Okay, back in Galatians again this week, and looking at the second half of the chapter. And it's very familiar verses, but it's the absolute essence of the gospel, of the truth, of the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not just some add-on thing that those of you of a religious disposition might want to go and waste your time with on a Sunday morning while those of us with a life are out on our bikes and doing all the sorts of things that we want to do. No, it's not like that. This is precious. This is the most valuable thing. This is the most valuable thing in life, is the gospel of grace. To know the gospel of grace, to know life eternal, the true life of God in Christ, is so valuable, is so precious, so precious.

To you who believe, He, Christ, is precious. You know, the question that was asked initially by the Philippian jailer, is what must I do to be saved? Seems like hardly anybody asks that question in society around us today. What must I do to be saved? Saved from what? Saved from just condemnation for eternity. Saved from just condemnation that would confine you to hell for your sin. Saved from that. Saved into what? Saved into eternal peace with God. To be at peace with God who made you. To be at peace with God who is our judge, who we must face. To be at peace with him. That is what it's about. Salvation from condemnation into peace with God.

And you can only do that by being made righteous as God requires you to be righteous. You must be holy. Be ye holy, says the Lord, for I am holy. You must be holy. He cannot accept less than perfect holiness. Where am I going to get that perfect holiness? As Job asked, what should a man do to be just with God? What have I got to do? Answer? The answer of the scriptures? Believe. Believe. Believe. Rest in. Rest in him. Rest in not what you are or what you might do, but rest in that which has been done by God to save his people from their sins. What, you mean I have to do nothing? Exactly, other than look and believe. Well, that's too good to be true, says the soul, hearing this. for the first time, coming out of religion and hearing this for the first time. It's too good to be true, but it is true. Mostly, where something seems too good to be true, it is too good to be true. It's false, it's a lie, but the gospel isn't. The gospel, the gospel is the truth of God. It's the good news of God to the multitude of people. He loved from before the beginning of time.

You say your gospel's very narrow, you talk about the elect, it's very narrow. It's a multitude that no man can number. that he chose in Christ before the foundation of the world. It's a gospel that is not just a New Testament gospel, it's declared throughout the scriptures, for as Jesus said, these scriptures, all of them, are they which speak of me. These scriptures, this truth of God, breathed, inspired, inspiration, breathed by the Spirit of God, the revelation of God by His Spirit, and He gives it through preaching, by anointing men He's raised up to preach, to declare the truth of God from heaven. He reveals that truth. He revealed it to His apostles and His prophets, and He goes on by them to reveal it to those that He raises to preach the truth. It's by the Spirit giving faith to the people of God, the multitude that he loved from before time. He gives them faith. What is faith? It's a sense. It's a sight. It's spiritual sight. It's the sight of the soul, to see that which the natural man cannot see the things of the living God, cannot receive them. They're foolishness to him, neither can he know them. Why? They're spiritually discerned. And except God give you spiritual discernment, you will not see them.

by the spirit of God, he witnesses, as it says in Romans 8, 16, he witnesses with our spirit that we are the children of God. There is that inner witness of the spirit. This is real. And this salvation, this gospel, is experienced by all who believe the truth. It's experienced by them through life. It's experienced by them into death and through death. It's experienced by them into eternity and for eternity.

But it's a message that is hated. by Satan, is hated by the world around. It's a message that is undermined. It's a message that is opposed. It's opposed by Satan's ministers, and Satan's ministers are mostly in religion. Religion all around the world, and a large part of it calling itself Christianity. And what do they do? They accuse the message of liberty, freedom, in the gospel of God, declared in this book. They accuse it of licensing sin. Oh, you don't have to do anything. Oh, right, right. Doesn't depend on you. Right, well, let's sin that grace may abound.

and they seek to put God's people under legal bondage. They seek to put God's people under a bondage to make themselves more acceptable to God. Oh yes, you're okay, you've been started off, but now you've got to get progressively better and better and better, so that you're gradually more and more prepared for heaven. You're more and more prepared to be acceptable to God. This is not the gospel of the Bible. It isn't. And those who preach it and those who proclaim it are what Paul calls false brethren. They profess to believe Christ, yet they cling to Christ plus law works that we do for acceptance with God, that I pointed out last week.

In Galatians 5 verse 2, Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, or if you do anything of a legal nature to try to improve your standing with God for justification or sanctification or anything else, If you do that, Christ shall profit you nothing. It doesn't say Christ shall be a bit less profitable to you if you do that. It says Christ shall profit you nothing. And nothing means absolutely nothing. Christ will profit you nothing.

We all, as I keep saying, have an appointment with death. It's Hebrews chapter 9 verse 27. And after that, the judgment. It's appointed to man to die once and then the judgment. How will you answer for your sin before God? This is the answer of the child of God who believes. It's in verse 13 of chapter 3 of Galatians. You don't have to turn a page. This is your testimony. This is your hope. This is everything that you cling to, that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. Christ has done it. He's my substitute. He's done it in my place. Because that, plus anything else, will profit you nothing. That alone is eternal profit, but that plus anything else will profit you nothing.

So I want to see this morning in these verses a consensus that was soon undermined, then Paul's earnest contention for the truth, and then living in the light of this gospel grace.

So, a consensus that was soon undermined. Look in verses 11 to 14. Stephen read them to us earlier. But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, that's in Jerusalem, the church in Jerusalem, he did eat with the Gentiles. But when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that Barnabas was also carried away with their dissimulation.

But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou being a Jew livest after the manner of the Gentiles and not as do the Jews, why compelst thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?

A consensus soon undermined. The consensus we looked at last week. It was the consensus of the council of Jerusalem in Acts chapter 15 and verses 6 to 11. They all agreed that what Paul and Barnabas had been preaching to the Gentiles was the true gospel of grace, and that there wasn't another. Peter said, we put no difference between us Jews and them, those Gentiles, purifying their hearts by faith. It's by faith. And he says this in verse 10. Now therefore, he said to the council that was assembled there, Why tempt ye God to put a yoke, a burden, a constraint upon the neck of these Gentile disciples, which neither our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, David, all the Jewish fathers. Our fathers weren't able to bear that yoke. Our fathers couldn't keep that legal obligation.

But we believe, he says in verse 11, that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we Jews shall be saved exactly as they, exactly as the Gentiles. There was a consensus. And so Paul and Barnabas were sent back to Antioch with letters from the apostles in Jerusalem, the church in Jerusalem saying, This is the gospel, what Paul's preaching to you is the truth. Jews and Gentiles are saved in exactly the same way. And what is that way? It's the faith of Jesus Christ. It's the faith, this is so important. You will find every, I don't know whether it's every, but it seems like every one I've looked at, they all translate, other versions of the Bible, they all translate of as in, and it isn't. It's a million miles apart. Faith in Jesus Christ is a million miles away from faith of Jesus Christ.

The way that the people of God are saved is the faith of Jesus Christ. It's what he faithfully fulfilled of the covenant of grace made between the Father and the Holy Spirit and the Son before the beginning of time. And he came with that commission to come from the Father, to do the Father's will. And it was his faithful fulfillment of everything he was given to do, to save his people from their sins. It's the faith of Jesus Christ that saves us. It's not our faith in Jesus Christ. Our faith in Jesus Christ is the evidence that we were included in that number that he saved.

All of the Mosaic Law, all of it, religious folk divide it into moral, civil, and ceremonial to split hairs. But the whole of the law of God was given at Mount Sinai to Moses. He was the mediator of it. It was given to national Israel in their wilderness wanderings and then on into the promised land. But all of it was fulfilled by Christ. When Christ came, he fulfilled it. You see, That law that was given at Mount Sinai, that law that was given to Moses, the Mosaic law, it was the shadow of things to come. But Christ is the substance of those things. You know when you're watching on a sunny day and you're behind a corner and the sun's shining and you see a shadow come along, you know that a real person's coming along in a moment. And the real person appears. And you don't then go carrying on taking your evidence from the shadow, because you can see the real thing. Well, so it is. The law was a shadow of things to come, but He, Christ, is the substance, the reality. The law was a picture of things to come, but He is the reality. The law was the blueprint, as I've said before, He was the blueprint of the building, but when He came, He was the actual building, the substance of it.

You see, the law which defines sin and how to be righteous with God, and the remedy for sin, which was the animal sacrifices, the blood sacrifices, the priestly order of the Old Testament Jewish religion. That law which defines sin and how to be righteous with God, which condemned transgression of the law, the transgression of the law is condemned It all pictured and was fulfilled in Christ and by Christ.

And Peter confessed. Peter, the apostle, Peter confessed that no Jew ever kept it as it was required to be kept. In Acts 15 and verse 11, he said, as we just read, Jews and Gentiles all alike are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no other way.

Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch They confirmed the consensus that had been agreed upon at that council in Jerusalem, and they lived, Jews and Gentiles, in that church at Antioch, where they were first called Christians, they lived in gospel freedom, in gospel liberty, because all of their standing with God was accomplished by the God-man, our Lord Jesus Christ, who came.

And then Peter came to Antioch. Peter the Apostle came to Antioch. And he fellowshiped, it would seem, with the Gentiles in exactly the same way. They just continued. It made no difference. He counted them as equal brethren, saved by the same grace. He fellowshiped with them. They had fellowship meals together and probably observed the Lord's table together. And he ate with them, making no difference whatsoever because they were all saved on the same basis. which is the faith of Jesus Christ. They communed together.

But then, look in verse 12, before certain came from James, Peter did eat with the Gentiles. But when those came from James, those Jews, those Judaizing Jews from the church in Jerusalem who'd said they'd believe, but they'd clung on to the Mosaic law, when they were come, Peter withdrew himself and separated from those Gentiles, fearing, fearing, fearing them which were of the circumcision.

You see, these ones that had come from the church at Jerusalem, these Pharisaical Judaizers who said they believed the gospel but wanted to hang on to all of the Old Testament rules and laws, they were false brethren. It says that in verse 4. Because of false brethren, unawares brought in, who came in privily, secretly, to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus. that they might bring us into bondage.

False brethren from the Jerusalem church, they came to undermine the liberty of the believers at Antioch. Bondage, what did they say? You must do this or you must not do that in order to be acceptable enough to God because where you are just by believing in Christ is not far enough. You need to add all of these other things.

You see, the Mosaic law had forbidden Old Testament Israel to eat certain foods. There were unclean foods and there were clean foods. There were unclean animals and there were clean animals. It had forbidden Israel to eat certain foods, certain meats, and it had forbidden them especially to eat with non-Jews. And you say, well, why that? That's a bit socially cruel, isn't it? Well, it was picturing the separation of God's people from the ungodly world. That's what it pictured. But God had shown Peter, this same apostle Peter, in Acts chapter 10, God had shown Peter that in Christ fulfilling the picture, the picture was abolished.

In Acts chapter 10, if you remember, Peter was feeling hungry and he'd gone up on the roof to pray and he'd fallen into a trance and God gave him a vision. There was this huge great sheep came down from heaven held at the corners and it was full of Creatures to be eaten it was full and in it were creatures that the Jewish the mosaic law had said you mustn't touch it You're unclean if you touch it and Peter and and and the in in in the vision God had said to Peter arise Peter You're hungry kill and eat What I've sent down to you in this vision and Peter said no not so Lord. I've never eaten anything that is unclean and And God said to him, what I've called clean, Peter, don't you call unclean. Because he'd made it clean.

And it was a picture for him to go to Cornelius. And you read the details for yourself, we haven't got time now, but off he goes to Cornelius, a Roman centurion. and his household, a Gentile household, where the Jews were never supposed to go. And he went there, and because of the vision God had given him, he went preaching the gospel of Christ. Why have you come? Why have you called for me to come? They said, because we want to hear what God has to say by you. And he preached the gospel, and they believed the gospel, and they were baptized. They came into the newness of life in Christ.

And Peter had been shown that that Old Testament law being fulfilled by Christ was abolished. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. I'll say it again. I remember years ago, Bill Clark telling me, he was a minister of the gospel, and he'd gone off to one of these conferences, you know, they get together and they pontificate in all of their theological wisdom. And somebody had raised with them, how on earth do we interpret this scripture? Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. And he said, you wouldn't believe this wriggling and the squirming and the juggling around of words and trying to put some posh theological intellectual interpretation on it to say it didn't really mean Christ was the end of the law for righteousness. But you know what Don Faulkner used to say? He used to say, Generally speaking, what the scripture first appears to say to you is what it says to you. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

I do not get more or less righteous with God by the law. I do not. Christ is the end of it. Christ is my standing with God. But how weak is the flesh, even of Peter. You know, they claim that Peter was the first pope. and thereby infallible, but how weak is the flesh. We know from previous times that Peter was weak in the flesh. I'll never desert you, I'll never disown you, he says to Christ, and Christ said, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me thrice. And he did, he did. Even Peter, verse 12, when these Judaizers came from Jerusalem, he stopped doing that which he'd done in gospel liberty. He withdrew from the Gentiles. He wouldn't eat with them anymore. He put a distance between them. He bowed to what these Judaizers from Jerusalem were saying. And even Barnabas, who'd gone on the missionary journeys with Paul, even Barnabas joined in with it. It says in Proverbs 29 and verse 25, the fear of man bringeth a snare. Oh, how we're aware of that, aren't we? The fear of man bringeth a snare. We all are, I confess it. We're all guilty of this. The fear of man brings a snare. The best of men, man at his very best, what does Ecclesiastes say, is altogether vanity, vanity.

Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was shown the gospel so vividly that judgment was coming, and the whole world was to be swept away as it then was, because the thoughts of the hearts of man was nothing other than evil continually, was the judgment of God upon it. So build an ark. And he built an ark. The ark was the boat which pictured Christ. The ark was the place where the people of God would be safe in the just judgment of God against sin. And Noah had seen all of that. Noah had found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Oh, what a man! He'd seen the world swept away. He'd seen the new world start to sprout and to grow. And he grew grapes and he got drunk with his wine. He who had seen so much got drunk with his wine. were altogether vanity.

Abraham, who'd been called out of idolatry. Abraham, who'd been led by the hand by God out of that place to a place that God would show him. He knew God. God showed him the gospel in type and picture and in reality. Take your son, your only son, and sacrifice. He saw all of these things, yet Abraham lied about Sarah being his sister and not his wife because of the fear of man. The fear of man bringeth a snare.

It says righteous lot. Righteous lot. The New Testament calls him righteous lot. Righteous lot. You would hear so-called Christian preachers today give you an example of the very thing you shouldn't be and it's lot. What a terrible man he was. What a bad example, don't follow him. The New Testament calls him Righteous Lot, Righteous Lot. But Righteous Lot chose to live in Sodom.

David, David was a man after God's own heart. David was a man after, not like Saul the first king, David was a man after God's own heart. Yet David committed adultery and then he committed murder to try and cover up his adultery. Solomon, his son, Solomon, his son, the result of that adulterous relationship, was given wisdom from God above any other, and yet he fell into the affection of many wives, and falling into the affection of many wives, the fear of man, the fear of woman, the fear of his wives was a snare, and he fell into the trap of following their idols before he died.

And you say, but yeah, but yeah, not Paul though, not Paul. Paul, do you know something? If you look in Acts 16 verse three and you compare it with everything else that Paul has said in his epistles and the testimony concerning him throughout the Acts, but in Acts 16 three, because of the fear of the Jews, he had Timothy circumcised. I think that was a mistake. We all have feet of clay. We are all the same. What's the best testimony that you can give for your quality, for your standing with God concerning heaven. And I'll say it again, you've heard it before, we're just poor sinners and nothing at all. We're just poor sinners. That's the best thing we can say about ourselves. Poor sinners and nothing at all.

So then, the consensus was soon undermined, but Paul earnestly contended for the truth. We read that last week as well in Jude's epistle. In verse 3, he says, I wrote to you. It was needful for me to write to you and exhort you. that you should earnestly contend for the faith, the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. Earnestly contend for that faith, and Paul did. Although it was Peter that had come from Jerusalem that had taken such a lead in the consensus that they came to at the Council of Jerusalem, Paul withstood him to the face.

Why did he withstand him to the face? And he didn't do it secretly behind, you know, just in private. He did it, it says, it says in verse 14, I said unto Peter before them all. I didn't try to hide it. He said he withstood him to the face. He challenged him openly before everybody who was there.

What was his challenge? that in withdrawing from eating with the Gentiles and communing with the Gentiles, because these Judaizers had come from Jerusalem, he said that Peter and the others, Barnabas included, that they had not walked uprightly regarding gospel truth. When I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, they didn't walk, they didn't live, they weren't living consistent with the truth that they said they believed, that the truth that they'd agreed on at Jerusalem.

What was the truth Paul earnestly contended for? It's in verse 16. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, is not declared righteous to any degree by God by the things that you do in obedience to the law. What was the law given for? It was to define sin. That's why it was given. Is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. It's what Christ has done, not what we do, that justifies a man before God.

Even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law. Did you see that? We have believed in Jesus Christ, we have believed in him, that we might be justified by the faith of him, the faith of Jesus Christ, and not by the works of the law. For by the works of the law, by the things that we do, shall no flesh be justified. And it means no flesh made any better in the reckoning or the judgment of God. Fitness for heaven is not accomplished It's not even contributed to, not in the slightest by the works that we do seeking to satisfy the law. It's only the faith of Jesus Christ. It's only what he did that makes his people right with God.

Peter had lived like the Gentile believers, yet now because of the fear of man, He was compelling Gentiles, those Gentile believers, to live as Jews under the Mosaic law, even though he knew what had been said earlier in Acts 13. and 39, and I know it's Paul here that says it, but it says here, that by him, by Christ, all that believe are justified from all things, by Christ, all that believe are justified from all things, listen, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. They knew that. They agreed on that. That was the consensus. You could not be justified by the law of Moses. Law works didn't justify. They do not justify. And not only do they not justify, but they don't sanctify, make you more holy either. They don't do that. They don't contribute anything to acceptance with God.

You see, salvation is nothing more and nothing less than a look. Salvation is nothing more or nothing less than a look. We read at the start in Isaiah 45, we read there, God saying, there's no God else beside me. And I'm sure this is Christ speaking, for Christ is the word of God. A just God and a savior. There is none beside me. Now look, verse 22. How to be saved? How should a man be saved? Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, without exception, Jew and Gentile, for I am God and there is none else. Look unto me. Salvation is in a look, in a look.

Israel was bitten by serpents in Numbers 21. They complained in their wilderness wanderings against God. They complained about the manner with which God fed them every day for 40 years. They complained about the quails, the birds that he gave them, flesh to eat. They complained about it. It was tiresome food to them. They got fed up of it. And so God sent among them fiery serpents. I know I spelled fiery wrong in the bulletin article, but never mind. He sent biting serpents amongst them. And he told Moses, they were dying of these serpent, these snake bites, and he told Moses to make a brass model of one of the very snakes that was biting them, and to put it on a pole and to hold it up. And this was it, Numbers 21 verse 8, everyone bitten that looketh shall live. Salvation is in a look, in a look.

John 3, 14 and 15, Jesus speaking to Nicodemus. He said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so shall the Son of Man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him looks to him, looks at him there as their substitute, in their place. bearing the penalty of the law in their place, shedding blood for their sin in their place, shall be saved, shall be saved. Whosoever looks shall be saved. Christ is all and in all. That's what it told us in Colossians chapter three. Christ is all and in all. We do the work that God requires by looking at him, by believing in him. Anything that we think that we might seek to add is what Isaiah 64 verse 6 calls filthy rags. All our righteousnesses are filthy rags.

But many revered men have erred not knowing the scriptures. They have. I'll give you an example. And I'm not doing this because I think that I'm on a pedestal and above all these people, because I know I've got feet of clay just like everybody else. We all know. But just as Paul stood up to Peter on this matter, many years ago I mentioned in a certain situation that J.C. Ryle, the greatly revered Anglican Archbishop of Liverpool in around the turn of the last century, 1900 or so, late 1800s, 1900, and he wrote lots of very, very good stuff. He really did. But I have a book of his called Holiness, and in it he says this. Justification is the work of God, but sanctification is our work to do. It's us that do the work of sanctification.

That is not what the Scriptures teach. That's not what the Scriptures teach. Beware, each of us, we need to beware of thinking that we stand in case we fall, but we need to be clear in contending for the truth. That was not the truth.

When I said this, one of the things that that church railed against me was one of the things that I dared to do that nobody should ever dare to do. I had accused Ryle. I had accused Ryle, and that was a terrible thing to have done. In what he said, he was just plain wrong. The scriptures do not teach that.

In their error, they call the doctrine of Christ alone, they call the doctrine of the grace of our God, they call it what Jude says in verse 4, lasciviousness, a temptation to sinfulness. They call it that if you tell people that they don't have to do anything, then you will prompt them to go ahead and sin all that they want to, whatever their flesh wants to do. That's the accusation. of false religion against the true gospel.

Read Don Faulkner's article that I put in the bulletin. Look at verses 17 and 18. He says this, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners. Is therefore Christ the minister of sin? What he's saying is this, if we ourselves, if while we seek to be justified by Christ, the true gospel, we ourselves are also found sinners, found sinners by legalistic Jews, for example, who accuse the gospel of leading to lawlessness, leading to sin, Is therefore Christ and his gospel the minister of sin? God forbid.

Verse 18. For if I build again the things which I destroyed... What have you destroyed, Paul? The pharisaical religion of Judaism, which he had been a vehement supporter and advocate for. He destroyed it. He says, if I build it again, the idea that righteousness comes from law works, I make myself a transgressor. No, no. You can't be justified by Christ and simultaneously sanctified by the works that you do. That is legalism.

This is what Romans 8 says, the first four verses. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, so don't try to get right with God by keeping it, because it couldn't do it. It was weak through the flesh. sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. Christ has done it all.

And what's the end of it? That the righteousness of the law, the righteous objective of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh trying to do law works to be right with God, but after the spirit looking to Christ who has done it all. The only way to be alive to God is to be dead to the law and its rule over life. When we seek to be spiritually healed from our sin, we don't go to Sinai for law to guide us, as they say, with the law being the rule of life for Christians. No, we don't do that.

Remember the account in the Gospels of the woman who had the issue of blood and she'd been ill for years and she'd spend everything she ever had on physicians who couldn't heal her. She came to Christ and she touched the hem of his garment. When we seek to be spiritually healed from our sin, we don't go to the Sinai, to the law, we touch the hem of Christ's garment. That's what it says in Hebrews 12. There's time, we won't read it now.

So living in the light of gospel grace, verses 19 to 21, and we might have to come back to this, but I don't know, we'll see how we go. Believing in Christ alone is being married to God by Christ. To return to the law in any respect for acceptance is to go back to my dead husband. That's what it says in chapter seven of Romans, first four verses.

Know ye not, brethren, for I speak to them that know the law, how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth. For the woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. But if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband, so then, If, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband be dead, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another. even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit to God. You can't be married to both at the same time. You cannot be married to the old law under which you were kept in bondage and to Christ at the same time. You're dead to the law. How did you die? You died with Christ when he died. I am crucified with Christ, says verse 20. When he died, you died in him. As a believer in Christ, I see now by faith that I've been married to him from eternity.

I am dead to the law. I am crucified with him. When he died, I died in him. The old man of Adam has paid his debt to the justice of God in the death of his substitute. I'll say that again. The old man of Adam, you and me as we are in the flesh, have paid, if we're in Christ, if we're believing in him, we've paid our debt to the justice of God in the death of our substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ.

But I go on living. This is what it says here. I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. I go on living. I'm conscious in this body. I live in the flesh. But it's not me, it is Christ in me. I am one of the vine branches, to use that picture, that parable that he gave. I am the vine, you are the branches. I am one of the vine branches if I'm one of his people, but he is the life-giving rootstock. Christ liveth in me. Christ liveth in me there in verse 20. He lives in me. He loved me and he gave himself for me. He loved me, the just, he loved me, gave himself for me, the unjust, to bring me to God.

And the life that I live now is by the faith of the Son of God. by all that he faithfully did to satisfy offended divine justice on my behalf. I trust him alone. I trust that his death and that his blood as the perfect Passover lamb paid all my debt. It needs nothing to be added from me. It insists that nothing is added from me because look what it says in verse 21. I do not frustrate the grace of God. For if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. I don't add anything to what he has done. To add anything of mine is to frustrate, to despise, to deny the grace of God.

The grace of God is the greatest glory of God. Moses asked God to show him his glory in Exodus 33 verse 18. Show me your glory. And he might have shown him as Elijah, the earthquake, wind, and the fire, but God was in the still, small voice. And to Moses, he said, this is my greatest glory, is my grace. For I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. Not the law. The law is in perfect harmony with the being of God, but it's his grace that is his greatest glory. And he will not share his grace with another. He said that, I will not share my grace with another. If any acceptance with God is attained in any way by legal obedience, then Christ died in vain.

But he didn't die in vain. He died in triumph over Satan. He finished the work of redemption. He rose victorious, and that sealed the justification of his elect multitude. For he was lifted up for the transgressions of his people when he died on the cross and cried, it is finished. but he was raised for our justification, because that was the proof that God was satisfied with that which he had accomplished.

You may be thinking, it's all well and good, but there's an awful lot of law in the Old Testament, so what is its purpose? Well, we'll come to that as we progress through the epistle to the Galatians, God willing. But for now, that will do.