The Law Was a Tutor Until Christ Came

Transcript

GR 2095
9/17/2017
The Law was a Tutor until Christ Came
Galatians 3:23-25
Gil Rugh

We are going to the book of Galatians in your Bibles, Galatians and we are at the end of the 3rd chapter or perhaps just a little before the end. What I want to do is look into these verses that are before us this evening and I am concerned that we understand this is not just an historical problem that is recorded in Scripture for our interest. Paul has to deal with the issue of the Mosaic Law and that’s still a significant problem in what I would call the evangelical church today and among Bible believing Christians. So we are going to look at some of these verses and then I want to read from some current works that reflect the confusion on the Mosaic Law. If we are not careful in discerning, we get drawn into these things. Some very good men, many men from the past, are confused on the Mosaic Law.

This issue infiltrated into the church in the early years of its development coming out of Judaism but that is the background. Not that the church is equated with Judaism but it’s founded on the ministry of Christ. He came to offer the kingdom to Israel. With the rejection of that kingdom, God unfolded what His plan had been from eternity, the establishing of the church that would primarily be the result of a ministry of God’s truth to Gentiles. As Jews comprised the early church, some of those from Judaism who professed faith in Christ never understood with clarity the Gospel, so many of those were unbelievers who professed faith in Christ. To have Jews who professed faith in Christ, yet never truly understood the Gospel in its purity, was a foundation for confusion. It was the work of the devil to try to corrupt the church at the beginning. With that, confusion was often brought to true believers. Just because we are believers in Christ doesn’t mean we can’t be confused with error. We have to be careful to be discerning.

Come back to Acts 15 where we have been a number of times, Acts chapter 15. This shows the conflict there was early and some of the issues that were there. Acts 15 verse 1, “Some men came down from Judea.” That is the region of Israel where Jerusalem was located. “They began teaching the brethren” (other believers.) “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses you cannot be saved.” So Paul and Barnabas strongly disagree with this. But the believers there in Antioch, to the north of Jerusalem as we have noted where Paul was centered in this ministry after his first missionary journey, that is where he is. When this takes place the believers there say we ought to have some go to Jerusalem because remember the original apostles are still headquartered in Jerusalem.

When persecution caused Christians to scatter out of Jerusalem, the apostles stayed there and they become, if you will, the anchor, the center. They are those that had ministered with Christ, received direct revelation from Christ as apostles. So Paul and others go up to Jerusalem.

Verse 5: “Some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed.” Now this is the confusion, they have professed faith in Christ but there is confusion here. Whether some of these were true believers who were really just confused and some were not believers, from later writings in the epistles it is clear some of these are not believers. In the book of Galatians Paul deals with these false teachers as unbelievers but some of the believers in these Gentile churches had become confused. So “some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believers stood up saying, ‘it is necessary to circumcise them and direct them to observe the Law of Moses.’”

You see the issue. They don’t say Christ is not the Messiah. They don’t deny the crucifixion of Christ. They don’t deny His resurrection from the dead. They say, “Faith in Christ and what He did is not enough for salvation, nor is it enough for our new life in Christ. You must be circumcised and observe the Law of Moses.”

We have been through this. Peter stands up to clarify things and makes clear with his statements that Jew and Gentile alike are saved by faith in Christ alone. The Mosaic Law is not necessary for salvation. It is not necessary for sanctification.

Verse 11, a summary of Peter’s statement: “We believe we are saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus,” “We Jews” (he is making a point here) “are not saved by keeping the Law in the same way the Gentiles are by not keeping the Law.“ If we Jews can’t be saved by keeping the Law, why would we tell Gentiles they have to keep the Law to be saved? It makes no sense. So that is the background we are dealing with.

It is helpful if we keep in mind the Mosaic Law was given to one nation on the earth, the nation Israel. It was not given to govern the life of Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians or any other nation.

Come back to Exodus 19, Exodus 19. This is where the Law is going to be given at Sinai to Moses and then through Moses to the children of Israel. Exodus 19 verse 3: “Moses went up to God.” Here we are at Mt. Sinai. “And the Lord called to him from the mountain thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel.” So it is saying the same thing, the house of Jacob, the sons of Israel, because Israel they are the descendants of Jacob whose name was changed to Israel and the 12 sons of Jacob, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. They descend from Jacob’s 12 sons. So it is addressed to the house of Israel, the house of Jacob and God remarks about His delivering from the Egyptians. Verse 5: “Now then if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you shall be My own possession among all the peoples for all the earth is Mine. You will be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you shall speak to the Sons of Israel.”

It is also significant here, verse 8: “All the people answered together and said, ‘all that the Lord has spoken we will do.’” Just a little aside, we talk about a conditional covenant and an unconditional covenant. The Mosaic Law is a conditional covenant. It is conditioned upon the agreement of Israel. God tells them the stipulation. “I will write the contract. You have to agree to it.” They say, verse 8: “All the Lord has spoken we will do.”

Remember the Abrahamic Covenant is an unconditional covenant. God told Abraham what He will do. When it came time to sign the contract He put Abraham to sleep and God Himself passed between the animals. There was no agreement on Abraham’s part in that sense. It was unconditional, not conditional upon Abraham’s signing onto the covenant, just the difference between the two covenants.

Come over to chapter 24 of Exodus, verse 3: “Then Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances. And all the people answered with one voice and said, ‘all the words which the Lord has spoken we will do.”

Verse 7: “Then he took the book of the covenant, read it in the hearing of the people.” You see this is all addressed to the nation Israel. “They said, ‘all that the Lord has spoken we will do, we will be obedient.’” That is the point.

Come over to chapter 34, verse 27: “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘write down these words. For in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”

So the Law, the Mosaic Law, was given to the nation Israel to govern them as God’s people. Their religious life, their moral life, their political or civic life all governed by this contract that God established at Mt. Sinai.

So it never was made with Gentiles. There is provision in the Mosaic Law for Gentiles who would want to join the nation Israel but no contract with Gentiles as separate nations.

Come back to Exodus chapter 12, Exodus chapter 12, verse 47. “All the congregation of Israel are to celebrate this, the ordinance of Passover.” Verse 48: “But if a stranger, (a sojourner, a non-Israelite) sojourns with you and celebrates the Passover of the Lord let all his males be circumcised.” You see what he really does to be able to partake of this covenant that God made with the nation Israel, you have to join the nation. You have to say in effect, “I am converting to Judaism for these provisions to be applicable to me.” “Let all his males be circumcised. Let them come near to celebrate. He shall be like a native of the land but no uncircumcised may eat of it.” You see it is exclusive. God has selected Israel and only Israel. Now if you want to come to the God of Israel and join in the worship of the God of Israel then you must join the nation Israel. So the covenant is restricted, the Mosaic Covenant.

Come over to Leviticus chapter 22, one more verse, one more passage and then we will go back to Galatians. Leviticus chapter 22 and look at verse 18: “Speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘if any man of the house of Israel or the aliens in Israel who presents his offering whether it is any of their votive or any of their freewill offerings which they present to the Lord for a burnt offering, for you to be accepted, it must be this.” So you see everything governs it and it has to be offered by what, Aaron and his sons. So you see the provision is made for the nation.

Now understanding the Mosaic Law never was given to Gentiles. Never was given to govern the conduct of Gentile nations, never made provision for Gentile nations to worship God according to His instructions because these offerings could only be offered by the Jewish high priest and those of that lineage. So the Mosaic Law is the covenant for the nation Israel.

Come over to Galatians now and Paul makes clear it was never a matter of this is the way of salvation. He spent the first 18 verses of Galatians going back to the father of the Jewish nation, Abraham. Abraham was 500 years before Moses, using round figures here. Abraham being about 2,000 years before Christ, Mosaic Law let’s say 1,500; that is a little broad but say 500 years. But Abraham didn’t have the Law. It wouldn’t be given for 500 years but he was declared righteous by God by faith.

So that is always the way of salvation. The Law was never a way of salvation. It never was a way of sanctification. Remember Paul made that clear in verse 2 of chapter 3: “This is the only thing I want to find out from you, did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law or by hearing of faith? Are you so foolish having begun by the Spirit are you now being perfected by the flesh.” You have experienced the power of God’s salvation. Now you are thinking it is necessary to add “keeping the Law” to this? It makes no sense. It is like you are thinking you’ve got a partial salvation but that is what is being promoted and that is what makes it confusing.

The devil can mix enough of the truth with his error to confuse people. Well, they are not denying Christ. They are not denying His sacrifice on the cross. They are not denying that He was raised from the dead. So maybe it is not that serious. Maybe there is something to it but that is what the book of Galatians is about. Remember he started out in such a firm serious way. If you alter the Gospel that has been preached to you in any way, you are cursed to hell. We must maintain the purity of the Gospel as God gave it.

So when you come to verse 19 what he is doing – if the Law is not necessary for salvation, not necessary for our salvation to be brought to completion what is the purpose of the Law? So verse 19 he asks the question: “Why the Law then.” If all the promises found in the Abrahamic Covenant based upon faith in what God has said, why the Law? It seems like it was purposeless. Well that is what he is going to pursue with verse 19. He began to add and we have looked through these verses, it was “added because of transgressions until the seed would come.” And you ought to have that underlined in your Bible; those expressions in verse 19, “it was added because of transgressions until the seed would come.” It was a later covenant for temporary duration. So it was given with the intention it would be in force for a limited time until the seed would come. And as verse 16 made clear, that seed is Christ. We looked at verse 19. It was given on Mt. Sinai from God through angels to Moses to the children of Israel.

Verse 21: “Is the Law contrary to the promises of God? May it never be!” God is not in conflict with Himself so we have to be careful again that we handle the Scripture properly. Well then you are saying God had no purpose in giving the Law. That was a waste. No, God has a purpose in everything He does. It is not contrary to the promises. It is the misuse of the Law that sets up a conflict with God’s promises. In other words the covenant with Abraham was given by promise. It wasn’t conditioned on commandments. It was unconditional so it was a promise. We see by faith. May it never be! There can’t be any contradiction. “If a law had been given which was able to impart life then righteousness would indeed been based on law. But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin so that the promise by faith in Christ might be given to those who believe.” The Law has a purpose and it was to govern Israel’s conduct and keep them on the path, if you will, and prepare them for the coming of the Messiah who would be the Savior.

So He shut up every one, closed them up, confined them, every Jew under sin, showing them being sinful. It made Israel’s sin and guilt more clear. That is why, what? Key in the Mosaic Law is the priestly system established and the sacrificial system established and instructions regarding their conduct, what they must not do, what they must do. Since Israel is going to fail on both sides, there are offerings that will be presented, brought to the priest and all of this has to be founded in faith because if you don’t have the faith of Abraham, you are not a true descendant of Abraham. You are only a physical descendant of Abraham but the Jews who are in relationship with the living God, the God of Israel, not only are physical descendants of Abraham but they also have the faith of Abraham. So that has been the argument we have been going through.

So verse 22: “The Scripture shut up everyone under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” So that moves us to where we are as we come to verse 23. So you begin to see the purpose of the Law. It was to govern Israel’s conduct.

What about the other nations? They are left in their sin. God is sovereign. He is not required to bring salvation to anyone. He is required to bring justice just like we have talked about. He told Abraham He would not let his physical descendants take possession of the land that He promised to Abraham and his descendants for 400 years. Why? The sin of the Canaanites is not yet right but He didn’t send Abraham’s descendants into the land of Canaan on missionary journeys. It was not part of the Old Testament program. Israel was a light to the nations. You could come to Israel and hear from them but it is provided for the nation. So it’s guiding the nation. It is preparing the nation for the coming of the Messiah.

Okay, verse 23 where we pick up our study where we left off, “But before faith came.” Now he is not talking about faith didn’t exist before this time. Obviously it did. He just spent the first part of the chapter talking about Abraham, so faith has existed but the clarity that comes with Christ and the recognition that all faith must be placed in Him. What the Old Testament saint was doing was placing their faith in God and His promises but how could offering that sacrifice of an animal enable God to declare me cleansed? How could Abraham, the sinner on a couple occasions blatantly lied about his wife and God declares him righteous when he believed and “the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sins” Hebrews tells us.

But they believed God and on the basis of the provision of the ultimate sacrifice, God was forgiving them and then out of that faith in God there was obedience. The keeping of the Law was to be a manifestation. What happened in Israel? Over time they dropped the faith and just went through the ritual like people do today in our time with the church. Coming to church, being part of the fellowship of believers is important but soon people drop the faith in Christ and think coming to church and being baptized and going through the externals is good enough.

So before faith came, before Christ came, the One, verse 19. The Law was ordained “until the seed would come,” before faith came because now we have the fullness. The Law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Christ but there was grace and truth in the Old Testament. That is a quote from John 1. Obviously grace and truth existed in the Old Testament but the fullness of God’s purpose and plan in bringing His grace and the fullness of His saving truth doesn’t come until Christ comes.

“Before faith came we were kept in custody.” We were confined in this way. Same idea in verse 22: “The Scripture has shut everyone under sin.” There is talking about particularly Israel because they are the ones to whom the Law was given. “We were kept in custody under the Law.” Paul is writing as a Jew. The Jews were kept in custody under the Law. “Being shut up to the faith that was later to be revealed.” Now again, faith was necessary for salvation. Paul goes into even further detail. Remember we have been back there in Romans, the end of Romans 3 and through Romans chapter 4 where multitude of times he says it is “by faith.” We must believe and he uses Abraham again as the example. That has always been the way but the fullness of that plan was yet future. So we must be careful here.

There are some that teach that Old Testament saints had to believe the Gospel, the death, burial and resurrection of Christ to be saved. That is not so. They had to believe the truth that God revealed. But the fullness of the finished work of Christ is a later revelation. Abraham, remember we went back and in chapter 15, God spoke and revealed something to Abraham. “Abraham believed God. God credited it to him as righteousness.” They believed the revelation that they had from God at that point. So it has always been by faith and then the manifestation of faith in obedience to God.

“Before faith came we were kept in custody” (we Jews) “under the Law being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed;” confined under the Law, kept in custody under the Law.

Verse 24 and this verse is key. “Therefore the Law has become our tutor to Christ.” Now King James says, “Our school master.” And that has led to some misunderstanding of what we are talking about. We get the word pedagogy from this, paidagogos. We just transliterate it over. Our idea of a school master and teaching and the way we would use this word today is not what it was in the Biblical times. The paidagogos was not a teacher. There is a totally different word, didaskolos for teacher. This individual, the paidagogos was one who had the responsibility, the custody of the child. It was his responsibility to see if you will that the child got to the teacher, that he conducted himself as he should, that he didn’t get involved in things that he shouldn’t. He was an overseer. He kept the child in line. If I can use this, it has always become such a politically correct thing, you don’t talk about slavery in any kind of positive way but this individual would have been a slave in the family. And as when people in those days had slaves, they entrusted responsibility and the care of the child, to see that he was ready for what he had to do that day, to see that he carried out his chores, to see that he got to the class where he was taught, that is this individual. That is the picture, the law. Remember verse 23, “We were kept in custody under the Law.” Verse 22: “Shut up under the Law,” under the authority and control.

That is what the Law did. It controlled the life of the nation Israel, its religious life. It gave the instructions for how that had to be carried out, moral life – what was acceptable and not acceptable to God. Civil situations, the political life governed by the law. So the Law became our tutor, our governor. In those days they had governesses that were responsible for the kids and so on like that. That is the point here. So the Law became our tutor to Christ.

Now those words inserted there in italics “to lead us,” they are added to smooth it out but they are not in the original text. “The Law became our tutor to Christ.” I take it that it is the same point as we had up in verse 19, “Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions until the seed would come.” The Law was what God put in place to confine Israel, to keep Israel in custody, to govern Israel so that when the Messiah comes they would be prepared. “The Law has become our tutor to Christ so that we may be justified by faith.”

So the Law served a purpose. It never was for salvation but for the 1,500 years from the giving of the Law to the coming of Christ that nation was kept under the oversight of the Law to keep them on track. And even when they are disobedient, it did that in a way that Rome was not prepared for the coming of the Messiah, that other nations of the earth were not because Israel’s sacrificial system all pointed to what? It pointed to the coming of the ultimate sacrifice, the guiding of the conduct determined right and wrong for the nation. They had a standard that the nations of the world did not have other than the innate, corrupted though it is, but created in the image of God, a sense of right and wrong but they did not have the clarity on sin and recognize the seriousness of sin and the magnitude of sin that Israel had because they had the Law that made it clear and 613 commandments in that Law governing all areas of life. They had instructions regarding the rulers and so on. So it was in effect to serve, to keep the nation Israel in line until Christ came; “To Christ that we might be justified by faith.”

Now Old Testament saints were justified. Abraham 500 years before the Law was justified, declared righteous by God by faith, but the clarity of how God would accomplish all this, progressive revelation is key to understanding the Bible. With the coming of Christ there is clarity that was not there before. I believe God. Why? Because God said it. I believe He will forgive me if I trust Him. He will circumcise my heart as the prophets of the Old Testament wrote. How is He going to forgive you? The penalty for your sin is death. That is an anomaly. That is God’s problem, if I can say it that way. He said He will forgive me, cleanse me. I believe Him. That is the foundation and the Law, I respond to that because I really believe God. So “until Christ comes so that we might be justified by faith.”

Verse 25: “But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.” And this repeated use of ‘faith’ or ‘the faith’ three times in these verses. In verse 23, “We were kept in custody under the Law being shut up to the faith that was later to be revealed.” The end of verse 24: “That we may be justified by faith.” Verse 25: “But now that faith has come;” the clarity in that that was not there before. Now we understand with a fullness and a clarity that could not be understood before but you understand the Law served its purpose for the nation Israel to keep them on track and to prepare them for the coming of Christ. And now we understand it is justification by faith. We are no longer under a tutor.

Now a couple of points here and then I want to read you some things. Verse 24: “The Law has become our tutor to Christ.” Some take this to mean today you present the Law and you have to present the Law if a person is to be saved because it is the Law that leads you to Christ. It is a total misunderstanding of everything Paul is saying. A more common view among those who are covenantal, reformed doesn’t see the distinction between Israel and the church. So they try to put the church under the Law. They miss the whole argument of the book of Galatians as well as other New Testament letters. We cannot go back under the Law.

Before I read you this, come over to the book of Colossians. Look at chapter 2. This is a permeating problem in churches that were in New Testament times. Not the only doctrinal error but it is a significant one that keeps coming in. The churches in Colossae talking about being complete in Christ, verse 11. In verse 10: “In Christ you have been made complete; circumcised with the circumcision without hands;” the removal of the body of the flesh. It is a heart thing that we have looked back at Old Testament passages. Going back to the book of Deuteronomy where God would have to circumcise the heart, remove the sin, to cleanse.

Verse 13: “We were dead in our transgressions, the uncircumcision of your flesh. He made you alive. He cancelled out the certificate of death against us.” All the Law did was reveal sin as Paul says in writing to the Romans. “Through the Law is the knowledge of sin.” It made people aware of how sinful they were, reminded them of their need of forgiveness, of a need of a sacrifice but it couldn’t do anything to save them.

So verse 16. “With the result of the finished work of Christ; therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to food, or drink, or in respect of a festival a new moon or a Sabbath day.” These were a shadow of things to come. These things prepared the way for the coming of Christ. They were a picture of what was needed like the sacrificial system. The substance belongs to Christ. “So let no one keep defrauding you of your prize.” Verse 20: “If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why do you submit to the decree such as do not handle, do not taste, do not touch?” You get this mixture of Law and so on.

This is a more recent book. In fact I was sent this years ago from a pastor friend who thought maybe it was good. Old writers who were not dispensationalists, who do not see a distinction between Israel and the church, do not see the end of the Law. So covenentalists usually are bringing the Law into life.

I will mention some names, not that there are not good things in these men. I appreciate some of what they write but what they write about the Law is confusing. Martin Lloyd Jones – “A Gospel which merely says ‘come to Jesus and offers Him as a friend and offers a marvelous new life without convincing of sin is not New Testament evangelism.” There is an element of truth in that. Trust Jesus to have a better life is not the Gospel. But by the same token “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” is Gospel. He goes on, “The essence of evangelism is to start by preaching the Law and it is because the Law has not been preached that we have had so much superficial evangelism. True evangelism must always start by preaching the Law.” Now wait a minute. Paul said, “The Law is done.” That doesn’t mean we don’t learn from the Law. We learn from all of Scripture. “All Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof” and so on because it is God breathed but we are not under the Law. So to say that you don’t preach the Gospel if you don’t preach the Law as the beginning is I take it a corruption of the Gospel. I mean true, nothing’s wrong with preaching men are sinners. To say you have to preach the Law is not Biblical.

“When you use the Law,” this is now the writer of this book, not Lloyd Jones anymore, “When you use the Law to show lost sinners their true state be prepared to them to thank you.” Well if this is the case I would assume Israel would have been the most saved, right? They had the Law. Do we find the prophets coming and reminding them of the Law and Israel saying, “Oh thank you?”

“When I emphasized the importance of using the Law in evangelism I do not mean merely making a casual reference to it. Rather the law should be the backbone of our Gospel presentation because its function is to prepare the heart for grace.” The Law is not the backbone of our Gospel presentation. You see we are bringing the Law back into its operative today. He is just not saying, “I don’t have any problem if you quote from anywhere in the Bible. You are sharing the Gospel revealing God’s character and God’s will.” But we are not under the Law and we are not preaching the Law.

Now here is a problem. “If the Law did not demand death for sin we wouldn’t need a Savior. The true convert comes to the Savior simply to satisfy the demands of a holy Law.” And I am not reading sequentially here. “If the Law of Moses did not demand death for sin Jesus would not have had to die.” What about the people before the Law? What about Adam and Eve in the Garden. “The day you eat of it you will surely die.” What about the flood of Noah on an unbelieving world? If the Law didn’t demand death as the penalty for sin Jesus wouldn’t have had to die. Well then it would have meant Abraham couldn’t have been saved, right? I mean I don’t even understand such silliness and there is so much spiritualization. At the top of the pages in this page I’ve got, “More spiritualizing.” It’s use of the Scripture and yet I see this book referred to in a variety of places. It is a mish-mash. “When we set aside the Law of God and its design function to convert the soul we remove the very means by which sinners are enabled to see their need of God’s forgiveness.” If you don’t preach the Law of Moses people can’t be saved. In other words Paul is writing a lot about the Law in Galatians but he fails to emphasize its importance.

Then he quotes here again from Lloyd Jones, John Stott, others. All non-dispensationalists who are confused on the relationship of the church and Israel; who are confused about the place of the Law in God’s program. This is why once you lose the foundation of that consistent literal interpretation of Scripture you are out here mixing all kinds of things. “It is the peculiar function of the Law to bring such an understanding of sin to a man’s conscience. “That is why the great evangelical preachers 300 years ago” and so on preached “you have to preach the Law first.”

Stott comments on the verses we just looked at in Galatians chapter 3 where the Law is our school master, our tutor. “We cannot come to Christ to be justified until we have first been to Moses to be condemned.” Well in other words we are not saying the Law was only until the coming of Christ its essential today. In fact you can’t be saved if you are not first taught what the Law says.

No wonder Stott towards the end of his life got confused on everything. He became more social than Biblical and before he died he ended up denying the reality of hell. You are just out here bouncing around.

And here is a dispensational pastor that I greatly respect. “God’s grace cannot be faithfully preached to unbelievers until the Law is preached and man’s corrupt nature is exposed.” I agree with John McArthur on a lot of things. I think he is off the track on that statement. “God’s grace cannot be faithfully preached to unbelievers until the Law is preached.” That is not true. That is not only unbiblical, it is anti-Biblical. We don’t preach the Law.

I use this not to denigrate different people but to see how these kinds of ideas make their way into the evangelical church and pretty soon we are mixing the Law back into the ministry of God’s truth and God’s grace. Paul didn’t say to the “Philippian jailer” when he said, “What must I do to be saved?” “Well first let me explain to you the Law of Moses.” He went right to “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” According to these men, the Philippian jailer probably wasn’t saved because he didn’t get the Law preached to him first. There is no excuse to get confused on these things. The Scripture is clear.

This book goes on. Now here this, I am criticizing this book and those who are saying it but he is criticizing us. “Those who are representatives of the living God yet don’t point to the Law as the core of their authority will not gain due consideration from the world.” His whole argument in this book is the world will never listen to you if you don’t present the Law to them first. The Law was given to Moses and through Moses to the nation Israel and yet what did it do to the nation of Israel? They rejected it. A statement like that. If we are a representative of the living God and don’t point to the Law as the core of our authority. My authority does not come from the Law given to Moses and yours does not either. Now how does this stuff get promoted? I understand the problem goes back to bad hermeneutics, mixing Israel and the church. And if the church is Israel and Israel is the church then the Law that governed Israel’s conduct governs the churches conduct and it never was given as a way of salvation to Israel but now we want to make it a way of salvation. Oh, no wonder I don’t sleep at night.

“If they knew,” now this is just another passage, “If they knew, (the unbeliever) that almighty God is angry with the wicked every day, that His wrath abides on them, they would flee to the Savior.” We were just studying the book of Revelation. They realize the wrath of God is being poured out on them in the tribulation. It says, “Still they did not repent.” It does not deal with the hardness of heart, the true problem of sin. It acts like it is dealing with sin and says the solution of dealing with sin is preach the Law to them.

Alright, I know you are enjoying this. I will just keep on. He says “The fourth commandment, (he is going to preach the Ten Commandments, if you are going to preach the Law you are going to preach the Ten Commandments) remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.” Have you kept the Sabbath holy? If not you are a sinner.

We don’t have time to go back. You can jot down Ezekiel 20, Exodus 31. In those two chapters God says the Sabbath is a sign of My covenant with Israel. Now I want to implement it and if Gentiles aren’t keeping the Sabbath. I realize the old preachers….I like Spurgeon but he was just as confused on this because he didn’t see a distinction between the Law or between Israel and the church. So you get everything mixed up.

This book was sent to me by one of my dispensational pastor friends and when it comes to convicting people of sin “the ultimate convincing agent of course is the unbending Law of God.” That is not the ultimate convicting agent. Jesus said, “When I send the Holy Spirit He will convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment.” To say “the ultimate convicting agent of course if the unbending Law of God; the knowledge of the Law and the terrifying consequences of transgressing its precepts should cause fear to kick in.” And that will be why people will want to come and trust Christ. It didn’t work that way with Israel. How can you be so confused?

“When the sinner comes under the intense heat of the Law of God it has the effect of sealing within him a tender heart.” I don’t know where in Scripture he gets this stuff. I know he doesn’t get it from Scripture. It is a concern. “The tragic dilemma facing the church is how to go from preaching God loves you to God is angry at the wicked every day.” How can we go from the message of Christ back to the Old Testament? The Law does bring wrath and judgment. It did in Israel. Well the problem we have today is “we are in this position because just over 100 years ago modern evangelism forsook the Scriptural stepping stone of the Law of God. The problem with the church is we don’t preach the Law anymore.”

Well one more thing on the Law while I am at it. If I get this all off my chest, I won’t read this to you next week. Another confusion on the Law while we are clarifying the Law. “Reformed teaching says, ‘that there is a passive obedience of Christ and the active obedience of Christ.’ The passive obedience of Christ is His death on the cross. The active obedience of Christ was His keeping the Law and the reason we have righteousness provided for us when we believe in Christ is because He kept the Law and by keeping the Law He provided righteousness for us.”

This writer, another writer, and it gets a recommendation, a full paragraph from John MacArthur and others. I have problems with the book. “There is no evidence in the New Testament that this ministry of the Law should not continue to be an essential part of our Gospel presentation.”

I think if you mix the Law with the Gospel you are in the Galatian problem. While we wouldn’t say “Keeping the Law isn’t necessary” well you are saying the Gospel is not complete without the Law. You are drawing an artificial line. “Therefore it was Christ’s active obedience.” Now listen. “His perfect obedience to the Law of God that made His passive obedience, the offering of Himself as a sacrifice for sin, acceptable to God. It is not that Christ earned righteousness for us by keeping the Law. His keeping the Law demonstrated He was a sacrifice without sin.”

It is more of a Roman Catholic idea like “Treasury of the Saints.” They did more than what they needed for themselves so you can come to the saints and get some of their overflow of righteousness given to you. That is why they say when you pray to Mary, she is a repository of grace because she never had any sin in the first place. So she has all this extra grace and righteousness to give to you.

Now we have Christ and dispensationalists talk about the active and passive obedience. We had a seminary professor at a dispensational seminary dismissed because he spoke against this idea of the active obedience of Christ acquiring righteousness for us. That is not a Biblical truth. That comes out of covenant theology and the basis in the covenant of works.

You know the Bible never uses the expression, ‘the righteousness of Christ.’ It uses the expressions, ‘the righteousness of God’ provided for us in Christ; for example, 2 Corinthians 5. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” How was that done, by His death on the cross. Now there is no question. He was a sinless sacrifice. He never sinned. So He never disobeyed the Law but that wasn’t so He could provide some kind of works righteousness for us. What we need is the righteousness of God provided for us. Now Christ is God. I don’t have any problem with using it in the right sense but again it is a misunderstanding of the Law. That Christ had to perfectly keep the Law so that by His perfect obedience He acquired the righteousness that could be transferred to us. That is not so. He perfectly was obedient in every way. He always did the will of the Father because He was sinless. He was the perfect sacrifice. And so when He died on the cross taking our place the righteousness of God could be credited to our account.

So the study of the Law is not just to resolve and clarify some historical facts. It’s a battle going on today in our city, in evangelical Bible believing churches. All this confusion about the Law, books being written and recommended on how you do evangelism. You have to preach the Law first. I love the Puritans but they were wrong on a lot of things and they never did have the church and Israel sorted out just like they never got things sorted out on the relationship of government and the church; true of the reformers for a large portion.

So we want to be clear. Not just so we can make issues but so that we can understand the issues that are made in the Word of God and be in the correct position on those issues.

Alright, let’s pray together. Thank You Lord for Your Word and the riches of Your Word. Lord You gave it so that we would study it, handle it accurately so that we could be approved by You. Lord thank You for the clear instruction on the Law, the place it had in Your plan, the reason it was given, how it served to oversee the conduct and life of the nation Israel to reveal to them the reality of sin, the seriousness of sin, the magnitude of sin, the necessity of an ultimate Savior who would give the sacrifice that could pay the penalty for sin. Now Lord for us as the church understand that purpose that the Law had and Lord we learn in that Law something of Your holiness. We appreciate it is part of Your inspired Word but we want to use it and understand it properly. We want to maintain the purity and clarity of the Gospel, the work of the Spirit in the church in these days. May we be we faithful to You in all areas, we pray in Christ’s name, amen.