So here we have Paul giving more
of his history, giving his history to these Galatian believers who
had been troubled. And one of the wonderful things
about the New Testament letters is we actually have the history
of living churches who were troubled and the troubles were troubles
and trials and persecutions that continued again and again and
again and continued in the early church for the first 300 years.
Every generation of Christians knew other Christians who were
persecuted and suffered, and multitudes of them died for the
faith. But such is the way God grows
and preserves and protects and strengthens His people. We read in 2 Thessalonians how
the persecutions in a trial are a manifest token of the righteous
judgment of God, that you might be counted worthy. So Paul goes
up to Jerusalem. He's recounting an incident that
Galatians had been plagued in the same way that the churches
in Antioch had been plagued. We turn briefly back to Acts
15. We'll look more at some of this
more closely later on, Lord willing. The people in Galatia, in Galatia
Chapter 2, claimed that they were from James, that they'd
actually come, they'd come with the authority, as it were, of
the Jerusalem church. And in verse 15, the same thing
had happened earlier. And certain men which came from
Judea taught the brethren and said, except you be circumcised
after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. When therefore
Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with
him, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain other
of them should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders
about this question. And being brought on their way
by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, declaring
the conversion of the Gentiles, and they caused great joy unto
all the brethren. But when they came to Jerusalem,
they were received of the church and of the apostles and elders
and they declared all the things God had done with them, but there
rose up a certain sect. That word sect is the word that
we often use for heresy, it means a choosing. They had chosen a
path, a path apart from the apostles, even though they claimed to be
believers, saying, They claim to be believers, saying that
it is needful to circumcise them and command them to keep the
law of Moses. And the apostles and elders came
together for to consider this matter. And so the people who
had troubled and were troubling the Galatian believers and causing
Paul in verse 6 to marvel, to marvel that they are so soon
removed removed from a person, removed from Him that called
you into the grace of Christ. In verse 7, they come to pervert,
to poison, to corrupt the gospel of Christ. They come to trouble
the believers. Satan is always at work. The work that he was doing in
Jerusalem with these people was a work that had spread to Antioch,
had spread to Galatia, we'll see in other letters in the New
Testament, spread across the waters into Europe, into Greece.
It was just an ongoing activity. Satan is always at work. Paul is troubled. He's troubled
because he loves them. He's troubled because he cares
for them. It's love, it's love for them
and love for their souls and love for the Lord Jesus that
motivates him and causes him to use such strong language.
In verse 1 of chapter 3 he says, O foolish Galatians, who has
bewitched you that you should not obey the truth? And he describes his gospel,
"...and before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently set
forth, crucified among you." Over in chapter 4 he says to
them, Now that after you, verse 9 of chapter 4, now that after
you have known God, or rather are known of God, God knows His
people, how turn you again to weak, to the weak and beggarly
elements, whereunto you desire again to be in bondage. What an amazing way to speak
about the Mosaic law. He says later on, where is the
blessedness, verse 15, where is the blessedness, where is
the rejoicing that you had spoken of? They are rejoicing in the
Gospel and their self-sacrificial desire, they would have plucked
out their eyes to give them to Paul. And they zealously, they
are zealous, they're always working, they zealously affect you, but
not well. They would exclude you, exclude
you from apostolic fellowship, exclude you from gospel. community. In verse 20 of chapter
4 he says, I stand in doubt. I stand in doubt of you. They had, verse 7 of chapter
5, they had run will. Who did hinder you that you should
not obey the truth? So these false brethren had come
from Jerusalem to Antioch and had gone all the way up to Galatia. And Paul, after these 14 years, he went
up, verse 2, he went up by revelation. He went up with a revelation
from God. If Jerusalem is the source of
the problems, then he must go to the source. But Paul always
seems to go in motivation being moved by revelation of God. He
goes across from modern day Turkey to Greece because a vision of
a man from Macedonia called him over there. God continually led
Paul in his first missionary journey. They were set aside
and set apart from the church at Antioch by the Holy Spirit
to go on that missionary journey. So here he goes, he doesn't want
to go as Paul the man he wants to go, as Paul the apostle, and
he goes by revelation. And he goes to Jerusalem. He wanted to communicate. He
wanted again, as he had said earlier in verse 7, he went up
to Jerusalem in chapter 1 verse 7. This is his second visit to
Jerusalem. He goes up there again and he
went And did what is right. The story of these men is that
it's coming from the apostles, from James, this false gospel,
this law-keeping gospel, this denial of justification by faith. And he goes to them privately
to establish privately amongst them what they really believed
and what is really the truth. And then having established that
private communication with them and he proclaimed to them the
Gospel that he preached among the Gentiles. He then, the church at Jerusalem
was gathered together and they have what we have in Acts 15,
the Jerusalem Council which we'll look at, Lord willing, in time
to come. He's concerned, isn't he? He's
concerned that the truth of the Gospel might come and so he uses
revelation of God and he's moved by God to have this private discussion
with him and then to have this public meeting. And he takes
Titus along with him. And there's Titus, a Greek who
had worked with him and preached the Gospel alongside him. And
he takes Titus with him. In a sense, it's a test, isn't
it? If you Jerusalem churches are preaching circumcision, here's
a man to circumcise. If Titus was circumcised, the
truth of the Gospel would no longer have been in the Jerusalem
churches. You see, Paul had no doubt. He had no question whatsoever
that his Gospel was the real Gospel. He didn't go to Jerusalem
the first time to check with Peter and James and John to see
whether he was right. He knew the Gospel he proclaimed. It had been confirmed to him
again and again by revelation of God. He went there to give
a history. He went there to give a history
and get acquainted with them. He didn't go there to get their
approval. They did give it to him because
God's people, God's preachers see eye to eye. And I think that's what he's
saying when he had run in vain. When the Gospel is perverted
and people have lost the Gospel, he says in verse 4 of chapter
5, he says, Christ has become of none effect from you. People that have moved away from
faith and moved away from grace, For them Christ has become of
no effect. If you seek to have any justification
by the law, you have fallen from grace. Paul's not saying that
any of his activities are in vain. He says in 1 Corinthians
15 that all of our labour in the Lord is not vain. It's never
empty. What it can be is it can end
up being empty in the lives of those who look as if they are
the genuine believers and look as if they act with great zeal. And yet in times of trouble and
persecution, in times of being battered by false teachings,
they can be led away. Paul has no doubt about the preservation
of the saints of God because God, our great God, has promised
His need. The Father has given them to
me. They are in my hands and they are in the Father's hands
and no one can pluck them out of His hands. in eternity as
the father's precious gift to his son. And the son took that
bride to himself with great delight and entered into that eternal
covenant as surety at that point. He took absolute full responsibility
for her completely. That's what it is to be justified,
isn't it? I stand before the holy law of God. completely and perfectly justified. I stand before the Holy Lord
God completely and perfectly sanctified without sins. Verse 4 of chapter 1 he says
he gave himself for our sins, on behalf of our sins, to take
away our sins. We are the children of God redeemed. You see, if I could lose my salvation,
if I could do something to lose it, then I must have to do something
to keep it. I must have to do something to
keep it. And if I have to do something
to keep it, salvation is no longer of grace. Salvation is of works. And once you start working, you'll
never finish working. If salvation is by works of any
degree, those who know their own hearts know they wouldn't
be kept for a millisecond. We're called, I love how he says
it, he's called us into the grace of Christ. He calls Paul by his
grace. He calls his people into the
grace. He has no doubt about those realities. But the gospel, the truth of
the gospel can leave and it can fail to continue. History has
shown us again and again it can fail to continue in an individual,
it can fail to continue in a church, and those letters in Revelation
are remarkable warnings, remarkable encouragements about God's preservation
of His church in Christ Jesus. but in the Ephesians he challenges
them that they have left their first love. In Sardis they have
a name, a reputation, a reputation that they live. The Laodiceans
are lukewarm and Christ threatens to vomit them out of his mouth. So they were They were Gospel
churches. They were places where God in
His grace and mercy had brought the Gospel and salvation had
come and gloriously come. And those churches have been
gathered and knitted together and we rejoice to think of how
they are bound together. They are bound together with
joints and sinews and they grow with the growth that is from
God. They are protected and they are preserved. For a time, for
a time, brothers and sisters, there is no church, I believe,
on this earth that will continue and continue and continue through
generations after generations. They exist for a time, for a
group of people. Man or preserved institutions,
the Roman Catholic Church has grown bigger and bigger for the
last 1700 years, grown more and more blasphemous. There are many,
many other denominations that continue. But real churches,
real churches are raised up for a season and for a time and for
a specific group of people. to hear that message, to bear
witness to Christ in their time and in their area. What a remarkable
miracle the Gospel is, what a remarkable miracle it is when it takes root.
And God grows it. May God cause us to be humbled
and cause us to be thankful. The challenge was, wasn't it,
that these men had to keep the law of Moses and the means of
entering into the law of Moses was through circumcision. But
he says in verse 3, that neither Titus, who was with me being
a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. Titus, these people were saying
this to Titus in Antioch. Here you are Paul, here you are
proclaiming this freedom and here you are with this man who
isn't circumcised. The challenge of law-keeping
and doing is an incredibly pervasive thing, isn't it? It's only through
the scriptures that we see through the mask that these people wear
in their zeal for law-keeping. We read in chapter 6, he says,
as many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain
you to be circumcised. And they do it, they do it lest
they suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. But they do
it, in the very next verse, they do it as hypocrisy, don't they? See, they don't keep it themselves. They come as false brethren. Verse 4, because of false brethren. They come under the guise of
brethren. They are as the ones in Acts
15. They say they are believers,
and yet they compel people to come back under the law of Moses. And they would be saying, to
get into Paul's church you must look like Paul. To have a position
of authority and have that influence in a place like Antioch where
Barnabas and Paul and Titus and these other men are, you must,
in terms of morality and you must in terms of a whole lot
of doctrine, look like Paul. So they must have been saying
things like, I know salvation is all of grace and I know salvation
is all of Christ, but here is how we express it. Here is how we express it. Here is how we reveal how thankful
and how grateful we are to God. Here is how we honour Him. We hear it all the time, don't
we? Practical Christianity. I was an expert in it before
I went to India. Practical Christianity. You used to get together privately
and with other people in groups and you would encourage them
as much as you possibly could by the things that you were doing.
You'd talk about all of your Bible reading and your prayer
and your witnessing and your other things and then you'd say,
oh brothers, this is how it is, isn't it? This is how it is. This is how it's expressed practically. And keeping the law, keeping
God's law, how could it be wrong? to go back and look at the law
and say, all of these are the things that I must do. For the
Jews who had been trapped in it, bound in it, in bondage to
it for 1500 years, it must have seemed the most extraordinary
thing to actually have to turn away from all of that law that
they had been there with. that law that threatened them
when they disobeyed it, that law that promised them blessings
when they did obey it. And here is Paul saying that
I am crucified with Christ. For through the law I am dead
to the law that I might live unto God. And they were saying
it just makes common sense. It's common sense and it's practical. Surely the law is good. Surely
the law is a good rule of life. Surely the law is a good rule
of conduct. Look at our moral lives. Look
at our zeal. We just haven't stayed in Jerusalem.
We've travelled over land and sea. We've travelled to Galatia,
we've travelled to Turkey, we've travelled to Greece. We've travelled
through the ends of the earth. Look at our zeal." The Lord Jesus made it very clear,
didn't he? He said, the straight gate, and
immediately he says, beware of false prophets. He says that
grievous wolves, in Acts 20, Paul with tears, he spent three
years with tears, warning the Ephesians that the grievous wolves,
they'll come from within the flock. There will be, 2 Peter 2, there
will be false prophets. There will be false prophets.
And they are brought in unawares. They are false brethren brought
in unawares. Who brought them in? Satan brought
them in. Blinded they were. They are deceitful workers according
to 2 Corinthians 11. And it's no wonder Satan masquerades
as an angel of light. An angel of light. And see, Satan
can only operate where the Gospel is revealed. He comes and he
finds that place and he finds a source of enraged enmity where
the Gospel is preached. Do you think he's cared two hoots
about the Roman Catholic Church for the last 1700 years? He despises them for their corruption
and their weakness and their duplicity and their hypocrisy. But where the Gospel is preached,
And the Gospel came to this earth in the form of the Lord Jesus
Himself, who is the Gospel. Satan was immediately enraged. And the Lord Jesus went out to
meet him in that temptation in the desert. And such has been
the case with the churches throughout time. It is a warning that we must
heed to, isn't it? We must be so thankful. We must
be so thankful that New Testament has given us such a clear history
of the Church and a clear history of the response of God's servants. They come proclaiming circumcision
and all that follows us and then they'll say, I'll show you my
faith in action. by my law-keeping. I'll show
you my obedience to God by my circumcision and by my law-keeping."
The essence, isn't it, is the denial of the perfect and finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ, a denial of justification by
faith. Luther said the Church stands
or falls on that one doctrine, justification by the faith. Justification by the faithfulness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the calling of grace. It's
a calling into grace. And a calling into grace is a
calling that causes people to find themselves at rest in who
the Lord Jesus is and what He has done. It's a biblical term,
isn't it? Justification by faith. We can
conclude that a man is justified by faith. without the deeds of
the law, justified before God, declared just by God Himself. What does it mean? What does
justification by faith mean? One thing clearly that it does
not mean, and never can mean in the scriptures, is that justification
is a reward or a response to your faith. Justification by
faith is justification by the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We're justified by faith without
the deeds of the law. We're justified, as Galatians
2.16 says, justified by the faithfulness, the faithfulness If your translation
doesn't say it, get a pen and change it. It's the faithfulness
of Jesus Christ, not our faith in Him, His faithfulness. You
see, justification by faith is that gift of believing that justification
is accomplished entirely by the Lord Jesus Christ, by Him 100%
without anything to do with what I have done, justified perfectly. I love what Romans 4.25 says,
isn't it? He was put to death because of
our sins, He was raised because of our justification. When were
God's people justified? They were justified in eternity
in their surety and they were justified in time by the Lord
Jesus in a manifest way. Justification has to be outside
of anything that I ever have done, anything that I am doing
right now and anything that I will do. You see, justification is
what the judge declares me to be because of what the Lord Jesus
Christ has done. It's what the judge says. The
judge says no sin. The judge says perfect righteousness. The judge says holy, spotless,
Unreprovable and unblameable in His sight. That's justification
by faith, isn't it? He gave Himself for our sins. He gave Himself on behalf of
our sins. That means that I don't have
any sins to be condemned for. Christ Jesus took them as His
own. He was made sin for us by His
Father. He was made sin and having been
made sin He was punished. He was punished by the full extent
of the justice of God until God's justice says the sins are completely
paid for. They are gone. That's why God
doesn't have to remember them anymore. He's not playing let's
pretend. with justification and sanctification. He's not saying I'm going to
pretend that they are righteous even though I know they are terribly
wicked. God is holy. What He declares
is true. We have to live in this world,
we live in this world in this body of flesh, in this body of
flesh. So often so often feels that
when we've done some gracious work, when some activity has
been performed, that there is some special comfort and pleasure. Extraordinary thing, isn't it?
Here we are with God's Word in our laps and here we are with
God's Word being read and I trust by the grace of God faithfully
expounded to us. The number of times I leave having
done this speaking on God's behalf and I turn when I'm finished
and I think, wouldn't it be nice if someone patted me on the back.
Isn't it ridiculous? I was so pleased when I read
Henry Mayan say that that is something that troubles him.
It is God's truth. It doesn't make one tiny little
bit of difference to my justification before God, whether I preach
the most amazing sermon and millions jump up and down and say how
well it is, or I preach to two or three, or if I stumble and
stagger and like Paul I come to people with much fear and
trembling. That's what he's saying, isn't
it? I'm dead to the law, I'm dead to works that I might live
for God. So to live simply upon the Lord
Jesus as head of His body is to acknowledge Him as all that
God has made Him to be. All of our wisdom is Him. All of our righteousness, all
of our sanctification, all of our redemption is in Him. It's
not in what I feel. It's not in what I've experienced.
Our justification sits on the throne in heaven. Our justification
bears in that body that's in heaven now the words that proclaim
His death. proclaim His resurrection, which
proclaims our justification, and it's in heaven, brothers
and sisters. It can't be touched. It can't be corrupted by the
things of this world. It can't be corrupted by the
things of my flesh. And it can't be added to by the
things of my flesh. I've been crucified with Christ,
nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and
the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by Thee faith,
His faithfulness, the faith of the Son of God who loved me and
gave himself for me." That's love. That's love. That's justification. Anyone,
anyone, even yourself, who comes along to you and says, you must
do something to add to it, is a false brethren. Anyone who says that the Lord
Jesus has done as much as he can possibly do and now it's
over to you to polish the work and to finish the work and to
make it look more worthy before men. It's mixing, isn't it? It's mixing law and grace. It's mixing the eternal covenant
in the blood of the Lord Jesus with the Mosaic covenant that
was given on Mount Sinai. We don't go back to Mount Sinai. Elijah ran all the way back to
Mount Sinai after he was troubled after the events of Mount Carmel.
And God said to him, what are you doing down here? You're not
going to get to heaven from Mount Sinai, Elijah. You'll go back
across the Jordan and you'll be carried to heaven in God's
chariot from the promised land. You see, those who mix the two
have absolutely no idea of either of them. Those who promote law
keeping and law works have absolutely no idea that the law of God is
holy, that God demands not just that you try and do your best,
God demands absolute 100% perfection. That's what the Sermon on the
Mount, in the Lord Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount is just
showing that the law is holy and the law is spiritual. If you have looked lustfully,
you have committed adultery. If you have been angry, you have
committed murder. God requires absolute 100% holy
perfection 100% of the time. And so those who want to put
people back under the law, find themselves wanting to make a
fair share of the flesh and finding themselves hypocrites because
they never ever have kept one. They have never kept a single
law. There is only one person who
has ever walked this earth who has ever kept any of the law
of God and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. God's children love God's
law. They read those chapters of the
Giving and the Law and they read them with delight. They find
them comforting. And God's children hate sin. They hate the sin that's in their
flesh. They hate the sin which pollutes
so much of their lives. They never hate it enough and
they never see all of it. And for those who say, shouldn't
we try and keep the law? Isn't it right to be pure? Isn't
it right not to covet? Isn't it right not to lie? Isn't it right to model our lives
after the law of God? What does the scripture say?
As many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. It's extraordinary, isn't it?
In Romans 4, 20, 14, 23, it says, Whatsoever is not of faith is
seen. Whatsoever is not of faith is
seen. And Galatians 3, 12 says, The
law is not of faith. So how? How do I honour God's
holy law? How do I honour it? How do I
keep God's holy law? I look to Him. I look to Him. I love what it says in Isaiah
42, He magnified and He honoured the law of God. He kept it. He kept it. He kept it as holy. He kept it as glorious. He kept
it as spiritual. He kept it as physical. He kept
it perfectly. Why do you think in the scriptures
he's going back to Jerusalem again and again? He went back there because the scriptures,
the law demanded that the men of Israel went back there three
times a year. Why was he circumcised on the
8th day? He kept the law as a baby. He kept the law perfectly and
all of his bride, all of those united to him, I've kept it perfectly. Kept it absolutely perfectly. See I don't try to keep God's
law. I've kept it. I've kept it perfectly. I've
kept it so perfectly that God is pleased with my keeping of
it. I've kept it by looking to Him. I've kept it in Him. Sin shall
not have dominion over you. Surely the law stops you from
roaming into sin. Surely the law is a great way
of putting a hedge around people. And Paul in Romans 6 has got
the perfect opportunity to put people back under the law. He's
talked about walking in newness of life. And he's answering the
question. He was charged again and again
and again with being anti-Namian, being anti-law. In fact in Romans
3 he's charged with the accusation that let's do evil that good
may come. If our works have got nothing
to do with our justification and nothing to do with our sanctification,
then we can just live as we like. That was the slanderous accusation
that was being brought against him. Wherever the Gospel is preached,
antinomianism is going to be the charge. We do not keep the
law. We do not honour the law of God.
We've had them come into our meetings, we've had discussions
with them, and it's extraordinary the way they carry on, actually
believing that they do it, actually believing that they can. do it. Believing that they can keep
it. Believing that it keeps them from sin. And in Romans 6, Paul
makes this remarkable statement. He says, what shall we say then
in verse 1? He says, shall we continue in
sin that grace may abound? If our sins continue and look
bigger and bigger and bigger, then grace has got to be bigger. Shall we continue in sin? What
then, verse 15, shall we sin because we're not under law but
under grace? Dive to bid. But verse 14 is a remarkable
verse. Just look at it with me. For
sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law
but under grace. Sin shall not have dominion over
you. The law is established. How do we live this life? How do we live this life? We
look to Christ. How do we give? We look to the
Lord Jesus. How do we treat our neighbours? We look to the Lord Jesus. How
do we care for people? We look to the Lord Jesus. Do
we make void the law through faith? God forbid, yea, we establish
the law. The only people who establish
the law are those who are looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. The
others make a fair show of the flesh. The others are zealous
and they are workers. They work and work and work.
and they're hypocrites. God says they're hypocrites.
They do not keep it, they do not do it, they do not honour
it, and they do not honour the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 4, they
creep in. How do these false teachers act?
They come in by stealth. They come in like the wolves
in sheep's clothing. They come in looking as if they
really are sheep, which is why Paul calls them brethren. They
are false brethren. They are unawares, brought in,
and they come in to spy out our liberty. They spy out the freedom
The freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, the freedom that is the
possession of God's children, they are made free, free by the
Lord Jesus Christ, free to love Him, free to serve Him, free
to delight in Him, free to delight in His Word. They come in and
they cannot stand the fact that these people are free. They come that they might bring
us, verse 4, they might bring us into bondage. They come ultimately as wolves
in sheep's clothing. They come to take away the truth
that's in the Lord Jesus Christ. They come by stealth. So there's
no place in the Church of God is there for any devious activities
at all. What we do is open surely before
all men. There is no need for us to have
secret meetings and have little groups. We don't have to establish
something here on earth. We are simply here to proclaim
the Gospel. and leave God to do the rest.
We don't have to create an institution, we don't have to create entertainment.
We're just here, we're here for one purpose, to see Him high
and lifted up, to see Him glorified. But He might increase, as John
said, and I might decrease. Don't lie to one another, says
Colossians 3. Just be what we are. I'm just
a poor sinner and nothing at all. Jesus Christ is my all in
all, just and pure sinner. They come in the name of brethren. They were in the Jerusalem church
in the name of brethren. They were in Antioch in the name
of brethren. They were all the way to Galatia
in the name of brethren. They came to spy. Isn't it extraordinary? They came to sneak in and spy
on the freedom that we have. So they can't stand freedom. They can't stand the liberty. They say, if I'm not constrained. As someone said, I love to be
reminded of all the things that I have to do. I love that church
reminds me of all the things that I have to do. And then they think they can
do them. They say, if I didn't have the law, if I didn't have
the law to rule over me, I'd just live as I wanted to live.
I would just sin freely without constraint. And they reveal their
true hearts. They want to bring you into bondage.
They want to bring you actually into their bondage. The Lord
Jesus made that remarkable statement in John 8.31. He said, the truth
shall make you free. You'll know the truth and the
truth shall make you free. It's not your knowledge of the
truth or your doing of the truth that makes you free. It's the
truth himself that makes you free. As he said, anyone who sins is
a slave to sin. But if the Son shall make you
free, you shall be free indeed. What a glorious freedom the Gospel
brings, that God the Father looks to His Son. and is gloriously
satisfied in looking to his son for all that he ever requires
of me." That's gospel, isn't it? Is it good news? See, it's
good news for sinners. It's good news for sinners who
have nothing. It's good news for sinners who
have, like Paul, been knocked off their high horse of their
self-righteousness and put in the dust. It's good news for
those sinners who are blind to be given light again. It's good
news for those sinners who've been captive by their sins to
be set free. Complete. It's finished. There's nothing for me to do.
How complete are God's children? We'll close. I love these verses
in Colossians. I'm so thankful that the Lord
led us into Colossians in the first sermon series we did as
a church. Verse 10 of Colossians 2 says
that you are complete. Complete in Him. Perfectly complete. How complete are you? Well the
same word is used in the previous verse. It says, for in him dwells
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. How much fullness? How
much fullness dwelt? How much of the fullness of the
Godhead dwelt in Jesus Christ? All of the fullness. How complete?
How complete are God's children? Perfectly complete in him. Paul finishes by saying that
he wants the truth of the Gospel to continue with you. The truth of the Gospel. The
truth of the Gospel is remarkable, isn't it? It's the truth about
who God is. The Gospel reveals all of the
character of God. The Gospel reveals all of the
character of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospel reveals
all of the character of God in the Lord Jesus Christ on the
cross. If you want to see the love of
God, you go to the cross. If you want to see the sovereignty
of God, you go to the cross. If you want to see the grace
of God, you go outside Jerusalem and look at that Saviour. If
you want to see his love for his bride, you go there. If you want to see yourself,
the greatest enemy we have is the enemy of our own self-righteousness. We think we are something when
we are nothing. The only way you really see who
you are as a sinner is in light of the cross of the Lord Jesus.
And dare we think that if we had been there we wouldn't have
done what they have done to him. That is where sin is exposed. That is where humanity is exposed. Religious, self-righteous, moral
humanity is exposed. And gloriously the Gospel shows
us how God saves sinners. What a remarkable salvation,
purposed in eternity, guaranteed Perfectly secure are all of God's
people. Perfectly provided for are all
of His churches. including the persecutions that
they go through, including the activities of the false brethren.
How much has the Church benefited from the New Testament letters
in the last 2,000 years? The Church didn't need the New
Testament letters to be established. All it needed was the Old Testament
Scriptures. That's all they had. They proclaimed
Him from the Scriptures. But the New Testament letters
have been glorious, haven't they? But the New Testament letters
have come to us because false brethren have gone into those
churches. And God has raised up men, men
like Paul and others, to stand opposed. You see, whenever an
error of the Gospel arises, how long do you wait? How long do
you wait to have a discussion? Paul in verse 5 says he didn't
give subjection, he wasn't going to be subjected to them, he wasn't
going to allow them to have a place at the table of discussion. He
wasn't going to have a debate with these people. He opposed
them. He opposed them immediately. He opposed them passionately.
He didn't want the people he loved to think that this notion,
this notion, this blasphemous notion deserved even a hearing. No, not for an hour. How does the truth of the Gospel
continue? It continues by the grace of
God. The truth of the Gospel continues
by us believing. It just simply continues by us
taking God at His word and being led by Him to look away from
ourselves and look to His glorious Son. See him in eternity making
those amazing promises. See him in life, in history,
living that remarkable life. Did he ever turn anyone away
who came to him in need? never once a friend of sinners. See Him on the cross. See Him
in that tomb. See Him resurrected. See Him
sitting on that throne. Rely on Him. Stand fast, says Paul. In the Lord shall all the seed
of Israel be justified. in the Lord shall all the seed
of Israel be justified and shall glory. May he cause us to glory
in him. Let's pray.