"Was Jesus legalistic?"

I really had NO plans on teaching or explaining legalism, freedom in the Gospel, or how Jesus lived a perfect life.

And I still don't. For the past several weeks, Cleyo and I have been thinking and talking about Christ and how He was able to live without sin. And really, I was just curious to have thoughts from others, but only a few responded, and even though I really have no more information than I did when I started, I do have some conclusions.

First, I loved Linda G response on FB,
"Pharisees were legalistic, Jesus was obedient." ~ That completely sums it up, in 6 words!

And after some conversations with Amanda, here and through email, I believe that our thoughts are very similar, but maybe our responses are different(?).

I do have to admit that I have an issue with some Christians that take advantage of the freedom of the Gospel. Our lives must be Gospel Driven, but as Paul states in Romans 6:1-2 "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? ²May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?" Read all of chapter 6, it is SO GOOD;

Romans 6
Believers Are Dead to Sin, Alive to God
¹What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? ²May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? ³Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? ⁴Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. ⁵For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, ⁶knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; ⁷for he who has died is freed from sin. ⁸Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, ⁹knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. ¹⁰For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. ¹¹Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹²Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, ¹³and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. ¹⁴For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. ¹⁵What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! ¹⁶Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? ¹⁷But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, ¹⁸and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. ¹⁹I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. ²⁰For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. ²¹Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. ²²But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. ²³For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.


I rely totally on Christ's work on the cross, and yet I am driven to obedience because of my love for God. So my conclusion, Christ was NOT legalistic, He was OBEDIENT, even unto death on the cross. So therefore, I do not want to be a slave to my "old self" but I want to be a slave to righteousness. Anyone that knows me well, or spends five minutes around me, knows that I am NOT perfect! And for those of you reading this, and have NOT trusted Christ as you Savior, there is NOT anything that I can do to earn favor with God, my salvation is a gift from God, not of works (Ephesians 2:8-9).

2 Corinthians 13:5 says, "Examine yourselves to see whether you are (standing) in Faith. Test yourselves. For you should know yourselves-that Christ Jesus is in you, unless indeed you fail to meet the test."

I must examine whether or not "my personal work" motive was to earn favor or pay back my salvation, or because of my faith in Him. I personally am driven to obedience, but yet I honestly can say that I do not have thoughts that I am earning favor or paying Christ back, not that my motives are ever correct, but I truly love God and from that love comes a desire towards obedience. Amanda stated in an email, "The line between obedience and legalism is very hard to find.", I totally agree with that. God only knows my heart. I know there has to be times when I think that I am obeying because I love God, but God only sees it as useless work. And when I fail, and I do daily, I fall back on God's promise that my sins are PAID in FULL on the CROSS through CHRIST.


And since I do not have the gift of teaching and I have probably only confused people even more, and if you are interested in listening to a Pastor that I think has been blessed with the gift of teaching, I found a link on this subject that is good, long, but good....

Christ Redeemed us from the Curse of the Law