Musing 10

One of the strange things I’ve seen among lay people in recent years is a desire to limit the warnings of the NT against adding rules and limitations upon Christians as merely being related to returning to the Mosaic Law and its rules.

Setting aside that this is a relatively modern idea, even Scripture itself militates against this idea. In Colossians and the pastoral epistles, we see cautions against various forms of asceticism, which aren’t associated with the Mosaic law.

But even more tellingly, Paul’s argument in Galatians is just as applicable to those who would add “innovative” rules to the Christian walk as it is to those who would limit it to just circumcision. And let’s remember, the Judaizers, as far as we can tell, didn’t seem to want to enforce all of the Mosaic law, just circumcision. If going back and requiring circumcision, which predates the Mosaic Law can be damning to Christians, how much more is the addition of multiple rules, ceremonies and burdens to the Christian?

In every case, these temptations are insidious. A simple “well, if you really want to be a Christian, you just need to . . .” is so sweet to the ear. We want to be faithful to Christ and give our all, and sin so easily distracts us from the person and work of Christ to put our eyes on “well, do XYZ” in a bid to put our eyes on ourselves.

When we add rules and burdens to the Christian life in order to earn justification (and let’s be clear, no matter what people say, these additions to the faith always end up being a marker of one being justified), we leave the cross as the sufficient basis of our salvation.