrong and that you are better than them? That they don’t deserve goodness because they aren’t as good as you?
