I am a legalist. I like to add to God’s commands because it enables me to say with pride, “Look at what I did! Aren’t I special?” Eve, humanity’s first mother, was also the first legalist when she added to God’s command not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. She said that we couldn’t even touch it. I used to think that legalism was the opposite of license (freedom to do whatever you want whenever you want), but that isn’t true. A good Bible teacher taught me that legalism and license are both sides of the same coin: working in the flesh. The opposite of legalism/license is walking in the Spirit. That is why most kids who grow up in a legalist house often turn to license when they get a bit of freedom. What we need to learn is how to walk in the Spirit. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. In today’s verse, Paul calls legalists dogs, evil workers, and mutilators of the flesh. They had perverted and added to the Word of God. I get it. I’m a legalist, but I don’t want to be. Thankfully, Jesus not only set me free from sin and death, but He continues to free m from the need to perform and earn favor with God and man.
Philippians 3:2: “Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved.”
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Scott Maxon 