Thank you for that, Simon. One of the things that really
struck me as I read that verse and had a look at it in my Greek
interlinear, the word order is inverted to the hours in this
marvellous text that we have. But it says, in verse 21, it
says, But now a without law Righteousness of
God is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God,
which is by the faith of Jesus Christ. And I love how it continues. and upon all them that believe,
for there is no difference. We have an amazing Gospel that
reveals an extraordinary God and we love in this fellowship
to see Him high and lifted up, loved upon to Him, seated upon
the throne of the universe from eternity, seated there right
now. A glorious Saviour, a just God,
as we see in verse 26. He might be just and the justifier
of him that believes. Believe it in Jesus. You see,
the legalists and all the self-righteous, they have boasting, don't they?
But verse 27 says, where is boasting then? It's excluded. What? By the law? By works? No. See, boasting is not excluded
by the law, not excluded by works. That's what these Judaizers in
Galatia were harassing those people about. But how is it excluded? Excluded by the law of faith. The law of faith puts all of
the children of Adam in one place, doesn't it? So that's what Romans
has been establishing. Romans establishes so clearly
the Gospel and Galatians is a great defence of the Gospel from the
attack that was first brought to the Church. And if that was
Satan's ploy when the Church was new and the Apostles were
there and it had such a devastating impact, do you think he needs
to change his tactics very much? 2,000 years later. It's the same, isn't it? Romans
1. Romans is such an amazing book
of the Bible, isn't it? Romans 1 exposes the iniquity
and the unbelief of the Gentiles, Gentile nations. They know about
God. There's no such thing according
to God as an atheist. God never in the scriptures bothers
to establish His existence. He exists. It doesn't need to
be again and again established. But people know of God in their
consciences, in the law, it's written on their hearts, and
in creation. And they saw His glory and they
did not glorify Him. And Paul describes the pagan
nations, the world that we live in now, three times Paul says
he gave them up, he gave them over. You see, you mustn't think,
as this world causes us again and again and again to despair
over what's happening around us, we must not ever think that
God's throne and God's position on that throne and God's purposes
in this world are in any way challenged at all. He reigns
and rules effortlessly. He gave them over. He gave them
over to uncleanness. He gave them over to vile affections. He gave them over to a reprobate
mind. What a picture. What a great
picture of the nations. What a great picture of the nations
today as they live in this world. You see they are under the judgment
of God now. It says the wrath of God is being
revealed. As much as we despair over what
goes on, and we ought to grieve over what goes on, let's not,
in the midst of that, lose faith in the fact that our God is the
great God of this universe. And He has. I love what the Lord
prayed for in John 17. It's remarkable, isn't it? Before
his prayer he says, his father, the hour has come, glorify thy
son that thy son may also glorify thee. And then he says, and thou
hast given him power over all flesh. He's been given power over all
flesh. He has power over all flesh right
now in this world, brothers and sisters. is given power over
all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as Thou
hast given Him. And this is life eternal, that
they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom
Thou hast sent." See, salvation is knowing God. The proclaiming
of the Gospel is a declaration of the character of God. False
Gospels, the false gospel of the Galatians, the false gospel
that the scriptures are talking about so often, is a gospel that
declares a God with a different character. And a God with a different
character doesn't deserve the name of our God, the God that
the scriptures are proclaiming. He's given him power over all
flesh. The power is not in the hands
of flesh, the power is in the hands of our great God. But in
chapter 2 of Romans, Paul goes on, led by the Holy Spirit, to
show the hypocrisy, the exposed hypocrisy and the complete sham
of those who are religious and claim to respect the law of God. And he goes to show that there
is no difference between the Jews and the Gentiles. The Gentiles in some sense are
more honest, aren't they? Open public evil or the evil the evil that's hidden under
a cloak of religion. You see, God's work as we'll
see later on, is a work in the hearts of his people. He says
at the end of chapter 2, he says, for he is not a Jew which is
one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward
in the flesh, but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision
is that of the heart. in the spirit, not in the letter,
not in physical activities, not in the letter which kills, it's
not in the letter, it's in the heart, it's in the spirit, whose
praise is not of men. Brothers and sisters in Christ,
we can't expect as Christians the praise of men. His praise
is not of men, but of God. There's no difference, says Paul,
between the Jewish religionist and the pagan Gentile. That's where Romans 3.19 takes
us to, isn't it? Now we know there are things
that the people of God know. We know that whatsoever Now that what things soever the
law sayeth it sayeth to them that are under the law." Under
the law. Who's under the law? Everyone in this world who is
not living by faith and in faith of the Lord Jesus. All creation. There is a result of all this. The law The law creates a situation
where there is no difference. There is no difference. What's the purpose of the law? The purpose of the law being
revealed is to shut the mouths of people. To shut their mouths. It says, doesn't it, that every
mouth may be stopped. and all the world become guilty
before God. Isn't it extraordinary that the
legalists that we meet with again and again want to say that because
of their understanding of the law and their obedience to the
law, they actually have something to boast in. It's extraordinary,
isn't it? It's an extraordinary revelation
before God's people of the depths of the depravity of man and the
futility of religion to fix it. As I've often said, it's a remarkable
thing, isn't it, the Pharisees and the scribes and the priests
at that temple, they put their hand on the sheep. Every morning,
at nine o'clock in the morning, they took a sheep to the temple,
they put their hands on it, and they slit its throat. I don't
know if you've worked with animals and killed them. It's a shocking
thing. I find it just so hard, so appalling. It's the worst part of being
a farmer. It just grieves you. And it's
a remarkable thing isn't it, every morning they were in a
sense acknowledging symbolically that their sins deserve for them
to have what happened to that sheep. And then at three o'clock
in the afternoon they blow the horn and they do it again. And that activity which was so
clearly designed of God to show the depths of sin and the need
of a substitute was actually worked in their minds to be a
source of pride and a source of self-righteousness, such that
when the land of God came, He was their enemy. The law is designed,
isn't it, to shut the mouths and declare all of us guilty
before God. And it teaches something of the
objective depths of sin against the Holy God. And it shuts people
up. It shuts people up to just one
place. It shuts people up to faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the result of all of this,
isn't it? There is no difference. There
is no difference. religious activity and pagan
idolatry. There is no difference. Verse 20, Therefore by the deeds
of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by
the law is the knowledge of sin. There is no difference. All the
law has done is expose sin. So there is no difference between
a pagan and the religiously upright, the religiously righteous as
far as God's holiness is concerned. God is only satisfied with absolute
perfect holiness. He says, isn't it, to be accepted
it must be perfect. He says to be holy as I am holy. The answer, of course, is that
God had a people for himself, a chosen people. And he describes
in these verses here the remarkable, remarkable way in which God saves
his people. We won't have time to look at
them all in great detail. Simon's given you some insights
into some of the things that I felt the Lord was revealing out
of verse 21. But I trust the Lord will cause
you to go home and to read these blessed verses and cause them
to be something which causes you, as we saw, we read in that
Psalm 28, to skip and sing. They are verses which cause us
to be so, so delighted in the character and the glory of God. In our Adam flesh, in our Adam
flesh, involved with religion, we are just burdened all the
time, aren't we? There is just this burden. I
love what the Lord Jesus promised in Matthew 11, 28. He says, come
unto me. all ye that labour and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me." And then he describes himself. What a God we have. What a Saviour we have. Learn from me because for I am
meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your
souls." These verses describe the way God's children have rest. See, the law and works is just
a burden, isn't it? And the Lord Jesus says in Matthew
11.30, He says, For my yoke is easy, and my burden light. one of my prayers that we would
come away from this service with our eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus
and just be amazed and find ourselves with a light burden and an easy
yoke and rest for our souls. So in verse 21, the verse that
the Lord calls me to be contemplating a lot over this
last few days. But it begins by saying, but
now, after all of that, but now. He's now going back to where
he was in verse 17 of chapter 1. He talks there about the righteousness
of God is revealed. How is the righteousness of God
is revealed? Verse 16 of chapter 1, for I'm
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it It is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew person
and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith. For as it is written,
the just shall live by faith. So when Paul says, but now, he's
talking about this time that we live in, this Gospel age,
this time where light has come to illuminate Christ, where Satan
has been bound and the Gospel has gone out triumphantly into
this world. God is building his house. by
His Spirit. After the life and the death
and the glorification of the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit has
been poured out. This age of the Church where
God fulfils those remarkable promises to come and live in
His people, to live with His people, for His people to know
in a way that we should be delighting in with our father Abraham in
the faith, for he is our reward and our exceedingly great shield. He dwells in his people and he
gathers his people under his gospel banner. Salvation is a
revelation, a manifestation, to the chosen sinner, a revelation
of who he is and a revelation of who God is. But now, the without law righteousness
of God is manifested. And there are so many ways of
looking at this verse. There is this righteousness of
God, the righteousness of God without which no man will see
the Lord. It's without the deeds of the
law, the deeds, any deeds performed by a sinful man. And this is
a righteousness that might also be seen as a righteousness that
wasn't manifested in the law. It's manifested in the Gospel. You see, the law demands righteous
deeds to be done for God. The Gospel reveals the great
and glorious Saviour who has done all of those things. As
Simon said earlier, Galatians 4 describes the Lord Jesus in
His fleshly existence here. He was made of a woman. He was
made under the law. And for all that we say, we must
keep saying that the Lord Jesus perfectly obeyed God's law from
His heart in thought and word Indeed, he was perfectly obedient. He said to those Pharisees who
examined him with a fine-tooth comb and nitpicked everything
that he did and said, and nitpicked what his disciples said, he says,
can any of you accuse me of sin? There you have the likes of the
apostle Saul, the Pharisee. They go out into their garden
and they pick their mint to make mint sauce and they put a tithe
of the mint aside and they put a tithe of this aside and they
examine the Lord Jesus and examine His work. with his disciples
and examined him so closely with this microscopic examination
of the Lord. And he said to them, didn't he,
he said at the beginning of his ministry, he said, I am God.
I have power over all flesh. You have three and a half years
to examine me. And he says to them, much later
on in his ministry, can any of you accuse him of sin? No sin. He did no sin. Even Satan. Satan, the Lord Jesus
said, he has nothing in me. He has nothing in the Lord Jesus
that he can accuse him of in any way whatsoever. Our Lord
Jesus was righteous, perfectly, perfectly righteous before the
law of God. But it's really interesting as
you study the scriptures, you find that again and again and
again, it's called the righteousness of God. The righteousness of
God. You see it in these verses here.
In verse 21, the righteousness of God. In verse 22, the righteousness
of God. Verse 25, His righteousness. Verse 26, His righteousness. And Simon said, Our God is righteous
in His very being. He's righteous in all of His
acts. He's righteous in all of His
judgments. Righteousness is essential to
his character. I love what Isaiah describes
our God. He says, judgment will I lay
to the line. He's using building terms. Judgment
will I lay to the line and righteousness to the plummet. If you're a builder
and you have a measuring line and you have a plumb bob, You
can build almost anything. You can build it square and you
can build it vertical. All you need are those two things
in terms of measurement. Judgement while I lay to the
line is judgement will be perfectly measured and righteousness to
the plumber. I love the idea of righteousness.
When you have a plumb bob it is perfectly vertical, and if you
have a plumb bob, where does it rest? It just rests on one
tiny point. That's the nature of our God's
righteousness, isn't it? Perfectly, perfectly and perfectly
fixed on one spot. For those who have a refuge other
than that sort of refuge, hail will sweep away the refuge of
lies and water shall overflow the hiding place. People may
hide in a God whose judgement is not measured perfectly and
just and whose righteousness waivers to suit their means. Righteousness is the essence
of His character, isn't it? Our Lord Jesus was perfectly
righteous. He was perfectly righteous to reveal God, to declare Him,
to exegete Him, to make Him manifest. and he was perfectly righteous
to redeem them that were under the law. And he had the righteousness
of God before he donned human flesh. It's a remarkable thing
to think, isn't it, that the scriptures declare that his legal
obedience added nothing to the essential righteousness of His
Father. Psalm 16 is remarkable, isn't
it? He says, O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou
art my Lord, my goodness extendeth not to thee. Now God is solitary
in all of His perfections and is unchangeable and unchanging. Nehemiah prayed, didn't he? Stand
up and bless the Lord your God forever and ever. Blessed be
thy name, not just blessed be thy name, blessed be thy glorious
name, says Nehemiah, which is exalted above all blessing and
praise. There is, in this verse, without
the law, righteousness of God. There is the very righteousness
of God which is the essence, one of the essences of His character. It's without the law. Our law, obedience, adds nothing
to the righteousness of God. There is nothing to boast in.
Now Simon said earlier, One of the reasons for the Lord Jesus
being obedient to the law and it being absolutely essential
for our salvation is that he was the lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. He had no sin of his own. He did no sin of his own. He could not sin, our great God
and Saviour. And because He had no sin. He could bear our sins. He could be the perfect sacrifice. We've been reading about it in
Galatians 3, in Galatians 3.13, it says, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of
the law, being made a curse for us. For it is written, Cursed
is everyone that hangeth on a tree." As I said earlier, under the
law there is a righteousness rendered to God. In the Gospel
we receive the very righteousness of God Himself. And it's more
than a legal righteousness. It's a righteousness that comes
from relationship and it's a righteousness that brings us into relationship. So it's been witnessed by the
law and the prophets at the end of that verse. The Old Testament
again and again describes the righteousness of God and describes
God's way of saving His people. The seed of the woman will crush
the serpent's head. says Genesis 3.15, and then Daniel
says these remarkable words in Daniel 9.24, he says, 70 weeks
are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city. This
is the description of Messiah and his works. To finish transgression,
to make an end of sin, to make reconciliation for iniquity,
to bring in everlasting righteousness, everlasting righteousness, to
seal up the vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy. As Simon said earlier in Ephesians
1, all the spiritual blessings of God's children were ours in
eternity, in a righteousness of God that God's children had. before God. It's a spiritual
blessing, is it not? We had them all then. The Old Testament describes it
again and again. It's witnessed in the law, the
first five books, and it's witnessed in the prophets. It's witnessed
in what we've been reading in Genesis 15 of Abraham and what
Romans then says about us, about God's children. It's witnessed
before the flood, and it's witnessed after the flood. It's witnessed
in all of the books of the Old Testament. They speak of Him. They speak of His righteousness.
They speak of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. As Isaiah says,
for the Lord is well pleased for His righteousness' sake. This is describing the Lord Jesus.
He will magnify the law and make it honourable. While we're there
in Isaiah, it's good just to read some of these remarkable
verses that talk about the very righteousness of God. In Isaiah
45, verse 24, Surely shall one say, The law in the Lord I have righteousness and strength. In the Lord have I righteousness
and strength. Even to Him shall men come and
all that are incensed against Him shall be ashamed. In the Lord shall all the seed
of Israel be justified and shall glory. Just down into the next
chapter. He says, Hearken unto me, you
stout-hearted, that are far from righteousness. I bring near my
righteousness, it shall not be far off. My salvation shall not
tarry, and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel, my glory. Over in chapter 51, as we read
on, He says, My righteousness is
near. My salvation is gone forth. Mine
arms shall judge the people. The eyes shall wait upon me,
and on mine arms shall they trust. Lift up your eyes to the heavens. Look, and look upon the earth
beneath. For the heavens shall vanish
away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment.
And they that dwell therein shall die in like manner. My salvation shall be forever
and my righteousness shall not be established. His righteousness
and salvation draw near and they shall be established. It will
be everlasting. It is everlasting righteousness. Harken unto me, you that know
righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law. Fear ye
not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. For the moth shall eat them up
like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool. My
righteousness shall be forever and my salvation from generation
to generation." So the righteousness that we're talking about is much
more than legal righteousness. My righteous servant, says Isaiah
53.11, shall justify many. My righteous servant shall justify
many. See the righteousness of God
is the righteousness of the Creator, not the righteousness of a creature. It's also in a righteous nature
that's given to every elect child of God. I trust that you might
spend time reading and studying the bulletin, there's some great
articles in there. See the righteous nature is given,
but salvation as Joe Tyrrell writes in his article, goes beyond
the legal righteousness of God making us accepted. You see it
includes fellowship with God. It means to have in common. For a man to know and love and
believe and communicate with God, he must have a nature that's
in common with God's nature. One of the lovely things it said
of Abraham, he was a friend of God. Where on earth does that
come in the law? Friends of God. Where does it
come from in terms of law or obedience? It doesn't. It comes
from fellowship. It comes from union with Him. All for whom Christ died are
made to be the righteousness of God in Him. We do quote that
great verse a lot. It means to make, as in to create,
as the first creation was created, or as Satan said to the Lord
Jesus, make these stones bread. It's that sort of making. It's
a new creation, isn't it? at regeneration, when people
are born again, when God visits them through His Gospel, when
Christ comes and takes up residence in someone, a new and sinless
spiritual nature which is created to be like God, in true righteousness
and holiness, is really living in someone. In our flesh, no matter how much
the flesh is activated, none of those things are going to
happen. You're not going to love. The natural man cannot love and
believe and communicate with God. He cannot know God unless
God comes and reveals Himself as He does in His chosen people
through the Gospel. One day soon, the hindrance of
our flesh will be gone. It's our flesh, isn't it? And
our fleshly activities, and our fleshly desire for righteousness,
our fleshly desire for the esteem of men, our fleshly desires that
are our hindrance from seeing God. One day it will be gone,
everlasting righteousness. They will be seen to be the trees,
the planting of the Lord, and He'll be glorified in them. Verse
22 goes on to say, even the righteousness of God, which is by the faith
of Jesus Christ, And I love what these next words say, it's, unto
and upon all. See the everlasting love of God
in Christ Jesus is the cause, isn't it? It's the sole cause.
and the precious life and death and glorification of our Lord
is the reason. Nothing in us, nothing we have
ever done, nothing we ever can do can merit or demand what God
alone must give. Even the faith to lay hold of
who he is, is a gift. See it's unto all and upon all
them that believe. Faith is the effect of his work
of grace in revealing himself as the author and the perfecter,
but most of all revealing himself as the object and the reward
of faith. Upon all and unto all them that
believe, for there is no difference. I know this verse, these words
are related to the next phrase in Romans. But I love to contemplate
that grace says that there is no difference. There is no difference
in God's affection for his children. He loves all of his children
with an equal love. He justifies all of his children
with an equal grace. He robes all of his children
with the same robe. He gives to all of his children
in an equal way. You see, it's so much hardwired
into us, isn't it, to esteem great ones in the faith. That's not how Paul saw himself. That's not how Paul grew in grace. He said, by the grace of God
I am what I am. At the end of his life he considered
himself the chief of sinners, not the greatest of the saints,
the least of all the apostles. There is no difference. You see the essence The essence
of the Gospel is that what God's children are in the Lord Jesus
is what makes them the object of God's free grace and favour. That's where Galatians goes and
that's where these verses that we've been looking at in Galatians
go because it goes from being justified and being redeemed
to talk about relationship all the time. See, Paul talks about
sons. Abraham's seed, they are sons. They're in relationship with
a God who loves them and cares for them. The essence of the Gospel is
Him being my Father and Him being my Saviour. He who has and is
the very righteousness of God, infinite, eternal, unchangeable,
everlasting righteousness. There's no difference. We might
just read the rest of these verses and just look at them and pray
the Lord will use them. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God, being justified freely. That word freely
means without cause. There is no cause in me. The
cause is in God. freely by His grace through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth a propitiation,
a mercy seat. A mercy seat is what that word
means, that mercy seat in the temple, the place where God meets
with men on the basis of shed blood, on the basis of a perfect
sacrifice, on the basis of a sacrifice that takes away sin forever and
brings in everlasting righteousness. You see, it's a manifestation
in verse 21. In verse 25, it's to declare
His righteousness. It is right for God, because
of the work of the Lord Jesus, to remit sins. remit the sins that are passed
through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say again, to declare
His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of
them that which believeth in Jesus. He's going to be just. He has been perfectly just in
all of his activities. He has always been perfectly
righteous. And there is no boasting as we
saw earlier. No boasting, no boasting in any
activities that we've done, no boasting in any activities that
we might do. Because we have the law of faith,
the principle of faith looks away from us and looks to Him. And we conclude, I don't know
whether you conclude that brothers and sisters, do you conclude
that about yourself? that a man is justified by faith
without deeds of the law. Justified, perfectly just in
the sight of God, perfectly clear in God's holy court right now
without having done anything. Isn't that remarkable? Is that
gospel to you? It's gospel to this old, frail
sinner. Without deeds of the law. Verse 31. If you want to obey
the law of God, and if you want to honour the law of God, there
is one simple way of honouring God's law. It's not doing. It's believing, believing in
the Lord Jesus Christ, resting in Him, relying on Him, relying
on who He is as He's revealed in this glorious book before
us. We establish the law because
we establish the very character of our God. The righteousness
of God without the law is manifested. May God manifest that righteousness
without the law to us again and again. Let's pray.