45 Bible Verses about Legalism

while Israel, though ever in pursuit of a law that would bring right standing, did not attain to it. Why? Because they did not try through faith but through what they could do. They have stumbled over the stone that causes people to stumble,

Because no human creature can be brought into right standing with God by observing the law. For all the law can do is to make men conscious of sin.

For those who depend on what the law commands are under a curse, for the Scripture says, "Cursed be everyone who does not continue in all the commands that are written in the book of the law, to do them." Now it is evident that through the law no man is brought into right standing with God, for "The man in right standing with God will live by faith,"

because we know that a man does not come into right standing with God by doing what the law commands, but by simple trust in Christ, we too have trusted in Christ Jesus, in order to come into right standing with God by simple trust in Christ and not by doing what the law commands, because by doing what the law commands no man can come into right standing with God.

"A curse on you, you hypocritical scribes and Pharisees! For you bolt the doors of the kingdom of heaven in men's faces, for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you let those who are trying to do so go in.

Because no human creature can be brought into right standing with God by observing the law. For all the law can do is to make men conscious of sin. But now God's way of giving men right standing with Himself has come to light; a way without connection with the law, and yet a way to which the law and the prophets testify. God's own way of giving men right standing with Himself is through faith in Jesus Christ. It is for everybody who has faith, for no distinction at all is made.read more.
For everybody has sinned and everybody continues to come short of God's glory, but anybody may have right standing with God as a free gift of His undeserved favor, through the ransom provided in Christ Jesus.

Yes, indeed, I certainly do count everything as loss compared with the priceless privilege of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have lost everything, and value it all as mere refuse, in order to gain Christ and be actually in union with Him, not having a supposed right standing with God which depends on my doing what the law commands, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the real right standing with God which originates from Him and rests on faith.

though I too might rely on these. If anyone thinks that he can rely on outward privileges, far more might I do so: circumcised when I was a week old; a descendant of Israel; a member of the tribe of Benjamin; a Hebrew, a son of Hebrews. Measured by the law, I was a Pharisee; by the standard set by zeal, I was a persecutor of the church, and measured by the uprightness reached by keeping the law, I was faultless.

and how I outstripped many of my own age among my people in my devotion to the Jewish religion, because I surpassed all others in my zeal for the traditions handed down by my forefathers.

"A curse on you, you hypocritical scribes and Pharisees! For you pay tithes on mint and dill and cummin, and yet leave out the more vital matters of the law, justice, love and fidelity. These latter especially you ought to have done, but ought not to have left out the former.

Omitted Text.

Now a priest happened to be going that way, but when he saw him, he went by on the other side of the road. So a Levite likewise came down to the place, but when he saw him, he went by on the other side.

But this mob, which knows nothing about the law, is bound to be accursed!"

The Pharisee stood and said this self-centered prayer, 'O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men, robbers, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. I fast two days in the week. I pay a tithe on everything I get.'

"Take care not to do your good deeds in public, to attract the attention of people; if you do, you will get no reward from your Father in heaven. So whenever you do your deeds of charity, never blow your own horn in public, as the hypocrites are in the habit of doing in the synagogues and on the street corners, to be praised by the people. I solemnly say to you, they already have their reward.

They do what they do to attract people's attention. They wear on their coats Scripture texts in big letters, and they wear large tassels, and they like the places of honor at feasts and the front seats in synagogues, to be greeted with honor in public places, and to have men call them 'Teacher.'

Then He said to them, "You are the men who exhibit your uprightness before the public, but God knows your hearts. For what stands high in the sight of men is detestable in the sight of God.

For they were ignorant of God's way of right standing and were trying to set up one of their own, and so would not surrender to God's way of right standing.

But He answered them, "Isaiah beautifully prophesied about you hypocrites; as the Scripture says: "'This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far, far away from me;

Their worship of me is but an empty show; the things they teach are but men's precepts.' "You give up what God has commanded,

"A curse on you, you hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, for you are like white-washed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead people's bones and everything that is unclean! So you, too, on the outside seem to people to be upright, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

But He answered, "Why do you too break God's command for the sake of the rules that have been handed down to you? For God said, 'Honor your father and mother,' and 'Whoever curses his father or mother must certainly be put to death.' But you say, 'Whoever tells his father or mother, "Everything I have that might be used for helping you, is devoted to God,"read more.
is under no obligation at all to help his parent.' So you have set aside what God has said for the sake of what has been handed down to you. You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied beautifully about you, when he said: "'This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far, far away from me; Their worship of me is an empty show; the things they teach are only men's precepts.'"

you cling to what men hand down. You are fine teachers to cancel what God commanded, in order to keep what men have handed down! For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and again, 'Whoever curses his father or mother must certainly be put to death,' but you say if a man tells his father or mother, 'Everything I have that may be of use to you is Corban,' that is, consecrated to God,read more.
you let him off from doing anything more for his father or mother; and so you set aside what God has said by what you have handed down. You have many other practices like these."

A curse on you, you hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, for you clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of your greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisees! You must first clean the inside of the cup and the dish, so that the outside may be clean too.

Did not Moses give you the law? And yet not one of you is keeping that law. If so, why are you trying to kill me?"

Then some of the Pharisees said, "This man does not come from God, for He does not keep the Sabbath." Others said, "How can a sinful man perform such wonder- works?" So there was a difference of opinion among them.

And Jesus said to them, "Look out, and keep on guarding yourselves against the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees!"

Then He kept warning them by saying, "Look out! Keep on guarding yourselves against the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod."

Then they understood that He meant, guard yourselves not against yeast for bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

You are observing days, months, seasons, years. I am beginning to fear that I have bestowed my labors on you for nothing.

Here is what I am saying to you: If you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ can do you no good. I again insist that if any man lets himself be circumcised, he is under obligation to obey the whole law. You people, whoever you are among you, who try to get into right standing with God, through law have cut yourselves off from Christ, you have missed the way of God's favor.

Then why do you now try to test God by putting on these disciples' necks a yoke which neither our forefathers nor we could bear?

For whoever obeys the whole law, except to slip in a single instance, is guilty of breaking it all.

In fact, we believe that it is through the favor of the Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are."

"Do not suppose that I have come to set aside the law or the prophets.

Christ ransomed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us -- for the Scripture says, "Cursed be everyone who is hanged on a tree" --

Tell me, you who want to be subject to law, will you not listen to what the law says? For the Scripture says that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave girl, the other by a free woman. But the child of the slave girl was born in the ordinary course of nature, while the child of the free woman was born to fulfill the promise.read more.
This is spoken as an allegory. For these women are two covenants, one coming from Mount Sinai, bearing children that are to be slaves; that is, Hagar (and Hagar means Mount Sinai, in Arabia) and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for Jerusalem is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. For the Scripture says: "Rejoice, you childless woman, who never bore a child; break forth into shouting, you who feel no birth pangs; for the desolate woman has many children, even more than the married one." Now we, brothers, like Isaac, are children born to fulfill the promise. But just as then the child born in the ordinary course of nature persecuted the one born by the power of the Spirit, so it is today. But what does the Scripture say? "Drive off the slave girl and her son, for the slave girl's son shall never share the inheritance with the son of the free woman." So, brothers, we are children, not of a slave girl but of a free woman.

For it is by His unmerited favor through faith that you have been saved; it is not by anything that you have done, it is the gift of God. It is not the result of what anyone can do, so that no one can boast of it.

So the Pharisees were saying to Him, "Just look! Why are they doing on the Sabbath what it is against the law to do?"

And some of the Pharisees said, "Why are you doing what is against the law to do on the Sabbath?"

But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured her on the Sabbath, answered the crowd, "There are six days on which people must work; so come on these and be cured, but not on the Sabbath."

He has qualified even me as a minister of the new covenant, which is not a written but a spiritual covenant. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

I know, and through my union with the Lord Jesus I have a clear conviction, that nothing is unclean in itself; that a thing is unclean only to the person who thinks it unclean.

"I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up here in this city, and carefully educated under the teaching of Gamaliel in the law of our forefathers. I was zealous for God, as all of you are today.

Then an expert in the law interrupted Him and said, "Teacher, in saying this you are insulting us, too."