45 Bible Verses about Legalism

while Israel, straining after a law that should bring uprightness, did not come up to it. And why? Because they did not seek it through faith, but through doing certain things. They stumbled over that stone that makes people stumble,

For no human being can be made upright in the sight of God by observing the Law. All that the Law can do is to make man conscious of sin.

For there is a curse upon all who rely on obedience to the Law, for the Scripture says, "Cursed be anyone who does not stand by everything that is written in the Book of the Law and obey it." That no one is accepted as upright by God for obeying the Law is evident because the upright will have life because of his faith,

but who know that a man is not made upright by doing what the Law commands, but by faith in Christ Jesus??ven we believed in Christ Jesus, so as to be made upright by faith in Christ and not by doing what the Law commands??or by doing what the Law commands no one can be made upright.

"But alas for you, you hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, for you lock the doors of the Kingdom of Heaven in men's faces, for you will neither go in yourselves nor let those enter who are trying to do so.

For no human being can be made upright in the sight of God by observing the Law. All that the Law can do is to make man conscious of sin. But now God's way of uprightness has been disclosed without any reference to law, though the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it. It is God's way of uprightness and comes through having faith in Jesus Christ, and it is for all who have faith, without distinction.read more.
For all men sin and come short of the glory of God, but by his mercy they are made upright for nothing, by the deliverance secured through Christ Jesus.

Why, I count everything as loss compared with the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have lost everything, and think it rubbish, in order to gain Christ and be known to be united to him, with any uprightness I may have not based on law but coming through faith in Christ??he uprightness that comes from God through faith.

though I at least am entitled to rely on them. If anyone thinks he can rely on his physical advantages, still more can I! I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a descendant of Israel. I belong to the tribe of Benjamin. I am a Hebrew, and the son of Hebrews. As to the Law, I was a Pharisee; as to my zeal, I was a persecutor of the church; and by the Law's standard of uprightness, no fault could be found with me.

and how I surpassed many of my own age among my people in my devotion to Judaism, I was so fanatically devoted to what my forefathers had handed down.

"Alas for you, you hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, for you pay tithes on mint, dill, and cummin, and you have let the weightier matters of the Law go??ustice, mercy, and integrity. But you should have observed these, without overlooking the others.

OMITTED TEXT

Now a priest happened to be going that way, and when he saw him, he went by on the other side of the road. And a Levite also came to the place, and when he saw him, he went by on the other side.

But these common people who do not know the Law are doomed!"

The Pharisee stood up and uttered this prayer to himself: 'O God, I thank you that I am not like other men, greedy, dishonest, or adulterous, like that tax-collector. I fast two days in the week; I pay tithes on everything I get.'

"But take care not to do your good deeds in public for people to see, for, if you do, you will get no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you are going to give to charity, do not blow a trumpet before yourself, as the hypocrites do, in the synagogues and the streets, to make people praise them. I tell you, that is all the reward they will get!

They do everything they do to have men see it. They wear wide Scripture texts as charms, and they wear large tassels, and they like the best places at dinners and the front seats in the synagogues, and to be saluted with respect in public places, and to have men call them 'Rabbi.'

And he said to them, "You are the men who parade your uprightness before people, but God knows your hearts. For what men consider great is detestable in the sight of God.

For in their ignorance of God's way of uprightness and in the attempt to set up one of their own, they refused to conform to God's way of uprightness.

But he said to them, "It was about you hypocrites that Isaiah prophesied so finely, in the words, " 'This people honor me with their lips, Yet their hearts are far away from me.

But their worship of me is all in vain, For the lessons they teach are but human precepts.' "You give up what God has commanded and hold fast to what men have handed down.

Alas for you, you hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, for you are like white-washed tombs! They look well on the outside, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead, and all that is unclean. So you outwardly appear to men to be upright, but within you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

But he answered, "Why do you too break God's command for the sake of what has been handed down to you? For God said, 'Honor your father and mother,' and 'He who abuses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say, 'Whoever tells his father or mother, "Anything of mine that might have been of use to you is given to God,"read more.
does not have to provide for his father.' So you have nullified what God has said, for the sake of what has been handed down to you. You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied finely about you when he said, " 'This people honor me with their lips, Yet their hearts are far away from me. But their worship of me is all in vain, For the lessons they teach are but human precepts.' "

"How skilful you are," he said to them, "in nullifying what God has commanded in order to observe what has been handed down to you. For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and again, 'Whoever abuses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say, 'If a man says to his father or mother, "Anything of mine that might have been of use to you is Korban," ' that is, consecrated to God,read more.
you let him off from doing anything more for his father or mother, and so you nullify what God has said by what you have handed down. You have many such practices."

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

Was it not Moses who gave you the Law? Yet not one of you obeys the Law. 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." But others said, "How can a sinful man show such signs as this?" And there was a division of opinion among them.

And Jesus said to them, "Look out, and be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees!"

And he warned them, saying, "Look out! Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod!"

Then they understood that he was warning them not against yeast but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

You are observing days, months, seasons, and years! I begin to be afraid that perhaps the labor I spent on you was wasted.

Why, I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ can do nothing for you. I insist again to any man who lets himself be circumcised, that he is under obligation to obey the whole Law. You people who propose to be made upright by law have finished with Christ; you have lost your hold upon God's favor.

Then why do you now try to test God, by putting on the necks of these disciples a yoke that neither our forefathers nor we have been able to bear?

For anyone who obeys the whole of the Law but makes one single slip is guilty of breaking it all.

Why, we believe that it is by the mercy of the Lord Jesus that we are saved just as they are."

"Do not suppose that I have come to do away with the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to do away with them but to enforce them.

Christ ransomed us from the Law's curse by taking our curse upon himself (for the Scripture says, "Cursed be anyone who is hung on a tree")

Tell me this, you who want to be subject to law: Will you not listen to the Law? For the Scripture says that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave-girl, and one by the 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 in fulfilment of the promise.read more.
This is an allegorical utterance. For the women are two agreements, 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 above is free, and she is our mother. For the Scripture says, "Rejoice, childless woman, who bear no children, Break into shouting, you who have no birth pains! For the desolate woman has more children than the married one!" Now we, brothers, are like Isaac, children born in fulfilment of the promise. But just as then the child born in the ordinary course of nature persecuted the one born through the influence of the Spirit, so it is today. Yet what does the Scripture say? "Drive the slave-girl and her son away, for the slave-girl's son shall not share the inheritance with the son of the free woman." So, brothers, we are children not of a slave but of one who is free.

For it is by his mercy that you have been saved through faith. It is not by your own action, it is the gift of God. It has not been earned, so that no one can boast of it.

And the Pharisees said to him, "Look! Why are they doing what it is against the law to do on the Sabbath?"

And some of the Pharisees said, "Why do you do what it is against the Law to do on the Sabbath?"

But the leader of the synagogue, in his vexation because Jesus had cured her on the Sabbath, spoke out and said to the crowd, "There are six days on which it is right to work. Come on them and be cured, but not on the Sabbath day."

and he has qualified me to serve him in the interests of a new agreement, not in writing but of spirit. For what is written kills, but the Spirit gives life.

I know and as a follower of the Lord Jesus I am convinced that nothing is unclean in itself; a thing is unclean only to the man who regards it as unclean.

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

At this, one of the experts in the Law said to him, "Master, when you say that, you affront us too."