This is part seven of Written on the Heart, a series on how a Christian lives with the law of the Old Testament under the New Covenant. We have walked the road. Now we look at what lies on either side of it.

Every country road has a ditch on both sides. A driver who is terrified of the left ditch tends to drift right, and a driver watching the right ditch drifts left, and plenty of people have ended up in one ditch while staring hard at the other. Keeping the truck on the road means watching the road.

The Christian life with the law of Moses has two ditches, and the church has been sliding into both of them since the first century. The first time it nearly went off the road, the apostles called a meeting.

The Question That Called a Council

And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

Acts 15:1 (NKJV)

These men were not pagans. Luke tells us a few verses later that some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up, saying, It is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses (15:5). They were believers. They loved Jesus. They had simply concluded that a Gentile who wanted to belong to the Messiah of Israel had to become a Jew first, and keep the whole law of Moses as the condition of his salvation.

Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, and the church in Antioch sent them up to Jerusalem to settle it. The apostles and elders gathered, and after much dispute Peter stood up. He reminded them of Cornelius, the Gentile household we followed him into in part five, and of the Holy Spirit falling on them before anyone had said a word about circumcision.

So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they.

Acts 15:8-11 (NKJV)

Yoke is zugos (ζυγός), Strong’s G2218, the wooden crossbar laid over the necks of oxen, and figuratively a law or obligation laid on a person. Peter’s words are remarkable from a man raised under the law. Neither our fathers nor we were able to bear it. He is not speaking against the goodness of the law. He is admitting that no one ever carried it well enough to be saved by it.

Set that next to another yoke. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, Jesus said, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light (Matthew 11:29-30). Same word. One yoke crushes. The other comes with a Man walking beside you carrying the weight.

Notice the last line of Peter’s speech. We shall be saved in the same manner as they. You would expect a Jewish apostle to say the Gentiles will be saved the way we are. Peter turns it around. The Jews are saved the way the Gentiles are, by grace through faith, with nothing added.

What the Council Decided

James, the Lord’s brother, summed up the decision. We should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God (15:19). No circumcision. No requirement to keep the law of Moses. But the letter sent to the churches asked the Gentile believers to abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality (15:29).

Bible teachers have long discussed why those four were chosen, and we should hold our explanations with an open hand. Sexual immorality is plainly a moral matter, forbidden throughout the New Testament. The other three seem to address two practical concerns. They kept Gentile believers away from the rituals of pagan temples, where idol meat and blood rites were common. And they made it possible for Jewish and Gentile believers to share a table, since eating blood was deeply offensive to anyone raised on Leviticus 17. James gives the reason himself in verse 21. Moses has been preached in every city for generations. Many interpreters see these as wise requests for the sake of fellowship rather than a reduced version of the law of Moses, and Paul’s later teaching on idol meat in 1 Corinthians 8-10 seems to support that reading. Others give the requests more lasting force. Either way, the council refused to make law-keeping the door into the people of God.

The First Ditch

Paul wrote Galatians to churches that had been visited by the same kind of teachers, and he wrote it hot.

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.

Galatians 5:1-4 (NKJV)

Here is the first ditch, and it has a precise definition. Legalism is not taking God’s commands seriously. Paul took them more seriously than anyone. Legalism is trying to be justified by law, making our law-keeping the basis of our standing with God, or adding any work of ours to the work of Christ as a condition of acceptance. Circumcision itself was not the issue. Paul had Timothy circumcised for the sake of ministry among Jews (Acts 16:3). What he would not allow was circumcision as a requirement for being right with God.

Look at the word estranged. It is katargeo (καταργέω), Strong’s G2673, the same word we met in Romans 7:6. There Paul said believers have been released from the law. Here he says those who seek justification by the law have been released from Christ. The verb has turned around. Either the law is switched off as the way to stand before God, or Christ is. You cannot keep both running.

We should be honest that this ditch is not only a first-century problem and not only about circumcision. We drift toward it whenever our assurance rises and falls with our performance, whenever we add our church’s customs to the gospel as tests of real faith, or whenever we look at another believer’s liberty in some gray area and conclude he must not be serious about God. Even Peter slid into this ditch once. At Antioch he stopped eating with Gentile believers when certain men came from James, and Paul withstood him to his face (Galatians 2:11-14). If an apostle could drift, so can we.

The Other Ditch

Paul knew exactly what some people would do with his gospel of free grace. He raised the objection himself twice in Romans 6.

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

Romans 6:1-2 (NKJV)

And again in verse 15. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! The phrase not under law but under grace comes from verse 14, and Paul knew someone would hear it as permission. He answers the same way both times, with one of the strongest denials in his vocabulary. Absolutely not.

This second ditch has a name too. The Bible’s word is anomia (ἀνομία), Strong’s G458, lawlessness, the condition of having no law. Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4). It is the word Jesus uses for those who called Him Lord and did many wonders in His name, to whom He will say, I never knew you, depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness (Matthew 7:23).

An earlier post on this site, Counterfeit Grace, looks at how grace gets turned into license, with Titus 2 and Jude’s warning. I will not repeat it here. I only want us to see that Paul fences the same road from both sides in the same chapter.

For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Galatians 5:13-14 (NKJV)

Opportunity is aphorme (ἀφορμή), Strong’s G874, a starting point, a base to launch from. Paul uses the same word in Romans 7:8, where sin took opportunity by the commandment. Sin is resourceful. Give it a commandment and it uses the commandment as a launching pad. Give it liberty and it uses the liberty. The flesh will take any base you hand it.

The Same Flesh Digs Both

Here is what the two ditches have in common. They are both the flesh. The legalist uses the law to feed his pride and his sense of control. The lawless man uses grace to feed his appetites. Both have put themselves at the center. And neither has any power to make a person holy, because the flesh cannot produce what only the Spirit produces.

So Paul’s answer to both ditches is the same. I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). He does not tell the legalist to loosen up or the lawless man to tighten up. He tells both of them to keep in step with the Spirit, whose fruit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such, he says, there is no law.

Word	Original	Strong’s	Meaning
zugos	ζυγός	G2218	Yoke, the crossbar over the necks of oxen. Figuratively a law or obligation
katargeo	καταργέω	G2673	To render inoperative. Estranged in Galatians 5:4, delivered in Romans 7:6
anomia	ἀνομία	G458	Lawlessness, the condition of living as though there were no law
aphorme	ἀφορμή	G874	A starting point, an opportunity, a base to launch from

Finding Your Drift

Most of us are not in either ditch outright. But almost all of us drift. And the honest question is not which ditch other Christians are in. It is which way I tend to pull.

So try this. Think back over the last month and recall the last time you felt sure God was disappointed in you. Then the last time you excused something you knew was wrong because God would forgive it anyway. Which memory came quicker? That is your drift. If it was the first, read Galatians 5:1 out loud each morning this week and thank God by name for one thing Christ finished that you could not. If it was the second, read Romans 6:1-14 each morning and name one specific way you will present yourself to God as an instrument of righteousness that day. Either way, do it with someone. The ditches are easier to see from the passenger seat.

Discussion Questions

1. What exactly were the men in Acts 15:1 and 15:5 teaching? Why was it such a threat to the gospel?
2. Compare the yoke Peter describes in Acts 15:10 with the yoke Jesus offers in Matthew 11:29-30. What makes them different?
3. How would you define legalism in one sentence, based on Galatians 5:4?
4. Paul uses aphorme both for sin using the commandment and for the flesh using liberty. What does that teach about the flesh?
5. Which ditch do you tend to drift toward? What has helped you get back on the road?

Going Deeper

Read Acts 15:1-35 and Galatians 2:1-21 side by side. Many scholars connect the meeting Paul describes in Galatians 2 with the council of Acts 15, though others place it earlier, and either way the two passages show the same conviction from two angles. Then read Galatians 5 in full, noticing how Paul moves from the first ditch in verses 1-12 to the second in verses 13-26. Next time, the last post in the series. We open Leviticus and Deuteronomy and learn to read them on an ordinary Tuesday, and we take up the Sabbath and the tithe.