Galatians chapter 3, we're going
to see how by the Spirit of God, the Apostle Paul was given grace
to teach us from the Scripture and by our own experience that
we're not justified or sanctified by our own works, but by the
work of God, by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness
for us and by the work of the Spirit of God because of that.
And I want to look at that today with you. I've entitled this
message, All of Grace, because it truly is all of grace. Let's
pray. Dear Father, we thank you that
you've given to us this mercy and grace on the account of the
Lord Jesus and his blood and righteousness to call you our
Father. We pray, Lord, that you open
your word to us today and apply it to our hearts. And that you
would exalt our Savior in our eyes and help us to worship him. Grant us this faith to see and
lay hold, to taste and handle, and to take and eat and drink
of the Lord Jesus. In his sin-atoning death, in
his name we pray. Amen. I want to read from chapter
2, verse 17. But if while we seek to be justified
by Christ, that is what we seek, isn't it? To be justified by
Christ. I pray that you might get a hold
of that simple phrase. We seek to be justified by Christ. In Galatians 2 verse 17. That's
what we come to God for. To be found in Christ. To be
justified by Christ. We can't do it. God has to do
it. It is God that justifies, isn't
it? Romans 8 verse 33. It is God
that justifies. But He does it out of grace found
in Himself, not out of works found in us, or worth. And He
does it because of the merit found in His Son. So we seek
to be justified by the merits of Christ. But if we do seek
to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners.
Is therefore Christ the minister of sin? If others think we're
sinners because we seek our justification in Christ alone, or if we ourselves
try to add something to Christ and so make ourselves sinners,
Christ isn't the minister of that sin. For if I build again
the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
It's my fault. Trying to mix works with grace.
For I, through the law, am dead to the law." What an astounding
truth that is. God's law, which curses me justly
for my sin, is the cause of my death in order that I might live
by the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that amazing? That which
was my enemy, the demands and curse of God's law on me because
of my sin, has become the tool in God's hand to put me to death
and raise me again with Christ. I through the law am dead to
the law that I might live to God. Here's how. Here's how I
died. Here's how I rose. I am crucified
with Christ. That's my death. Nevertheless
I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. He is my life.
He is the resurrection and the life. And the life which I now
live in the flesh. I don't live it by the works
of the law. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me. That is the ministry of the Spirit
of God in our lives. To point us to Christ. It says
in Romans 5.5, the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts
by the Holy Ghost which is given to us. He loved me and gave himself
for me. That's the work of the Spirit
of God. Verse 21, I do not frustrate the grace of God. To frustrate
means to despise it. It means to reject it and cast
it away. To deny it. To make it empty
and void and meaningless and of no profit. Unnecessary. I don't frustrate God's grace.
Here's why Paul stood alone and opposed Peter's actions to correct
Peter and all those who followed him. And here's why Paul stood
alone to correct the Galatians. And here's why the Spirit of
God has given this to us now. Because of the consequence of
trusting something of ourselves in our acceptance and favor and
blessing from God. He says, I don't frustrate the
grace of God, for if righteousness come by the law, then there's
this horrible consequence, then Christ is dead in vain. And he
claimed that salvation is a result of something men do, is to despise,
it is to reject, to cast away, to make unnecessary, to trample
underfoot, as it were, as it says in Hebrews, the blood of
the Son of God. That's a serious thing. It's
a frustration of the gospel, of the grace of God. It's a frustration
of it because it declares that righteousness comes by the law
rather than by Christ alone. If we could just get that in
our heart. We can only get it there by the Spirit of God. He
has to put it there. But the scripture declares it
so plainly. Isn't it amazing that so much
time is spent in the book of Galatians trying to surgically
remove the error that the Galatians were beginning to embrace. He
spends the entire book trying to remove from them the stupidity
and the God dishonoring, blaspheming doctrine of salvation by works.
And yet the book of Romans is spent doing this as well. And
in the book of Acts, Peter said, we believe that by the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they. And Hebrews,
and Ephesians, and we could go on and on. So much of the Bible
is written to prove our helplessness under our own guilt and corruption
before God, and our utter necessity on the grace of God in Christ.
And that it's His righteousness alone, His blood alone cleanses
us from our sin, and His righteousness alone can justify us before God. Because the consequence is so
horrible, if it's anything but that. If it's possible for righteousness
to come by something that I do. then think about the consequence.
The triune God has utterly failed. God the Father gave His Son,
delivered Him up to judgment and death without accomplishing
anything by doing it. And He did it needlessly. He
slayed His own Son without cause. What a horrible thing that would
be. And the Son of God gave Himself and failed to see the satisfaction
of His own labors. What a God dishonoring thing
that is to deny that Christ is God. Is to deny that He is the
Son of God. Is to deny the witness of the
Spirit of God concerning Christ and His accomplishments. Concerning
the conviction of our unbelief in sin and the righteousness
that He established and the justice satisfying judgment that God
accomplished when He slew His Son. Is to deny the triune God. And especially to deny the Son
of God. It's a horrible thing. And that's
why Paul comes down so hard and so heavily upon this, to counter
this lie. It's a cherished lie, though,
isn't it? It's a cherished lie, so many in our day, and we ourselves
held tenaciously to this fact. We can't think otherwise. It's
in our spiritual deadness, if you will, our spiritual DNA.
The false gospel that teaches that some thought, or some attitude,
or action, or remorse, or reform, or a desire, or sincerity, or
words, or actions on my part, my will to decide, or choose,
or accept, all these things somehow put what God has done into effect
for me. But that's not the way it works.
My faith is the gift of God. It comes because of Christ. And
so Augustus, top lady who wrote Rock of Ages and other songs,
he said this, Every religion except one puts you upon doing
something in order to recommend yourself to God. It is the business
of all false religion to patch up a righteousness in which the
sinner can stand before God. But it is the business of the
glorious gospel to bring near to us, by the hand of the Holy
Spirit, a righteousness already worked out and a robe of perfection
already made wherein God's people, to all the purposes of justification
and happiness, stand perfect and without fault before His
throne. That's what grace does. That's what the gospel says.
The sinner's only hope before God is God's free, sovereign,
effectual, immutable, saving grace in Christ. And so we begin
verse 1 of chapter 3, O foolish Galatians! Who hath bewitched
you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes
Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you?
To not obey the truth is to not believe Christ. It's to believe
the lie and to go about to establish my own righteousness by what
I do. Coming to God thinking that if
I get better, God will somehow think better of me. instead of
looking to Christ as a poor, empty-handed sinner and coming
to Him that way alone in the Lord Jesus Christ. But the Galatians
were, as people, put under a spell. Someone had come in and seduced
them, like a harlot seduces a man, and put them under the spell
by enticing them by their own pride in order to establish their
own righteousness before God, just by a little thing, by circumcision. And I'm not going to explain
what the physical act of circumcision is. I'll leave that for the parents
to explain to their own children. But circumcision has a spiritual
implication. And let me just give it to you
briefly in Colossians chapter 2. It says that we were circumcised
in the circumcision of Christ by the putting off of the body
of our sins in the death of Christ. So our circumcision at the first
is our death with Christ and our sins being cut off. in the
seed, the one who was the promised seed, who came through Abraham.
He was circumcised in death when our sins were laid upon Him and
He was crucified for them. And then the Spirit of God circumcises
our heart when He gives us faith. And that faith is itself the
seal of this new covenant to us. The Spirit of God is given
to us and He gives us that faith. And these two things together,
our circumcision in the death of Christ and our circumcision
by the Spirit of God in our heart, producing faith in us, fulfills
that Old Testament type of circumcision. But the Galatians were completely
hoodwinked by the Judaizers. Because they thought that if
they could do something, they would have some confidence before
God that depended upon what they did. They would go about to begin
to fulfill God's law. And that would give them some
standing before God and make it a little bit better for them.
especially compared to their peers, but nothing could be further
from the truth. It actually only condemns us
more when we trust ourselves in some way. We have to trust
Christ alone. So he says, O foolish Galatians,
who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before
whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified
among you? That's what preaching the gospel
is all about. It's to set forth Christ, crucified among you. To explain what it means. To
show that it was God's will, what He accomplished by it. And
what we ought to do because of it. To look to Him and come to
God by Him. This is setting forth Christ
and Him crucified. It's to set Him forth before
the eyes of sinners. And then leave to the Spirit
of God to quicken sinners to life and to bless His people
by that. He says in verse 2, this only
what I learn of you. He appeals now to what they experienced. Received ye the Spirit by the
works of the law or by the hearing of faith? When you heard the
gospel, was it the law that was preached? And did you believe
that you would be made right with God, your sins put away
and given a right standing by something that you did? Or was
it declared to you from the gospel that it is Christ that died?
And therefore every answer has been given to God by Him and
He's your only hope. And you heard it and you believed
it by the power of the Spirit of God. It was by that hearing
of faith. By God's grace you saw with spiritual
eyes and embraced with spiritual hands the truth of the Lord Jesus
Christ. You laid hold on Him and you
clung to Him with a life grip given to you by God. And that
was God's work. You said in your heart, it's
mine. I'm a sinner. I have nothing. But look what
God has done. And in a moment, you were convinced
that if God accepted Christ, He accepted you for Christ's
sake. And that was all of your hope, all of your joy and peace.
And you knew then, this was God's work. It was by the hearing of
faith. And so he says in verse 3, Are
you so foolish? Are you so foolish? Having begun
in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh? Did you
begin by grace, by standing on the blood and righteousness of
Christ, enabled by the Spirit of God to believe this, and now
are you trying to be perfect by your own flesh, by your own
works? That's a foolishness. In other
words, you're justified by Christ and you're sanctified by Christ,
by His grace, by the work of His Spirit in your heart. Have
you suffered so many things in vain? All the things you've suffered
in believing Christ, was it for nothing? If it be yet in vain,
perhaps it is for you. Verse 5, He therefore that ministereth
to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you. Does he do
it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Does
God work miracles among you by His Spirit, because you do something,
or because of His own sovereign will and grace? Think about the
miracle of God pouring down fire from heaven on the sacrifice.
Elijah prayed and God consumed the stones and the water and
the wood and the sacrifice and everything was burned up. Was
it because the people believed? Of course not. It was because
God would turn their hearts again. And so it was by the hearing
of faith, that's the answer. And then he goes on, he says,
even as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for
righteousness. And so now he's not going to
just appeal to their experience of God's grace by his spirit
when they heard the gospel. But he's going to appeal to Abraham
because the Judaizers were trying to convince them to keep the
law. To become like the Jews. And so he says, okay, consider
Abraham the father, the physical father of the nation of Israel.
Now I want you to think just a little bit with me about the
history. What do you know about Abraham and his children? Who
was Abraham's first son? The one that was born first to
Abraham. It was Ishmael, wasn't it? And
then Isaac. And then after Isaac and Ishmael
were born, God told Abraham to circumcise his son. Everyone
in Abraham's house had to be circumcised. And so he did. He
circumcised Ishmael. And he circumcised Isaac. The
sign of circumcision was put upon Ishmael and Isaac. That should have taught the people
something, shouldn't it? Because Ishmael wasn't given
the promised land, was he? Was Ishmael given the promises
that God gave to Abraham? Was he given the gospel? Well,
he heard it, undoubtedly, in the tent of Abraham. But he was
the son of the bondwoman, remember? He was not the son of the free. And so he was actually a picture
of those who were outside of God's saving grace. And Paul
uses him in Romans 9 to prove he was not one of God's elect.
But the child of promise was Isaac. Both circumcised, both
born to Abraham, only one was given the promise. Isaac. that
should have taught the Jews something. It's not by circumcision, it's
not by keeping the law, but they didn't get it. And then there
was Esau and Jacob. Esau and Jacob both circumcised,
both twins of Rebekah and Isaac. And therefore you would think
that the Jews would learn by this. Two boys, Esau and Ishmael,
both circumcised, both born to Abraham, and yet they were outside
of the promises. They weren't given the promises.
God gave the promises to Isaac and to Jacob. And so they didn't
learn it. They did not learn it. Because
they didn't understand the truth that Paul, the apostle, calls
here from Genesis chapter 15 verse 6. He says, "...even as
Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness."
He believed God. What was the distinction? What
was the difference that God made between Abraham and all the others
from the Ur of the Chaldees? God gave him this grace of faith.
He believed God. And what did he believe? Well, we're going to find that
out here in the next two verses. Because everything hinges on
this. He says, "...he believed God,
and it was counted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore
that they which are of faith, not circumcision, not keeping
the law, the same are the children of Abraham." It doesn't matter
whether you're circumcised, whether you keep the law, whether you
were even born to Abraham. The point is, physical relations
have no bearing on your relation to God. Your relation to your
parents doesn't make you a child of God. It doesn't bring you
into a covenant. Nor were the Israelites who were
born to Abraham under some special covenant that guaranteed that
the nation, as a nation, was going to all be saved. It didn't.
There's only one thing that made a difference. It was God's electing
grace in Christ. That's the teaching from Ishmael,
and Isaac, and Jacob, and Esau. All the way down through the
ages until the nation of Israel was cast off in AD 70. And God brought the gospel to
the Gentiles. And that's what's happening here in Galatians.
It's not the children of the flesh, but the children of the
promise that are counted for the seed. And that, for some
reason, that truth is so hard to penetrate the minds of people
in this age because there's two views that seem to dominate Christianity. It's either the view that somehow
the nation of Israel is going to re-emerge as a nation and
God's blessings are going to be poured out on that nation
because they're related to Jacob through physical birth. That's
not the case. And the other one is that God's
covenant through Moses was a covenant of grace. The law was somehow
a covenant of grace. And because they circumcised
their children, therefore we have to baptize our children.
Both are wrong. And both are taught against in
the scripture. And so he says here, Abraham
believed God. Period. And it was counted to
him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which
are of faith the same are the children of Abraham." And listen,
and here's what happened back then. And the scripture, the
scripture, which is the Word of God written. It's the will
of God revealed. The scripture foreseeing that
God would justify the heathen Gentiles. through faith, preached
the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be
blessed. What did God say to Abraham?
In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Genesis
chapter 12 verse 3. That's what God said. And Paul
takes that verse of scripture and he puts it here in this letter.
And he says, that was the gospel preached by scripture to Abraham. And what does it mean? What was
that gospel? It's the same gospel that Paul
preached. It was THE gospel. The gospel. And what was it? That God would
justify the heathen through faith. That's what he's saying here.
How does God justify the heathen? Well, what did he say in the
promise? Let's go back to Genesis 12, verse 3. It's really quoted
here, but I just want you to see it there as well. Genesis
12, verse 3. I'm just going to read verse
3, because it's the end of the verse that's quoted. I will bless
them that bless thee. And curse him that curseth thee. And in thee shall all families
of the earth be blessed." All families means all nations
according to Galatians chapter 3 verse 8. The heathen. All nations. All Gentiles. Jews and Gentile
nations would be blessed in Abraham. But he doesn't just say in Abraham.
He says in thee and in thy seed. That's what he says in Galatians
chapter 3, verse 8. He says, in thee shall all nations
be blessed, but later on he says, in verse 16 and following, he
talks about his seed. So what was his promise? That
in Abraham, through his seed, remember what God promised Adam
and Eve when he spoke to the serpent? He said, the seed of
the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent. The seed of the
woman. What was the seed of the woman?
Well, according to Genesis 12.3, it would be Abraham's son. After several generations, one
would be born to Abraham, called his seed. That's who he's speaking
about. Through his seed, all the nations
of the earth would be blessed. What was the blessing? That God
would justify the heathen. How would it come about? Through
their law keeping? No, through their faith. And so what God
is saying in that promise that God made to Abraham is that it
was a promise made before to Abraham. But it was really a
promise being made to Christ because He was the seed that
would come. Look at Galatians 3 verse 16. He says, Now to Abraham
and his seed were the promises made. He saith not unto seeds,
as of many, But as of one and to thy seed, which is Christ."
So there you have it. The seed through which all the
nations of the earth will be blessed is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so what was the promise? That God would justify the heathen
through the Lord Jesus Christ. And how would this come about?
Well, look at verse 17. And this I say that the covenant
that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law which
was 430 years after, cannot disannul that it should make the promise
of none effect. The promise to Abraham that he
would justify the heathen through faith by Jesus Christ was a promise
that was part of a covenant. And that covenant was openly
made with Abraham way before the law. 430 years. But it was
made with Christ long before that. Because it's called the
everlasting covenant. In 2 Samuel 23.5, David refers
to it. He said, "...he hath made an
everlasting covenant with me, ordered in all things and sure."
And this is all my salvation, all my desire, all my hope. In
Isaiah 55.3 he said it. I will make an everlasting covenant
with you, even the sure mercies of David. Because God had reiterated
this covenant through the Old Testament. Had expanded on it
and revealed more of it. But it was established in the
beginning with Christ the Lord. And the promise was given to
God. God the Father made a promise to his son saying to him in that
covenant that on the payment of his blood in ransom that he
would redeem his people and he would justify them. His blood
would justify the heathen and they would receive that justification
through faith. And that was the gospel. That's
the gospel, the same gospel that Paul preached. Hebrews 13.20
says, "...through the blood of the everlasting covenant." That's
Christ's blood. In Matthew 26.28, when Jesus
gave the cup to His disciples at the Last Supper, He said,
This cup is the New Testament in My blood. The New Testament
is that covenant revealed and ratified and put into force,
formally approved, and the blessings of it brought forth. Because
of the blood of Christ. Because it all hinged on the
condition that Christ shed his blood. That's the promise God
made to Abraham. He made it to Abraham. God knew
what was compacted in that promise. And Abraham understood it. It
had to do with Christ. It had to do with him. And so
in John chapter 8 and verse 56, Jesus said, Abraham rejoiced
to see my day. And he saw it and was glad. And
so Abraham understood. The promise God is making here
is that He would bring His people from far, from all nations of
the earth, and He would bless them. He would bring them into
His very presence in His court in heaven, and He would declare
them righteous in His sight because of the righteousness of His Son,
and the blood of His Son, which would take away their sins. Abraham
believed God. He believed what God said concerning
his son. And isn't that what Jesus said
in John 5 24? Verily, verily, I say to you,
he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me,
hath everlasting life. And we know that life can't come
until there's righteousness. Galatians 3.21 says, Is the law
against the promise of God? No. For if there had been a law
given which could have given life, verily righteousness should
have been by the law. The law can't give life because
the law can't give righteousness. But if there had been a law that
could have given life, then righteousness would have come by the law. And
so Jesus is saying, if you hear the word of my Father, The word
that he spoke to Abraham, the word of how Christ by himself
would purge our sins and establish our righteousness by his own
obedience in his own death. And believing God, as Abraham
did, you have everlasting life. You already have it. And so he
says in Galatians 3.6, Even as Abraham believed God, and it
was counted to him for righteousness, he believed the Son of God, the
Word of God, the One who has made sin for us, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. When he raised his
knife to slay his own son Isaac on the altar, he had told him
before, he said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb.
That same lamb that Abel offered. That same lamb that was the same
animal whose skins covered Adam and Eve. The same lamb that had
been offered all through the ages, pointing to the one who
would come and take away their sins. And so Abraham understood
it. In fact, he saw in Isaac, when he was going to plunge that
knife into his son, he saw the resurrection of Christ. And he
received him back in a figure, God says. Because God withheld
him from slaying his son and he received Isaac back from the
altar as God received his son back from the grave. And so justified
his people because he received full satisfaction in his blood
for their sins. An atoning sacrifice that cleansed
them from their sins because it made satisfaction to God in
justice. That's what Abraham believed.
He saw Christ, He saw His day, and He rejoiced. And that rejoicing
is the joy that comes in believing. Believing that Jesus Christ is
my acceptance and my all before God. Joy doesn't come any other
way. Not God-given joy. The joy of
the Gospel is in believing Christ and Him crucified. And so in
believing Christ, Believing what God said about his son. Believing
the testimony of God. That's believing the gospel,
isn't it? Believing God. God's testimony of his son is
God-given faith. God gives us that. And when we
see it, and when we believe him, then God says, we have the righteousness
of the one we believe. God counted the righteousness
of Christ to be Abraham's own righteousness. Because he was
the one Abraham believed. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
author and the finisher of our faith and he's the object of
our faith. I live by the faith of the Son
of God. We're justified by the faith of the Son of God. It's
not anything from us. It's all that's His. All of His
obedience in death. And that's what Abraham believed.
And so, when we speak, and when the Scriptures speak of justification
by faith, we're speaking about faith's reception of the finished
work of Christ. Reception, not contribution. Not completion, but reception
of it. We don't make it happen. We don't
make Christ work, work for us, because we believe. God gives
us faith because Christ died. Because His purpose to save us,
as many as were ordained to eternal life, believed. And so faith
comes to us by the gift of God, by the gift of His grace, through
the Spirit of God, because Christ died. And that faith then enables
us, by the power of God's Spirit, to receive what's true in heaven.
What's already been completed. Our faith doesn't change our
legal status before God. Faith does not justify us before
God. Faith allows us to receive the
fact that we are justified by the blood of Christ. Faith did
not take away my sins, did not fulfill God's law, but faith
receives Christ who did. It's so important. What was counted
to Abraham was the one he believed. Not his act of faith, but his
object of faith. And I've given that example many
times before. I still like it. The example
of the thick ice. I've never been ice fishing.
I'm sure that if I went, I'd be concerned. Walking on that
ice, listening to it crack under my feet. Wondering if it was
going to hold me up. And it's not my conviction of
the ice's thickness that holds me up, but it's the actual strength
of the ice, isn't it? It's the object of our faith
that God counts to us for righteousness, not the strength of our faith.
Faith is never perfect. Faith is always growing, has
to increase. And faith is temporal, it ends
in this life. But Christ's righteousness goes
on forever lasting. And so, he is the one who is
counted. And do you want it any other
way, really? Do you want your own sincerity somehow to enter
into the equation? God forbid that we would ever
think that way. That's what we were delivered from. That's what
we repented from. That's what we feared all of
our life, is that somehow our salvation depended upon us and
we tried to produce. What we thought God would accept
from us, and we found we couldn't produce it. And then we found
that Christ was the one God considered, and Him only. And we trusted
Him. We said, this is wonderful. And
that was by the Spirit of God. And so, know ye therefore that
they which are of faith the same are the children of Abraham.
And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen
through faith preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying,
In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be
of faith, not of circumcision, not of law keeping, but they
which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. Verse
10, For as many as are of the works of the law are under the
curse. Here's what the law says to you.
If you're of the works of the law, if you're trying to keep
the law, then you're under a curse. When God gave the law, look at
Exodus chapter 19. In verse 4 he said, "...you have
seen..." This is the Lord speaking to Israel. "...you have seen
what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles'
wings, and brought you to myself." He didn't do anything, God just
did it. Verse 5, "...now therefore, if..." What does if mean? Here's a condition it's following.
There's something that you have to do or something that has to
happen. In this case, it's your own obedience. Now, therefore,
if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then you
shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for
all the earth is mine. He's speaking to the nation of
Israel. He put a condition on this. If you do this, I will
do that. And that's called a covenant.
God says it's a covenant. If you keep my covenant. If you
keep it, then you'll receive the blessing. But if you don't,
then you're not going to receive anything in this covenant, except
the curses. And so in Galatians 3, he quotes
scripture again. He says, "...as many as are of
the works of the law are under the curse, for it is written..."
And he quotes Deuteronomy 27-26, "...cursed is everyone that continueth
not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do
them." So you have to actually do. You have to keep the law,
not just make an effort out of it. You have to do it all the
time. You have to do the whole law,
not just a part of it. If you want to be circumcised,
then you have to look at the whole law and do the whole thing
all the time. And if you don't, because you're
in that covenant now, You've agreed, this is what you want
to be under, then the curses of the law are on you. Cursed
is everyone that does not continue in all things written in the
book of the law to do them. That's what the law says. Is
that what you want? It said, verse 11, but that no
man is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident.
Not only does the law say that, but Habakkuk says, the just shall
live by faith. And verse 12, and the law is
not of faith. But here's what the law says
in Leviticus. That the man that doeth them
shall live by them. If you want to live, the law
says you gotta do. Do and live. That's what the
law says. Don't do and die. And then Galatians chapter 3
verse 13. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law being made a curse for us. How did he do
it? We were under the curse. I, through
the law, am dead to the law. The law cursed me. Christ stood
up for me. He stood up in eternity. He agreed
to be my surety. He's the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. He gave Himself for us. In Ephesians
5.25, He loved the church and gave Himself for it. That He
might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water by the
Word. He gave Himself in His life's blood. He took our sins
and came under the law. In Galatians 4.4 he says, When
the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son,
made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were
under the law. That's why he came. To take our
place before God, under God's law. To bear every obligation
the law laid on us, and to bear every curse the law brought on
us because of our sin. And by paying with his own life
in blood, that ransom payment satisfied God and God released
us from that curse. Our sins were taken away because
God received full payment for them. And God took away the curse
of the law from us. Christ did that. It says in Hebrews
chapter 9 and verse 12, "...neither by the blood of goats and calves,
but by his own blood." Jesus Christ entered once into the
holy place, into heaven itself, having obtained eternal redemption
for us. Christ's work was a real, actual
salvation. He obtained it, and it was eternal. He offered himself once, and
by that one offering, he forever perfected those that God the
Father gave him to save. One offering, offered once, eternally
obtained our redemption. He actually did something. Something
was accomplished in history. In Christ's history, not yours,
in His history. God looked upon His Son, received
from Him full satisfaction, and said, My people are free. Their sins are removed. They're
cleansed by the blood of Christ. And in Leviticus chapter 16,
where the Day of Atonement occurs, in verse 30, he says this about
what the high priest did. And Jesus Christ is the high
priest who laid his own hands on his own head and confessed
our sins over himself. and owned them as his, but he
made atonement for them on that one day. It says on that day,
Leviticus 16 verse 30, on that day shall the priest make atonement
for you to cleanse you. That means all your sins are
purged, washed, taken away from you. You're whiter than snow. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses
us from all sin. That you may be clean from all
your sins before the Lord. Now that's where the justification
takes place. Before the Lord, when Christ
shed His blood, when He had by Himself purged our sins, then
He sat down. As early as when Christ was justified,
we were justified before God. In the decree of God, He was
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, and as long as
we were God's elect, nothing or no one could lay anything
to the charge of God's elect. But here in Leviticus 16.30,
anticipating what Christ would fulfill in Hebrews 1.3, He says
He would make us clean by His own blood. And then He says in
verse 31 of Leviticus 30, And it shall be a Sabbath of rest
to you, and you shall afflict your souls by a statute forever. So they were supposed to rest.
They were supposed to enter into the rest because the high priest
obtained a full cleansing of their sins. And so Christ hath
redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for
us. For it is written, Cursed is
everyone that hangs on a tree. God put him there. It was by
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God that wicked men, by their
wicked hands, crucified God's Son. God did it. God offered
up His Son. He delivered His own Son up the
judgment. In Romans 8.32 it says, "...he
that spared not his own son..." He didn't spare him. He didn't
spare him from one bit of the judgment that was deserved for
our sins. "...he that spared not his own
son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with
him also freely give us all things?" That's what he did. A finished
work. This is Christ set forth, evidently
crucified among us. God is telling us he hung his
son upon a cursed cross. And all who look to him, like
the serpent lifted up, have eternal life. Because they themselves
have been given this grace to look. And so he says, In verse
14, the last verse we're going to look at, that the blessing
of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ.
What is the blessing of Abraham? Justified by the blood and righteousness
of Christ. And then he goes on, that we
might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. the
promise of the Spirit through faith. And I really should take
a lot of time to develop this. I won't take it this week. Maybe
I'll do more on it next week. What is the promise of the Spirit
that we receive through faith? This has given me a lot of puzzlement
as I've considered this over the years. How do we receive
the promise of the Spirit through faith? Somehow we do something
and then God gives us His Spirit. Is that the way it works? Not
according to Jesus. Remember he told Nicodemus, you
can't see the kingdom of God unless you're born from above.
But he says in John 1 that as many as received him, which he
explains, even to them that believe on his name, to them gave he
the right, the authority, the God-given warrant to be called
the sons of God. The promise of the Spirit is
that the believer in Christ, the one for whom Christ died,
is given the Spirit of God not only in the new birth, at which
point the believer didn't have faith, but when he's born of
God, he's given faith to look to Christ and Him crucified as
all of his salvation. But then in the believer's life,
the Spirit of God seals to him and confirms to the believer
that he's God's own. That he's the adopted, born son
of God. So that when he looks to Christ
as all of his salvation, then God, by his Spirit, applies,
in looking to Christ, the promises that he gave in Christ. And all
the promises are ours, for whom God delivered up his son. And
one of those main promises is that we are the sons of God.
And so, later in Galatians 4, he says, "...because you are
sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts,
whereby we cry, Abba Father, my Father." It's the Spirit of
God who seals us. He seals us by confirming in
our hearts... by showing us Christ, and showing
us that in looking to Christ, as we read through all of the
scriptures in the New Testament, and we hear the Gospel preached,
the manifold blessings of God are given to us for Christ's
sake. And the Spirit of God teaches us that they're yours. Not for
what you've done, but for what Christ has done. And let me read
this one scripture to you to give you an example of this.
We'll give you many more next week. But in Ephesians chapter
3, listen how the Apostle prays for the Ephesians in this way
and along these lines. We have the Spirit of God. If
any man does not have the Spirit of God, he's none of his, right?
Romans chapter 8 verse 9. We've been raised in our spirit
from death to life. Romans 8 verse 10. The body is
dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.
But here in Ephesians 3, listen to what he says. For this cause,
in verse 14, Paul the Apostle praying for all of the Church
of God, not just the Ephesians. For this cause, I bow my knees
unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family
in heaven and earth is named. And here's his prayer, that he
would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be
strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man. And
what is the result of that strengthening with might by His Spirit in the
inner man? That Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith. That you, being rooted and grounded
in love, because remember the love of God is shed abroad in
our hearts by the Holy Ghost, Romans 5.5. That you, being rooted
and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend, this is all
by the Spirit, With all saints, what is the breadth, and length,
and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which
passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness
of God? Now that's a huge, huge prayer,
isn't it? And so he says, now unto him
that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we
ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him
be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world
without end. Paul the Apostle prays that you
might be given the Spirit of God, the eyes of your understanding
being enlightened. You might be able to comprehend
with all saints what is the height and breadth and length and depth
of the love of God in Christ. We depend on the Spirit of God,
don't we? We would not be able to say, my Father, in our heart... Unless God's Spirit did that
for us. And the only way we can do that by the Spirit of God
is believing Christ. It's by faith. And so God confirms
to us the promise, not only of our justification in Christ,
but all the blessings which were determined to be ours when He
gave us to Christ. It's an amazing salvation. Let's
pray. Our Father, we pray that you
would, according to your promise, your eternal will, in the Lord
Jesus Christ, your only begotten Son and our Savior, that you
would give us this grace of your Spirit, the Spirit of Truth,
to convince us not only of our sin in Christ accomplished, finished
righteousness, and judgment accomplished in His death, but also our blessings
in Him. That you would not deliver up
your Son for us, without also giving us all things with Him.
And so let us lay hold on this eternal life and run this race,
not timidly, not hesitatingly, not with doubtings, but with
assurance, with confidence, with God-given faith, with love in
our hearts to you by your spirit, that we might bear the fruit
of our sonship and your own spirit living in us, not by the works
of the law, but by your own spirit of grace. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.