Hey Bubblegum Apotheosis!
Below are two of my favourite clues hidden in plain sight by Ray Franz or others like him in 1979/80 relating to "legalism" (the making and keeping of endless rules in a vain effort to be right with God):
*** g79 6/8 p. 28 Why the Emphasis on Christian Freedom? ***
...legalism... constitutes a denial of Christian faith.
*** w80 5/1 p. 6 Learning from an Experiment That Failed ***
“A Fence” to Prevent Wrongdoing
Determination to avoid transgressing God’s law, even in minute details , caused the Pharisees to go yet farther. Jewish historian Flavius Josephus writes: “The Pharisees had passed on to the people certain regulations handed down by former generations and not recorded in the Laws of Moses .” Those regulations included a vast number of precepts for proper observance of the Sabbath. Concerning such non-Biblical “regulations,” the Jewish code of traditional laws known as The Mishnah states: “The rules about the Sabbath, Festal-offerings, and Sacrilege are as mountains hanging by a hair , for [teaching of] Scripture [thereon] is scanty and the rules many.”
What was the purpose of so many rules of conduct? Some insight on this matter can be gained from a statement uttered by Jewish religious leaders before the Common Era: “Be deliberate in judgement, raise up many disciples, and make a fence around the Law.” The “fence” means traditions that supposedly would restrain persons from transgressing the written law of God. According to theory, if a person did not cross the fence, he would never be guilty of violating an actual Biblical decree.
Did that experiment succeed? Did the massive body of oral traditions make better people out of the Israelites and the Pharisees in particular?
Seeking God’s Favor Through Deeds
Excessive attention to minute regulations had a harmful effect. It led to the belief that becoming righteous in God’s eyes was merely a matter of carrying out prescribed religious and charitable deeds. Each good deed was believed to earn “merit” with God, whereas every bad act would incur “debt.” Supposedly, God would one day make a tally of the record of merits and debts to determine whether a person was righteous or wicked.
*** w80 5/1 pp. 6-7 Learning from an Experiment That Failed ***
The teaching about earning merit and favor with God by good deeds caused many Pharisees to become self-righteous and condemnatory of others . A parable of Jesus with reference to “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and who considered the rest as nothing” states: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and began to pray these things to himself, ‘O God, I thank you I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give the tenth of all things I acquire.’ ”
*** w80 5/1 p. 8 Learning from an Experiment That Failed ***
Historical facts are plentiful to show that the Pharisees’ experiment to promote righteousness by their way of observing religious precepts and performing charitable deeds was a failure . It neither influenced the majority toward godliness nor helped the Pharisees themselves to become better people. Instead, it influenced them to commit the worst crime in all history, the murder of the Son of God.
However, the experiment was not altogether without usefulness. It set the stage for Jesus before his death to give the powerful message concerning human sinfulness and the need to seek salvation, not through works but as a free gift on the basis of repentance and faith in the sin-atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
