By Ken Yates

INTRODUCTION

Many years ago, a wise Bible teacher explained the essence of legalism to me. I knew that legalism was bad, but nobody had ever explained it to me. He said that legalism involves a fixation on commandments. It can apply to an unbeliever who believes he must keep specific commandments to be saved from hell. This changes the gospel of grace into a gospel of works. Such a gospel cannot save anybody.

But believers can be legalistic as well if they focus on keeping specific commandments to ensure spiritual growth. Such a life relies on the power of the flesh to keep those commandments. It breeds pride and leads to spiritual failure, not spiritual maturity.

An unhealthy fixation on commandments can lead to ruin. Recently, I noted an example of this in the book of Judges.

MAKING AN IMPULSIVE PROMISE

Israel was in the middle of a civil war. The tribe of Benjamin had committed grave sins. The other twelve tribes of Israel gathered to remove the tribe of Benjamin from the earth. In battle, they killed all the Benjamite soldiers, except for 600 men who fled into the wilderness. Israel also burned the Benjamite cities to the ground, killing all the women. The book makes it evident that the Lord disapproved of many of their actions.

The men of Israel had made a vow. They had sworn that none of them would give their daughters in marriage to any Benjamite who lived (Judg 21:1). Their motives seem somewhat righteous. The men of Benjamin were evil and needed to be judged.

But after the war, the other tribes realized that their vow had been rash. The war had left one tribe on the brink of extinction. There were no Benjamite women with whom the few surviving men could marry and have children. In one generation, the tribe of Benjamin would no longer exist.

The Lord had not told them to make such a rash vow, but they were determined to keep it, anyway.

MAKING ANOTHER IMPETUOUS PROMISE

The men of Israel had made another vow. When the war started, they promised to kill anybody who did not join them in the battle against Benjamin (Judg 21:5). After the hostilities, they learned that the city of Jabesh Gilead had not participated. They decided to kill the entire populace, including women and children. Once again, they did not first seek the will of God.

The men kept eighty percent of this promise. They killed all the men and children and most of the women of Jabesh Gilead. But they made an exception. In order to keep their vow to withhold their daughters from marrying Benjamite men, they spared the 400 virgins who were found in Jabesh Gilead. These women would provide wives for 400 of the Benjamite soldiers living in the wilderness.

What a convenient exception! It was also a loophole. Because the fathers of the virgins from Jabesh Gilead had been killed, there was no man to give these women in marriage to the Benjamites. There was therefore no one to object to these marriages! The men of Israel were thus able to fulfill their vow of not giving any of their own daughters in marriage.

But what about the other 200 surviving Benjamites? They needed wives, too. So the loophole got bigger.

ANYTHING GOES

The men of Israel knew that the area of the country known as Shiloh held a religious festival during which virgin women would engage in a dance. The 200 men who still needed wives could hide in the fields, kidnap 200 of these women (one each) when they came out to dance and force them to be their wives.

Since the fathers of these women had not consented to the marriages, they did not violate the oath to not give their daughters in marriage to these Benjamites. Technically, they were not involved in what happened. Their daughters were kidnapped and taken in marriage, but at least they didn’t break the promise they had made!

Problem solved.

CRAZY

How crazy is this story? How arbitrary were the actions of the men of Israel? These men had determined to wipe out the tribe of Benjamin. They killed almost all the men. However, they allowed 600 to live.

Then they vowed that all the people of Jabesh Gilead would be put to death. But because of the results of their first vow, they made an exception. They let a group of 400 women survive.

But another vow they had made was nonnegotiable. They wouldn’t let any of their daughters marry the surviving Benjamites.

To avoid breaking a promise, they had killed the families of the 400 women in Jabesh Gilead. To keep another promise, they had allowed 200 of the women from Shiloh to be kidnapped and taken as brides. There were loopholes all around, but technically, the men had kept their vows!

We don’t have to be great theologians to understand that God was not pleased with these events. In case the reader has missed it, the author of Judges states it clearly. The book ends with this statement about what happened: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judg 21:25).

KEEPING UNREASONABLE PROMISES?

A legalist might object. One of the Ten Commandments is that God’s people should not lie. The men of Israel certainly focused on that commandment. They had vowed not to give any of their daughters to the Benjamites. Shouldn’t they keep their word?

No. The story shows the dangers of legalism. Families were destroyed. Women were forced into sexual unions against their will. A commandment said that they shouldn’t lie. But the promises these men had made were not pleasing to God. Innocent people were severely harmed because of these men’s insistence on technically keeping that commandment.

There was a better option. They could have confessed their sin of making such rash vows and asked God for forgiveness. Jabesh Gilead, including the children in it, would not have been destroyed. Four hundred women would still have had their parents. Two hundred girls from Shiloh would not have had to be taken from their families to enter marriage with men neither they nor their parents had ever met.¹

Appealing to God’s grace and mercy would have been quite an improvement over fixating on a couple of dumb promises and insisting that one shouldn’t lie, no matter the consequences.

JESUS TAUGHT THE SAME THING

Our Lord taught the same principles. He spoke of a Jewish practice of His day that involved a man’s taking an oath, then keeping it, no matter what. A man could swear to give all his money to the Lord (Mark 7:11). I am sure that those who did this appealed to another commandment: A man should love the Lord. Once the vow was made, the man had to keep his word.

The problem was that the man’s parents might need help in their old age. The money he had vowed to give the Lord could be used to meet those needs. But no. The man had to remember the promise he had made.

The first-century Pharisees promoted this kind of focus on the commandments. These men epitomized legalism. They loved to focus on keeping commandments. The Lord summarized their problem. They vowed to keep the commandments, which they distorted to cover keeping a vow to give money to God, no matter what. Jesus rebuked them:

“But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God” (Luke 11:42).

They sure kept their promises. They tithed to the Lord. It did not matter if people were hurt. Sounds like the men in Judges 21. None of them looked at the Lord and considered His love, grace, and justice.

That is the problem with legalism. That old teacher of mine put it succinctly: Legalism focuses on the commandments, not on the One who gave them.

CONCLUSION

Obeying the Lord is important. But obeying commandments has never given anybody eternal life. Keeping a rigid list of commandments in our own power will not make us more like Christ.

If keeping a commandment means that we do not love others, we should reconsider. The men in Judges 21 and the Pharisees in the New Testament were sure that God was impressed with their integrity. But their focus on keeping their word hurt families, women, parents, and other vulnerable people. Their legalistic mindset was destructive. It always is.

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Ken Yates is a retired Army chaplain (Lt. Col). He has many theological degrees, including a Ph.D. from D.T.S. in New Testament. He leads the GES international ministry, cohosts the daily podcast, and assists Bob in all aspects of the GES ministry. His new book, Mark: Lessons in Discipleship, is a wonderful explanation of Christ’s call to discipleship. He and his wife, Pam, live in Columbia, SC.

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¹ Arranged marriages were very common during the time of the Judges. The young woman might have little or no familiarity with the young man she was marrying. But her parents did.