The Sufficiency of the Cross of Christ

Transcript

GR 2116
03/18/2018
The Sufficiency of the Cross of Christ
Galatians 6:14
Gil Rugh

We are in the book of Galatians in your Bibles and we are in the closing verses of this six chapter letter. Another few months and we will finish up. Galatians has been a very intense letter as we have reminded ourselves a number of times. Paul had to deal with false teaching infiltrating the church. That is a great concern to him. These churches were established on his first missionary journey and he had followed up with visits and yet the false teachers have come along, Jews who had professed faith in Christ but were undermining the confidence and the sufficiency of the work of Christ on the cross to be enough in and of itself to provide full and complete salvation, to provide all that was necessary for a life of godliness.

We note the confusion came because they didn’t deny, from what we have been able to see in Scripture in Acts chapter 15 and other passages, they didn’t deny the truth concerning Christ. They just said it wasn’t enough and you needed the law, you needed circumcision to have a full and complete salvation. This kind of error that weakens the emphasis on the cross and saving faith is a continual concern for the church.

I noted something in the last month or so. Billy Graham the evangelist died and of course that made the news and different people were interviewed about him, believers and unbelievers but one very popular Christian writer was quoted. The news, I wrote this down from the end of February and his statement reveals a problem we have in Christianity today; not unrelated to what Galatians is about. He said and listen to the names: “Billy Graham, Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, Pope John Paul II, their faces form a Mount Rushmore of faith.” This is a man recognized in the Christian world, been honored, has written 30 some books. He is a very popular Christian writer and yet he says their faces form a Mount Rushmore of faith. Billy Graham and I can understand that. Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, Pope John Paul II – makes we wonder and I have to wonder and I have to be honest in spite of the many books he has written, his popularity, I haven’t read any of them. I am familiar with who he is and something about him but I say, “have we lost focus on saving faith that individuals now noted more for something they did in a racial area, something of good works among the poor and an out and out pagan religious leader and you join them with a man who did proclaim the Gospel and together they are the Mount Rushmore of faith. What kind of faith? Certainly not saving faith and is it just any kind of faith is good.”

You see here within even our day, this confusion on what is the focus. Is the cross of Christ sufficient in and of itself? Is it alone the focus of the faith which saves or not? How subtly it comes in and weakens and undermines the foundation and we have the same kind of problem that Paul had to deal with in writing to the Galatians calling people back to the focus on the cross, the finished work of Christ and you can do all “the good works and self-sacrifice” with your life that you might but that won’t save you. The faith we are talking about is the faith in the finished work of Christ that brings salvation.

Well verses 11-18 of chapter 6 of Galatians form the conclusion to the book. We went back and looked at the introductory verses. Now we have been looking at the concluding remarks and it is basically the same kind of focus that characterized the letter. There is an intensity to it. He doesn’t conclude the letter by giving some personal greetings, words of thanks about them. He focuses in in a very intense way on what the major issue has been in this whole letter and it will end rather abruptly as we will see.

We looked at verses 11-13 and three factors motivated the false teachers that had infiltrated among the church and I just want to remind you of them.

The first was, they wanted to look good, the first part of verse 12: “Those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh” and it tells you something of their motivation. They were concerned about appearances, what people thought. They wanted to be viewed as respectable, successful and you have to take the sharp cutting edge off the Gospel to do that. And you can broaden it out as this man that I mentioned. He not only included Billy Graham but Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, Pope John. All of a sudden that cutting edge of the Gospel that may be so offensive to so many now there is a blurring that yes, we just all can have the comfortable togetherness here. They wanted to look good.

The second thing we noted about them is, they wanted to avoid persecution. The last part of verse 12: “They compel you to be circumcised simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross,” we talked about. The problem with the cross is its narrowness. It is the way, the only way to salvation and it, in and of itself, is the sufficiency for salvation. You cannot add anything to it. Don’t get confused. Roman Catholics and Protestants, evangelicals all talk about Christ and His death and resurrection. You say, “Well, we are all together.” But then when you add plus your good works, plus keeping the Ten Commandments, plus being baptized, plus partaking of the sacraments, you have undermined the Gospel. So they want to avoid the persecution that comes from being so narrow, so exclusive. And it is not that we choose to be exclusive, if I can use that word, but God decides how inclusive and how exclusive He is and then we simply reflect that and share that but they wanted to avoid persecution. And that can be done by the compromising of the Gospel, not by denying it, the message of the cross but by broadening it which is a subtle adjustment that we fail to realize how corrosive and destructive it is.

And thirdly they wanted to brag about success. You know we in the world, in this world, admire success. We look and say, “Look what they have done. Look at the lives they have impacted. Look at the people they have influenced.” And somehow we want to overlook the corruption that settles in. If I can use this as an example does it matter that you have sold 100,000 books, does that make you successful when you are including people that made no profession of faith in Christ alone and His work on the cross alone for salvation? But you can brag about being successful and the world admires that and we think, “well that gives us more openings and more opportunity to impact people.”

Paul is going to now draw a contrast between himself and these false teachers. It provides an opportunity for him to put the stress where it needs to be, on the finality, the sufficiency of the cross of Christ. They want to boast about their success, the end of verse 13. I will read the verse for the sentence. “For those who are circumcised do not even keep the law themselves. They desire to have you circumcised so they may boast in your flesh but may it never be that I would boast.” So he picks up that word ‘boast.’ They boast about one thing. I boast about something else. Their boasting is in their success and influencing and being inclusive and broadening the Gospel to include the law and circumcision. I only boast in one thing, the cross of Christ. That is the focal point of what I can boast in, what I can glory about; “May it never be that I would boast.”

And there is a personal emphasis here that we don’t pick up in our translation. In verse 4 that ‘but’ draws the contrast. In our New American Standard Bible they have left off the beginning word here. It is a word that means, ‘as for me,’ tami, amoi. “But as for me,” it really says as you start out. So they have dropped out as they sometimes do in a translation but you lose something of Paul drawing that emphasis in even a stronger way. “But as for me, may it never be that I would boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” “May it never be!”

It is an expression that we see a number of times from Paul, megonoito. King James translated it, ‘God forbid.’ And that gave something of the force, the abhorrence of such of an idea but the Word of God is not used here, “May it never be” would be more of a literal translation. It is an expression that denotes something that you would never want to be true of you. You abhor such an idea.

Back up to chapter 2, verse 17 in Galatians, “But if while seeking to be justified in Christ we ourselves have been found sinners. Is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be,” megonoito. Such a thought is totally abhorrent, inconceivable that Christ would be a minister of sin? Absolutely not, never could be.

Look in chapter 3, verse 21: “Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be!” We see the problem wasn’t with the law. It was the misuse of the law. It never was a way of salvation. Men and women could never be saved by keeping the law. That is why you have all the sacrifices as we have talked about included within the law because the law revealed sin and the need for a sacrifice to atone for the sin, so the same kind of response. Is the law contrary to the promises of God? No! It just revealed man to be a sinner in need of the salvation God could provide, megonoito.

We are not going to set the Scripture against itself. But we are going to understand Scripture like the law in its proper place. These Judaizing teachers have removed the law out of its proper place. It never was a way of salvation. Salvation has always been by grace through faith. That is why he took us back to Abraham earlier in chapter three, 500 years before the Mosaic Law had been given. Abraham believed God and God credited it to his account as righteousness, so the misuse of the law.

It is not that we say the law is contrary to the promises of God. The law was part of the purpose and plan of God for the nation Israel at that time. It served a purpose, to prepare that nation for the coming of their Messiah but in their rebellion against the Word of God as He had given to them, they were not prepared. But that was their fault and it just simply further revealed their sin. So that megonoito. We won’t go through a number of the references. It is used numerous times in the book of Romans, “May it never be!” When Paul presents something that may be raised as a possibility and they want to say, “That is totally inconceivable.” So that is where we are when you are in Romans chapter 6, verse 14: “May it never be;” the idea that I would boast in anything else but the cross is inconceivable to me.

Come back to Romans chapter 3. I mentioned that we are going to look at something else here than megonoito, may it never be. Romans chapter 3 and we noted as we went through many ways, Galatians is something of a condensed Romans and much of what is covered in the book of Galatians is covered in the book of Romans but it is a much larger letter with fuller considerations. In Romans chapter 3, verse 21 Paul is talking about the provision of God’s righteousness in Christ. Verse 21: “But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested being witnessed by the law and the prophets.” You see the consistency that there is, “The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” So this is God’s all-encompassing way of salvation. It is to provide His righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. Now before Christ, going back to Abraham he didn’t have the fullness of revelation that we have about the finished work of Christ, but he believed the promises of God and that God would fulfill His promises. So it was still by faith in God and the revelation that He had given of Himself. That is for all because “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” verse 23. So the provision of righteousness is for all who believe that is God’s way of salvation, to obtain righteousness and all need it for all have sinned and so fall short of the righteousness they must have to be accepted before a holy and righteous God.

We are justified, declared righteous. That’s the form of that word ‘righteousness,’ declared righteous as a gift by His grace. You see it is by faith for those who believe verse 22. It is a gift by His grace. In a sense there is a redundancy. A gift is something you are given that you didn’t earn or deserve. Your pay check is not a gift unless you sleep on the job but it is usually something you have worked for. You are supposed to and grace is something undeserved or unmerited so he is putting the emphasis, we are declared righteous as a gift “by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation,” a word that means to satisfy. It satisfies the requirements of God and turns away the wrath of God from us.

We talked about wrath of God in our study of Revelation earlier today. That wrath is turned away from the one who places their faith in Christ because Christ is our propitiation by His sacrifice and our faith in Him, God’s wrath is turned away from us. God is satisfied. He accepts the payment of Christ in our place, in His blood. How did that happen? Through faith and we have gone through on other occasions through this last part of chapter 3 and all the way down into the beginning of chapter 5, all the words, faith, believe, the noun and the verb of faith, to have faith, to believe, all the way coming down. It is so that “He might demonstrate His righteousness,” verse 26, “So He might just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

You know this is the only way to be declared righteous by a sovereign God. To have God’s righteousness credited to our account. It is through faith in Jesus, His death, His blood which is a picture and portraying of His death.

So where does that bring us, verse 27: “Where then is boasting?” It is excluded. These Judaizers, this is why we are here that are influencing the Galatians didn’t understand the finality of the work of Christ, the completeness of the work of Christ so that when you placed your faith in Christ it was done. “In Him we have everything necessary for life and godliness.” So you don’t add the law now to complete it.

This is the disagreement the reformers had with Roman Catholics. They broke off, what? Well Roman Catholics say you have to believe in Christ and trust His death, burial and His virgin birth and everything but that is not done. It’s incomplete, insufficient and that is their hold over people because you now need what the church provides and you need the treasury of the earned merits and the stored up merits of Mother Mary and the saints and the forgiveness ongoing that the church bestows and what do we have? The point here, so they can boast and they are the ones that have it all. Only in the church, mother church is their salvation.

And the Protestants are no better today. They have wandered off into their good works and all their other systems but the point here, “Where then is boasting?” It is excluded. By what kind of law, works because you do something? No but by a law of faith; “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” That’s it. It is clear. This is where Paul is at the end of Galatians, “May it never be that I would boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Why? Because of what he has said in the letter to the Galatians, what he is emphasizing here. All other boasting is excluded. We are back to what the issue is in our salvation, what the struggle is that people have – to be humbled before God and say, “I am a sinner, guilty. There is nothing that I can do to earn my way, to work my way. There is nothing I can do to help God along in this process. All I can do is accept by faith what God has done for me. What do I have to boast about? The salvation I have through faith in Christ I got by faith.” That excludes works. Verse 28: “We maintain that a man is justified, declared righteous by faith apart from works of the law.”

This is the battle in the book of Galatians. You are not fully completely justified by faith apart from works of the law. So we have to be careful and discerning. But people say we must be justified by faith and they say amen I agree with that but that you also have to keep the Ten Commandments and by the way have you been baptized because that is necessary too? We say, wait a minute. We are not talking about the Gospel then. “It is another gospel of a different kind.” Remember that is where we started out in chapter 1. It is the constant erosion.

I wonder, not going to accuse this man that is why I didn’t give his name. I have it written down here but what do you understand? That the Mount Rushmore of faith is that what Pope John Paul II, the leader of the Roman Catholic – I have read you from the catechism and so on of the Roman Catholic Church. That is not what Paul believed and taught. Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela and somehow this doesn’t cause any kind of stir? I haven’t read anyone and I haven’t pursued it in any depth, that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Are we shocked that someone who claims to be a Biblical Christian would make such statements? Somehow we just come to accept. How am I going to ever be viewed as anybody but backwoods person if I would question putting Mother Theresa here among believers with the suffering and sacrifices? Wait a minute. We are back to works. All the good here and the sacrifices made and what?

This is what we are talking about. This is what Paul is drawing back. He works through this in Galatians and he says this is what they boast about but boasting is excluded. Verse 27 of Romans 4: “Where then is boasting? It is excluded not by the law of works but by the law of faith.” So he uses that word ‘law.’ This is not talking about the Mosaic Law. He is talking about the law of faith but this is God’s requirement and God’s standard. It has always been the way of salvation, faith. The Mosaic Law had a place in the program of God for the nation Israel but it wasn’t for salvation and that confusion has to be dealt with.

Come back to Galatians chapter 6. “Except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Somebody wrote “It is difficult after all these centuries (if I can somewhat paraphrase what he says.) It is difficult after all these centuries during which the cross has become a sacred symbol.” And you know we have it in our churches. We have it in the back of our church. It has become something that we honor, we appreciate but he was saying we even have it, you know we wear it in certain kinds of jewelry. “The cross has become a sacred symbol. We fail to realize that unspeakable horror and loathing which the very mention or thought of the cross provoked in Paul’s day. The word ‘cross’ was unmentionable in polite Roman society and even when one was being condemned to death by crucifixion they used a euphemism, ‘hang him on the unlucky tree.’” So when Paul puts this stress on the cross a problem is created. This is not something acceptable and tolerable that to put all the weight on the cross that he does.

The Judaizers wanted to avoid the stigma of the cross by adding works. They were adding the Mosaic Law. Well once you add works pretty soon you can spread it out to other kinds of works but the Mosaic Law here in effect this would nullify the cross.

Come back to Galatians chapter 2, verse 21. I realize I am being redundant just so you don’t think it has to do with my age. I realize this. Look at verse 21: “I do not nullify the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law then Christ died needlessly.” That is how serious this is. If righteousness comes through the law and that includes the law plus the work of Christ as he made clear in chapter 1, that means Christ might as well not have died at all. God made a terrible mistake. It wasn’t necessary for Christ to die because if you add works to grace you no longer have grace as Paul elaborated with the Romans, grace is no longer grace.

Look in chapter 6, verse 12 of Galatians: “Those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh try to compel you to be circumcised so they won’t be persecuted.” What is the issue, the cross plus anything minimizing the finished, final work of Christ? It is a finished work. It is a final work. It is a cursed work. “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” he said in chapter 3 of Galatians, verse 13 “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law” because the curse of the law wasn’t the shortcoming of the law, it was the shortcoming of me. I could never do all that God required on me and the Jews could never do it. This is what we looked at with Peter. In Acts 15 he said, “What are we trying to hang this around the neck of the Gentiles for. We Jews could never do it. It was our law given to us as a nation and we couldn’t keep it and now we want to try to compel the Gentiles to do it. It is the curse of the law. The one who doesn’t keep it has to die and their sacrifice is provided in anticipation for the sacrifice of Christ, this finality of Christ.”

Sometimes as believers we are not careful and we don’t realize we have “given away the store” as we would say. We have undermined the foundation by our willingness to be soft on the narrowness and finality of the cross.

Back in Galatians 6, verse 14: “May it never be that I would boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is the finality. It was through the cross the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.

Come back to Jeremiah. We will take a moment here; this reference to boasting. Jeremiah chapter 9, verse 23: “Thus says the Lord, ‘Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom. Let not the mighty man boast of his might. Let not the rich man boast of his riches but let him who boasts boast of this that he understands and knows Me that I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice and righteousness on earth for I delight in these things’ says the Lord.” How do we come to know the Lord but through faith in Him and who He is? So all our boasting is in the Lord, who He is. What He has done. What he has provided for me in His grace for my salvation.

Now come over to I Corinthians chapter 1. We have been in this chapter in our recent studies in Galatians on the finality of the cross. That is what Paul said he focused on in preaching. It doesn’t matter what people want to hear. No matter what the ‘seekers’ as we sometimes you know it is like calling people dreamers, well the seekers, what they want. I preach Christ. You note how he concludes this section in chapter 1. “God has chosen the foolish things.” Talking about God’s plan of salvation is different than ours.

You know, you want to impress the world, you use wisdom. It is used like miracles. Verse 27: “God has chosen the foolish things of the world. God has chosen the weak things.” Down in verse 28: “The base things of the world God has chosen.” Verse 29: “So that no man may boast before God.” You know what he tells the Galatians? They have moved toward the Greeks. The Greeks like to be admired for their wisdom Paul said. You know why God chose you, why He chose me? So that no one would have reason to boast. That is what he is talking about, “having chosen the foolish things, the weak things, the base things.” “So that no man may boast before God for by His doing you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” so that just as it is written in Jeremiah 9 “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

We are testimonies and Ephesians 2 says we will be testimonies of God’s grace through eternity. Who are you, who am I, what are we? Nothing! You know, God doesn’t do it the way we do. You want to sell something in the world. You get somebody who is famous, well-known, accomplished at something that makes them stand out, promote your product but we are not selling something. We are going around offering a free gift from God. He gave it to me and I am a nobody! That is what Paul says about himself. It is in his testimony as he repeated it to Timothy. “God chose me, the most undeserving so people could understand the availability of God’s grace and His salvation to everyone.”

And we lose sight of that and quite frankly we drift from this and it is reflected sometime as we look down our noses at the world and we just hardly can put up – they are so sinful. They are so vile. I just hardly, oh man it makes me feel terrible. Well wait a minute. What were we? Who are we? Well I never was sinful like that. Let me back up. Have I ever seen myself as God says I am? You know we are back to the issue of the cross and our salvation. There is no room for my boasting. Well God saved me because you know I never did go down to the depths that some people do so His work of saving me wasn’t quite the job that would be involved in saving a really bad sinner. The very fact that you didn’t descend to that is something of the testimony of His grace.

Why were you born in a Christian home, have Christian parents, have family that cared for you and shared the Gospel? It was God’s grace at work. Our lives are nothing but a testimony of God’s grace. As Paul told the Corinthians, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” Now we ought not go around, “I just can’t understand how people could be like this.” You know it should shock us but it should remind us that Paul told Titus, “You remind them. They were just like them.” So, verse 30 of Corinthians here: “By His doing you are in Christ Jesus.” It is His work. He chose you, He chose me. He has a testimony.

I remember a dear elderly lady in the church that Marilyn and I attended and where we were married. She said to me as I went into the ministry, you said “You just remember Gil, I knew you when.” I said, “I am getting out of town.” But what she reminded me of was good. I never forgot it. “I knew you when. Now you are going to be a preacher. You are going to be teaching the Word of God.” And that’s where we all are. “Lord You knew me when I was nothing. You knew me when I was in rebellion against You. You knew me with the depravity of my heart and You chose me.” So it is by His doing that you are in Christ Jesus. It wipes out anything you did, anything you earned, anything I did and that is why “let him who boasts tell you what the Lord has done for me. Let me tell you how God changed my life. Let me tell you how God made me new.” What a great reminder as Paul brings it to us.

We don’t have time to look more at that but come over to Philippians chapter 3, just after Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians. Philippians chapter 3 and Paul gives his testimony here. We don’t have time to read it all. He tells all that he had accomplished in the flesh and he was successful in the realm that he was pursuing in Judaism, a Pharisee of the Pharisees and he did as good as any human being could do in keeping the law. He said in verse 6, when he said blameless he kept up with the sacrifices required and everything so that if you could be saved by the law he would have but he couldn’t. What did he say then, verse 7: “Whatever things were gain to me these things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. I count all things to be loss.”

See what it comes down to? What Christ has done for him on the cross, that is all that matters. This is not, “here, let me tell you how, you know when I was just a step out of heaven when I got saved because I kept the law and I did this and now it was an easy step. I had to wipe that all out and realize I was a miserable, hopelessly lost sinner until I trusted Christ and I put all of that on the dung heap. It is worthless in the context of truly knowing Christ.”

Come back to Galatians chapter 6. Getting saved is a humbling process. You are broken down to “Lord, I am nothing. I just want to cast myself on Your mercy.” Galatians 6:14 “May it never be that I would boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.”

The world as we talked about in our earlier study today, that Babylonian system that will come to full manifestation in that period of time leading up the second coming of Christ. This world system which has nothing but the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride that characterizes this fallen life. Its values, its focus is contrary and against God.

When I placed my faith in Christ I was identified with Him in His death on the cross that broke my relationship, my bondage to the world, my belonging to this world. What Paul could tell the Philippians, “Our citizenship is in heaven from which we eagerly wait for the Savior.” I was entangled in this world. It was my thought system. It was my value system. It absorbed me. It does every unbeliever. The death of Christ brought a total break. The crucifixion of the believer when he believes spiritually with Christ is foundational to everything.

I want to walk through some points with you here on being crucified with Christ because this has brought a failure to understand, brought untold confusion to the church. Go back to Galatians 2:20, a verse that many of you have memorized. “I have been crucified with Christ.” That is foundational. When? When I placed my faith in Christ, the Spirit identified me with Christ in His crucifixion on the cross, so when Christ died I now am viewed as dying with Him. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me.” I have new life, the life of Christ. I have been raised with Christ to newness of life we will see in other passages. “The life which I now live in the flesh” (in this physical body) “I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” You see when I placed my faith in Christ I was identified with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection to new life and now I have begun a journey of a life of faith. This is not I am saved by faith and kept by works. My salvation is a package which includes my sanctification as a natural outworking of having died with Christ, that crucifixion with Christ. Now having Christ living in me and I live my new life in this physical body. It is the same physical body but it is motivated from within from my newness, the life of Christ in me and I live with that faith in Him, day by day. So the believer is crucified with Christ.

Secondly, the world is crucified. That is where we are in chapter 6, verse 14 when he made the statement, “The world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” Because when I am crucified I have the world being crucified too. That relationship is broken. The mastery of the world over me no longer is. I am no longer controlled by the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the boastful pride of life, a self-centered, selfish life in rebellion against God. It is broken.

Now if we fail to understand this we get involved in reformation movements. Well it is important that we try to clean this up, make the world a better place and I am not against doing nice things and we should be good, gracious people but that is not what we are in Christ. So the world’s hold over me has been broken. I don’t want to give the unbeliever any hope that he can live a new life. You can’t outside of Christ. You know you can’t clean up your life and then come to Christ. It is a life that can’t be cleaned up and that is a life that can’t be salvaged. You have to die and be made new. So the world was crucified to me, I was crucified to the world.

Look in Galatians 5:24 – what happened? Remember the contrast at the end of chapter 5, verse 19. “The deeds of the flesh are evident and he goes through all of those sinful things.” Verse 22: “The fruit of the Spirit” and he goes through those things that manifest God’s character. Then verse 24 – how do I go from living controlled by the flesh to being led and being controlled by the Spirit, filled with the Spirit, under His control? Verse 24: “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” If you belong to Christ, the flesh has been crucified. That picture, its power and hold and control over you has been broken. So not only this world and the world system that so enveloped and mastered me but the flesh, that volume part of me – its power has been broken as well.

Come back to Romans 6. The old man is crucified as we noted. The old man and the flesh were basically talking about the same entity, that inner fallen being and in chapter 6 he talks about how you get free from living a life of sin and we are to be identified with Christ. Remember I Corinthians 12:13 “By one Spirit we have all been baptized into the body of Christ,” identified with Him in His death, burial and resurrection. So he says in verse 3: “Do you not know all of us who have been baptized into Jesus have been baptized into His death. We have been buried with Him through baptism into death, as Christ was raised from the dead through the newness of the Father, we might walk in newness of life.”

Our water baptism is to reflect that but it is the spiritual transaction that must occur by faith when the Spirit identifies us. We believe by God’s grace, then we are viewed as having died as Christ died, be buried was Christ was, raised to newness of life. It has to happen. The end of verse 4, “So we can walk in newness of life” and if we have become “united with Him in the likeness of His death we certainly will be in the likeness of His resurrection.” That is our justification and our sanctification. You don’t have one without the other. You just have them in the right order. You die with Christ to have the new life with Christ. You don’t clean up your life to become acceptable to God. He says your life as it is, is not acceptable.

You must be born again. It doesn’t say you must clean up your life but when you die with Christ then you are raised with a new life. Christ lives in me. Verse 6: “Knowing this that our old self” (our old man literally, the Anthropos) “was crucified with Him.” That is our picture. The flesh, the old man “in order that our body of sin” (our body controlled by sin) “might be done away with.” Remember that, “done away with.” It translates the Greek word, katargeo. “It’s power has been broken so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.” That is the key. “For he who has died is freed from sin.”

So that is what it takes. That is why we don’t get involved in trying to get the world to stop sinning. Naturally it is more pleasant and there are positive benefits by less open rebellion against God but the fact is, it is not God’s intention and I don’t want to get misunderstood. You will be no closer to heaven.

So an unbeliever if you stop certain sins, don’t get drunk anymore. It would probably make your family life better, make it more pleasant for your wife and your children but it won’t get you any closer to heaven. And I am here to tell you how you can have an eternity with God and besides you just give up one sin but you still live in the hold of sin.

We think, “wow” look at that. They broke the hold of that sin. Well yes, like I say there are positive benefits that come on the horizontal level but it does nothing to bring you closer to God. We as believers don’t want to be confused on this.

I was reading this week in a different area totally but they were talking about “Do we have to keep the balance?” Sometimes the church hasn’t had enough emphasis on social involvement and social justice along with its message of salvation and they should go together. Now wait a minute! Nothing goes together with the Gospel. The Gospel stands on its own. It is the cross of Christ! Don’t misunderstand what I am saying but in the context where it is talking about social justice is not part of the Gospel and it is not as important as the Gospel.

You know now what they are writing? The Gospel has two legs. One is the finished work of Christ and the other is social involvement and action. How is that different than the Galatian heresy who said the finished work of Christ and the Mosaic Law? Anything you add there and this is getting broad acceptance and young people are grabbing on to this in the evangelical world because here I can do something and it seems like I am making a difference in that which is visible. So we find more and more movement that way in the church.

You have to die with Christ. That is what breaks the power of sin. You have to be made new. It didn’t matter that Nicodemus was a teacher among the Jews and wouldn’t have indulged in some of those more overt obvious sins. He had to be born again or he would never see the kingdom that Christ would establish, so the death with Christ. When we lose hold on this we are leaving the Gospel.

We have battled this before in our own church. The church has become psychologized and now we have all these other things added with the finality. Jesus Christ breaks the power and authority of sin in a life and I do not accept when someone comes along and says they are in sin and they can’t stop and I say you are not saved. I am not saying a Christian can’t sin and we do sin. It is the grace of God that keeps on cleansing but you can’t live in that realm and if you do sin, it is because you choose to sin. You have to be made new and we undermine the Gospel when we imply there is something else.

We went through the battle with those and it was a professor at the seminary I graduated from that said you can’t just have nothing but the Bible. What do you mean when you say nothing but the Bible? I was taught in that seminary at one time that the Bible is sufficient. Will this break the power of sin? Will this make you new? Will this enable you to be the man that God says you must be, the woman that God says you must be? You are saying the Spirit is not able, that the life you have in Christ won’t do it?

This is God’s answer. You die with Christ, be made you new. I hear people, “I don’t think I can give this up. I can’t commit to Christ because I don’t think I will be able to quit this.” I say, “well, you can’t deal with that now. He is not asking you to quit anything but He is requiring of you that if you call on Him and say ‘Lord, I am a miserable, hell-deserving sinner and I believe what You said. You will save me if I place my faith in Christ. Lord I want to do that the best I can.’” You know how I have invited people? You just tell the Lord how confused you are. No, you can’t live the Christian life. You can’t clean up your life and trying to do it is just a further act of rebellion against God. He wants you to come and acknowledge “Here I am.”

And we as believers begin to confuse that. Where does that leave the world? What kind of salvation? What kind of Savior do we have? That is Paul’s burden here. Be fixed. You have the opportunity to counsel and share with fellow believers and we do and fellow believers get mired in sin. We saw that in Galatians beginning in chapter 6, “You who are spiritual restore such a one.” We get involved with one another’s lives. We encourage them. We help them. We all stumble in many ways but we have to have the foundation, new life in Christ and that is what the life we live by faith. Crucified with Christ, raised with Christ to newness of life and that newness will come to its finality when we are called into His presence and when we ultimately receive our glorified bodies.

Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord for Your Word, for its riches. Lord sometimes it is frustrating for us how easily we let go of the most basic foundational truths. Lord even as Your children we get confused as the Galatians that Christ has done everything. You have provided for us in Christ everything necessary for life and godliness. We are completely, fully, finally forgiven in Christ. The power of the world, the flesh, the old man, sin has been broken. The authority of the devil it has all been dealt with. We have been set free. We are free indeed. Free to live for You, to live under the control of Your Spirit to live a life that is honoring to You. May that be true of us. May our Gospel that we share be the Gospel that You have given that is clear and pure that others might come to salvation we pray in Christ’s name amen.