>>Are God’s commandments legalistic...?<<
No but some do make them so:
Colossians 2:
20 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
21 (Touch not; taste not; handle not;
22 Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?
So why have commandments at all...?
BTW Col. 2 was referring to the old law...
God’s laws aren’t ordinances of men...they’re from God...!
John 12:48 He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.
God will judge us by his word.