Turning to the Law

Did the Christian movement go astray from the beginning?

It certainly did in Galatia, at least from Paul’s perspective.

He writes to the Galatian churches, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all” (1:6-7).

What was happening?

Some people were throwing the Galatian believers into confusion by insisting that they were required to obey the law. In response Paul writes his sternest letter, which includes these words:

Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. (5:2-4)

This controversy over circumcision was not limited to Galatia. In the book of Acts, the same issue appears in Antioch. Luke says, “Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: ‘Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved’” (Acts 15:1).

Since Paul and Barnabas were involved in this dispute in Antioch, they were appointed to go to Jerusalem “to see the apostles and elders about this question” (v. 2). After considering the matter, the early leaders expressed their verdict in writing:

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: ‘You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell. (vv. 28-29)

So we know some believers were going astray in the first decades, but what happened after the New Testament books were written?

Church Fathers

To understand this period, we must read the Church Fathers, the leaders in the first six or seven centuries of Christian history. The fathers should be honored because they formulated key Christian doctrine, such as the Nicene Creed. However, some claim they also had a detrimental impact on the church.

In his 1931 book, The Vision of God, K. E. Kirk denounces the Apostolic Fathers—leaders in the first and second centuries—for their emphasis on law instead of gospel. Kirk writes,

Paul’s indignant wonder was evoked by the reversion of a small province of the Christian Church to the legalistic spirit of Jewish religion. Had he lived a half-a-century or a century later, his cause for amazement would have been increased a hundredfold. The example of the Galatians might be thought to have infected the entire Christian Church; writer after writer seems to have little other interest than to express the genius of Christianity wholly in terms of law and obedience, reward and punishment. (53)

Before proceeding I want to qualify Kirk’s phrase, “the legalistic spirit of the Jewish religion.” In the 1970s studies began to appear showing the prominence of grace in the Old Testament. For instance, the Ten Commandments begin with this reminder: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Ex 20:2). God saved Israel by his grace then the law was given so Israel’s obedience was not the source of salvation. Hence, the Jewish religion itself is not inherently legalistic. In fact, it is full of mercy and grace. Legalism is something that flows out of our sinful hearts, corrupting even the beauty of grace.

In support of the idea that Paul’s “cause for amazement would have been increased a hundredfold,” Kirk cites evidence from the Didaché, one of the earliest Christian documents outside the New Testament, then the Epistle of Barnabas, 2 Clement, and the Shepherd of Hermas.

Four Facts

Kirk uses the following “outstanding facts” to show how the writings of the Fathers exhibits a turn toward the law along with the inevitable results.

1. “The reaction against the spirit of Judaism, which dominates the New Testament, is deteriorating into mere opposition to the institutions of Judaism.” For example, “When ‘Didaché,’ on the subject of fasting, says, ‘Let not your fasts be with the hypocrites; for they fast on the second and fifth days of the week’ (Monday and Thursday—this being the Jewish practice), ‘but do ye fast on the fourth and on Friday,’ it is clear that our Lord’s great effort to purify the whole conception of fasting has degenerated into a sectarian wrangle about dates” (62). This observation is actually comical. (The quote can be found in chapter 8 of the Didaché.)
2. The writers were not aware of the dangers of codification or creating laws. “Legally expressed codes tend to place preponderant emphasis upon correct behaviour, to the relative disregard of purity of motive, and to substitute punctiliousness for piety. . . It is only with the Apostolic Fathers that actions and dispositions are wholly confused” (63). On the other hand, Kirk says the New Testament emphasizes dispositions instead of actions. For example, in the Beatitudes, Jesus gives a blessing to those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, and the pure in heart (Matt 5:3-10).
3. “A self-righteous complacency—a self-conscious scrupulosity—a self-centred despair—one or other of these is the inevitable result of a religion whose special emphasis is upon law” (66).
4. “By thrusting into the background the primary feature of redeeming grace it alters the whole balance of New Testament theology. The thought of God still dominates our post-apostolic writers, but He is no longer conceived of as a Father Whose loving purposes are the true and only canon of the law . . . He is now thought of primarily as Lawgiver and as Judge. . . There is a vast increase in the titles of God, but they are all titles which emphasize these aspects only—titles which bring God back into line with the conception of the Oriental despot. . . The process initiated by the Didaché will be taken up by the Church Orders, the Councils of successive centuries . . . the Penitential Books, until it finds its completion in the ‘Corpus Juris Canonici’” (69). The last item refers to the Corpus of Canon Law formed by the Roman Catholic Church. Kirk calls this entire process the “progressive codification” of Christianity.

Conclusion

I can’t say for certain if Kirk is right because I have only read a small portion of the writings of the Church Fathers. However, his claim matches the events in first-century Galatia and Antioch and it corresponds with human nature. We are constantly making new laws then judging ourselves by those laws. It’s like we are law-generating machines and these laws become our idols. Apparently, keeping our attention on the heart is too difficult so we focus on observable behavior. As Isaiah says to Israel,

These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught. (Is 29:13)

Seven hundred years later, Jesus applied these same words to the Pharisees and teachers of the law (Mk 7:6-7) showing that this is a perennial problem. For some reason we prefer to “thrust into the background the primary feature of redeeming grace” so that we can live under the bondage of manmade laws. The only answer is to put the gospel back where it belongs.

Les Bridgeman

After graduating from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, I served as a high school Bible teacher in Asia. I enjoy traveling, writing, and playing the drums. For a deep dive into church history and the character of God, see my book Surprised by Hell.