All right, brethren, let's turn in our Bibles back to Galatians chapter two. Galatians chapter two. I know that we looked at this last time we were in Galatians. Every fourth weekend I'm preaching from Galatians to the brethren in the Philippines, and I wanna preach it to you again. I know we were here in the early 20s, but I was so, so distracted, and I wanna go through this with you again. So once a month, I'm gonna preach from Galatians. So I know last month we were here. I ended by looking at these two verses last time. I wanna just look at these verses alone this time.

Verse 19, Galatians 2, 19. I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. In the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

If you had to say what is the preeminent purpose of God for sending his son and for Christ going to the cross, what would you say? What is the glory of God revealed at the cross? is the righteousness of God. In Romans 3, he said he set Christ forth a propitiation, an expiating sacrifice, atonement-making offering, a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins. To declare, I say, his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth.

See, God is, he's just, he's righteous, and he's just in that he crucifies those he saves. We die, according to the law, because we deserve it. We've earned it. and he's righteous in his mercy to us. He's righteous in saving us because in Christ he justified us. The purpose of the cross is to show God is the just judge who always judges right. It's always righteous judgment. Everything he does is righteous. His love toward his people is righteous. It's not this sentimental whatever that the world preaches. It's righteous love. He loves us in Christ. It's righteous justification. It's righteous mercy.

Now, how are true believers, you that are born of God, how are true saints dead to the law? That's what he says we are. Paul says, I through the law am dead to the law that I might live unto God. See, we'll never live to God until he makes us know we are dead to the law. You can read in Hebrews 10, if God had purged their conscience to know he had put away all their sin by those sacrifices, they'd have stopped offering them because once purged, You have no more need to offer. So we can't live unto God, stop minding the law, stop minding our flesh, stop minding what we do and really live to God until God makes us know we're dead to law, dead to the law. There's no more offering for us to make for our sin.

How are we dead to the law? Well, it's through the law. I threw the law. The law had to be honored. And the law bears witness of Christ, bearing witness that it has been honored. I, through the law, am dead to the law. How did that happen? I am crucified with Christ.

The first part of this sermon, we're gonna look at justification. This is what it is. I am crucified with Christ. Being made righteous, I am crucified with Christ. The second half of this psalm, we're gonna look at sanctification. I live, yet not I, Christ lives in me. It's all by Christ.

How are we dead to the law? I am crucified with Christ. I really spent some time trying to think how I could say this. I'm saying the same thing I preach to you all the time, Think, how can I say this to make this clear? Before time, God elected a people to salvation in Christ. Now, we know that. We know the scriptures declare that. But I want you to understand it this way. Our new man, that new man that is spiritual, that new man that is entirely of Christ, That new man that will be with God in glory one day, in body, soul, and spirit, the entire creation of Christ. Our new man, when God elected to save us, our new man was in Christ. Was in Christ. That new creation that we are when we're born of the incorruptible seed, the word of God, Christ himself, that new man was in Christ. We were in Christ from before the world was made. We would eventually be born of Christ the Word. The new man would be born. But when God chose us in Christ, our new man was in Christ himself. Mysterious. Can't explain that, but it's so. We were in him. We were united in him.

And then in time, God made Adam our head. and we were in Adam. We were in Adam. What was in Adam? Our earthly man was in Adam. Our fleshly man was in Adam. We would be born of Adam's seed one day and we would be a human being. We would be fleshly, an earthly body, a human body. That man was in Adam in the garden. We were in Adam in the garden. So Christ was the head of our new man, which he will create. Adam was the head of our fleshly man, which is of Adam. That's so, now for Adam, all people were in Adam, because we all came from Adam. That's how we know that. We were all in Adam. We were all in Adam.

Now, I want you to see Hebrews 7. and what that means concerning Christ and concerning Adam. What does that mean? Here's how real it is. This is how real it is. And this is what the Hebrew writer is declaring. This is what the Spirit of God's declaring right here. The same message I'm preaching to you, but I just want to look at one verse to make it clear, make it simple. Verse nine, Hebrews 7, 9. He says, as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, paid tithes in Abraham, for he was yet in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him. That's what it is to be in Christ and in Adam. Levi was in Abraham when Abraham met miss Melchizedek and when he paid tithes to Melchizedek God says Levi paid tithes in Abraham. He really paid tithes to Melchizedek That's that's what it is to be in our father We were in our new man God's elect were in Christ our fleshly man was in Adam was in Adam That's how God sees it.

God gave that one law in the garden. And I've tried to preach this like this before, and I'm preaching it this way because this is how Paul's declaring it. He said, I am crucified with Christ. So now you go to the garden, and you realize that when God gave that one law to Adam, God gave that one law to you. You were in the garden, and God gave you that one law. Adam broke that one law, you broke that one law. That's so of everybody without exception, because we all came from Adam. Adam represented us all. Headship means all who would be born of Adam, he represented. We sinned in Adam, we broke God's law in Adam.

Now go with me to Romans 5, and I wanna show you what God says about that, Romans 5. We became guilty, we sinned and we became guilty in Adam. Now look what he says here in Romans 5.12. Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered the world, and death by sin. So, that means for that reason, for this cause, death passed upon all men. God imputed sin to us. He imputed unrighteousness to us because we sinned in Adam. And then we would be born of Adam so we'd be unholy in our nature. Death passed upon us. God imputed sin to us because we sinned in Adam.

Look, for that in Adam all have sinned. Now, I want you to hold right here just for a minute. When God imputed sin to Adam, he did it because Adam was sin according to the law. Adam was unrighteous according to the law, so God imputed sin to him. That's what he's declaring in the next verse, and this is vital to get a real, the traditional teaching of imputation that men have received through the year is not scriptural, brethren. It's not God charging you and treating you as if. God, that wouldn't be righteous. it wouldn't be righteous. If that was so, there would have been no point in Christ having to be made flesh or suffering the cross. If imputation is just God treating you as if you're something, he could have just imputed righteousness to us and been done with it.

But God's imputation is just. It's what a man is according to the law. That's what he's teaching in the next two verses. He's gonna support what he said in verse 12 and show how God is just to impute sin to us.

Look at this, verse 13. For until the law, that is until God gave the law at Sinai, from the garden till then, sin was in the world. But sin is not imputed when there is no law. Now that tells you how God imputes. God does not impute sin unless a man is sin according to the law. That calls God's righteous judge. But, look at the next word, nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses. Those folks that lived between Adam and Moses sinned and death reigned. That means God, they were born of Adam, they were corrupt in their nature, they were guilty, and God imputed sin to them. Even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression. If you read Gil, he'll say this has to do with babies, but what it's talking about in the context is God gave Adam a clear law that Adam knew he had. If you eat of that one tree, you transgress, you're gonna die. But from Adam to Moses, God did not give another law. Now he made, there's some exception to that. He did give Noah a law, but by and large, God gave no law from Adam to Moses. So when they sinned and God imputed sin to them and death reigned, how was God just to impute sin to them? The point he's making is verse 12. In Adam, we really did sin. And so God imputed sin to us because we really sinned in Adam. That's the point. That is the point of this.

And here's why it's so good to understand this, brethren, is because Adam was the figure of Christ to come in headship. Go with me to Leviticus chapter 17. I don't want to just tell you this about imputation based on one verse. I want to show you another verse, at least one more.

Leviticus 17. and look at verse three. In this chapter, God is saying that if a man kills an animal outside of the camp, he's to bring the blood and make an offering to the Lord to acknowledge the Lord gave it to him, and if he doesn't, he's guilty. Now watch this. I'm just gonna try to read as little as I can so you see what I'm trying to show you. Verse three, what man soever there be of the house of Israel that killeth an ox, or lamb, or goat in the camp, or that killeth it out of the camp, and bringeth it not unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, to offer an offering unto the Lord before the tabernacle of the Lord, blood shall be imputed unto that man. Why? He hath shed blood. You see that? God only imputes what's fact, what's true. He's gonna impute blood to him because the man has shed blood. He didn't bring it to the Lord.

Now here's the curse due to that sin. Here's the justice due to that sin. He says, and that man shall be cut off from among his people. The sin is he didn't bring the blood, so God imputes sin to him. He's guilty. The curse is he's cut off. He's cut off. Now that right there, brethren, is the scriptural way God imputes.

You see, it's about righteousness. This is not about just trying to teach a doctrine and be right for the sake of being right. This is to show that the whole glory of God at the cross is his perfect righteousness. His perfect right. And truly, if you want assurance and you want comfort and you want the joy of our salvation, get a hold of how God imputes. Because just as real as we were seeing when God imputed sin to us, we really have been made righteous when He imputes righteousness to us. That's a glorious thing to know.

So God imputes what's fact. So why then, So we see we sinned in Adam, God imputed sin to us. Why did God give the law at Sinai? Why did he give the Ten Commandments and the ceremonial law and the civil law? And by the way, God never divides it into moral, civil, ceremonial and civil, never in the scripture. It's one law, one law. Why did he give it? He didn't give it for us to try to obtain life by it. We were already guilty. Why did he give it? He gave it to show us how greatly we had sinned in Adam and how greatly we sin in ourselves. That's why I gave it. Romans 5.20 says, the law entered that the offense might abound. That's why it entered, that the offense might abound.

I want to show you something now. Galatians 3, look at verse 19. Galatians 3.19, wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise was made. Who's that? Go back up with me now to verse 16, Galatians 3, 16. To Abraham and his seed were the promises made. And he said not to seeds as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. This I say, the covenant that God confirmed before of God in Christ, the covenant he made to Abraham, confirmed before of God in Christ, the law which God gave 430 years after, can't disannul, that it should make the promise of no effect. God giving that law had no effect on the promise God made to Abraham, none whatsoever. For if the inheritance be of the law, it's no more of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise. Wherefore then serveth the law, it was added because of transgression, to teach his people our sin, only until Christ the seed should come, to whom the promise was made. Because he came to fulfill it. He came to honor it.

See, the Son of God took sinless flesh of the Holy Spirit in the womb. He was holy. The only man that was holy since Adam before the fall. He was holy. He knew no sin. He was holy, but he was a man like the elect he came to save. He had to be a man like the elect he came to save. I said to you, our new man, what we're gonna be in the end, was already in Christ in eternity. But see, we sinned in Adam, we fell in Adam, so Christ is gonna have to take care of that for us before he can do this other work in us. God set him forth to be the propitiation, to expiate our sin, and to make us to know it through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sin, for the putting away of our sin and the forgiving of our sin. God's manifesting how he's righteous to do that. So the Son of God became the God-man to declare the righteousness of God, to set forth God's perfect justice Perfect judgment, perfect righteousness, His just mercy in Him at the cross.

Now, if God imputed to a man something he's not really made according to the law, Christ wouldn't have had to have been made flesh. But that's not how God imputes, so the Lord was made flesh.

You know what one of the Gnostics' heresies was? The reason John in 1 John 3 was saying, if any man say that Christ has not come in the flesh, he's antichrist. He was addressing Gnostics. That was a sect. And one of their teachings was, because all men are sinners, all flesh is sinful, the Son of God could not have been made a man or he would have been a sinner. So, it's just as if he was made flesh. And the Spirit of God said through John, no, he was made flesh. He became his people, brethren. He became his people. The only one God looked to as the head and representative of his people.

So God is righteous. He will by no means clear the guilty. It says, he that justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the just, they're both an abomination to the Lord. They're both an abomination to the Lord.

See, here's the truth. Remember when John said, if a man confesses sin to God, God is faithful and just to forgive him. Now get this, God does not forgive anybody unless their sin has received a just recompense of reward. He forgives you and me, and we don't have to pay him anything ourselves. But somebody had to pay, somebody had to honor the law. See, God's righteous in forgiving sin. That's why Christ came, so that God's righteous to forgive you your sin, because the sin has, justice has been poured out on us for that sin.

So the Son of God took flesh like his brethren, As the Hebrew writer said, it behooved him in all points to be made like his brethren. He became us to save us from us. He was made of a woman, holy, without sin, would not sin, never sin, holy. He was made under the law, circumcised the eighth day, became a debtor to fulfill the whole law on behalf of his people. And then the sinless, holy, righteous, spotless Lamb of God was made sin for us. He made Him sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

And then, this is how righteous God is. When the sin of His people was on His Son, He spared not His own Son. He delivered him up to justice. God poured out strict justice on his son. On his son. God's righteous. He said, I will not clear the guilty. That sin had to be paid. Justice had to be satisfied because God is righteous. And Christ was sent to declare that by laying down his life on the cross. That was Christ's purpose. It wasn't sinful, what Christ did. He was not made a sinner. He's the just one, the holy one. But what our Lord was made was sin. Our sin was, as Peter said, he bore our sins in his own body on the tree.

Now here's something, and I just wanna, I want this to be clear. I want this to be understood by scripture. And men will say, well, if he didn't charge him with our sin, then you're saying sin was infused into him or sin was imparted into him. That's not what I'm saying. Let me see if we can enter into this. In the garden, when Adam sinned and his nature became corrupted, God did not infuse sin into Adam. What'd he do? He took his spirit from him. See, there is a sense in which you and me have natural life because we live and move and have our being in God. Remember Moses said as one of his saints, how's it gonna be known that we found favor in your sight and have been sanctified and separated from the rest of the sinners of this world? How's that gonna happen except your presence be with us? See, you're made holy when the Spirit of the Lord enters you and you're made holy by him, a new man.

In 1 Thessalonians 1, it says hell will be this, because men receive not the love of the truth, they will be cast out from the glory of God's presence. Not having God's presence at all to restrain sin or to anything, that will be hell. See, it's God's presence on the cross, our Lord Jesus. I believe this is I won't be dogmatic, but this is what I really believe. This argument of was Christ made sin or was it just imputed, here's where I think it is all at right here. I know God doesn't impute anything but what's fact. And the scripture never says God imputed sin to Christ. It says he was numbered with his transgressors, which is the closest it says to that. But it says he made him sin. The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. Peter said he bore our sins in his body on the tree, but every time it said he himself was righteous.

Here's where I think it's all wrapped up right here. God did not infuse sin into Adam, he took his spirit from him. And on the cross, Christ said, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Him being made sin, him being made the curse, All is, those are two separate things. Sin's imputed when, you know, we saw that in Leviticus, and then he's cut off. So God made him sin, so it's just to make him the curse, because God's righteous. But it's, we look at things in chronological order, and we have to put it in one after the other, but not God. It's all wrapped up in this. God forsook God.

Now, if you want to try to explain that, I can't tell you how he's made flesh, and I can't tell you how God forsook God on that cross, but Christ cried, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And here's what he declared. He said, you did it because you're holy. You did it because you're righteous. And he said, I'm a worm and no man. That's our Lord Jesus. What really makes sin to you? What makes sin, sin to you? It's when the Lord makes you know that you're not standing in his favor and that he's displeased. That's what makes a believer mourn, truly mourn over our sin.

See, My only opposition to saying that our Savior was just a legal transaction and sin was just charged to Him is it's so cold. Our Savior experienced what we would have had to experience. God got full satisfaction for His justice. He stood there and cried out, my God, my God. Why hast thou forsaken me? He owned our sin. And he said, and he justified God. He said, God, you're holy. That's what makes sense. Sin is when you see God is, is turned his back to you. God's, he's not in favor with you or you're not in favor with him. Our Savior experienced what hell would have been for us, brethren. He experienced being cast out of the glory of God's presence.

And here's the most important thing of everything. It was done in perfect righteousness and it satisfied God. It all had to be done in perfect righteousness. You can say what Paul said. As God sancts you that know Him, you can say what Paul said. I am crucified with Christ. I was on that cross. You can say that, believer. I was on that cross. God poured out justice on me on that cross. I was crucified on that cross. Justice was executed and satisfied toward me on that cross. and crucified with Christ. And by that, Galatians 3.13 says, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law. What does that mean, brethren? It means where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so shall grace reign unto death. through righteousness unto eternal life by Christ Jesus our Lord. The law is satisfied. Now that righteousness that condemned us says, that lost child that you redeemed, he has got to be called and saved.

All right, now, secondly, how do we live? How do we live? Nevertheless, verse 20, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. I'll tell you what I'm gonna do, brethren. I'm gonna shorten this, because I don't want to go long. And we'll come back and look at this later, because this is important, too. You see, that new man was in Christ by divine election. So then we sinned in Adam, and our fleshly man comes forth guilty. Well, he's got to be dealt with. So Christ took flesh, satisfied the law. The fleshly man we are by nature is just dead in sin. That's of Adam. God's not going to use that. For Christ to get the glory, he's going to have to make you new and give you his life. And so Christ comes through the gospel and he's formed in his redeemed. And by him being formed in you, you have life. That's the only way you could believe him.

Sin has resulted in pride, brethren, and pride will not let us. Pride makes the carnal man hear the gospel, and when he hears, you can't make yourself righteous, pride makes us say, I don't like that. Pride, when you hear that you can't make yourself holy by your works, in the heart, pride says, I don't like that.

And when, by saying we want to have a part of it, In all of our saying we don't like it, what we're saying by nature is I hate God. Don't tell me God saves and I don't do anything. That's what pride will not let us fall down and say, I'm at your mercy, God. If you condemn me, you're just. If you save me, you're gonna do it in a just and right way. But whatever you do, Lord, I'm at your mercy. Pride won't let a man say that till Christ is formed in him.

And that new man is all of Christ making. Listen, Ephesians 4.24 says, put on the new man which after God is created, he's created, he wasn't there before, he's created in righteousness and true holiness. It's the righteousness Christ established on the cross for us by fulfilling the law and it's from his holy heart he made us holy and then he's formed in you in that new man's holy, and then when God gives you faith to look to him, he enrobes you in his righteousness. It's all of the Lord.

Colossians 3 says the new man is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. Our old man's fallen in the image of Adam. Seth came forth in the image of Adam. So did we in our flesh, our new man, It's renewed in knowledge after the image of Christ that created him.

I'm crucified with Christ. Now I live because Christ lives in me. I'm crucified with Christ. I was in Christ when he died. Now I live because Christ has come and lives in me. You can say that, believer. I don't live of myself. I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I. I didn't do it. Christ liveth in me. The spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. If you're in the spirit, you're not in the flesh, the Lord said. He said through Paul, Romans say, if you're in the spirit, you're not in the flesh. And if the spirit of Christ dwell in you, that part of you that came from Adam, the body is dead because of sin. but the Spirit's life because of righteousness.

Believer, this is the good news. When he gives you faith in Christ, and he makes you, this is what the result of him making you alive by Christ being in you, is you believe him. You believe you're the sinner, but he shows you him and you believe him, and through faith in his blood, believing he propitiated my sin, he expiated my sin, I'm dead to the law in him. And through that faith, God makes you know in the court of your conscience, you're justified, you're righteous. I remember your sins no more. I remember your sins no more. He makes you know that, brethren.

And if we be dead with Christ, we believe we shall also live with him. Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more. Death has no more dominion on him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise, reckon, impute, charge it to be so, that you yourself also are dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

You're not going to die. Isn't that what Christ told us? This old flesh is going to go back to the grave, but you're not going to die. That flesh is not you. Your flesh is that part of you that's one with Christ that Christ created. And you know, when you lay down this life, this body, and you die, and they bury you, the scripture doesn't say anything has to be done to your new man for you to be with Christ in glory. Because Christ created you, new man. You're going to be with him right then.

And then one day, Christ is going to speak. And he's going to raise these old vile bodies. And they're going to be perfectly glorious in his image. And so when we go to glory, we are going to be entirely the creation of our Lord Jesus in his righteousness and his holiness. And the old man we are in Adam, and be no more. It'll be no more. Everything will be new in Christ. That he did, that he did. We're born of his incorruptible seed. That's the word, that's Christ himself through this gospel. And we're one with him and we live forever.

This last part's what I'll look at later. We've gone long enough. We live now by the faith of the Son of God. And I'll just, I'll end, I'll give you what that means right here. We sang it a while ago. We sang,

sing praise to God who reigns above.
Here's what that means.
The life I live, I live by the faith of the Son of God.
Here's what it means.
The Lord is never far away,
but through all grief distressing
and ever present help and stay,
our peace and joy and blessing
As with a mother's tender hand,
he leads his own, his chosen band,
to God all praise and glory.

He's leading us, he's teaching us, he's keeping us, and he's gonna bring us home. That's what it means to live by his faithfulness, keeping us and leading us and saving us.

All right, brethren, we'll end right there. Brother Adam.