Laws of morality were created simply as a recognition of a brokenness or evil within our world. They are the human reaction towards and the attempted fix for the sin in this world; a system that when implemented by itself is nothing more than an exhaustive and equally exhausting list of do's and don'ts - (Dictionary According to Jake).
While recognizing there are several avenues I could go with this, let's continue our School for Pharisee's and break down a basic principle...conforming to a set of stringent rules and regulations is only trading one set of bondage (sin) for another set of bondage (legalism). One comes as advertised while the other only has the appearance of something good; neither provide any true freedom.
We needn't look any further for this truth than in the Old Testament. Inside, we consistently see the shortcomings of morality. In fact, the OT seems to be God's long-standing example of how much "The Law" and adherence to that law is NOT enough. It could be said that The Law was only created to show us that on our own we could never fulfill the standards of righteousness; a gauge to show that we are broken and left to our own plan would continue to break ourselves against this law. In the NT we see Christ note this time after time in his encounters with the Pharisees and Sadducee's; individuals who only sought to uphold The Law for their own gain. Christ followers are pushed towards righteousness for very different reasons; that others might see and taste the goodness of Christ in them and through them. The funny thing is, pursuing Christ ends up fulfilling both purposes; salvation for the self (righteousness through Christ) and salvation for others (Christ's righteousness lived out).
Final Note: Non-conformity to the world for the purposes of morality looks very different than non-conformity to the world for the purposes of Christ. Which do you pursue: morality or Christ?
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