Losing My Religion: The Incompatibility of Legalism and the Gospel – Luke 5:33-39

Luke 5.33-39 – Study Guide

INTRODUCTION:

Are you a rule keeper or a rule breaker? Do rules make you feel safe, or do they feel like a cage? Why do some rules feel easy to follow while others feel difficult, or even painful?

Have you ever judged someone for breaking a rule that you follow? Did you ever feel like keeping a rule kept you from loving someone? Have you ever broken a rule because it seemed like the right thing to do? Have you ever followed a rule just to look good to others?

Do you think rules always show us the right thing to do? What happens when rule-keeping changes from being a way to show love for others into a way to condemn others and even justify pride? When does obeying God’s rules, his laws, become more about trying to control God rather than trying to love him?

RAISE THE NEED, STATE THE DESTINATION, GIVE SIGNPOSTS

These are a few of the questions we’ll answer today as we study Luke 5:33-39. If you own a copy of the Bible, you can find our passage on page _____. As we reenter Luke’s gospel after being in the Psalms all Summer, let’s set the stage.

• Luke 1-2: The prophecies and births of John the Baptist & Jesus
• Luke 3: An adult John the Baptist prepares the way for Jesus ministry by preaching and baptizing in the Jordan wilderness; genealogy of Christ.
• Luke 4: Jesus tempted, begins his ministry, and though he heals many, is rejected in his home town.
• Luke 5: Jesus calls his first disciples, and as he gains attention, the religious leaders begin to question him:
  • In Luke 5:17-26, Jesus heals a paralytic and forgives his sins. The Pharisees ask, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins by God alone?”
  • In Luke 5:27-32, Levi (Matthew) throws a big dinner party and invites his friends to come meet Jesus. The Pharisees ask, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

And today the Pharisees come to Jesus with yet another question. This time the question is about rule following. They question Jesus about the rules and rituals of religion.

The Pharisees were an ultra-conservative Jewish sect that arose around 200 years before the time of Christ. The word, Pharisee, means “separated ones,” and that’s what they were: they saw themselves as separated out from not only Gentiles, but even from the rest of Israel because of their rigid commitment to rule-keeping, and they opposed Jesus because he challenged their many additions to God’s law.

That’s what today’s passage is basically about. The Pharisees believed that God’s acceptance of them was based on their rule-keeping and Jesus says that his arrival, and the gospel he brings is totally incompatible with their man-made legalism.

So, let’s read the passage and consider the problems with legalism.

THE TEXT

³³ And they said to him, “The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.” ³⁴ And Jesus said to them, “Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? ³⁵ The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” ³⁶ He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. ³⁷ And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. ³⁸ But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. ³⁹ And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”

The first problem with legalism is:

1. LEGALISM MAKES RULES WHERE GOD GIVES FREEDOM

Legalism legislates where God gives liberty. The Pharisees say, “John’s disciples fast, and so do ours… but yours don’t.”

In the Old Testament, under the Mosaic Covenant, God required only one fast a year: the Day of Atonement. (Lev. 16:29) And, throughout the history of Israel times of national or political tumult would be accompanied by fasts. So, fasts we times when God’s people denied food to their stomachs as a way to focus their prayer lives and devotion to God, and God only required one fast day a year.

But the Pharisees had instituted two fasts per week: Monday and Thursdays. This means that they increased the requirements of God’s law 10,300%

There’s nothing wrong with fasting. Fasts can be beneficial, even to us. But what is utterly destructive of God’s work in your life is to legislate a 10,000% increase in religious ritual where God has given freedom.

Friends, the Law of the Lord is good. The Ten Commandments are good, and we are to obey them. But where God has given liberty, we ought not heap up rules. And this doesn’t apply to fasting alone.

We are to remember the Sabbath Day. God requires that on the Lord’s Day we set aside time to gather with his people and worship him. It is a day of spiritual rest. But we aren’t to police how people spend every minute of that day, what kind of work they can and cannot do, whether or not they can enjoy recreation with their families and friends.

The New Testament calls us to modesty in our apparel. (1 Tim. 2:9-10) But it never tells us how many yards of cotton is required in a garment. It’s our responsibility to lean on one another’s wisdom to discern modesty.

Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are coming in a few months. Believe it or not, there’s no single verse that tells you how a Christian must treat any of those holidays.

But the legalist loves to make hard and fast rules where God has given liberty and permitted our consciences to decide for ourselves. If we aren’t careful, we can become just like those Pharisees who force everyone to conform to their man made laws.

Second, legalism…

2. CONSTANTLY COMPARES

These Pharisees come asking Jesus why his disciples don’t fast. And notice the comparison that happens: “We fast. John’s disciples fast. Yours don’t.” They are keeping a record, a list, a hierarchy of who holds to what religious rituals. Legalism loves to compare my actions with yours in order to get the upper hand.

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus warns us:

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them… when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.”(Matthew 6:1, 16)

For the Pharisee’s, fasting was no longer about devotion to God, but appearing devoted to men. It was religious showmanship. They weren’t fasting to get closer to God in prayer, but to gain a good reputation. When they fasted they always made sure to appear extra hungry and extra thin. They put on makeup that made them look sickly and weak. Why? Because they weren’t really fasting.

They loved to talk about their righteousness, their obedience, their good works. The spirit of legalism is a spirit of prideful comparison.

A legalist never misses an opportunity to tell of how often they read their Bible or how generous they are with their money. They criticize and look down on Christians who don’t hold to their exacting standards and view freedom as a kind spiritual sloth or weakness. Friend, it’s not wrong to know how many times you’ve read the Bible from cover-to-cover, but trusting in that Bible reading as your justification is damnable pride.

Church, comparison isn’t just the thief of joy—it’s the thief of grace. You are not to compare yourself to others in order to justify yourself. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. (Rom. 3:23) Don’t measure yourself against others, measure yourself against God’s perfect law… and you will find a need for mercy, grace, and pardon every single time.

Third, legalism…

3. BURNS OUT BELIEVERS

One of the big debates about this passage is the meaning of Jesus parables of the old garments and old wineskins. I tend to agree with John Calvin’s commentary. To him, the old garments represents Jesus disciples, and the new patch represents the rigid fasts of the Pharisees.

In other words, the disciples were sinners who were encountering the grace of Jesus, and instantly the Pharisees want to add a bunch of burdensome new works and rituals. And Jesus says, if you do that, if you come into to someone who is just learning how to follow me and heap a bunch of rules on their backs it’s going to burn them out. They’ll begin to think that though they’ve been saved by grace, they are only kept by observing your man-made rules.

Matthew Henry says that while religious duties are good, disciples must grow into them over time.

Legalists are harsh and rigid with immature Christians. They’re impatient. They cut people off and out of the community without ever extending grace. J.C. Ryle put it this way:

The hard judgments and unreasonable expectations of old disciples have often driven back and discouraged young beginners in the school of Christ.

But Jesus Christ is gentle and tender to new, immature, and struggling believers. Friend, if you belong to Jesus, though you struggle mightily with to obey and follow him, though you break his commands and lose faith continually—if you belong to him he will in no way cast you out.

Mature Christian, as God brings young children into our church, into this room… as he redeems adults who have never heard his good law or gospel, we must take them by the hand and lead them gently. We must beware not to frighten, hurry, or press them on too fast.

We can’t be like the meathead in the gym whose friend who has never seen a treadmill finally comes to a workout. So he puts him on the bench, throws 300lbs on the bar, drops it on his chest and then rolls his eyes in disgust as his arms collapse.

If they have trusted the main principles of the gospel, don’t give up on them as godless when they hit a few speedbumps of obedience. Don’t expect to find old heads on young shoulders, or wise choices from spiritual babes.

When you put a new patch on an old garment, you end up ruining two garments: the one you cut the new patch from and the old garment onto which it’s sewed. In the same way, when someone has just found the gospel of Christ and you force man-made rituals on them it destroys both their taste for the gospel and any good the ritual might have done them.

Finally, legalism…

4. OBEYS GOD, BUT DOESN’t LOVE HIM

At the top of the passage, the Pharisees ask the implied question, “Why don’t your disciples fast?” And Jesus gives the most unexpected answer: “Because I’m the bridegroom…. Can you make the wedding guests fast when the bridegroom is with them?”

Now, you have to understand that this is far more than a rhetorical question. The imagery of the wedding and the bridegroom here isn’t just for illustrative purposes. Jesus, in choosing to call himself the bridegroom is revealing to us who he is and what he has to offer us. What do I mean by that?

All throughout the Old Testament God revealed himself in a variety of ways to his people. In one place, God says, “I’m your king and you are to obey me.” (Ps. 47:7; 93:1) In another he says, “I’m your shepherd, and I care for you like my flock.” (Ps. 23; 100:3). He even reveals himself as a father who cares for his children. (Ps. 103:13)

But the primary, most essential way God speaks of his relationship to his people (especially in the Prophets) is as a bridegroom to his bride. You can read this in Jeremiah 2, Ezekiel 16, and Hosea 2-3. In Isaiah 54, the Lord speaks to this people and says:

Fear not..

⁵ For your Maker is your husband,

the Lord of hosts is his name;

and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,

the God of the whole earth he is called.

⁶ For the Lord has called you

like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit,

like a wife of youth when she is cast off,

says your God.

⁷ For a brief moment I deserted you,

but with great compassion I will gather you.

So, why don’t the disciples fast? Why don’t they mourn and grieve? Jesus says, “Because I’m the bridegroom.

Now listen, in calling himself the bridegroom, Jesus tells who he is. Yes, he is the king who commands our obedience. But if you only relate to him the way a servant relates to a king, or the way a slave relates to his master… you’re in danger of being a legalist. You obey God, but you don’t know his love.

King, shepherd, father… those are all wonderful descriptions of who he is, but if you want to know the real Jesus fully: you have to see him as the bridegroom. He hasn’t just come to rule over you. He’s come to set his love upon you. He’s come to love his people the way a husband ought to love his wife.

Jesus Christ loves his people entirely. There is no reservation in Jesus heart for you. Friend, while you were still a sinner, Christ died for you, bearing your guilt, bearing your shame, taking the punishment that justice required. He loved you to his dying breath.

Jesus Christ loves his people exclusively. Marriage means total dedication. It’s an exclusive love. Sadly, in this world, spouses break their vows. They move on to other lovers. They abandon and break hearts. In fact, we often do that to Jesus himself. Rather than treasure him supremely, we find ourselves loving other things more than him. But he never does that with us.

Jesus Christ says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” His love never fails. It endures into eternity. Friend, this week you did something would have made you abandon yourself. But Jesus Christ will not abandon you. If you belong to Jesus Christ, there is no sin you can commit that will make him stop loving you.

Jesus offers you this love, and he sealed it with his blood in payment of your sins at the cross.

These first followers of Jesus saw him as the bridegroom who loved them entirely, exclusively, and enduringly and for that reason, they could not fast. They had to celebrate. They had to feast.

You are offered that love. You are invited to that feast.

Lay your deadly doing down, down at Jesus feet. Stand in Him, in Him alone, Gloriously complete.