If you have God's approval, NEVER GIVE IN to those who want to tame your god given fiery spirit!

Galatians 2:1-10 (If you have God's approval, NEVER GIVE IN. Like Paul here, stand your ground without fear or favour)

"1Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. 2I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain. 3Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. 4This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.5We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

6As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message. 7On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. 8For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. 9James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. 10All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along."

Key verse : 5 "We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you."

From the beginning the real leaders of the Church accepted Paul's position; but there were others who were out to tame this fiery spirit. There is a battle behind this passage; and it seems likely that the leaders of the Church urged Paul, for the sake of peace, to give in, in the case of Titus. But he stood like a rock. He knew that to yield would be to accept the slavery of the law and to turn his back on the freedom which is in Christ. In the end Paul's determination won the day.

Certain characteristics of Paul emerge clearly.

He was a man who refused to be overawed. He remained inflexible. There is such a thing as respect; and there is such a thing as the grovelling, prudential bowing to those whom the world or the Church labels great. Paul was always certain that he was seeking the approval not of men but of God.

He was a man conscious of a special task. He was convinced that God had given him a task to do and he would let neither opposition from without nor discouragement from within stop him doing it. The man who knows he has a God-given task will always find that he has a God-given strength to carry it out.

Are you a useless or useful Christian? Do a fact check here.

Luke 14:34-35

“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.

“Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

Just sometimes Jesus speaks with a threat in his voice. When a person is always carping and criticizing and complaining, his irritable anger ceases to have any significance or any effect. But when someone whose accent is the accent of love suddenly speaks with a threat we are bound to listen. What Jesus is saying is this--when a thing loses its essential quality and fails to perform its essential duty, it is fit for nothing but to be thrown away.

Jesus uses salt as a symbol of the Christian life. What, then, are its essential qualities? In Palestine it had three characteristic uses.

(i) Salt was used as a preservative. It is the earliest of all preservatives. The Greeks used to say that salt could put a new soul into dead things. Without salt a thing putrefied and went bad; with it its freshness was preserved. That means that true Christianity must act as a preservative against the corruption of the world. The individual Christian must be the conscience of his fellows; and the church the conscience of the nation. The Christian must be such that in his presence no doubtful language will be used, no questionable stories told, no dishonourable action suggested. He must be like a cleansing antiseptic in the circle in which he moves. The church must fearlessly speak against all evils and support all good causes. She must never hold her peace through fear or favour of men.

(ii) Salt was used as a flavouring. Food, without salt, can be revoltingly insipid. The Christian, then, must be the man who brings flavour into life. The Christianity which acts like a shadow of gloom and a wet blanket is no true Christianity. The Christian is the man who, by his courage, his hope, his cheerfulness and his kindness brings a new flavour into life.

(iii) Salt was used on the land. It was used to make it easier for all good things to grow. The Christian must be such that he makes it easier for people to be good and harder to be bad. We all know people in whose company there are certain things we would not and could not do; and equally we all know people in whose company we might well stoop to things which by ourselves we would not do. There are fine souls in whose company it is easier to be brave and cheerful and good. The Christian must carry with him a breath of heaven in which the fine things flourish and the evil things shrivel up.

That is the function of the Christian; if he fails in his function there is no good reason why he should exist at all; and we have already seen that in the economy of God uselessness invites disaster.

He who has an ear to hear, let him hear.

Many are building on faulty foundation itself.Still,others are building faultily on the real foundation!Beware of how you build!

1 Corinthians 3:10-14 “ By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. 14If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward.

On the foundation of Christ, which Apostle Paul laid, others built. Paul is not here thinking of the building up of wrong things, but the building up of inadequate things. A man may present to his fellow men a version of Christianity which is weak and watered down; a one-sided thing which has stressed some things too much and others too little, and in which things have got out of balance; a warped thing in which even the greatest matters have emerged distorted.

The Day that Paul refers to is the Day when Christ will come again. Then will come the final test. The wrong and the inadequate will be swept away. At best all our versions of Christianity are inadequate; but we would be saved much inadequacy if we tested them not by our own prejudices and presuppositions, nor by agreement with this or that theologian, but set them in the light of the New Testament and, above all, in the light of the Cross. Longinus the great Greek literary critic, offers his students a test. "When you write anything," he said, "ask yourself how Homer or Demosthenes would have written it; and, still more, ask yourself how Homer and Demosthenes would have listened to it." When we speak for Christ we must speak as if Christ was listening--as indeed he is. A test like that will rescue us from many a mistake.

WHAT IT MEANS TO "KNOW" CHRIST

pHILIPPIANS 3:10-11

"I want to KNOW Christ—yes, to KNOW the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead." (NIV)

"I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!" (NLT)

Paul has already spoken of the surpassing value of the knowledge of Christ. To that thought he now returns and defines more closely what he means. Here the word 'KNOW' means personal knowledge.

It is not simply intellectual knowledge, the knowledge of certain facts or even principles. It is the personal experience of another person. We may see the depth of this word from a fact of Old Testament usage. The Old Testament uses to KNOW of sexual intercourse. "Adam KNEW Eve his wife; and she conceived and bore Cain" (Genesis 4:1). The most intimate knowledge of another person. It is not Paul's aim to know about Christ, but personally to KNOW him.

To KNOW Christ means certain things.

(i) It means to KNOW the power of his Resurrection.The Resurrection was not simply a past event in history, however amazing. It was not simply something which had happened to Jesus, however important it was for him. It was a dynamic power which operates in the life of the individual Christian. The Resurrection of Christ is the great dynamic in three different directions.

(a) It is the guarantee of the importance of this life and of this body in which we live. It was in the body that Christ rose and it is this body which he sanctifies (1 Corinthians 6:13 ff.).

(b) It is the guarantee of the life to come (Romans 8:11; 1 Corinthians 15:14 ff.). Because he lives, we shall live also; his victory is our victory.

(c) It is the guarantee that in life and in death and beyond death the presence of the Risen Lord is always with us. It is the proof that his promise to be with us always to the end of the world is true.

The Resurrection of Christ is the guarantee that this life is worth living and that the physical body is sacred; it is the guarantee that death is not the end of life and that there is a world beyond; it is the guarantee that nothing in life or in death can separate us from him.

(ii) It means to KNOW the fellowship of his sufferings. When the Christian has to suffer, he is in some strange way sharing the very suffering of Christ and is even filling up that suffering (2 Corinthians 1:5; 2 Corinthians 4:10-11; Galatians 6:17; Colossians 1:24). To suffer for the faith is not a penalty, it is a privilege, for thereby we share the very work of Christ.

(iii) It means to be so united with Christ that day by day we come more to share in his death, so that finally we share in his Resurrection. To KNOW Christ means that we share the way he walked; we share the Cross he bore; we share the death he died; and finally we share the life he lives for evermore.

To KNOW Christ is not to be skilled in any theoretical or theological knowledge; it is to KNOW him with such intimacy that in the end we are as united with him as we are with those whom we love on earth and that, as we share their experiences, so we also share his.

Be more concerned about bringing people to Jesus Christ than to a Church!

Matthew 23:15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.”

A strange feature of the ancient world was the repulsion and attraction which Judaism exercised over men at one and the same time. There was no more hated people than the Jews. Their separatism and their isolation and their contempt of other nations gained them hostility. Anti-semitism was a real and universal force in the ancient world.

And yet there was an attraction. The idea of one God came as a wonderful thing to a world which believed in a multitude of gods. Jewish ethical purity and standards of morality had a fascination in a world steeped in immorality, especially for women. The result was that many were attracted to Judaism.

Their attraction was on two levels. There were those who were called the god-fearers. These accepted the conception of one God; they accepted the Jewish moral law; but they took no part in the ceremonial law and did not become circumcised. Such people existed in large numbers, and were to be found listening and worshipping in every synagogue, and indeed provided Paul with his most fruitful field for evangelization. They are, for instance, the devout Greeks of Thessalonica (Acts 17:4).

It was the aim of the Pharisees to turn these god-fearers into proselytes; the word proselyte is an English transliteration of a Greek word proselutos (Greek #4339), which means one who has approached or drawn near. The proselyte was the full convert who had accepted the ceremonial law and circumcision and who had become in the fullest sense a Jew. As so often happens, "the most converted were the most perverted." A convert often becomes the most fanatical devotee of his new religion; and many of these proselytes were more fanatically devoted to the Jewish Law than even the Jews themselves.

Jesus accused these Pharisees of being missionaries of evil. It was true that very few became proselytes, but those who did went the whole way. The sin of the Pharisees was that they were not really seeking to lead men to God, they were seeking to lead them to Pharisaism. One of the gravest dangers which any missionary runs is that he should try to convert people to a sect rather than to a religion, and that he should be more concerned in bringing people to a Church than to Jesus Christ.

It was not to God the Pharisees sought to lead men; it was to their own sect of Pharisaism. That in fact was their sin and it continues to this day.

Like Timothy, learn to handle/divide the word of truth.

2 Timothy 2:15  "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. 

Timothy is urged in a famous phrase rightly to divide the word of truth. The Greek word translated to divide rightly is interesting. It is orthotomein (Greek #3718), which literally means to cut rightly. It has many pictures in it. Calvin connected it with a father dividing out the food at a meal and cutting it up so that each member of the family received the right portion. Beza connected it with the cutting up of sacrificial victims so that each part was correctly apportioned to the altar or to the priest. The Greeks themselves used the word in three different connections. They used it for driving a straight road across country, for ploughing a straight furrow across a field, and for the work of a mason in cutting and squaring a stone so that it fitted into its correct place in the structure of the building. So the man who rightly divides the word of truth, drives a straight road through the truth and refuses to be lured down pleasant but irrelevant by-paths; he ploughs a straight furrow across the field of truth; he takes each section of the truth, and fits it into its correct position, as a mason does a stone, allowing no part to usurp an undue place and so knock the whole structure out of balance.

Only the spiritual man can understand spiritual truths!

1 Corinthians 3:1-3 (a)

Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3You are still worldly.

Paul is talking about the difference between the man who is spiritual (pneumatikos, Greek #4152), and who therefore can understand spiritual truths, and the man who is psuchikos (Greek #5591), whose interests and aims do not go beyond physical life and who is therefore unable to grasp spiritual truth. He now accuses the Corinthians of being still at the physical stage. But he uses two new words to describe them.

In 1 Corinthians 3:1 he calls them sarkinoi (Greek #4560). This word comes from sarx (Greek #4561) which means flesh and is so common in Paul. Now all Greek adjectives ending in -inos mean made of something or other. So Paul begins by saying that the Corinthians are made of flesh. That was not in itself a rebuke; a man just because he is a man is made of flesh, but he must not stay that way. The trouble was that the Corinthians were not only sarkinoi (Greek #4560) they were sarkikoi (Greek #4550), which means not only made of flesh but dominated by the flesh. To Paul the flesh is much more than merely a physical thing. It means human nature apart from God, that part of man both mental and physical which provides a bridgehead for sin. So the fault that Paul finds with the Corinthians is not that they are made of flesh--all men are--but that they have allowed this lower side of their nature to dominate all their outlook and all their actions.

The refusal to grow up.

Hebrews 5:12-14 "Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

Here the writer to the Hebrews deals with the difficulties which confront him in attempting to get across an adequate conception of Christianity to his hearers.

He is confronted with two difficulties. First, the full orb of the Christian faith is by no means an easy thing to grasp nor can it be teamed in a day. Second, the hearing of his hearers is dull. The word he uses (nothros, Greek #3576) is full of meaning. It means slow-moving in mind, torpid in understanding, dull of hearing, witlessly forgetful. It can be used of the numbed limbs of an animal which is ill. It can be used of a person who has the imperceptive nature of a stone. Now this has something to say to everyone whose business it is to preach and to teach; in fact, it has something to say to everyone whose business it is to think and that means that it has something to say to everyone who is a real person. It often happens that we dodge teaching something because it is difficult; we defend ourselves by saying that our hearers would never grasp it. It is one of the tragedies of the Church that there is so little attempt to teach new knowledge and new thought. It is true that such teaching is difficult. It is true that often it means meeting the lethargy of the lazy mind and the embattled prejudice of the shut mind. But the task remains. The writer to the Hebrews did not shirk to bring his message, even if it was difficult and the minds of his hearers were slow. He regarded it as his supreme responsibility to pass on the truth he knew.

His complaint is that his hearers have been Christians for many years and are still babes no nearer maturity. The contrast between the immature Christian and the child, between milk and solid food, often occurs in the New Testament (1 Peter 2:2; 1 Corinthians 2:6; 1 Corinthians 3:2; 1 Corinthians 14:20; Ephesians 4:13 ff.). Hebrews says that by now they should be teachers. It is not necessary to take that literally. To say that a man was able to teach was the Greek way of saying that he had a mature grasp of a subject. The writer says that they still need someone to teach them the simple elements (stoicheia, Greek #4747) of Christianity. This word has a variety of meanings. In grammar it means the letters of the alphabet, the A B C in physics it means the four basic elements of which the world is composed; in geometry it means the elements of proof like the point and the straight line; in philosophy it means the first elementary principles with which the students begin. It is the sorrow of the writer to the Hebrews that after many years of Christianity his people have never got past the rudiments; they are like children who do not know the difference between right and wrong.

Here he is face to face with a problem which haunts the Church in every generation, that of the Christian who refuses to grow up.

(i) The Christian can refuse to grow up in knowledge. He can be guilty of what someone called "the culpable incapacity resulting from the neglect of opportunity." There are people who keep on saying that what was good enough for their fathers is good enough for them. There are Christians in whose faith there has been no development for thirty or forty or fifty or sixty years. There are Christians who have deliberately refused to try to understand the advances that Biblical scholarship and theological thought have made. They are grown men and women and yet insist on remaining content with the religious development of a child.

They are like a surgeon who refuses to use the new techniques of surgery, refuses to use the new anesthetics, refuses to use any new equipment and says: "What was good enough for Lister is good enough for me." They are like a physician who refuses to use any of the new drugs and says: "What I learned as a student fifty years ago is good enough for me." In religious things it is still worse. God is infinite; the riches of Christ are unsearchable; and to the end of the day we should be moving forward.

(ii) There are people who have never grown up in behaviour. It may be forgivable in a child to sulk or to be liable to fits of temper, but there are many adults who are just as childish in their behaviour.

A case of arrested development is always a pathetic thing; and the world is full of people whose religious development has been arrested. They stopped learning years ago and their conduct is that of a child. It is true that Jesus said the greatest thing in the world is the childlike spirit; but there is a tremendous difference between the childlike and the childish spirit. Peter Pan makes a charming play on the stage; but the man who will not grow up makes a tragedy in real life. Let us have a care lest we are still in the religion of childhood when we should have reached the faith of maturity.

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Legalism is SIN. Surprised? Read on.

Reject #Legalism
Hold on to #Christ

Christians probably have tolerated no sin more than the sin of legalism. In fact, many Christians would probably be surprised to hear legalism labeled as sin. Legalists are viewed as being a bit overzealous or perhaps as super-spiritual. But they aren’t thought of as sinning in the same sense as adulterers, thieves, and the like. To the contrary, legalism seems to promote holiness, a valid Christian concern.

Yet the Apostle Paul taught that legalism is an aggressive evil that those who have been saved by grace must strongly oppose. Most of his Epistle to the Galatians is an attack on legalism. Many of his other letters contain strong warnings about the dangers of legalism. In 1 Timothy 4:1-3, he states that certain men who forbade marriage and advocated abstaining from foods were promoting the doctrines of demons. Clearly, legalism was no minor sin in Paul’s mind!

In Colossians 2:16-23, Paul tells his readers that they must strongly resist the legalistic approach of the false teachers. There are two commands in verses 16-19: “Let no one act as your judge” in regard to certain matters (vs. 16); and, “Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize” (vs. 18), which might better be translated, “Let no one set themselves up as umpire to pass judgment against you.” Both commands are saying the same thing: We must strongly reject legalism as a way of Christian living.

When we discuss legalism, we need to be careful to define our terms. Some think that legalism means having any rules or commandments. I’ve been accused of being legalistic because I preach that we should obey the commandments of Scripture. But the New Testament is full of rules and commandments. Jesus said that if we love Him, we will obey His commandments (John 14:15). Some would counter that it’s manmade rules or commandments which constitute legalism. Yet a moment’s reflection will show that this is inadequate, since there are many areas not specifically mentioned in the Bible where we need some rules in order to function as a Christian family or church.

So what is legalism? The heart of legalism is an attitude of pride. The legalist prides himself for keeping certain standards and judges others who do not keep those standards. The legalist thinks that he is made acceptable to God, either for salvation or spirituality, by his conformity to certain rules that he picks and chooses. Invariably, those rules are not things like loving the Lord with all your heart or loving your neighbor as yourself. Rather, the legalist picks rules that he is able to keep and conveniently neglects or ignores the things he is not able to keep. The legalist often focuses on external conformity while neglecting the heart righteousness God requires (Matt. 23:23-28). Dr. Charles Ryrie (Balancing the Christian Life [Moody Press], p. 159) defines legalism as “a fleshly attitude which conforms to a code for the purpose of exalting self.”

“Therefore” connects our text to the previous paragraph. Paul is telling these new believers, under attack from these false teachers, “The law was merely the shadow which pointed toward the reality, which is Christ. He fulfilled the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament. We don’t grow as Christians by keeping those laws, but by holding fast to Christ.”

We grow as Christians by rejecting legalism, and by holding fast to Christ as the head of His body, the church.

External religion leads to pride; holding fast to Christ as the head leads to the growth of the body.

1. Christians must reject legalism as a way of Christian living.

I use the word “reject” because we need to see legalism for what it is: an aggressive evil which must be resisted. Legalists are not content to live as they see fit and leave others alone. They are recruiters who seek to bring everyone under their system of bondage (Matt. 23:15). Legalism is a subtle tool of Satan, because on the surface it seems to promote holiness. But it’s based on the flesh; it leads people away from vital dependence on Christ into a system of pride and judging others which destroys the church.

I want to make three observations stemming from our text to help you understand legalism:

A. Legalism judges spirituality by external conformity to certain rules.

Both verse 16 and verse 18 indicate that these false teachers had set themselves up as judges to proclaim that anyone who didn’t follow their rules was not spiritual. These rules apparently included some of the Old Testament dietary regulations as well as certain Jewish festivals. But probably these false teachers went beyond the injunctions of the law, perhaps making the Nazarite vow of avoiding all wine applicable to everyone. “Festival” refers to the annual Jewish feasts, such as Passover. “New moon” refers to monthly celebrations. “Sabbath day” refers to the weekly observance of the seventh day (1 Chron. 23:31; 2 Chron. 2:4; 31:3).

God ordained these special occasions to point forward to Jesus Christ (Luke 24:44; 1 Cor. 5:7). Paul calls them a “shadow of what is to come,” but then adds, “but the substance belongs to Christ” (Col. 2:17). He came to fulfill the Law (Matt. 5:17). Thus we are no longer obligated to keep these Jewish observances.

As you probably know, some Christians argue that Sunday (a few argue for Saturday) is now the Christian Sabbath, which we must keep in some manner. Some argue that we sin if we think or speak about anything secular or worldly on Sunday. Thus if you’re chatting with someone at church and mention last Sunday’s game, you’ve sinned! And you sinned even more if you watched the game on the Sabbath! Advocates of the Christian Sabbath usually go further than that, adding many prohibited activities which they say violate the Sabbath: You can’t stop by the grocery store on the way home from church to pick up a gallon of milk. You can’t eat out in a restaurant on Sunday, because it requires others to work. On and on it goes!

If we are required to observe Sunday as a Christian Sabbath, then Paul certainly was confusing these mostly Gentile new believers by not clarifying that in our text. (See, also, Romans 14:5.) The New Testament commands us not to forsake assembling with other believers (Heb. 10:25). It indicates that the early church gathered on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2). And it implies that Sunday is “the Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10). Hebrews 4 teaches that by believing in Jesus we enter God’s Sabbath rest. I think that we also can extrapolate a principle from God resting on the seventh day and from the Jewish Sabbath, namely, that it’s for our good to cease from our normal activities once a week so that we can join with the Lord’s people for worship and instruction (see my sermon, “God’s Day of Rest,” from Gen. 2:1-3). But beyond that, there are no direct Sabbath commands for us who are in Christ.

But legalists like to set up extra-biblical rules by which they can judge those who do not keep them. It’s an emphasis on the external, not on the heart before God. So a man secretly may be enslaved to pornography or greed, but if he keeps the rules that everyone can see, he’s viewed as spiritual. Jesus indicted the Pharisees for this type of thing. They honored God with their lips and their rules, but their hearts were far from Him (Matt. 15:1-9).

B. Legalists never keep the whole law, but pick certain laws to observe, by which they judge others.

These false teachers in Colossae were concerned about food and drink and certain Jewish festivals. They had commandments about what you could and could not handle, taste, and touch (Col. 2:21). But they were filled with pride and apparently were indulging in the deeds of the flesh (Col. 2:23; 3:5).

Jesus pointed out the same problem in His scorching denunciation of the Pharisees (Matt. 23:23): “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.” They prided themselves on keeping the law of tithing, and made sure everyone saw how they tithed! But they neglected the more important parts of the law.

In many churches, legalists judge others because they smoke or drink or have tattoos or don’t wear a suit to church or whatever. Some churches judge women for wearing makeup. When I was in seminary, a guy who sat next to me in chapel told me (after we had become friends) that at first he didn’t think that I was a Christian because I had a mustache! I would have had a beard, but the seminary didn’t allow that back then because (the seminary president told me) they would lose at least $50,000 in support if they did. When my dad went to a well-known Bible Institute, a senior was not allowed to graduate because a supporter of the school complained when she saw him riding in the back of the school’s bus with his arm around his fiancée! So legalists judge others over matters that they choose, but they don’t judge themselves for their own sins of pride, gossip, racial prejudice, and many other things.

C. Legalism always stems from and leads to pride.

Paul says (Col. 2:18), “Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind.” Some commentators say that verse 18 is the most difficult verse in Colossians to interpret.

The first difficulty is what Paul meant by, “Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize.” He was probably using an athletic metaphor, saying that these false teachers set themselves up as judges, making up their own rules. If you didn’t play by their rules, they disqualified you from the contest (Douglas Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and Philemon[Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 224). They may have said that you were not saved, or at the very least, you lost your rewards in heaven.

The second problem is the phrase, “delighting in self-abasement.” “Self-abasement” is the word often used in a good sense for “humility” (Col. 3:12). But here Paul probably is being sarcastic, saying that these false teachers take pride in their humility! He may be referring to their ascetic practices of denying themselves certain things which the Bible does not forbid. They took pride in keeping their dietary rules and in their observance of these religious special days, and they judged others who did not comply.

The main interpretive difficulty is, what was their practice of worshiping angels? Without going into all the views, perhaps the most plausible view is that they were calling on angels as a means of warding off evil spirits to the extent that they were virtually worshiping them (Moo, pp. 227-229, endorsing the view of Clinton Arnold). Also, they may have used their false humility to say, “We are not spiritual enough to go into God’s presence, so we approach Him through the angels.” But in so doing, they set aside Christ’s sufficiency as our mediator.

Paul adds that these false teachers (the singular pronoun, his, may refer to a main teacher, but more likely is a generic way of referring to them all) were “taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind.” Perhaps they based their worship of the angels on visions that they claimed to have seen. And they were inflated with pride over their visions. But Paul says that they were just boasting in the flesh.

When Paul was caught up to heaven, he didn’t tell anyone about it for 14 years, and then only in sketchy terms (2 Cor. 12:1-10). He didn’t write a book about it and go on the talk show circuit, regaling everyone with his vision! Instead, God gave him a thorn in the flesh to keep him humble!

The point is, legalists don’t seek to exalt God; they exalt them­selves. Legalists operate in the flesh, not the Spirit. Thus they take pride in external conformity which can be judged outwardly. The legalist is even proud about his own humility! By way of contrast, godly people become increasingly aware of their own propensity to sin. Thus they become more dependent on Christ, which is the mark of true humility. So Paul is saying, “Reject legalism as a way of Christian living.” But there’s another implication:

2. Christians must hold to Christ as the head of His body, the church.

I’m stating positively what Paul expresses negatively about the false teachers (Col. 2:19): “and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.” Throughout Colossians, Paul has shown the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus Christ. He has already stated (Col. 1:18), “He is also head of the body, the church.” Holding fast to Christ as the head is the key to “growth which is from God.” It implies four things:

A. Holding fast to Christ as head means not being enamored with things other than Christ.

These false teachers were caught up with the shadow, but they were ignoring the reality! They were into all sorts of rules, but they weren’t into Christ. It would be like admiring some famous person, but when you met him, instead of looking at him, you fell down on the sidewalk and said, “Oh, look at this shadow!” That’s what these false teachers were doing. They were so caught up with the ceremonial aspects of the law that they missed the One to whom those ceremonies and laws pointed! They were hugging His shadow, but missing Christ Himself!

But before we laugh at them, we need to recognize how easy it is to do the same thing. Our number one priority should be to worship God. And yet it’s easy to slip into being worship-centered rather than God-centered. We hug the shadow of various styles of worship and forget that we’re supposed to be exalting the Head of the church, who gave Himself for us on the cross. Or, I’ve seen Christians who get caught up with Bible knowledge, which is a good thing if used properly. But they get puffed up with pride over being right or understanding truths that others don’t get. So they use the Scriptures to exalt themselves, but they’ve forgotten that the Scriptures exalt Jesus (John 5:39; Luke 24:27, 44). They’re hugging the shadow, but not holding fast to the head!

To grow as a Christian, hold fast in love to the Lord Jesus! Study the Scriptures, but not so that you can boast in your knowledge, but so that you grow in your love for the Savior. God didn’t give us the Bible to fill our heads with information; He gave it so that we would come to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ and to eagerly wait for His coming as our Bridegroom. Don’t get enamored with things other than Christ!

B. Holding fast to Christ as head means beginning and then maintaining a living union with Him.

The members of the body are joined to the head in a living way. You can’t tape on an arm to a person who is missing one and expect it to function. There must be that living, organic union or that limb will be useless. Becoming a Christian is more than attending church, going through the outward motions of Christianity, and keeping some religious rules. It means being joined to Jesus Christ in a living way, so that you’re “in Him.” You don’t just join a church; you are joined to Christ Himself as a member of His body.

But the implication here is that to continue with Christ requires some responsible action on our part: We must hold fast to Him. The Bible compares our relationship to Christ to marriage (Eph. 5:22-33). On my wedding day, I was legally married to Marla and, as Scripture puts it, we became one flesh. But the exclusive relationship that we began that day has to be maintained. It doesn’t grow on autopilot. Getting to know her more deeply requires time spent together. I have to learn what pleases her. I have to reject temptations to go after other women. I have to hold fast to her in love. The same is true in my relationship with Jesus Christ.

C. Holding fast to Christ as head means submitting to Him as Lord.

This is implied in the idea of the head. The head controls the body. If your body isn’t responsive to the direction of your head, you’ve got big problems. The fact that Jesus is the head of His body, the church, means that He is the Lord of the church. He gives the orders; we must submit to Him.

There is a crazy idea in the evangelical church today that you can receive Jesus as your Savior, so that He becomes your fire insurance policy, protecting you from hell. But, submitting to Him as your Lord is optional for later on. So if you just want to be a nominal, occasional Sunday Christian who isn’t subject to Jesus as Lord, don’t worry! That decision that you made as a child in Sunday school or at church camp to invite Jesus into your heart cinched it up. You’ll still go to heaven, even if you don’t obey Jesus as Lord.

But as we saw in Colossians 1:23, the evidence of truly being reconciled to Christ is that “you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel ….” Elsewhere (1 Cor. 6:9) Paul clearly warns us not to be deceived, because, “the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God” (see, also, Matt. 7:21-23; Mark 8:34-38; Gal. 5:19-21; Eph. 5:3-12; 2 Pet. 2:4-22). We’re not holding fast to Christ as head if we live consistently in disobedience to Him.

So, holding fast to Christ as head means not being enamored with things other than Christ; beginning and then maintaining a living union with Him; and, submitting to Him as Lord. Finally,

D. Holding fast to Christ as head means being a part of His functioning, growing body, the church.

Verse 19 makes it clear that being a Christian is not an individual matter. Being a Christian means being a functioning member of Christ’s body, and that body only grows when every member lives in dependence on the head and in interdependence with the other members.

Our American culture militates against the biblical truth that as members of Christ’s body, we are interdependent. We have a very independent view of life in general and of the Christian life. It’s God and me, but not me and my brothers and sisters in the church. This is reflected in the attitude that you “attend church,” much as you would attend a movie, but you aren’t closely involved with the other attenders. You come, you greet a few people casually, watch the show, and then leave. But you aren’t involved with any believers until you attend the next Sunday. But that’s not New Testament Christianity! For the church to grow with a growth from God, we must hold fast to the head. But, also, we must be closely joined to other members of the body, just as the joints and ligaments hold our physical bodies together.

It’s no accident that Paul mentions the body in the context of these false teachers, because Satan usually preys on weak Christians who are not closely involved with other believers. Growing with a growth from God means being a functioning part of the body God has designed spiritual growth to take place in.

Conclusion

So, down with legalism, but up with Jesus Christ and His body, the church! If you sense that you’re not growing as a Christian, it may be that either you’re not rejecting legalism as a way of Christian living, or else you’re not holding fast to Christ as the head of His body, the church. Two concluding applications:

(1) Don’t mistake liberty for license! Rejecting legalism doesn’t mean hang-loose, undisciplined living. Being free in Christ doesn’t mean freedom to sin, but freedom from sin. It is not legalism to obey the Lord Jesus Christ. Self-control is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.

(2) Don’t replace reality with rules. Some advocate living the Christian life by vows and rules. They say you need to read your Bible and pray for so many minutes each day. While I highly recommend reading your Bible and praying every day, it’s easy to follow all the rules and lose the reality of a love relationship with the Savior who died for you.

So please repeat after me: Reject legalism! Hold fast to Christ! Amen!

Christians probably have tolerated no sin more than the sin of legalism. In fact, many Christians would probably be surprised to hear legalism labeled as sin. Legalists are viewed as being a bit overzealous or perhaps as super-spiritual. But they aren’t thought of as sinning in the same sense as adulterers, thieves, and the like. To the contrary, legalism seems to promote holiness, a valid Christian concern.

Yet the Apostle Paul taught that legalism is an aggressive evil that those who have been saved by grace must strongly oppose. Most of his Epistle to the Galatians is an attack on legalism. Many of his other letters contain strong warnings about the dangers of legalism. In 1 Timothy 4:1-3, he states that certain men who forbade marriage and advocated abstaining from foods were promoting the doctrines of demons. Clearly, legalism was no minor sin in Paul’s mind!

In Colossians 2:16-23, Paul tells his readers that they must strongly resist the legalistic approach of the false teachers. There are two commands in verses 16-19: “Let no one act as your judge” in regard to certain matters (vs. 16); and, “Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize” (vs. 18), which might better be translated, “Let no one set themselves up as umpire to pass judgment against you.” Both commands are saying the same thing: We must strongly reject legalism as a way of Christian living.

When we discuss legalism, we need to be careful to define our terms. Some think that legalism means having any rules or commandments. I’ve been accused of being legalistic because I preach that we should obey the commandments of Scripture. But the New Testament is full of rules and commandments. Jesus said that if we love Him, we will obey His commandments (John 14:15). Some would counter that it’s manmade rules or commandments which constitute legalism. Yet a moment’s reflection will show that this is inadequate, since there are many areas not specifically mentioned in the Bible where we need some rules in order to function as a Christian family or church.

So what is legalism? The heart of legalism is an attitude of pride. The legalist prides himself for keeping certain standards and judges others who do not keep those standards. The legalist thinks that he is made acceptable to God, either for salvation or spirituality, by his conformity to certain rules that he picks and chooses. Invariably, those rules are not things like loving the Lord with all your heart or loving your neighbor as yourself. Rather, the legalist picks rules that he is able to keep and conveniently neglects or ignores the things he is not able to keep. The legalist often focuses on external conformity while neglecting the heart righteousness God requires (Matt. 23:23-28). Dr. Charles Ryrie (Balancing the Christian Life [Moody Press], p. 159) defines legalism as “a fleshly attitude which conforms to a code for the purpose of exalting self.”

“Therefore” connects our text to the previous paragraph. Paul is telling these new believers, under attack from these false teachers, “The law was merely the shadow which pointed toward the reality, which is Christ. He fulfilled the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament. We don’t grow as Christians by keeping those laws, but by holding fast to Christ.”

We grow as Christians by rejecting legalism, and by holding fast to Christ as the head of His body, the church.

External religion leads to pride; holding fast to Christ as the head leads to the growth of the body.

1. Christians must reject legalism as a way of Christian living.

I use the word “reject” because we need to see legalism for what it is: an aggressive evil which must be resisted. Legalists are not content to live as they see fit and leave others alone. They are recruiters who seek to bring everyone under their system of bondage (Matt. 23:15). Legalism is a subtle tool of Satan, because on the surface it seems to promote holiness. But it’s based on the flesh; it leads people away from vital dependence on Christ into a system of pride and judging others which destroys the church.

I want to make three observations stemming from our text to help you understand legalism:

A. Legalism judges spirituality by external conformity to certain rules.

Both verse 16 and verse 18 indicate that these false teachers had set themselves up as judges to proclaim that anyone who didn’t follow their rules was not spiritual. These rules apparently included some of the Old Testament dietary regulations as well as certain Jewish festivals. But probably these false teachers went beyond the injunctions of the law, perhaps making the Nazarite vow of avoiding all wine applicable to everyone. “Festival” refers to the annual Jewish feasts, such as Passover. “New moon” refers to monthly celebrations. “Sabbath day” refers to the weekly observance of the seventh day (1 Chron. 23:31; 2 Chron. 2:4; 31:3).

God ordained these special occasions to point forward to Jesus Christ (Luke 24:44; 1 Cor. 5:7). Paul calls them a “shadow of what is to come,” but then adds, “but the substance belongs to Christ” (Col. 2:17). He came to fulfill the Law (Matt. 5:17). Thus we are no longer obligated to keep these Jewish observances.

As you probably know, some Christians argue that Sunday (a few argue for Saturday) is now the Christian Sabbath, which we must keep in some manner. Some argue that we sin if we think or speak about anything secular or worldly on Sunday. Thus if you’re chatting with someone at church and mention last Sunday’s game, you’ve sinned! And you sinned even more if you watched the game on the Sabbath! Advocates of the Christian Sabbath usually go further than that, adding many prohibited activities which they say violate the Sabbath: You can’t stop by the grocery store on the way home from church to pick up a gallon of milk. You can’t eat out in a restaurant on Sunday, because it requires others to work. On and on it goes!

If we are required to observe Sunday as a Christian Sabbath, then Paul certainly was confusing these mostly Gentile new believers by not clarifying that in our text. (See, also, Romans 14:5.) The New Testament commands us not to forsake assembling with other believers (Heb. 10:25). It indicates that the early church gathered on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2). And it implies that Sunday is “the Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10). Hebrews 4 teaches that by believing in Jesus we enter God’s Sabbath rest. I think that we also can extrapolate a principle from God resting on the seventh day and from the Jewish Sabbath, namely, that it’s for our good to cease from our normal activities once a week so that we can join with the Lord’s people for worship and instruction (see my sermon, “God’s Day of Rest,” from Gen. 2:1-3). But beyond that, there are no direct Sabbath commands for us who are in Christ.

But legalists like to set up extra-biblical rules by which they can judge those who do not keep them. It’s an emphasis on the external, not on the heart before God. So a man secretly may be enslaved to pornography or greed, but if he keeps the rules that everyone can see, he’s viewed as spiritual. Jesus indicted the Pharisees for this type of thing. They honored God with their lips and their rules, but their hearts were far from Him (Matt. 15:1-9).

B. Legalists never keep the whole law, but pick certain laws to observe, by which they judge others.

These false teachers in Colossae were concerned about food and drink and certain Jewish festivals. They had commandments about what you could and could not handle, taste, and touch (Col. 2:21). But they were filled with pride and apparently were indulging in the deeds of the flesh (Col. 2:23; 3:5).

Jesus pointed out the same problem in His scorching denunciation of the Pharisees (Matt. 23:23): “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.” They prided themselves on keeping the law of tithing, and made sure everyone saw how they tithed! But they neglected the more important parts of the law.

In many churches, legalists judge others because they smoke or drink or have tattoos or don’t wear a suit to church or whatever. Some churches judge women for wearing makeup. When I was in seminary, a guy who sat next to me in chapel told me (after we had become friends) that at first he didn’t think that I was a Christian because I had a mustache! I would have had a beard, but the seminary didn’t allow that back then because (the seminary president told me) they would lose at least $50,000 in support if they did. When my dad went to a well-known Bible Institute, a senior was not allowed to graduate because a supporter of the school complained when she saw him riding in the back of the school’s bus with his arm around his fiancée! So legalists judge others over matters that they choose, but they don’t judge themselves for their own sins of pride, gossip, racial prejudice, and many other things.

C. Legalism always stems from and leads to pride.

Paul says (Col. 2:18), “Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind.” Some commentators say that verse 18 is the most difficult verse in Colossians to interpret.

The first difficulty is what Paul meant by, “Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize.” He was probably using an athletic metaphor, saying that these false teachers set themselves up as judges, making up their own rules. If you didn’t play by their rules, they disqualified you from the contest (Douglas Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and Philemon[Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 224). They may have said that you were not saved, or at the very least, you lost your rewards in heaven.

The second problem is the phrase, “delighting in self-abasement.” “Self-abasement” is the word often used in a good sense for “humility” (Col. 3:12). But here Paul probably is being sarcastic, saying that these false teachers take pride in their humility! He may be referring to their ascetic practices of denying themselves certain things which the Bible does not forbid. They took pride in keeping their dietary rules and in their observance of these religious special days, and they judged others who did not comply.

The main interpretive difficulty is, what was their practice of worshiping angels? Without going into all the views, perhaps the most plausible view is that they were calling on angels as a means of warding off evil spirits to the extent that they were virtually worshiping them (Moo, pp. 227-229, endorsing the view of Clinton Arnold). Also, they may have used their false humility to say, “We are not spiritual enough to go into God’s presence, so we approach Him through the angels.” But in so doing, they set aside Christ’s sufficiency as our mediator.

Paul adds that these false teachers (the singular pronoun, his, may refer to a main teacher, but more likely is a generic way of referring to them all) were “taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind.” Perhaps they based their worship of the angels on visions that they claimed to have seen. And they were inflated with pride over their visions. But Paul says that they were just boasting in the flesh.

When Paul was caught up to heaven, he didn’t tell anyone about it for 14 years, and then only in sketchy terms (2 Cor. 12:1-10). He didn’t write a book about it and go on the talk show circuit, regaling everyone with his vision! Instead, God gave him a thorn in the flesh to keep him humble!

The point is, legalists don’t seek to exalt God; they exalt them­selves. Legalists operate in the flesh, not the Spirit. Thus they take pride in external conformity which can be judged outwardly. The legalist is even proud about his own humility! By way of contrast, godly people become increasingly aware of their own propensity to sin. Thus they become more dependent on Christ, which is the mark of true humility. So Paul is saying, “Reject legalism as a way of Christian living.” But there’s another implication:

2. Christians must hold to Christ as the head of His body, the church.

I’m stating positively what Paul expresses negatively about the false teachers (Col. 2:19): “and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.” Throughout Colossians, Paul has shown the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus Christ. He has already stated (Col. 1:18), “He is also head of the body, the church.” Holding fast to Christ as the head is the key to “growth which is from God.” It implies four things:

A. Holding fast to Christ as head means not being enamored with things other than Christ.

These false teachers were caught up with the shadow, but they were ignoring the reality! They were into all sorts of rules, but they weren’t into Christ. It would be like admiring some famous person, but when you met him, instead of looking at him, you fell down on the sidewalk and said, “Oh, look at this shadow!” That’s what these false teachers were doing. They were so caught up with the ceremonial aspects of the law that they missed the One to whom those ceremonies and laws pointed! They were hugging His shadow, but missing Christ Himself!

But before we laugh at them, we need to recognize how easy it is to do the same thing. Our number one priority should be to worship God. And yet it’s easy to slip into being worship-centered rather than God-centered. We hug the shadow of various styles of worship and forget that we’re supposed to be exalting the Head of the church, who gave Himself for us on the cross. Or, I’ve seen Christians who get caught up with Bible knowledge, which is a good thing if used properly. But they get puffed up with pride over being right or understanding truths that others don’t get. So they use the Scriptures to exalt themselves, but they’ve forgotten that the Scriptures exalt Jesus (John 5:39; Luke 24:27, 44). They’re hugging the shadow, but not holding fast to the head!

To grow as a Christian, hold fast in love to the Lord Jesus! Study the Scriptures, but not so that you can boast in your knowledge, but so that you grow in your love for the Savior. God didn’t give us the Bible to fill our heads with information; He gave it so that we would come to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ and to eagerly wait for His coming as our Bridegroom. Don’t get enamored with things other than Christ!

B. Holding fast to Christ as head means beginning and then maintaining a living union with Him.

The members of the body are joined to the head in a living way. You can’t tape on an arm to a person who is missing one and expect it to function. There must be that living, organic union or that limb will be useless. Becoming a Christian is more than attending church, going through the outward motions of Christianity, and keeping some religious rules. It means being joined to Jesus Christ in a living way, so that you’re “in Him.” You don’t just join a church; you are joined to Christ Himself as a member of His body.

But the implication here is that to continue with Christ requires some responsible action on our part: We must hold fast to Him. The Bible compares our relationship to Christ to marriage (Eph. 5:22-33). On my wedding day, I was legally married to Marla and, as Scripture puts it, we became one flesh. But the exclusive relationship that we began that day has to be maintained. It doesn’t grow on autopilot. Getting to know her more deeply requires time spent together. I have to learn what pleases her. I have to reject temptations to go after other women. I have to hold fast to her in love. The same is true in my relationship with Jesus Christ.

C. Holding fast to Christ as head means submitting to Him as Lord.

This is implied in the idea of the head. The head controls the body. If your body isn’t responsive to the direction of your head, you’ve got big problems. The fact that Jesus is the head of His body, the church, means that He is the Lord of the church. He gives the orders; we must submit to Him.

There is a crazy idea in the evangelical church today that you can receive Jesus as your Savior, so that He becomes your fire insurance policy, protecting you from hell. But, submitting to Him as your Lord is optional for later on. So if you just want to be a nominal, occasional Sunday Christian who isn’t subject to Jesus as Lord, don’t worry! That decision that you made as a child in Sunday school or at church camp to invite Jesus into your heart cinched it up. You’ll still go to heaven, even if you don’t obey Jesus as Lord.

But as we saw in Colossians 1:23, the evidence of truly being reconciled to Christ is that “you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel ….” Elsewhere (1 Cor. 6:9) Paul clearly warns us not to be deceived, because, “the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God” (see, also, Matt. 7:21-23; Mark 8:34-38; Gal. 5:19-21; Eph. 5:3-12; 2 Pet. 2:4-22). We’re not holding fast to Christ as head if we live consistently in disobedience to Him.

So, holding fast to Christ as head means not being enamored with things other than Christ; beginning and then maintaining a living union with Him; and, submitting to Him as Lord. Finally,

D. Holding fast to Christ as head means being a part of His functioning, growing body, the church.

Verse 19 makes it clear that being a Christian is not an individual matter. Being a Christian means being a functioning member of Christ’s body, and that body only grows when every member lives in dependence on the head and in interdependence with the other members.

Our American culture militates against the biblical truth that as members of Christ’s body, we are interdependent. We have a very independent view of life in general and of the Christian life. It’s God and me, but not me and my brothers and sisters in the church. This is reflected in the attitude that you “attend church,” much as you would attend a movie, but you aren’t closely involved with the other attenders. You come, you greet a few people casually, watch the show, and then leave. But you aren’t involved with any believers until you attend the next Sunday. But that’s not New Testament Christianity! For the church to grow with a growth from God, we must hold fast to the head. But, also, we must be closely joined to other members of the body, just as the joints and ligaments hold our physical bodies together.

It’s no accident that Paul mentions the body in the context of these false teachers, because Satan usually preys on weak Christians who are not closely involved with other believers. Growing with a growth from God means being a functioning part of the body God has designed spiritual growth to take place in.

Conclusion

So, down with legalism, but up with Jesus Christ and His body, the church! If you sense that you’re not growing as a Christian, it may be that either you’re not rejecting legalism as a way of Christian living, or else you’re not holding fast to Christ as the head of His body, the church. Two concluding applications:

(1) Don’t mistake liberty for license! Rejecting legalism doesn’t mean hang-loose, undisciplined living. Being free in Christ doesn’t mean freedom to sin, but freedom from sin. It is not legalism to obey the Lord Jesus Christ. Self-control is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.

(2) Don’t replace reality with rules. Some advocate living the Christian life by vows and rules. They say you need to read your Bible and pray for so many minutes each day. While I highly recommend reading your Bible and praying every day, it’s easy to follow all the rules and lose the reality of a love relationship with the Savior who died for you.

So please repeat after me: Reject legalism! Hold fast to Christ! Amen!