I'm often struck when I look
at this world and see sin rampant and the Gospel treated so poorly and people
with so little fear of God and so little concern for their souls. Especially at this time of the
year I often think of Revelation 11 talks about the
two witnesses. I'll only be brief, just looking
at it. These two witnesses, they were
given, the Lord says in Revelation 11.3, I will give power unto
my two witnesses and they shall prophesy a thousand, two hundred
and three score days, clothed in sackcloth. not dressed in
the finery of this world. These are the two olive trees
and the two candlesticks standing before God, before the God of
the earth. And if any man will hurt them,
fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devours their enemies. And if any man will hurt them,
he must in this manner be killed. These have power to shut heaven,
that it rain not in the days of their prophecy, and have power
over waters to turn them to blood, Moses and Elijah. and to smite
the earth with all plagues as often as they will. When they,
and when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that
ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them,
and shall overcome them and kill them. And their dead bodies shall
lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called
Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. And they,
and the people, and kindreds, and tongues, and nations, shall
see their dead bodies three days and a half, and shall not suffer
their dead bodies to be put in graves. I'll expose them to as
much shame and degradation as possible. And they that dwell
upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and
shall send gifts one to the other, because these two prophets tormented
them. that dwell on the earth. And
after three days and a half the Spirit of Life from God entered
into them, and they stood upon their feet, and great fear fell
upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice
from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended
up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies beheld them." And
at the same hour there was a great earthquake and a tenth of the
city fell, and in the earthquake were slain men, seven thousand,
and the remnant were affrightened and gave glory to God in heaven. The second wave has passed and
behold the third wave comes quickly." It seems when you listen to what
Paul had put under his windscreen and you listen to, and you read
these words that we have in Galatians, it's almost as if Paul is hedging
people in. that there is no place to go
for salvation and grace except Christ. There is no refuge, there
is no escape from prison, there is no rest, there is no hope
except in Christ. And all other avenues, all other
rabbit burrows that men dig for themselves are shut off and yet
The simple, simple words and the simple plain statements and
the simple and probing questions that Paul asks the people are
denied, denied so significantly by this religious world that
it's shocking. You just wonder, you wonder how
a letter which is so beautifully and simply and so wonderfully
argued could be treated in this world with contempt. I spent
a little bit of time yesterday reading one of the confessions
that we were familiar with many years ago and it's just extraordinary
to hear what it says about the law, that you're still under
the moral law and you're still obligated to all of its requirements. You're still obligated to a Sabbath
And you have to prepare yourself and all your thoughts and deeds
on this Sabbath day, which has now been changed from Saturday
to Sunday, are to be holy. And you have to give yourselves
nothing but then in thought and word and deed. You get out of
bed and you've broken what they've written in their rules. The law
of legalism, the religion of the law, is based on two things,
isn't it? It's fear of punishment, and
hope of reward. It's a fear of punishment, isn't
it? If I don't do this, I'm going
to get clobbered. How often in religion have you
experienced that? The whip of the law in the hands
of a false teacher. Spirit-indwelled children feel
it most grievously because every time they are met with someone
who tells them how well they are observing the law, they are
made quietly to themselves to be more aware of how deeply they
have sinned and how much they have fallen short. And there's the hope of reward,
isn't there? If I do these things, if I just do these things, there
are some extra jewels in my crown, there are promises of blessings
for me here in this earth. It's bondage, whichever way it
is, it's bondage, and people live bound by that bondage. The religion of the Spirit is
a religion of grace, isn't it? It's a religion of promises. It's a religion of the most remarkable
promises about the Son of God, isn't it? Norman and I used to
talk about it a bit. As He is, so am I in this world. As He is. Is He right now the
Son of God? Is He right now the Son of God
sitting on the throne of this universe? As He is, so am I in
this world. God's Son. God's beloved child. We call him Abba Father, exactly
as our Saviour did. We are, as 1 Peter 1.4 says,
we are partakers of the Divine Nature. And because we are partakers
of the divine nature, made holy by Him, we have a welcome now
in heaven, don't we? We go to the throne of grace
with boldness and confidence by faith in Him. We are the recipient,
as Abraham was, of all the blessings of God. He's blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We have all of the blessings
of God, we're not missing one. It might seem so to our flesh,
but not according to the promise of God. We are heirs. We are heirs and joint heirs
with Christ. Heirs of a new creation. We walk
through this world, this valley of the shadow of death, but we
fear no ill. Why? Because He is with us. and holds us and guides us and
no harm, no harm can ever befall the righteous. What an extraordinary
contrast it is that the Bible paints between the religion of
bondage, the religion of law, the prison house of law and the
glorious freedom, the glorious freedom of the children of God.
And Paul in Galatians 3 has told us of the promises to Abraham
and his seed, Christ Jesus, where the promise is made. This promise,
this is the promise of the Spirit. And if you have the Spirit of
God, and you belong to God, and you have all that God is, and
all that God has to give, is yours by grace. And this I say, that the covenant
which was confirmed before of God in Christ, that's the covenant,
that's the eternal covenant, that's ordered and secure in
every detail. The law, this law that came later,
it was 430 years later, cannot disannul that it should make
the promise of none effect. The promise stands firm. Verse
18, chapter 3, for if the inheritance be of the law, It is no more
a promise. If the inheritance is not a promise,
if the inheritance is a law, the inheritance is something
you earn. It's a reward for activity, but
God gave to Abraham by promise. And we looked last week at this
first question that naturally comes. And you imagine the situation,
Paul is writing to a congregation which he expects to be divided. There are the Jewish, the Judaizers
from Jerusalem with their great and large band of followers. And there is another group. And Paul is writing. He's writing
in a sense of hoping to persuade all of them, and he wants to
shut every avenue they have, and he wants to answer their
questions. He's dealt with these questions in so many situations
since his time on the Damascus Road. Every time he met one of
the Pharisees and one of the legalists, he had these same
questions. He's answered them. And here
the Holy Spirit gives us the question, isn't it? Therefore
then serveth the law. What's the purpose of the law?
And he gives these lessons that we looked at last week. It was
added. Because of transgressions it was added. It's an addition.
It's another. And it was added to magnify transgressions
till the seed should come. It was added for a time. to whom
the promise was made. It was added until the promised
one, the promise maker, the promise fulfiller, till he was come. It was ordained by angels in
the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator
of one, but God is one. And then the next question, is
the law then against the promises of God? God forbid, for if there
had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness
should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded
all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ If your
translation doesn't have it, it's just so important that we
actually put these verbs in their right context. It's the faithfulness
of Jesus Christ might be given, might be graced to them that
believe. I'll just read a couple of quotes
from the Jews. of those days. One of their quotes was, Great
is the law, for it giveth life to them that doeth. They actually
believed that life came from the law, and it gives life not
only in this world, but in the world to come. Another quote,
The law is a tree of life to all that study it, to give them
life in this world and the world to come. So last week we looked
at the first five of those reasons for the law added, and of course
the last one we looked at was about the mediator. You see,
the eternal covenant, the covenant of grace, the Spirit, the gift
of the Spirit, God lives in us. And if God lives in us, we don't
need a go-between. What's the point of having someone,
a mediator, when you actually have God living with you? Do
you see how second-hand it is and how derogatory it is of the
one mediator between Christ and men, the man Christ Jesus? So
Paul's wanting to show The inferiority of it, isn't it? And how to turn
from Christ to Moses is to turn from Christ altogether and have
nothing but death and nothing but bondage and nothing but sin. Now a mediator is not a mediator
of one, but God is one. This is one of those difficult
verses in the scriptures where if you read the commentators
there are hundreds of different interpretations of it. I just
want to look at a couple that I think are the most sound ones
and fit the context of where Paul is going. Regarding the
law, Moses was the mediator of the law, but Moses made no mediation
at all. Moses was only A man, wasn't
it? God is one party, man is the
other. A mediator must represent both
parties. But Moses is a man. He can only represent man's side. And Moses is a sinner. And Moses is unfit for legal
mediation. But in the promise, God fulfills
both sides of the covenant in Christ, who is both God and man
in one, which is what that phrase, but God is one. And so, as Cole
said earlier, there's nothing remains for a believer to do
but believe on Christ and serve God, delight in Him, with a cheerful
heart of love and gratitude." Another explanation is that Moses
was not a mediator of that one holy seed. The seed that's in
the seed is not of one. Moses is only a mediator to that
one part. The law was never given to the
Gentiles. There were no Gentiles at the
foot of Mount Sinai in that covenant. The Gentiles throughout the rest
of the world, for the rest of the next 1,500 years of operational
law, they could pick up sticks on the Sabbath without any problem
whatsoever. They could eat prawns and pork
without any problem whatsoever. They weren't under the law. Moses
was the mediator to that one part of that seed of Israel,
that elect seed. And the seed to whom the promises
were given, is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the seed to whom
the promises are given. But when the promises are given
to the Lord Jesus and in His hands, He is a representative all of these people in that eternal
covenant made before the foundation of the world, Jews and Gentiles,
which is why Abraham was the receiver of these promises that
all the nations on the earth were going to be blessed through
him. In thee shall all nations be
blessed, Galatians 3.2. The Lord Jesus represents all
of God's seed. Moses as a mediator just represents
one. So the promise fulfilled in Christ
is better than the law of Moses. The law came by Moses, but grace
and truth came by Jesus Christ. He's a better minister, and it's
a better covenant, and it's established on better promises. The other
aspect of Moses' mediation, and don't forget, God's children
have the spirit indwelling them. We have a perfect mediator, don't
we? But see Moses had to wear a veil. If you go back to that story
in Exodus, Moses could bring the law to the people, but he
could supply no ability to perform the law in any way at all. But
when Moses came down from the mountain, his face shone with
the glory of the Lord, and the people could not bear to look
at the face of Moses. People could not listen to the
voice of Moses, without something in between, to cover the glory
of God in the face of Moses when he came from the mountain. Moses
had to wear a veil. Moses, wearing the veil, the
glory that he shone with was hidden from the people. I like
what Martin Luther says about this. The law had to change its
face and its voice and to be made more tolerable to the people. It no longer spoke to the people
in its undisguised majesty. That's what happened when the
people met God on Mount Sinai, didn't they? They turned in horror
from the law. Moses himself was horrified. And if they could have swum the
Red Sea, they would have clambered back to Egypt as quickly as they
possibly could. They were terrified by the law.
And why do people think 1,500 years later in Galatians or 3,500
years later today that we now can go to that same law and expect
to get blessings from it? It terrified the people. Moses
wore a veil. It no longer, when Moses was
veiled, the law no longer spoke to people in its undisguised
majesty. The law, as Romans 7 says, the
law is spiritual and I am carnal. As Luther goes on to say, this
explains why men fail to understand the law properly. They don't
understand its holiness, they don't understand its severity,
they don't understand its demands. The law's demands are simple,
aren't they? The demands of works are simple. You need to have absolutely perfect
righteous holiness before God from the beginning of time till
you meet Him. That's all it requires, isn't
it? It just requires holiness. Anyone here done one little tiny
thing? You see how it's just extraordinary,
isn't it? You just have to keep being led
to believe what the scriptures say, that those that put people
back under the law, and like to be under the law, have not
met God, and because they haven't met God, they haven't met themselves. As Luther says, this explains
why men fail to understand the law properly, with the result
that they become secure and presumptuous hypocrites. I think that describes
a lot of people that I've met. When they are challenged about
the gospel, where do they run to? What are the first words
that so often come out of their mouths? Not, Lord have mercy
on me a sinner, but Lord I thank you that I'm not like these others.
I've done this and I've done that and I've done these things.
And you challenge them about the Lord Jesus and his glory
and the demands of perfect holiness to stand in the presence of a
holy God who is a consuming fire. And then they'll come back and
say, but I've done this and I've done that. Filthy rags. See, the law covered with a veil
loses its full effectiveness. An uncovered, unveiled law in
its fury kills. It just kills. Man cannot stand
the law without a veil over it. Hence we are forced either to
look beyond the law to Christ, will we graze through life as
shameless hypocrites and secure sinners, says our friend Martin
Luther. Moses' mediation consisted only
in changing the tone of the law to make it more tolerable to
people. Moses was merely a mediator of the veil. He could not supply
the ability to perform the law. But our Lord Jesus Christ He
doesn't change the voice of the law at all, and he doesn't hide
it with a veil. He takes the full blast of the
wrath of the law. He fulfills it spiritually, in
thought and word and deed, absolutely perfectly. He was watched like
a hawk. Our Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world was examined for three and a half years by
the most scrupulous and meticulous legalist this world has ever
seen. He told them at the beginning
of his ministry, he said, I am God. I am God. And again and again you'll find
that he deliberately provoked them. over their law keeping
and their understanding of it as he did with Nicodemus. He
says to Nicodemus, you are the teacher of Israel, you are Israel's
leading theologian and scholar and you don't have a single clue. You do not have a single clue.
You know this book off by heart and you know nothing. You know
nothing about God and you know nothing about yourself. And they watched him, they watched
him like a hawk, they examined that lamb, they examined that
lamb. And even at the last they had
a man called Judas who'd lived with him for those three and
a half years and seen him in private, seen him in all the
situations, the normal situations of life. And even Judas, even
Judas didn't have one single accusation to make against him. I love the fact that our Lord
was examined and he was found spotless, spotless. And he took that law out of the
road. I love what Colossians 2.14 says, he blotted out the
handwriting. It means that it's on a whiteboard.
He's just erased it. So it no longer exists against
God's people. Blotting out the handwriting
of ordinances that were against us, which was contrary to us.
And he took it out of the way. And how did he take it out of
the way? He nailed it to his cross. Isn't it extraordinary that these
legalists would want that law to be got down from that place?
And to get it down from the cross and to apply it to believers,
you have to go to it and get it from the cross and you have
to wipe the blood off it so you can see it. And then you can
read it out and say to God's people, this is what you have
to be under. Shocking, isn't it? What a saviour. What a saviour. What a glorious
saviour, so much, so much greater than Moses. So the question is,
isn't it, they always come up with questions, speculative questions,
is the law against the promises of God? If the law was added
to magnify transgressions, if the law was added that sin might
become exceedingly sinful, if the law had a time constrained
on it, it was put in the hands of angels and then given to a
mediator and that mediator had to be veiled. Are then the law
and the promises contrary to one another? Does God in giving
one contradict himself? Paul's language is really strong,
isn't it? God forbid. In fact, he says
mega, no. Mighty, big, powerful, no. It's a strong language. He's horrified and detested the
thought of it. But this is a question that no
doubt I believe Paul had been asked many, many times, God forbid,
for or because if there had been a law which could have given
life Verily, righteousness should have been by the law. The law cannot give life. The law kills. The letter kills. It's administration of death,
administration of condemnation. The law doesn't justify anyone. It just magnifies sin and increases
sin. The sting of death is sin and
the strength, the power. The dynamite of sin is the law,
1 Corinthians 15, 56. The law doesn't justify increases
sin, the law doesn't secure any righteousness, in fact it hinders
righteousness. Only our triune God gives life
to dead sinners. But the law has a purpose, hasn't
it? The law has a purpose. to shut people up, to expose
their sin and to strike dead all man's hopes of any fleshly
activity. It just demands perfection and
it doesn't allow for any toleration of that at all. There is no comfort,
it gives no place of rest. As I've said so often, imagine
being under the law. You got up every morning and
you had to wonder whether you'd sinned during the night. You
had to be concerned about the clothes you put on, the pots
and pans, the mildew in your house. You had to be concerned
about where you walked and who you touched, what you ate. Everywhere was a bondage. Like
that poor lady, when the Lord Jesus, if you go back and think
of the gospel stories, how often do the Lord Jesus come to people
who under the law had to cry out like that lady for 14 years,
unclean. Every morning she woke up, unclean. All day, every day, unclean. Went to bed, unclean. Shut out from the worship of
God. Shut out from the temple. Shut
out from the community. Like the lepers. It gives no place of rest. the
lady that we looked at in Song of Solomon, the bride of the
Lord Jesus. She's looked not upon me because
I am black, because the sun has looked upon me. My mother's children
were angry with me. They made me keeper of the vineyards. She was made keeper of the vineyards,
but my own vineyard I have not kept. There's no one who can
keep their vineyard under the law. Tell me, O thou who my soul
loveth, Tell me where you feed, my husband, my saviour, and where
thou makest thy flock to rest at noon." The only rest, the only rest
was a rest that looked completely away from all of that law. and
look to the Lord Jesus. And that's why the afflictions
of those who are afflicted in the Gospels, afflicted in all
sorts of ways, are blessed afflictions, aren't they? Because there was
no remedy in the law, there was no works for them to do, they
only had one place to go. He's willing. He's so willing. It's the spirit that quickens
and gives life. The flesh profits nothing, works
under the law, profits nothing. No righteousness provides no
righteousness, it provides no sanctification, provides no peace
and provides no rest. And the Lord Jesus is only honoured
in his fulfilling of it and bearing its curse. He was made a curse. But the scripture All the Scriptures,
verse 30-22, has concluded, all under sin. It means it's shut
them up in prison. All under sin. It means all things
under sin. All that belongs to a person
is shut up. all their thoughts, all the inclinations
of their thoughts, all their deeds, all their righteousness,
it's all shut up in a prison house. Sin puts us all in a prison,
bolted and barred. And as Cole showed us with that
pamphlet, As far as this religious world is concerned, the Lord
Jesus comes along and dangles this offer in front of people.
I've done all that I can. I love you. You can get out of
the prison. Here's the ransom. You just have to do something. Not according to this book. Not according to this gospel. What does Romans 3.19 say? All shut up on the scene. Trapped. Imprisoned on the scene. Now we know that whatever the
law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every
mouth may be stopped, every mouth may be shut up, that every mouth
may stop boasting about any righteousness they have ever done. ever can
do, ever will do. Every mouth may be stopped and
all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the
deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for
by the law is the knowledge of sin." sin imprisons everyone, all mouths
may be shut. And the scriptures, the promises
of the Gospel are to the weary and the heavy laden, the thirsty
and the needy, the ones who have to cry out about themselves,
unclean, unclean. And in the gospel narratives,
if you remember, when the Lord Jesus met the Pharisees, he told
them with blunt simplicity what their state was and who he was. And he just walked away from
the self-righteous. And he found the lost and the
helpless, the ones who the law cast out, The scripture has concluded all
under sin, the scripture has shut up in prison all under sin,
in all the things they've ever done, that the promise. by faith
of Jesus Christ. It's the promise of life, the
promise of salvation, the promise of the Spirit through faith that
in this context here it's the righteousness that justifies
us, declares us in the court of God to be perfectly innocent. perfectly free from sin, declares
us in God's court to be holy, as holy as he is holy. It's a promise by the faith of
Jesus Christ, by His faith, by His faithfulness, that it might
be given to them. It might be given, not earned,
not merited, not given as a reward. It's graced. It might be graced
to them that believe. Salvation is a gift. Salvation is the fulfilment of
a promise made. A promise made to the Lord Jesus
and a promise made to all that He represents and all that are
in Him is given to them that believe. Abraham believed God
and it was credited to him for righteousness. The law is a prison. It just shows how desperate and
hopeless and helpless the state we're in. It magnifies sin, it
reveals sin, it shows us that we need to be forgiven much.
Those who are forgiven much, love much. He is faithful. It is one of his names, isn't
it? Faithful is our God. He is God. The faithful God. The Lord Jesus is described as
having righteousness as His girdle of His loins and faithfulness
the girdle of His reins. His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great
is Thy faithfulness. He is faithful. The One that
is promised is faithful and true. The Lord Jesus is portrayed so
sadly before so many people as a lawgiver and a law enforcer
and a rewarder for those who perform their deeds. I love that first sermon of his
in Nazareth. He quoted from Isaiah 61 and
he said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He took the scroll
and he opened it to this place. The Spirit of the Lord God is
upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings
to the meek. He has sent me to bind up the
broken hearted. to proclaim liberty to the captives
and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. Bound by law is prison. The opening
of the prison, not the attempted opening of the prison. The binding
up of the brokenhearted to proclaim the acceptable year of the law,
the year of jubilee, the year of release and freedom and the
day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn, to
appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give them beauty
for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise
for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees
of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, His work entirely,
that He might be glorified. In this day of so much apostasy
and so much misunderstanding of these simple simple words
that we've read, I love the next chapter of Isaiah. He says, For
Zion's sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake
I will not rest, until righteousness thereof go forth as brightness,
and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. And the
Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory, and
thou shalt be called a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shalt
name. Thou shalt also be a crown of
glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand
of thy God. Thou shalt no more be termed
forsaken, neither shalt thy land any more be termed desolate.
But thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah, for the
Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shalt be married. For
as a young man marrieth a virgin, So shall thy sons marry thee,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall thy
God rejoice over thee. So different from the law, isn't
it, the gospel he proclaims. I have set watchmen upon thy
walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day or
night. Ye that make mention of the Lord,
keep not silence. and give him no rest. Go to his
throne of grace and give him no rest, till he establish, till
he make Jerusalem. a praise in the earth. What a
great and glorious God we have. What an amazing gospel. Law-free,
grace-filled, Christ-honouring. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we thank you again that you, in your mercy and grace to us,
took your early church and those believers so much separated from
their beloved apostle. And you took them through such
pains and such trials that we might have this remarkable testimony
which is as fresh and as clear and as needful today as it was
nearly 2000 years ago. We pray to You, Heavenly Father,
for He who is the recipient of the promises and we thank You
for Your dear and precious Son coming and we pray, Heavenly
Father, that You would cause us to ponder again what it cost
Him that we might have freedom and liberty to be called your
children today. O our Father, help us not to
take ever lightly the fact that he was made a curse and he was
made sin, the sin that we so rightly earn by our own actions
and the curse that rightly fell upon us, and yet, in perfect
justice, it all fell upon your dear and precious son. He bore
that curse, and he bore our sins away, and we can never ever bear
them again. We praise you, Heavenly Father,
for the glorious gospel of free and sovereign grace. We praise
you for what that gospel makes sinners like us to be, people
in whom you delight, Our Father. cause us to be thankful and cause
us to have our eyes fixed on who is the author and the finisher
and the sole object of our faith. We praise you for your precious
son, our father. Amen.