Clarifying the Law and the Gospel

Transcript

GR 2089
06/18/2017
Clarifying the Law and the Gospel
Galatians 2:17-21
Gil Rugh

We are in the book of Galatians together and the last part of chapter two so if you would turn there in your Bibles, Galatians chapter 2. This is a very pertinent section in a variety of ways. One for the clarity of the Gospel and that’s crucial. We are dealing with revelation from God to man. That’s the only authoritative message we have. That is the only message of salvation so it is important that it be understood clearly and accurately. Paul has defended his apostleship because he has been the recipient of this Gospel. Not the only recipient; Peter and other apostles received it but Paul is concerned since he has been sent by God out into the Gentile regions of the world that they understand he speaks with the authority of God because his message has come directly from God. With that he also has to defend the clarity and simplicity of the Gospel against those who would corrupt it.

The particular issue at stake as he writes Galatians are those who are Jews who have professed faith in Christ but are now saying it is necessary to keep the law. Many of those were just unbelievers and we noted those in chapter 2, verses 4 and 5 where Paul referred to them as “false brethren who came in secretly disguised as believers to corrupt the Gospel and bring people into bondage to works” and particularly to the Mosaic Law as necessary for salvation.

Then he had to deal with a particular problem, Peter. Peter, a Jew comes from Jerusalem where the apostles were centered and headquartered and visits Antioch. We noted Antioch is about 250 miles north of Jerusalem. He is visiting Antioch and ministering there and then some Jews come from Jerusalem. While Peter was up visiting there and had contact with Paul, Barnabas and other Jews and the Gentiles there was freedom of interaction. But then when these other Jews comes up from Jerusalem, Peter backs off of his involvement with Gentiles so that had an impact upon other Jewish believers including Barnabas. We saw that in verse 13, “Even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy,” that they would associate and fellowship with Gentiles, eat together, Jews and Gentiles alike because they understood the Gospel; had removed any distinction that the Gentiles were now cleansed from their sin and defilement through faith in Christ even as the Jews were cleansed. But when Peter and the others following him back off now you have the issue of the Gospel at stake.

So verses 14 Paul said, “I saw they were not straightforward about the truth of the Gospel.” So now the Gospel was being corrupted by the practice of believers in their attitude toward other believers implying that they hadn’t been totally cleansed from the defilement and so Jews didn’t want to be associated with them. Same problem as unbelievers brought. We noted the inconsistency among believers and how they carry out their conduct in light of the Gospel has an impact on the Gospel and can undermine what we are saying.

Paul accuses them of hypocrisy. He publically stands against Peter and the others. Peter obviously is a recognized leader among these Jewish believers and he said, just for review, verse 14: “I said to Cephas in the presence of all, ‘If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews,’” and that is what he had done before these Jews from Jerusalem came. He ate with the Gentiles. He would then maybe be eating what the Gentiles ate, he would fellowship with them in their home, perhaps have them in to where he was staying. “If you being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?” Now Peter has crossed over and is saying that Gentiles who had conducted themselves like Jews, submit themselves to the Mosaic Law with its regulations about food and cleansing and so on. Paul went on with his instruction: “We are Jews by nature (by birth) not sinners from among the Gentiles.” He picks up on the common Jewish view of Jews and their distinction from Gentiles. The Jews are special chosen by God, cleansed by certain requirements of the law that they keep like certain foods and so on.

“We are not sinners from among the Gentiles. Nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified (declared righteous) by works of the law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus (even we Jews had to believe in Christ Jesus) so that we might be justified (declared righteous) by faith in Christ and not be works of the law.” That is his emphasis. “By works of the law no flesh will be justified.” That is the point that has to be driven home. The Jews were never cleansed by works of the law. Now they had a responsibility to obey the law but that didn’t bring them salvation.

Remember we talked about this and the Old Testament talked about the need of a change of heart. They had to have circumcision of the heart and preceding the establishing of the nation of Israel. “Abraham believed God and God credited it to him as righteousness.” He is the father of the Jewish nation and the Jewish law wasn’t given until 500 years after Abraham. So the manner and means of faith has always been by faith in the revelation God has given, trusting Him and then obedience flowed out of that. So that emphasis here, justification by faith not by works of the law and he mentions that several times in verse 16, “Justified by faith, not by works of the law; justified by faith in Christ, not by works of the law.” You have to understand “by works of the law no flesh will be justified.”

So he is continuing that line as we move down to verse 17 where we pick up the discussion. I want to say something about the law here. We get removed from such discussion. This is an on-going current debate, not necessarily about justification, although as we talked about works, people think they are saved by keeping the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are a summary of part of the law. You have the Ten Commandments but you have 613 commandments comprising the Mosaic Law. We sometimes divide the Mosaic Law. You will see in writings there is the moral, there is the civil and there is the ceremonial divisions of the law. So they break it down and say, “Well we don’t keep the ceremonial provisions of the law, various ceremonies that were part of the law. We don’t have to keep the civil but we have to keep the moral requirements of the law. The problem is the Jews never broke down the law that way, the later division and you can’t. You might for simplicity look at different aspects of the law but it can’t be divided. Remember James wrote in James 2, “If you break one part of the law you have broken the whole law.” The law is a unit.

There is some change come even among reformed people in recent years. Come to realize we can’t break out the law that way. So even there, there has been a recognition. Reformed people used to accuse and some still do, dispensationalists. We are not under the law in any way, the Mosaic Law. Reformed people accused us of being anti-nomian. The word ‘nomian’ comes from the Greek word ‘nomos’ which is the word for law, so anti-law. So they would say dispensationalists are lawless. They don’t believe we even have to keep the moral requirements of the law. They felt that was a necessary part of our sanctification. We are not going to get into this but just a little bit of background on that.

There has come a recognition that that doesn’t stand up particularly. It was crystalized in 1988 in an article written by a non-dispensationalist that had great impact on other reformed people. The argument was so clear that they began to reevaluate. We can’t view ourselves as under the law in any way. That doesn’t mean there aren’t moral requirements because there are commands given throughout the New Testament epistles in the context of this church. They are binding. Some of those are the same as were given under the Mosaic Law but we are responsible for obedience to those not because we are under the Mosaic Law but because they are commanded as, if you will, the law of Christ. There is just some of that sorting out so you don’t get confused and say, “Well we are not under the law. That means we can be immoral. We can do all these other things.” No, but we are under the commandments that God has given to us as the church so even though there are some commandments that would carry over, we are obeying commandments not because we are under the Mosaic Law and that is what Paul is debating here and arguing in Galatians.

I just mention this as you understand even though we don’t seem to relate as much because we are not Jews and don’t have that. The issue of the law is a current one. If you read much in dispensational literature and non-dispensational literature you will come up repeatedly with non-dispensationalists saying they are anti-nomian; they are lawless people. They think you can get saved and do whatever you want because they say we are not under the moral requirements of the Mosaic Law and we are not. You can’t divide the law. It is a unit but there are commandments given to us and some of those moral requirements carry over and are repeated, for example the Sabbath. We don’t obey “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.” Some reformed people, reading an article by a reformed theologian who has written recently very upset that we should set aside the Sabbath but he doesn’t keep the Sabbath. You can’t call Sunday the Sabbath. The Sabbath is the 7th. You know if the man who picked up sticks on the Sabbath and ends up stoned to death had picked them up on Sunday he would have been okay. So you can’t change it. The other nine of the Ten Commandments are repeated and we do obey those. Seventh Day Adventists are confused on the place of the law as you are aware.

So ready for the argument of chapter 2, verse 17 and it gets a little bit confusing perhaps the way it is stated but if we stop and take it piece by piece. I will tell you something here and I am going to mention it on a Sunday morning about Revelation.

What I have been due to find out, I had a visiting professor way back when I was in seminary and he was a brilliant man. He was a scientist. He earned doctor’s degrees from three different countries and he was talking about when you really understand something you can explain it to someone else. Sometimes people will say, “Well, I know but I just can’t explain it.” He says, “You really don’t know and understand it.” And he demonstrated it by explaining science that we seminary students could understand what he was talking about in those areas.

So it is sometimes a helpful thing when you work through portions of Scripture when you go home sit down and think about and try to explain it as though you were explaining it to someone else. Let me explain to you what this passage, see if you can walk through. Sometimes when I do this I think of challenges that might be raised and can I answer what this passage says in light of how someone might disagree with it? So that we see, am I really getting a grasp on this, that I know it well enough? That doesn’t mean that everybody is going to be a teacher but we want to know it well enough that you understand it and could explain it.

Alright, verse 17, let’s read a couple of these verses so we get an idea of what he is saying. “But if while seeking to be justified in Christ we are ourselves have also been found sinners is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be. For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law so I might live to God.” and this still flows of the issue that he had been dealing with Peter and the conflict that is there with Peter and Barnabas and those Jews that followed them in their inconsistency. It really comes to be a denial of the Gospel and then you end up saying that Christ is really leading us into sin and that is why you have that strong expression we translate, “May it never be,” at the end of verse 17. I will mention a little more about that but he says “But if while seeking to be justified in Christ Jesus.” And so he is talking about believers here because the issue as we saw up in verses 4 and 5 of chapter 2 was with false professors but they are really unbelievers but the issue down in verses 11 and following was with Peter, Barnabas and other believing Jews becoming inconsistent in their conduct by disassociating themselves implying that apart from keeping the Mosaic Law you weren’t really clean. So “If while seeking to be justified in Christ Jesus” and this expresses their ongoing attitude. They have placed their faith in Christ and that is where their focus is. We have Christ’s righteousness through faith in Him, righteousness from God by faith in Christ. “If while seeking to be justified in Christ” so that would be our statement. We find justification in Christ as believers. That’s where I am looking for my justification because I have placed my faith in Christ. So these are believers. “While seeking to be justified in Christ we ourselves also have been found sinners.” This is where here the ‘we.’ Remember back in verse 15, “we Jews by nature.” So that is where we pick up that ‘we’ here. That is why I say we have to keep the continuity here. “We ourselves have been found sinners.” The sinners comes back to verse 15 again. “We Jews by nature, not sinners from among the Gentiles.” The Gentiles have been regarded as sinners. We talked about that in verse 15 because they didn’t observe the ceremonial requirements and the requirements for purity and so on, eating clean versus eating unclean foods.

So these Jews professed to have righteousness by faith in Christ and then they forsake adherence to the law and they live like the Gentiles. That is what Peter was doing before these Jews came from Jerusalem.

Well was this a sin against God? Because by this action they are denying what they had taught and the way they had lived before. Before you know, we are just alike. We can have dinner with you. We can enjoy good fellowship together in your homes but now they are pulling back from that. So are they saying while declaring that they found righteousness by faith in Christ we ourselves have also been found sinners by now refusing to associate with the Gentiles implying that the Gentiles really weren’t clean by not keeping those provisions of the law? “We ourselves have been found sinners.” The point is by doing what Christ requires we now are saying that made us sinners because you can’t be righteous by faith in Christ alone. So they have gone back to the requirements of the law. So what they said provided righteousness by faith in Christ and His provision. Now they are denying. By not observing the law they have become sinners like Jews viewed Gentiles. So there is a denial here as though Christ was promoting them to sin. That’s why it says, “Is Christ then a minister of sin?”

Come back to Mark chapter 7, the Gospel of Mark chapter 7. Christ taught this during His earthly ministry because it always was true. None of the Jews were ever saved, declared righteous by keeping the law. It was always by faith. Keeping the law was simply a manifestation, was intended to be a manifestation of the fact that they their faith in the God of Israel and desires to obey him. But in Mark chapter 7 Jesus is going to explain things here. He called the crowd in again. He began saying, “Listen to me all of you and understand (verse 15 of Mark 7) there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man.”

The disciples are confused. What do you mean? You know it is not the food you take in but it is what comes from within your body that defiles you. We understand that now because we have much clarity on this through the rest of the New Testament but it is explained here.

He said to them, verse 18 when they asked Him, “Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him because it does not go into his heart but into his stomach and is eliminated?” I mean that is putting it very directly. It doesn’t get into your spirit, into your heart. That is just food. It passes right on through. Nutrition taken in but it just passes through. It doesn’t go into the heart. Note that statement at the end of verse 19: “Thus He declared all foods clean.” “He was saying, ‘that which proceeds out of the man is what defiles the man for from within, out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adultery, deeds of coveting, wickedness as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All of these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.” Now that is not new material. Jeremiah 17 said what? “The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things, who can know it? I the Lord search the heart” and so on.

But the Jews have got to identify what the value is. You eat pork. I can’t have fellowship with you because you are unclean. I am clean because I don’t eat pork. You know eating a pork sandwich doesn’t make you sinful. You know sin comes from within and out of the heart. So that principle.

Come over to Acts 10. It is going to be clearer with the ending of the Mosaic Law and Christ brings the end to the Mosaic Law with His sacrificial death and subsequent resurrection. In Acts 10 you have the vision with Cornelius. Remember the sheet comes down from heaven because God is sending Peter to a Gentile’s house. Here we are. The church started in Acts chapter 2. You get to Acts chapter 10 the Jews still have no understanding. The Jews can be saved by this provision of the death and resurrection of the Jewish Messiah so you have this sheet lowered down from heaven and all sorts of unclean animals that the Jews were not supposed to eat and Peter is told get up and make lunch and eat them.

So verse 14 when God tells him, “A voice from heaven, ‘Get up Peter, kill and eat.’ Peter said, ‘By no means Lord I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean.’ A voice came to him a second time, ‘What God has cleansed no longer consider unholy.’” The picture here with the animals but what He is really doing is preparing Peter to go to the unclean Gentiles as you are aware.

Down in verse 28 Peter explains at the house of Cornelius to these Gentiles. He said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him.” So you see why in Galatians 2 Paul talks about when Peter reverted to his old ways and views of the Gentile and yet he says “God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean.” So then he goes on to present the Gospel as we talked about earlier in Acts 2 with Peter.

You know sometimes we get into trouble because we just forget or disregard what we know. So he knows. He explained to them. God has shown me I shouldn’t call any man unholy or unclean. So the Gentiles were no worse sinners than the Jews and the Gentiles were just as cleansed by faith as the Jews but he is denying that truth by withdrawing fellowship from Gentiles. What is he saying? I don’t think you are really clean. So when God declares them clean I still don’t accept that, serious matter here.

So you come to Acts 15 and the Council at Jerusalem and the debate here comes when unbelievers as well as believers and the confusion that exists among believing Jews so you have a mixture here as we saw in Galatians 2. Some were false brethren who crept in in a secretive way to spy out the liberty in Christ and corrupt the Gospel. They were teaching in verse 1 of Acts 1 5, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses you can’t be saved.” Verse 5: “Some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed.” Paul calls them false brethren in Galatians 2. “That it is necessary to circumcise them.” Now even believers are not really clear on some of this so it has to be clarified and Peter is the one who does the clarification because in verse 7: “After there had been much debate Peter stood up. Brethren you know in the early days God made a choice among you that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the Gospel and believe.” That was in Acts chapter 10 where we just were at the house of Cornelius. In Acts chapter 11 he had to defend what he had done to the rest of the apostles and leaders in the church at Jerusalem because they called him on the carpet for going to a house of a Gentile like that. So he said, “You know” and verse 8: “God who knows the heart testified to them.” God knew they believed when I presented the Gospel and He gave them the Holy Spirit just as He did to us. We had that manifestation of it in Acts chapter 10 just like the Jews did in Acts 2 where they spoke in other languages. So it could show both Jew and Gentile received the Holy Spirit, received it in the same way by faith in the Gospel.

“Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?” How clear Peter is. We Jews couldn’t bear. We weren’t able to keep the law. Why would you now want to require the Gentiles to keep the law which we Jews could never keep? “We believe we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way as they are.” He turns it around and this is what Paul is using in Galatians 2. It is not just the Gentiles don’t have to become Jews and keep the law to be saved. Rather we turn it around. The Jews have to become just like the Gentiles and abandon trust in the law, place their faith in Christ. “We believe that we,” verse 11 of Acts 15 referring to we “Jews are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way as they are.” So rather than comparing the salvation of Gentiles to the Jews he compares the salvation of Jews to the salvation of Gentiles. We Jews have to get saved the same way those Gentiles got saved, through faith in Jesus Christ by the grace of God. And so that quiets them down, shuts them up.

So now we come back to Galatians 2, verse 17: “Seeking to be declared righteous in Christ we ourselves have been found sinners.” We retreat to the law because we are saying it was what? Wrong for us sinful for us to trust in Christ alone. That is what Peter was saying and Barnabas and the others that had joined him. You Gentiles aren’t really clean. We can’t continue to have fellowship with you. They are backtracking on the Gospel. They are backtracking on what Peter declared in Acts 15 at the Jerusalem Council. “We believe we Jews are saved by the grace of God in the same way as the Gentiles.” What are you saying? Now you can see why Paul says in verse 17, If declaring you are justified, declared righteous by faith alone, in Christ alone as we would add to it, we are found to be sinners because Peter you are declaring by your conduct you are not clean without observing the requirements of the law. Does that mean Christ is a minister, a servant of sin, because doing what is required for salvation in Him leaves you sinful. You see when you put it in that light, this is not just a minor theological disagreement. I mean you are going to say Christ is serving sin? That is what you do when you say salvation by faith in Christ and His finished work is all that is necessary. That is what is required in Christ and if you are saying that is not enough you are saying Christ is a servant of sin and the message about Him leads people into sin. That is why He says, “May it never be,” a Greek expression, meganoidko. The King James translates it, “God forbid,” to give something of the force of this even though the word ‘God’ does not appear in it. It expresses one Greek commentator said, “The idea expressed in the objection is something ethically or theologically monstrous.” It is inconceivable. I mean everybody who believes in Christ has to say, “You can’t say Christ is leading people into sin.” Then you are clearly outside the bounds of a Christian.

So that is the argument here. It is a crucial argument. You see how serious that conduct was by implying that they weren’t cleansed by faith in Christ, serious business in this whole matter, “May it never be.” That expression, ‘May it may be’ just a note. Some of you may trace it down in a concordance or particularly a Greek concordance. It is used 14 times by Paul; only one other time in the whole Bible, the whole New Testament. One time in Luke chapter 20, verse 16, that expression, “meganoito, but it a rather common one for Paul, 14 times.

Then he goes one to explain. “For if I rebuild what I have destroyed I prove myself to be a transgressor” because Paul here brings himself into the picture. He is going into Gentile parts of the world. He had preached the same thing to Jews but his primary focus is Gentiles. You are saved, declared righteous by God through faith in Christ. The message the Gospel of Christ, the Good News is when you place your faith in Him and His work on the cross you are cleansed, forgiven, declared righteous by God. You become one of His saints, His holy ones.

So now if I rebuild what I was destroying, what was he destroying, any confidence or hope in the law to make you righteous, to cleanse you. “I prove myself to be a transgressor.” You can’t have both. It is not salvation by faith in the finished work of Christ based upon the grace of God in making that provision or it is not.

That’s why we have such a major disagreement with Roman Catholicism. Their official doctrine is, “Anyone who says you are saved by faith alone is anathema.” You are familiar with that. Paul used that in chapter 1 for those who corrupt the Gospel. Roman Catholics turned around, “If you say you are saved by faith alone in Christ you are cursed to hell.” You can’t have it both ways. That is why we would stand against them just as strongly as Paul stood against the Judaizers and for Christians who corrupt it and say, “Well, I don’t think a person who is cleansed because they don’t do this, this and this, that is a serious issue.” You can’t go back and rebuidt it. So Paul said, “If I rebuild what I have once destroyed.” That’s what Peter is really doing. He said, he had been teaching, “We believe we are saved by the grace of God in the same way as the Gentiles.” Now by his conduct what is he saying about the Gentiles? “I don’t think you have really been cleansed. I think I would be defiled by association with you.” Paul is saying what? “If I do that I would prove myself a transgressor.” What has he said about Peter and Barnabas? They are hypocrites. What you are doing is saying you are a transgressor. Either you lied about the Gospel or you are lying about the law. “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live to God.” That is what happens.

When you place your faith in Christ you died to the law and he uses himself here and that emphasis but it would be true of Peter and the others who had placed their faith in Christ. “Through the law I died to the law that I might live to God” and all the law could do was condemn remember. We will get to this down in chapter 3, verse 10: “For as many as are of the works of the law are under a cursed; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them. That no one is justified by the law before God is evident; for the righteous man shall live by faith” but with the law you would have to keep it all the time. 613 commandments, every day, all day long, every day and when you break one you are guilty of breaking them all. That is why Peter said in Acts 15, “We Jews had a yoke on us we could have never kept. We never did.” So the idea that we were saved by keeping the law and that made us clean is a farce. There was a place for the law, the separating of the Jews from the non-Jews because God’s work was in the nation Israel but it never was the way of salvation even for the nation Israel, so the clarity here. “Through the law I died to the law.”

All the law did was condemn, show my guilt but as a guilty sinner I placed my faith in Christ. Now I died to any obligation. The penalty for my sin has been paid. I am set free.

Come back to Romans 7. Paul develops this argument, Romans chapter 7. He used the comparison of marriage and the bond in marriage. When you die you are free from the obligation to the marriage requirements. Verse 4: “Therefore my brethren you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ so that you might be joined to another to Him who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God.” There is a place for conduct, for behavior, for obedience. That is the result of your salvation. For the Jews when they placed their faith in God and the revelation He gave of Himself like Abraham did, “Abraham believed God, God credited it to him as righteousness.” Then they desired to obey God and keep the law.

When we now place our faith in Christ we are identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection; that was in Romans chapter 6, we are in chapter 7 here. What, verse 5, verse 4 which we read, “We died and were raised from the dead. Now we bear fruit for God.” When we are in the flesh all the law did was stir up the desires. You know, the law said don’t do this, all of a sudden we have a desire to do it.

You know we use the example, tell your kids, and “Don’t eat the cookies while we are gone.” All of a sudden all they can think about is cookies. There is something about the law. It did make clear God’s requirements for holiness and righteousness. It was to impress upon the people all you can do is trust in Me and the provision I make for you which would be represented in the sacrifices that were offered because the penalty for their sin was death but those sacrifices could never take away sin. All they could do was trust God and He would forgive them on the basis of the sacrifice that He would provide in His Son.

Verse 6: “But now we have been released from the law having died to that by which we were bound, so we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.” It wasn’t the problem the law was sin the problem was we were sinners that couldn’t keep the perfect requirements of the law. But now in Christ we do bear fruit for Him but that doesn’t put us under the law. So that argument.

Back up to 6 just so you see. Most of you here tonight are familiar with this. Romans 6:6 “Knowing this, that our old self (our hold man) was crucified with Him in order that our body of sin (our body controlled by sin, enslaved to sin) might be done away with.” Its power is broken. It doesn’t cease to exist, gadargetto, we are no longer controlled by it. We would no longer be slaves to sin “for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ we believe we will live with Him.”

So verse 11: “Consider yourself dead to sin, alive to God in Christ.” Verse 12: “Therefore don’t let sin reign in your body.” Verse 13 “Do not go on presenting the members of your body as instruments of unrighteousness. Present yourselves to God.” Verse 15: “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” There is Paul’s expression, “May it never be,” meganoito, “Don’t you know, sin enslaves?” Verse 18: “Having been freed from sin you became slaves of righteousness.” So now as he goes on through the rest of the chapter down to verse 22: “Having been freed from sin enslaved to God.” So we are not anti-nomian. We died, we were freed from the power and penalty and enslavement to sin but we weren’t set free now to do what we want. We were set free to do what God wants which is to freedom for which we were created to function in obedience and harmony with His will.

So come back to Galatians. We want to pull this together with these two verses as they conclude the chapter. Many of us have memorized verse 20. Two key passages here, verse 16, many of you have committed to memory, you have practiced because you can think about those verses, call them to mind when you need them. Verse 20: “I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. The life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” There is a new power operative. It doesn’t go back to the law primarily requiring we now have an indwelling God. “I have been crucified with Christ.” That is what we read in Romans chapter 6. “But I have been raised with Christ to newness of life.” But it is no longer my life it is the new life I have in Christ and Christ lives in me. So the life “which I now live in the flesh” in this physical body I am totally new. “If any man be in Christ he is a new creation, old things have passed away. New things have come,” in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. We have been new within.

That is a picture of the circumcision. The Jews put their trust in physical circumcision. He says what you need is circumcision of the heart, the removal of sin, that desperately wicked heart. We are made new in Christ. So that new “life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God.” This is crucial. It is an inseparable bond. Justification is not the same as sanctification but they cannot be broken apart. We are declared righteous by faith in Christ, made new. Now we live new. He didn’t make us new so we could live old. We could live old the way we were. He didn’t save us so that now we wouldn’t have to be concerned about hell so we could live like unredeemed people. He saved us so we could be His saints, same basic word as ‘holy.’ God said, “You shall be holy for I am holy.” But it first requires the transformation of being made new within.

That is why we don’t try to tell unbelievers you need to clean up your life. You need to stop living like that. I mean it might be a good idea but it will do nothing. The Jews thought they were saved because they didn’t so some of the immoral things for example that the unbelievers did because they didn’t do other things but you’ve got to get to the heart. What did Jesus say in Mark 7 which we read? “Out of the heart proceed all these sinful things.” If you haven’t dealt with the heart you haven’t dealt with anything.

So we don’t want to give people an idea that if you clean up your life, if you would stop telling those lies, if you would stop being so deceitful, you stop cheating people, if you would stop being immoral, if you would stop… If you would stop you would just be a person that doesn’t do those particular sins and who is on his way to hell. You haven’t made any progress anywhere. In fact you may put them in a worse condition because what did Jesus tell the religious people of His day who wanted to be so meticulous in keeping the law? Prostitutes, all these sinful people are going to be going into the kingdom and you are not.

So we don’t want to give people the idea because what? You have to be crucified with Christ. How does that happen? When you place your faith in Him you are identified with Him so God views you as having died when Christ died. His death is applied to your account but you are not left there. That’s what Romans 6 is. You are not left in the grave any more than Christ was. You are raised now with a new life. “It is no longer I who live; it is Christ who lives in me.” And you know the Bible says the Holy Spirit dwells in us. The Bible also says “God the Father dwells in us.” The Bible also says, “Christ dwells in us.”

Come back to John chapter 14, John chapter 14. Jesus promises the Holy Spirit who will come to dwell in them in John 14, verse 16: “I will ask the Father, He will give you another helper and He will be with you forever.” The end of verse 17, “The Spirit of truth and He will be in you.”

Then you come down to verse 23: “If anyone loves Me he will keep My Word. My Father will love him (and note this), we will come to him and make our abode with him.” So God dwells in us.

Now the focal point of the ministry is on the Holy Spirit in us but we have the indwelling God. This is the life we have. Christ lives in me. We sing it in the song, Christ lives in me. I am a new person with His enabling power. Obedience is important. “If you love Me you will keep My Words” John 14 here. But you are not saved by keeping His Word. That flows out of. Because I love Him I want to please Him. I want to honor Him, I want to serve Him. That only comes when I have been made new within. Other religious activity comes from a self-centered, selfish purpose. That’s why philanthropic works do nothing to make a person pleasing to God. It is only that which comes from a heart that is bowed before Him to reverence Him, worship Him, honor Him with a heart of love to please Him. That’s the dramatic transformation. Peter is denying this going back to the law.

Come back to Galatians. “The life which I now live in the flesh (verse 20) I live by faith in the Son of God.” We are saved by faith but that is not a broken point. The moment we place our faith in Christ for our salvation that begins a life of faith. It is not now we are saved by faith and kept by works. So both our justification and our sanctification is being worked out by faith and even our obedience to the commands have to be founded on our faith in Him. I live the life which I am now living in this physical body by faith in the Son of God. “Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” Jesus said as we were in John 14, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”

In I John, John the apostle was also the human writer of the epistle of John as you are aware but in I John what does he tell us? “We love Him because He first loved us.” So our love for Him is a response to His love for us and the love we have experienced when we placed our faith in Christ. So now we live by faith and the just shall live by faith. He is going to develop this that it is not only our justification but it is our sanctification as we come into chapter 3 and verse 3 just to jump ahead: “Are you so foolish having begun by the Spirit are you now perfected by the flesh?” And this is where some of the reformed people are still off the rails. We don’t obey the law to get saved but now that we have been saved (reading John Murray on this this week, he is a reformed man from the past and still influential.) We are going to keep the moral aspect of the Mosaic Law. It is so convoluted I had to read what he wrote half a dozen times to try to make sense of it because somehow he wants to put me back under the Mosaic Law that he is saying I am not under. He is saying I got out from under the Mosaic Law when I trusted in Christ and was declared righteous and now I am back under it to live my life out? That’s what Paul says, “You have begun by the Spirit. You are now perfected.” So that is what we have in verse 20.

These basic truths have to be implemented in our lives otherwise we fall back into Peter’s pattern and we are living inconsistently with our theology. We claim to believe these truths. We die for them. We get out here and we are practicing something else. So “The life which I now live I live by the faith in the Son of God.” That is how I live out my physical life. It is in dependence upon Him.

Come over to Philippians chapter 2, verse 12: “So then my beloved. Just as you have always obeyed.” And Paul commends the Philippians. They were believers who were responsive to God’s Word, wanted to please Him what He wanted. “You have obeyed not only in my presence but much more in my absence. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” That is our responsibility. Work out our salvation through the study of the Word, the applying of the Word, the obeying of what God tells us that He wants us to do.

Oh, well then it is dependent upon me. Verse 13: “For it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” “Do all things without grumbling and disputing” because then I am functioning contrary to what I claim to believe so I have a responsibility. So we are into this human responsibility and divine sovereignty but God dwells in me. It is God who is at work in you. It is His will being done so exercise your will in doing what He says He wants you to do and the enablement comes from Him. So it is not just a matter “Let go and let God,” a pietistic, kesic approach to things. It is not that we are just passive but the desire for it and if there is no desire to live for Him, what makes you think you have been made new in Christ? That doesn’t mean we live perfectly. And when we stumble as believers we realize I shouldn’t have grumbled. Now we go through the time to excuse our grumbling. I am sure Peter in his mind was justifying why he wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles. Maybe he would say, “Well the Jews in Jerusalem wouldn’t understand and I wouldn’t want to cause them problems so I just won’t eat.” It doesn’t matter. We are find justification when we are off the track to what God wants us to be but we have to be careful. Get back on track. “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” What does that mean? I have a responsibility now. I belong to God. I have been enslaved to Him. I wasn’t set free just to serve myself. Galatians 2:20 says “I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered Himself up for me.” I have an ongoing relationship here to live out and it is frustrating how sometimes things come and the tongue is, we just mentioned the grumbling, but you know James 3 says that is the last thing I get under control. How many times do you say something – “What did I say that for?” “What was I thinking?” You know you feel like you ought to bite your tongue but you don’t want to. But if we thought that beforehand we wouldn’t have done it.

So as believers we are sensitive to some of those things. We are sensitive to sin in ways the unbeliever isn’t and that is the ongoing development. We grow and we walk with the Lord and we desire to be more conformed to Him. I don’t want to hear about my past. I don’t want somebody bringing up my failures. By the grace of God I am what I am and the perfecting work is not done.

Paul mentioned that in Philippians 3. Yes, I haven’t yet arrived but I am on a relentless pursuit to have the perfecting work of God fully accomplished in my life. We don’t want to ever get lax on that. There is a whole issue and chapter 2 of Galatians ended on “I do not nullify the grace of God. If righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly.” That applies to justification. That applies to sanctification. I want to be in a position as a believer to say, Christ didn’t have to die. That was a worthless action and that will lead us into the statement that opens chapter 3, “You foolish Galatians.” How sad. Sometimes people would say to us, “You foolish Indian Hillers. How did you get bewitched and how did you get off the track?” So we want to be careful and live out the truth. We will pick up here next time.

Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord for the riches of Your Word. We never tire, never become weary of You or Your truth. We desire to take it in, to be reminded again and again because easily we forget. Thank You for Peter, Lord the strength of his testimony and we are reminded even men used by You stumble and were inconsistent at times. Those inconsistencies could have great impact. They had to be corrected as soon as possible. Thank You for Your grace and continue to work in us and through us and on us as we develop and mature. May we continue to grow as we even put into practice the things we have learned from Your Word in the days of the week before us. Thank You for Your presence within us which is the enabling power. Everything we need is in You we pray in Christ’s name, amen.