I'm pleased the Lord to help
us as we continue our meditation in Paul's epistle to the Galatians
and the second chapter and this evening we'll speak on verses
15 and 16. So that's Galatians chapter 2
and reading verses 15 and 16. We also we whom are Jews by nature, and
not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified
by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we 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. We are no doubt aware that the
Apostle Paul is addressing the Galatians with the great concern
that they may know the truth of the gospel and not be led
astray and not be left to follow a wrong way. And you may remember
that Paul has been remonstrating with Peter because he had really
gone back to following the ceremonial law instead of that which the
Lord had clearly revealed to him when he was on that rooftop
as to those things which were clean and those things which
were not. And so we realize that the Lord
rules and reigns and we're thankful to know that we have such a God. And he speaks here then in this
way, who says, we who are Jews by nature, which of course he
and Peter and Barnabas, who were there at the same time, and not
sinners of the Gentiles, well they of course, the Jews, they
knew the law of God. And the Gentiles did not know
all the law of God. They knew, of course, the moral
law, which, of course, everybody knows in their heart, whether
they read the Ten Commandments or not. And that's told to us
clearly in the first chapter in Romans. and so he makes his
statement and then he goes on to tell them knowing that a man
is not justified by the works of the law but by the faith of
Jesus Christ and here in this part of Galatians and mostly
in the Galatians he's referring to the law and the law is the
law which includes moral law, which of course was the Ten Commandments,
and also the ceremonial law, and he is referring to that. And he's telling the Galatians
and speaking to us tonight in this way, knowing that a man
is not justified by the works of the law. It will not be possible
to assume that we can keep the law of God and by that we can
justify ourselves. Because we know that in order
to be just, in order to be justified, we need to be able to carry out
the law in complete correctness as it's laid down in the Word
of God without any fault. Well, I'm sure it's obvious to
us tonight and it should be obvious to everybody in this world that
it's not possible to do that when you think it's sins of thought
and deed and word. They're all before God and we
cannot therefore keep the law of God ourselves and therefore
we cannot be justified. by the works of the law. And
yet, we all need to be justified. You may say, well why is that?
Because no unjustified person will enter into heaven. Unless
we are justified, we shall not enter into heaven. We shall end
up in that endless place of misery in hell. Such a statement is
very important to us. We should not think it is irrelevant. We should not think, well hold
on a minute, Paul speaking here of rather difficult things for
us to understand. We should pray that we might
have a right understanding of these great truths. And so we
might say that therefore we cannot be justified by the works of
the flesh. We must then be righteous. And how are we to be righteous
when we know that we are sinners and everything we do, there's
sin mixed with it and therefore we are unrighteous? What does
it really mean? Well, if we are to be righteous,
if we are to be justified rather, we are to be righteous. And if
we are to be righteous, that righteousness cannot come from
ourselves. It must come from somewhere else
because we are unrighteous. Well, we are thankful, we should
be thankful that there is one who is righteous and has been
righteous, has never been anything other than righteous, and that
of course is the Lord Jesus Christ. So the great truth here set before
us is, as the Apostle says, knowing that a man is not justified by
the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus
Christ. So it comes down to this, if
we are to be justified we are to receive the righteousness,
not of ourselves, which we've done, we're unrighteous, but
to receive that righteousness from the Lord Jesus Christ in
what he has done. And it means that we need that
faith and that grace to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
believe, therefore, that his finished work upon Calvary's
cross of justification and that gracious and glorious life he
led of righteousness fulfilled the law of the Holy God. And we are thankful therefore
to know that the Lord Jesus Christ was indeed that gracious and
righteous one. And in the Epistle of Paul to
the Romans. There are many, many words to
encourage us in this, and we have not time tonight to go through
everything, but just very briefly in the third chapter to the Romans,
we read together this evening, as it is written, there is none
righteous, no, not one, not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after
God. They have all gone out of the
way. They have altogether become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good, no, not one. Well, it's good when the Holy
Spirit convinces us of that great truth, and we are amongst those.
There is not one. We are unrighteous, we are not
righteous, and therefore we should be thankful indeed for that which
the Lord Jesus Christ has done And further on in this same chapter,
the third chapter in the Romans, towards the end the apostle says,
for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being
justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. This is the only way that you
and I are to be justified as we receive his righteousness. And remember as I said to begin
with, unless we are righteous, unless we are justified, we will
not find that we go to heaven when we pass out of time. And
so these considerations are very important and they're very necessary
to realise indeed that we have sinned. And perhaps we may come,
like the Apostle said when he wrote again to the Romans in
the 10th chapter, he said, They've been ignorant of God's righteousness. And perhaps that's what we've
been, perhaps that's where we are tonight. Being ignorant of
God's righteousness and going about to establish their own
righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness
of God. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. So it brings
us to this position that we are unable to produce any righteousness
which is acceptable to a holy God. And it means that we have
to rely totally upon that glorious righteousness that the Lord Jesus
Christ has done. has produced, and his wonderful
righteous life, and that wonderful sin atoning death. And so, as
we've just spoken, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believes. And what it really means is this,
does it not? Therefore, we need this faith, as we have here,
the faith of Jesus Christ, to believe in what he has done. and to believe that that work
that he has done when he died upon that cross at Calvary to
atone for the sins of all his church, to redeem them through
that glorious act, then his church are indeed justified through
his righteousness. Well, we might ask, what do we
think of Christ? What do we think of that great
act of his when he gave his life his perfect life, to atone for
the sins that we've committed, the sins that we will commit,
and to realize what a great blessing we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. And again, the apostle in the
Romans, and in the fourth chapter, he speaks in this way, he said,
even as David also, describeth the blessedness of the man unto
whom God imputeth. righteousness without works. You see, works will not get us
to glory. And when I mean that, I mean
justifying works. There will be works, because
we know that faith without works is dead. That means if God gives
us true faith, there will be those right works which we will
desire to do to honour and glorify our God. But we won't rely on
them for our justification. Here we have this wonderful statement,
blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are
covered. Blessed is the man in whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Now, we have sin. What a blessing
it is when God imputes that sin to the Saviour. He takes our
sin, imputes it to him and in exchange he imputes his righteousness
to us. It's a great and glorious gift.
There are many gifts that God gives and this is one of the
greatest to receive this gift of imputed righteousness and
how wonderful it is to know that all our sins have been taken
away and they've been exchanged for this great and glorious righteousness
that we can rely upon Because it's God-given. It's not something
that we produced. It's that which God produced
and gave to us. And so we come back to these
words, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed
in Jesus Christ. That's the vital thing, is it
not? If we do not believe in Jesus
Christ, if we're not blessed with that gift to believe, that
gift of faith to believe, then we are of all men most miserable. We need to have that grace to
believe 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. We need to
understand that. And that means that we have no
hope in ourself. But all our hope is in what Christ
has done. Is that true of you and me? Is
our hope in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ? Is
our hope, is that faith that we may have received to believe
that we have been granted the blessed righteousness of Christ
and as such we are therefore justified and therefore it is
well with our soul? This is so important and so necessary. And just to read again the last
verses that we read in the third chapter of the Romans, being
justified freely, freely by His grace through redemption that
is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness remission
of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare,
I say, at this time his righteousness, that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." You see the vital
importance of being blessed with this faith to believe. Where
is boasting then? Can't boast in what we've done,
can we? Where is boasting then? It is excluded by what law? Of works? Nay, but by the law
of faith. Therefore we conclude that a
man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. And this
of course is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We might just refer
back to the Old Testament. We may think, well, this is all
right, this is the New Testament, but how about the Old Testament?
Well, Isaiah gives us a wonderful statement in the 32nd chapter
and the 17th verse. He says this, and the work of
righteousness, that's not the work that we've done, that's
the work of the Saviour, and the work of righteousness shall
be peace And my friends, Christ's righteousness gives peace to
our soul. Yes, because our hope is built
on nothing less than Jesus' blood and his righteousness. It's not
something of ourself. And so, Iso goes on, and the
effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever. You see,
because what God has done cannot be taken away. What God has said
will not be changed. And therefore, what a mercy if
we can rest in the finished work and the words and the work of
the great and glorious Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then
just one last statement in Romans again. Romans is a wonderful
book. Don't despise it. It may not
be always easy to understand, but study it and pray over it.
In the fifth chapter we read, and not as it was by one that
sinned, so is the gift, for the judgment was by one to condemnation. But the free gift is of many
offences unto justification. For if by one man's offence death
reigned by one, and we know of course that was the offence of
Adam way back in Genesis, way back in the beginning, much more
they which receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness
shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." That's a wonderful statement,
isn't it? The abundance, the Lord gives
an abundance of grace. Therefore, as by the offense
of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so
by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men
unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous. That's a great truth. Go home
and read it. Romans 5, 16 to 19. A wonderful
statement of the glorious truth of the gospel. And here you see
the apostle was concerned that the Galatians might understand
the glory of the gospel And my friends it's so necessary and
important that you and I understand the glories of the Gospel and
that you and I do possess the righteousness of Christ so that
in the sight of God we are justified and that eternally. And you just
might be interested to know, I hope, or at least some of you
know there's a blog, I don't understand much about blogs,
but there's a blog called Footsteps. And in the most recent blog on
footsteps, there is an article on justification. And it's well
worth reading. So if you can, get hold of the
blog and read it on justification. The blog is really for teens
and those in their 20s, but I think those who are a little bit older
can also enjoy it. So may the Lord bless these words.