I'm really going to begin in
Galatians 2.15, but I want to read again this verse. When Peter and Barnabas led the
other Jewish believers to leave the table, they were sitting
there with the Gentiles and they feared the Jewish legalists that
came there. They feared them. And so they got up from the Gentile
table and went over to the Jews' table. And we read here, Paul
said, verse 14, When I saw that they walked not uprightly according
to the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, If
thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not
as do the Jews, why compelst thou the Gentiles to live Why
do you compel them to live as do the Jews? Peter lived after
the manner of the Gentiles. The Gentiles were never under
the law. They were never under the law. And because God had
called Peter, he was living after the manner of the Gentiles. He
wasn't living under the law. The Gentiles walked by faith
in Christ and did what they did. the works they did in love. And that's how Peter was living
by God's grace. But on this occasion, Peter compelled,
he compelled believers who were Gentiles to live under law as
did the unbelieving Jewish legalist. He was telling them by what he
did, by that one act, this is how you should live. From here
on, this is how you should live. Now that's what the religious
world does in our day. It's a constant compelling using
law. It's a compelling to live under
law. And they say that's necessary
for salvation. It's legalism when you make it,
when you compel people with law, when you make it a necessity
for some aspect of salvation to add to Christ. That's legalism. Paul declares by this that Peter
and Barnabas walked not uprightly according to the truth of the
gospel. He said they walked not uprightly according to the truth
of the gospel. This simple act of moving from
eating with Gentile believers over to sit with Jewish legalists,
that simple act, that was a gospel issue because by that He was
not walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospel. In other words, it was a departure
from the truth to legalism. He went from grace to works by
that. It wasn't permanent, but it was
temporary. And there were some offenses
in that. That's why Paul addressed it. And I want to speak on the
subject of offenses of legalists. Now here are some offenses he
gives. First, compelling believers to
live under the law, legalists deny the very gospel they claim
to believe. Now that's what Peter was doing
here. If we go back to law and start compelling with law, and compelling with
anything is compelling with law. If we do that, we're denying
the very gospel we preach. He says in verse 15, we who are
Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles. And he's saying
we who actually were under the law. Us, Peter, Paul, Barnabas,
us who were under the law, unlike these Gentiles who never were
under the law. Now by God's grace we know that
a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the
faith of Jesus Christ. Even we, even we Jews who were
under law, even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might
be justified by the faith of Christ, not by the works of the
law. For by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. Paul is saying, we Jews of all
people, we know it's impossible to keep this law. We know it's
impossible to keep this law. What is justification? Justification
is God declaring that a man has no record of sin, past, present,
or future. And that he'll never have a record
of sin because Christ is our righteousness eternally. You
have no record of sin, past, present, or future, and you will
not before God's holy, just, and good law. God's law is holy,
it's just, and it's good. And it looks at those for whom
Christ died. And that believer who's resting
in Christ, and it says he has no record of sin, and he'll never
have a record of sin. In fact, to be justified, to
be made righteous, is to have given the law everything it demands,
past, present, and future. You say, well, how can I give
it what it demands in the future already, just like Abraham did
430 years before it was given? Because Christ gave it everything.
He gave it everything. Those who are justified owe the
law of God nothing. Nothing. We've given the law
everything. Everything. This is not by the
works of the law that we did this. He says, no man is justified
by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. No sinner can clear his record
before God by works of the law. We come into this world guilty
in Adam. Now think about Peter. Peter's sitting there with these
Gentiles eating. When he sees these Judaizers
come in, he gets up, goes over, and sits at that table. So he's
going to start keeping the law now. Well, before he wasn't keeping
it. He was sitting there eating one
of those Gentiles. Now, if he would have been looking for justification
by the law, he was already guilty before he turned to the law.
That's all of us as we come into this world. We're already guilty.
We can't turn to the law for justification. We can't have
our record cleared by the law. The law requires death. It requires the death of hell
to the guilty. Not just physical death, it requires
the second death. That eternal death is what it
requires to everybody that's guilty. I can't give the law
that, you can't give the law that, Christ gave the law that.
He did that for his people. We come into the world guilty,
all have sinned, all have come short of the glory of God, and
all must die. So the law wasn't given by God
to give us life. And when you say life, remember
Romans 8? If the Spirit of Christ be in
you, the Spirit is life because of what? Righteousness. Righteousness
and life are one and the same. If you're righteous, you know,
what's the opposite of righteousness? It's sin. And what came by sin? Death. But before that, if you're
righteous, you're alive. And you can't be made righteous,
you can't have life by the deeds of the law. Nobody can. We know
what things whoever the law saith, it said to them who are under
the law. That's the only ones the law speaks to, those that
are under the law. But to everybody who's under
the law, it says to them, shut your mouth, you're guilty. You're
guilty before God. If you don't believe on Christ,
you're under the law, and the law says guilty. That's what
it says, guilty. So by the deeds of the law, there
shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is
the knowledge of sin. It teaches me what I am. Paul
said, I would not have known sin if the law hadn't taught
me my sin. That's how I know, and it's by
God using the law to teach us that. Justifications by the faith
of Jesus Christ. By the faith of Christ. He says
there, the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself
for me. Christ loved His people. That
is the faith of the Son of God. That's what I had written down
there. Verse 20, at the end, He said the faith of the Son
of God is that He loved me and gave Himself for me. And that's
really, that's how we're justified. He loved his people and gave
himself for us. We're justified by the faith
of Christ. The Lord Jesus came into this
world without sin. He's the last Adam who represented
his people. He came in without sin. He had
a holy nature and he walked under the law perfect. And because
he was perfect, proven perfect, he bore our sin and bore the
curse for his people. And by dying, and dying that
second death, he gave full satisfaction to the justice of God. So our
record, everybody he brings to faith in him, our record's clear. Past, present, and future. No
charge can be laid against one for whom Christ died. God's own
holy law says that to us. Paul said, knowing this, even
we, even we Jews who were under the law have believed in Jesus
Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not
by the works of the law. For by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. When he gives faith to a sinner,
true faith believes in Jesus Christ. True faith believes in
Jesus Christ that we might be justified by his works, not our
own. justified by his righteousness,
not by works of the law. So Paul didn't bring Gentile
believers under the law. After they confessed faith in
Christ, he didn't take them back to Mount Sinai. They had never been under the
law given at Sinai. It was unnecessary. They believed
in Christ Jesus that they might be justified by the faith of
Christ. Now all who trust Christ are
justified from all things from which could not be justified
by the law of Moses. You know, murder and adultery,
the law of Moses did not even give a ceremonial sacrifice that
could be offered for those. You died. So the law can't justify a man.
Christ justified a man from all things from which could not be
justified by the law of Moses. But no one who trusts in their
obedience to the law, no one who trusts in their obedience
to the law for justification can ever be justified. Never. So to go under law and compel
others to live under law is to deny the very truth of the gospel. And that's why Paul spoke up,
they walk not according to the truth of the gospel. That's the
first offense. Here's the second offense. To
make law a necessity is to call Christ the minister of sin. Verse
17, but if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves
also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? Now,
there's several, at least two ways to read this. If while we
seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves are found sinners,
bringing the law back in like Paul did, compelling with the
law, did Christ minister that? That sin, did He minister that?
Did He cause us to do that? God forbid. He doesn't minister
any time we sin, whatever kind of sin it is, whether it's going
back to the law or it's gross immorality. which are the exact
same thing, really. Either one of them, he didn't
minister that. He didn't minister that. But
it's more likely, here's what Paul is saying. He's condemning
the legalists by this. The legalists were calling Gentile
believers sinners because they didn't live under the law. He
was calling them sinners because they didn't live under the law.
He's saying, but if while we seek to be justified by Christ,
we ourselves also are viewed as sinners. We're called antinomian,
we're called anti-law, we're called sinners by legalists. Does that mean Christ ministered
a doctrine to us that results in sin? Did Christ minister a
doctrine to us that's licentious? Did Christ declare we're justified
by His finished work when in reality we're sinners unless
we add our works to His? That's what the legalists were
saying. That's why Paul up there said, we're Jews and not sinners
of the Gentiles, because the legalists that came there, and
that's what Peter and Barnabas were saying about these Gentile
brethren by getting up and walking over here and coming under the
law. When you do that, you're saying
to your brethren, you're sinners. That's really what you're saying.
We're better than you are. Look what we do. You don't do
this like we do. You're sinners. And he says,
by that, you're saying Christ is a minister of sin. By that,
you're saying that Christ lied when He said they were righteous
and holy by Him. The legalist Jews were insisting
that a man's law obedience had to be added to faith in Christ. They insisted it. You have to
live under the law. They're saying that we're sinners
unless we live under the law. After a man believes in Christ
for justification, then he must come under the law and he must
live under law or he is a sinner. He's anti-law. He's a transgressor. That's what they were saying.
The Gentiles, who were never under the law of Moses, didn't
even consider the law. Paul didn't teach them to go
back to the law. They didn't live under any of
the law given by God at Sinai, and Paul didn't direct them back
to the law of Sinai. If he did, this would have been
the book to do it in, right here. And that's not what he did. In this letter he says what he
says everywhere to a believer. He says neither circumcision
avails nor uncircumcision. Being under the law does not
avail for you nor not being under the law avails for you. Neither
one. It has no bearing on you whatsoever. What avails then? Faith in Christ
which works by the constraint of Christ's love. Faith in Christ which works by
the constraint of Christ's love, by Christ working in us. And for that reason, the legalists
of that day called them sinners. They broke fellowship with them.
Because they said, Paul is not teaching them, they have to live
under the law. They called Paul anti-law, they
called Stephen anti-law, they called our Lord Jesus Christ
anti-law. But you know what? When Paul
was living in strict conformity to the law, they never called
him that. They only called him that when he started preaching
Christ is all. Then they started saying he's
against the law. He's against the law. How many times have
you heard this brethren? If you don't enforce the law,
it's going to result in lawlessness. If you don't tell sinners they
have to live under the law, they're going to be lawless. What's that
saying really? That's saying, if you try to
live by law, you're righteous. Isn't it? That's exactly what
it's saying. The only way to stop sinners
from lawlessness is to make them perfectly righteous so that the
law has nothing else to say to them. Anything else is lawlessness. The law was not made for a righteous
man. It was only made for the lawless. Christ is our righteousness.
We're subject to the righteousness of God by submitting to Christ
in faith. You know, Paul said they've not
submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. How do you submit yourself
to the righteousness of God? Submit to Christ. He's the righteousness
of God. And if you're submitted to Christ
in faith, the law has nothing else to say to you. By Christ we're righteous. Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. Christ
is all, just like He said He is. And there remains no work
to be done by the sinner to make him accepted of God. Nothing. Nothing. So the great offense,
if I start making works of the law a necessity for some part
of salvation, I'm calling Christ the minister of sin. That's the
offense. Saying his doctrine is sinful
doctrine that results in sin. Paul says, Verse 5, back up there,
he says, to whom we gave place by subjection, know not for an
hour that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. Peter's error was offensive.
He said, I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the
truth of the gospel. So Paul says emphatically, God
forbid. Christ didn't give us a doctrine
that is licentious or sinful or doesn't... He brings you to
see He is all. He's all. And the believer is
complete in Him. If you read Romans 6, you're
going to find Romans 6 say exactly what Paul is about to say here
in Galatians 2. It's impossible, absolutely impossible for a believer
to be against the law. It's impossible for a believer
to live in sin. It's an impossibility. And it's
not going to happen. It's not going to happen. God forbid. Now here's the third
offense of the legalist. To turn back to the law and insist
on any live under the law or put yourself under the law is
to make yourself a transgressor. is to make yourself a transgressor.
He says there in verse 18, for, because, if I build again the
things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. Professing
to be justified by Christ, professing Christ to be our sanctification
and our righteousness. If we turn back and add our law
keeping to what Christ has done, we're transgressing. We're making
ourselves transgressors. If I go to the law and attempt
to make myself justified when Christ is all the believer's
justification, or if I go to the law to make myself holy when
Christ is the sanctification of His people, if I do either
one, I'm making myself a transgressor. We prove that we never were justified
by Christ. Paul says later, Christ has become
of no effect unto you, whosoever you are that are justified by
law. You've left grace, you've gone into works. Now Paul calls
faith in Christ here, he calls it the destruction of all hope
of justification by law. He said, by faith in Christ,
I destroyed some things. When you believe on Christ, you
destroy all hope of justification by law. When Christ lives in
you and you are brought to faith in Christ, you destroy all hope
of holiness by you adding to what Christ has done to make
you holy. That is destroyed. All confidence, former confidence
in our flesh is destroyed through faith in Christ. Now the reason
I would make myself a transgressor if I go back to the law, if I
go to anything in this new, if I make faith a work and say that
it's my faith by which I'm justified rather than the object that true
faith lays hold of. Whatever I make to be of me that
makes me saved in any way, I'm transgressing and here's why.
Now listen carefully, verse 19. Because I through the law am
dead to the law. That I might live unto God. How
am I through the law dead to the law? I am crucified with
Christ. I am crucified with Christ. Now
believer, I just know this, I know this so if we can get this right
here. This is the key to mortification
of our flesh, this is the key to godliness, this is the key
to comfort, this is the key to assurance, right here. If you
are Christ, you were crucified with Christ. If you're Christ,
you were crucified with Christ. Try to get this in your heart.
It's not as if you were crucified with Christ. You were in Christ. As surely as Levi was in Abraham's
loins when he paid tithes to Melchizedek and Levi really paid
tithes to Melchizedek, every elect child of God was really
in Christ and we were really killed on the cross. We were
crucified, we were executed, the justice of God poured out
on us on that cross and we died. Through Christ and Him crucified
satisfying the very law that He gave on behalf of His people
with His holy heart looking to God The believer is dead to the
law. That's what Paul is saying in
Romans 6 where he says, Reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed
unto the law. That's why he said, Shall we
live in sin? How shall we live in sin? If
God says in his record books, there's no record of sin and
there can never be a record of sin, you're not going to be able
to sin before God. Period. And watch now. The purpose for which Christ
freed his people from the law is that I might live unto God. I'm crucified with Christ. Here's
the paradox. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I. It's not me that lives. Christ
liveth in me. and the life I now live in the
flesh. The spiritual life that I now
live in the new man that is in this body of death, that is in
this flesh, this new man, the life of this new man. I live
by the faith of the Son of God, by the faithfulness of the Son
of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. When Christ lives
in us, we stop taking credit for anything in this thing of
salvation. Paul said, I live, yet not I. We don't even take credit for
living. I live. In the new man, I live. He's not talking about this life
your mom and your daddy gave you. He's talking about a life
that was not there before. I live now. There's a new life. But it's not me. I didn't do
it. It's Christ that liveth in me. Christ in you is the hope
of glory. Christ in you is the guarantee
for which we hope for that day when we're going to be with him
in glory. And it's not that one day I'm guaranteed for heaven. I am already in heaven. My life
is at God's right hand. And that one who is at God's
right hand in spirit lives in you, believer. That's how come
you're here tonight. That's what... Did you come here
tonight on your own? Paul's saying, If I worship Him,
it's because He lives in me. If I go to assemble with His
people, it's because Christ lives in me. He's moving me. He's directing
me. He's guiding me. He's giving
me the heart. He's giving me desire. He's making me do what
I do. If it's something that He is
pleased with, that He says do, it's because Christ is living
in you that's making you do it. Don't live, don't yield, Paul
said, don't yield your members unto sin as the servants of sin. Yield those members unto God. And he said, now I'm speaking
after the manna of the flesh, and I'm telling you, you were
the servants of sin, now you're the servants of righteousness.
Now Christ is our master, now Christ lives within us, now Christ
has the rule, now live unto Christ. But if you do, you didn't do
it. He did it. And whatever you do that is not
honoring to Him and not glorifying to Him, like Peter getting up
from that table and walking over there and sitting there with
those Jews, that was of Peter. That was of our flesh. That was
the sinful flesh. Whatever we do that's pleasing
to Him, that's Him living in you, working in you that which
is well pleasing in His sight. That's why if I go back to the
law and say, now I'm going to look to the law now, what I'm
really doing by that is I'm saying, I'm going to look to myself.
There's nothing wrong with the law now, I'm not saying that.
The law is holy, the law is just, the law is good. The law still,
the Lord has still used the law to show you your sin. But the law is not the believer's
rule of life. The life I now live, I live by
the faithfulness of the Son of God. Not by the law, by the faith
of the Son of God. It's impossible to be under the
law as a rule of life without keeping the law. You get what
I'm saying? You cannot just go under the
law as a rule of life. Now outwardly you cannot murder,
you cannot commit adultery and all that. And you can, in your
inward man, every believer delights in the law of God up to the inward
man. We don't want to have any sin whatsoever and if we could
do everything in that law, we would do everything in the law.
But to turn to the law and to the letter and start looking
at it and saying, I'm going to start living by this, that's
not walking by faith. What's going to make me hate
my sin? Look to Christ on the cross.
What's going to teach me how to be patient in longsuffering?
Look to Christ and look how long He was patient and longsuffering
with you. Look how patient and longsuffering He is with you
now. Where am I going to learn mercy? You're not going to find that
in the law. You're going to look to Christ and see where God's
mercy is. He is the mercy seat. God forgives
us for Christ's sake. If I'm having an issue with somebody
and they've betrayed me, and that's a hard thing, that's a
difficult thing. Where am I going to find the grace to forgive
that? I'm not going to find it in the
law. I'm going to have to go to Christ. I'm going to have
to hear how I was the harlot and I was the one who left my
husband and went and played the harlot. That's what I'm going
to have to hear. And I'm going to have to hear how he loved
me anyway and how he kept putting oil and wine and wool and flax
at my door and provided everything I needed. I'm going to have to
hear how when I was brought down to the slave block, he said,
I'll buy that one. I'll buy them. I'll pay my blood
and I'll give my life and I'll purchase them. And to hear God
say, I've had mercy on you for the sake of my Son. And to hear
it constantly, constantly, constantly, because you see your sin every
hour of every day, that's the only way we're going to be made
merciful. And if we are merciful, we're
going to have to give all the glory to Him because it's Christ
living in you. It's the faithfulness of Christ
that made you merciful. It's called walking in the Spirit. by whom our flesh is mortified.
Remember what Paul said in Romans 8? We've been spared from the
law of sin and death by the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. He came
and fulfilled the law for us. Now those that are born of the
Spirit mind the Spirit. He makes you mind the Spirit.
He makes you love the things of the Spirit. And he says, And
if the Spirit of Christ is in you, the Spirit of Him that raised
Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies. by
His Spirit that dwells in you. So what's the conclusion? We're
not debtors to this flesh at all. You're not going to mortify
your flesh with your flesh. And one of the proudest things,
one of the things that makes our sinful nature so proud is
to pat ourselves on the back for abstaining from some sin. When's the last time you did
anything that you should have done, that there wasn't some
part of you that felt real proud for doing it. Even when Christ
makes you do as you ought to do and gets the glory for doing
it, there's a part of us that wants to glory in what we know
we didn't make ourselves do. That's so. You secretly give away a big
sum of money. and see if you don't secretly
pat yourself on the back for doing it. The Spirit of Christ has to mortify
this flesh. He has to mortify this flesh.
But if we get a hold of this, if we could just learn that we're
dead, that old man is dead. What do you do with a dead man?
You bury him. You get him out of sight. Do
you hug him? Do you pamper it? Do you carry
it around with you? You get rid of it. When He says,
mortify the flesh, He's saying, treat your flesh like it is. It's not bringing it under the
law that's going to avail. It's not bringing it out from
under the law that's going to avail. Some people are so proud
that they're not under the law that they're just as much a transgressor
as ones who are under the law. They're just as legal being out
from under the law as they are under the law. Neither one of
those avails. What's availing? Christ in you. living in you, making you see
you are dead to the law, making you see He is all your righteousness,
all your holiness, all your redemption, all your wisdom. He is leading
you. How were you first brought to call on Him? How were you
first brought to call on Christ? Look at Galatians 4.6 and I will
be done. It is just how you were first brought to call on Him
right here. Because ye are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit
of His Son into your hearts. And you cried, Abba, Father.
That's how you did it. That's what he means by the life
I now live in this flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.
I live by the Spirit of Christ living in me. That's why he says
over there later, if you walk in the Spirit, you won't fulfill
the lust of the flesh. We live in the Spirit. He said,
let us walk in the Spirit. And you won't fulfill the lust
of the flesh. That's Christ keeping you from it. In Christ, we've
been crucified. And by the Spirit of Christ,
the affection and the lust are continually mortified by Him.
And He gets all the glory. Look to Christ. Follow Christ,
and don't move away from Christ. Now here's the sum and substance
of all this, and this is the greatest offense of all. I'm
going to look at each of these in a little more detail later.
But verse 21, I do not frustrate, and the word is, I don't deny
and reject the grace of God. For if righteousness come by
the law, here's what I'm saying, Christ died for nothing. That's
the great offense right there. You mean Peter committed that
offense by simply getting up and going over to another table?
Yep. When we start compelling with
law, that's what we're doing. Galatians 5.10. Here's my confidence
in you, brethren. Right here. This is how you that
are His, I know this for certain, without a fact, you that are
His are going to hear this and you're going to look to Christ.
And I know how you're going to do it. Same confidence Paul had
for them. I have confidence in you through
the Lord that you'll be none otherwise minded. I trust Christ
living in you to make you look to Him and nobody else. It's
through Him. It's by Him. Look to Him. Amen.