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Answer: Yes, In every sense of the word. He is the giver of the Law.
He alone can be legalistic, because He alone is righteous as are His Laws and commands. But when men put themselves in His place, this is when righteous legalism falters and justice begins to be unjust.

Legalistic or legalism:

- strict, literal or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious or moral code

~ Encyclopedia Britannica Dictionary 2003

[Note: remember that you must read this definition from a human point of view. Do God's ways, compared to ours, seem excessive? Especially compared with todays "political correctness"?]

The Lord has said 'keep My commandments' or die.
The Lord said there is only one way...My way.
God said there is only one God.
There is only one Way to Me.
The Bible says, in the end, all will be true Christians, the rest will be blotted out...
The list goes on and on from Genesis to the end of Revelation.

Sounds pretty legalistic to me.

Now before you get angry or upset with me, remember I always point to Jesus in the end...its all about Him.

We must not be to quick to say or label something as "legalism" in a negative way when it concerns God or His Law or His Words - they are Holy as He is Holy...He alone is righteous and perfect and never changes...
Who can search the depths of His understanding?

"For I am the Lord, I change not." (Malachi 3:6)

Is it safe to say then, that our understanding is not yet complete, or that we do not yet even begin to approach God's understanding...
Shall we instruct Him?!

With this in mind, let us think about the following carefully and answer the following according to man's own definition of legalism.

[More:]

Answer to all of the above is: YES!

Are we now free to break the Law?
Did Jesus destroy the Law?
Has the Ten Commandments passed away?
Is God slack in His commands and His expectation of how we, as believers, should obey them?

Answer to all of the above is: NO!

Where does Grace fit in with all this legalism?

[Jesus]
I have always loved you. Even from the beginning, I have loved you...I am your Maker, your Carpenter, your Father. Let go, beloved, let go of your pride, let go of this world, let go and come to Me in Truth...your salvation is assured.
I know all, who are in My Kingdom, given Me of the Father. I know who all of you are, I know who you are to become. Hear Me, beloved. Turn not to the right, nor the left, stay focused on Me...I am the Truth, the Way and the Life, the Path you must follow. I do not change...I am the same yesterday, today and all tomorrows to come. What I have written let no man change. Rather, follow Me as I have said and not as you would have Me say. Keep the Father’s commandments, as He had written them in stone by His own finger, in number ten...keep them all, remember them all, and do them according to how they are written, not as man has rewritten them, and it shall be credited unto you for righteousness. I have freed you from the curse of the Law; I have not freed you from obedience to the Law. Rather, I have given you the means, by My own Spirit, to keep the Law. Oh beloved, why do you not understand My speech? Why do you not love Me? Why have you lost the desire to follow Me? My love has not changed, yet you have changed, becoming lords unto yourselves. Beloved, keep what the Father has given you...stop desecrating His Sabbaths! The Law stands forever, and all that is contained therein also stands. Even from Sabbath to Sabbath, in the Kingdom, shall the nations come up to Jerusalem and worship Me. So then, My beloved, follow Me, and make our love perfect in obedience

[Jesus]
My children, I shall speak plainly so you may be saved...
Love one another. Feed the poor in spirit and in body. Visit the widows in their affliction. Uphold the fatherless. Speak to those in prison. Help the sick. Forsake these modern “holidays”. Embrace the Holy Days, as I am their fulfillment and as they are written. Get understanding, get wisdom. And remember the Sabbath Day, the seventh day, to keep it holy.
Obey all of the Father’s commands...by My own grace shall you keep them

[Jesus] Repent, therefore, and humble yourselves, and escape all these things that must shortly come to pass. Repent, I say, repent in truth, and take up your crosses and follow after Me. If you repent, and then return to those things of which you have repented, endeavoring not to change, has not your repentance become unrepentance? My children, if you come before Me, repenting of your transgressions, in where you have not kept the Law of the Father, and then continue in your transgression forsaking the Law, have you not committed greater evil? For you have made Me the author of sin, saying, ‘We are in Christ. We are free from the Law.’...Desecration!

Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whsoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ~ Jesus (Matthew 5:19)

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to day and for ever. (Hebrews 13:6)

9/30/06 A Letter from Timothy, Inspired by the Spirit -
To My Brothers and Sisters in Christ, and For All Those Who Have Ears to Hear
Love, Forgiveness and the Law (The Ten Commandments)

Jesus said, “If you obey My teaching then you are really My disciples.”

You are Jesus’ disciples as I am His disciple. I now teach you according to the understanding received from Him who we follow by the power of His Spirit. This makes me His apostle. You also become His teachers when you teach another of His love by your testimony of His own Spirit working in you.
Understanding is a gift. The fruit and gifts of the Spirit are not for a few, but the whole of the body of Christ. Each of us has received of the Lord’s gifts, each lesser or greater according to His will for each part of His body, so we can all work together for His single purpose in the salvation of others.
If then, all of you both listen and read God’s Word more often, to a greater degree you also shall receive understanding. God does not withhold His gifts, but bestows them abundantly upon all those who willingly and openly accept them...“Seek and you shall find, eat and you shall be filled.”
As your understanding grows, so then must your level of obedience grow. To everyone, who has knowledge of what is sin, to them it is sin. To disobey God is to sin. This is why we must keep the Law, not because by keeping it we are saved...by grace are we saved, by faith and repentance through Christ, not of ourselves...it is a gift from God. We only need accept our salvation and be humbled by it.
If then by the Law we were once condemned by transgression of the Law, and now we are saved from the penalty of transgression of the Law (sin), which is death, having been freed from the Law and condemnation, has then the Law (Ten Commandments) passed away?...No! God forbid. Rather, only the laws found in ordinances have passed away, having been nailed to the cross with Christ, as the apostle, Paul, taught us. The Law of the Ten Commandments has become established because of the freedom we now have from the Law by Christ, who is also our Helper, giving us the strength and enabling us to keep the Law by the power of His Spirit. In our salvation and love has the Law now been written on our hearts, because of faith in God, who gave us the Law and in our love for Him who fulfills the Law, Jesus, being the same One who taught us the Law anew with greater meaning and understanding, opening our eyes to God’s wisdom and love.
To the Jews, the Law was given as a rod by which to govern themselves and obey...the old covenant of outward obedience which led them into sin because of man’s tendency to break the Law, continually stumbling over its foundation, proving man could not be saved of himself, but is in need of a savior that only God could provide. We, as Christians, have entered into a better and greater covenant, no longer bound by the old covenant which was outward obedience and manifest in the flesh by circumcision. We have entered into an inward spiritual covenant, the circumcision in our hearts, a freedom from sin by forgiveness, an everlasting atonement in the blood of Christ.
So then if Christ has come to live in us, He being the only One to keep the Law perfectly, also being the fulfillment of the Law, then the Law has also come to live in us, whereby we should now take joy in keeping it, establishing our love and gratitude for our freedom by obedience, no longer keeping it out of fear in the hopes of eternal life by works, but rather by works done in faith, being already established in life by Christ. Brothers and sisters rejoice! We are no longer under the Law...we live under grace.
Are we now also free to break the Law out of convenience because we have freedom from it? God forbid! Rather, Jesus has forgiven us for our transgression and shows us by His example with the adulteress, saying, “You are forgiven. Now go and sin no more”. Was He only speaking to her? Every word spoken by Christ has entered into the ears of those who believe in Him and will receive the Word.
God can not contradict Himself, so if He proclaims the Law stands forever, then forever it stands without any shadow of turning. Jesus confirmed this so we would not misunderstand, though many remain confused, listening only to themselves and the devil instead of listening to the Master. Jesus said, “It is easier for the heavens and the earth to pass away than one letter of the Law to fail.”
He has also given us an easy way to always fulfill the Law, saying, “Love your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength”, and, “Love your neighbor as yourself”. If we do this, we have brought the true meaning of the Law into our hearts and will no longer stumble over the Law’s foundations but have now built these foundations in ourselves. The purpose of the Law is love, and to keep us from pain and to keep us from causing others pain...a strengthening of our relationship with God and with others with whom we share this world.
So we are freed from the penalty of our sins, they have been atoned for. Are we yet freed from sin and all that leads us into sin?...No, not yet, but the Lord comes quickly to completely set us free so we may enter into His rest...on the Seventh Day.
Satan is the source, or cause, of sin. Can we defeat him? No. Although we are made lower than the angels, even those fallen, we can resist the devil and defeat his power to overcome us inwardly, even though he now seems to rule the world outwardly. For greater is He who lives in us than he who is in the world, for the Lord Jesus overcame the world from the beginning, being the same One through which even all these worlds were made. Jesus broke sin’s power, and thereby satan’s, on the cross; and put death, the penalty of sin, under His feet at His resurrection where also He trampled on all the plans of the devil. Satan is a defeated foe, who now only waits for his destruction. Therefore, faith is more powerful than the devil if we would just believe. Our faith in Jesus has established us in life, abiding in the Light. Any and all those who wish to destroy the Light shall be consumed by it and cut asunder, being destroyed by that which they sought to destroy, extinguished by that which they tried to put out and cover, blotted out by that which the world would not embrace.

God is the Light of life,
and all that He has decreed for us to follow
is a lamp for our feet so we do not stumble.

God is indeed love and mercy,
and the mercy and love He sent to us is fulfilled in Christ Jesus,
who, if we follow and obey God’s love,
shall be established in us and we shall live in His joy,
in His presence, in His Kingdom,
which He had prepared for us from the beginning...

Hallelujah!

Amen.