When we look at Galatians chapter
2, we see the history of Paul and his contact with the apostles
at the church in Jerusalem. And then we see Peter coming
to Antioch where Paul spent a good bit of time with Barnabas and
other believers who were there in Antioch. Antioch seems to
be the center of the Gentile church in those days, those early
days of the gospel. Because that was the base for
Paul and Barnabas to work from. That's where they spent most
of their time when they weren't out on the mission field. And
then we see a great fall of Peter in this chapter. And we're going
to look at these things, going through the history a little
bit of Paul, and then try to bring out the lessons that God
is teaching us here, because there are some powerful lessons.
Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, We
pray that you would reveal to us, as you did to the Apostle
Paul, the Lord Jesus Christ, that He is our Savior, that He
is your Son. He's the one you promised. He's
the one who fulfilled your will. He's all of our salvation. And
our trust and our hope would be in Him alone. We would not
be tempted by the terrors that men try to bring against us,
threatenings, angry faces. promises of reward and fame and
recognition. We would actually hate all those
things and consider this world to be a criminal in your eyes
and a crucified thing. And that we would be found in
the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified with Him and risen again, living
on Him by faith. And you would teach us about
Him today in your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
I've entitled today's message, Everything Matters. In the life
of Paul and Peter, especially in these two chapters of Galatians,
we see that everything matters. Paul's conversion began when
the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus. He was going there to arrest
and then imprison men and women who were believers. And then
he was converted, when Christ appeared to him. He was completely
changed. Everything that he formerly believed, he forsook. And now,
especially the things he believed about how he could be right with
God, and come before Him, appear before the Lord Jesus, appear
before God Himself in His presence, and be found accepted and favored
and blessed and have life. All that changed when Paul was
converted because he saw the truth. He changed in his mind
and that change in his mind led him immediately to be baptized. His eyes were opened, his physical
eyes were opened because his spiritual eyes had been opened
to the truth he had never known. And he was immediately baptized,
and by his baptism he identified himself with the Lord Jesus Christ
in his life, and his death, and burial, and resurrection, as
all of his hope. His union with Christ was all
of Paul's hope, because Christ was his Savior and his Lord. Now, immediately after his baptism,
he began to preach that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in the
city of Damascus, which was in Syria. While he was in Damascus,
he left there and he went to a place called Arabia for a time
and then returned to Damascus. We don't know how long he was
in Arabia, but while he was there, he increased in his ability to
prove and to preach that Jesus is the very Christ. confounding
the Jews. But three years after his conversion,
after he had preached in Damascus, gone to Arabia, and returned
after his conversion, he returned. He went to Jerusalem after three
years. And he went with Barnabas at
that time. Barnabas, the name Barnabas means son of consolation.
He was a godly man, a man who believed Christ in the book of
Acts. I think it's in chapter 4, near the end, Ananias and
Sapphira died for lying to the Holy Ghost. Barnabas sold all
that he had and he brought it to the elders. He brought the
money from his land that he had sold to the elders and gave it
to the church. This was Barnabas. And he was
used of God in a great way because he was constantly confirming
the disciples and comforting them in the gospel. In Acts 11,
he encouraged the disciples to cling to the Lord Jesus Christ
with purpose of heart. Well, when he and Paul went to
Jerusalem together this time, three years after Paul's conversion,
Paul and Barnabas with him saw only Peter and James, these two
apostles. And you see that in Galatians
1.18-19. Now while he was at Jerusalem,
while Paul was there with Barnabas, three significant things took
place. First of all, while Paul was praying, he fell into a trance.
And this is in Acts 22.17, it says that. While he was in a
trance, the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him. And I personally
believe that this is the time he spoke to the Corinthians about
when he said, I don't know if I was in the body or out of the
body. I was taken up into the third heaven. But in any case,
the Lord spoke to him. The Lord Christ spoke to him.
And he explicitly sent Paul to the Gentiles while he was in
Jerusalem. He was only there with Peter 15 days, according
to Galatians 1. And so Paul left Jerusalem, but
first, let me say this, after the Lord said he wanted him to
go, he was sending him to the Gentiles, Paul first said that
the Jews would know that he had persecuted the believers because
he had stood by when they stoned Stephen, and they therefore probably
would have been prone to believe his message about the fact that
he was converted from such a completely He was so completely convinced
of the Jews' religion and following it that for him to be so converted
as an expert in that religion would make an impact on them.
He thought this would help him in the preaching. But the Lord
said, No, they won't hear you. And so he sent him away. And
you know from Romans 9-1 that Paul had a great love for his
brethren after the flesh. He said, I wish that I could
be a curse from Christ for my brethren after the flesh. But
of course, his being cursed wouldn't help. It was God's will that
mattered. But Paul submitted to that will. It indicated, though,
that Paul really truly loved his Jewish brethren, but they
wouldn't hear him, and so the Lord sent him away. The second
thing that happened that was significant while he was in Jerusalem
at this time, and this is found in Acts 9, verse 29. is that
Paul disputed with the Grecians. And the Grecians, as a result
of that, wanted to kill him. They plotted to kill him. And
so this third thing happened. The disciples there in Jerusalem
heard of his plan and they brought him away from Jerusalem to Caesarea. And from there they sent him
away to Tarsus, which was the city of Paul's birth. So by both
revelation by the Lord Jesus and by the brethren helping him
escape the Grecians, he was sent from Jerusalem and he came to
Tarsus. And Paul was, as I said, he was only there in Jerusalem
for a few days, 15. He did not receive the gospel
from Peter and James at that time, because of the short time
he was there, and no mention is made by Peter teaching Paul
at that time, nor did the Christians in Judea or Jerusalem teach Paul
the gospel of Christ, which was all recorded there to support
the claim that Paul said that he received the gospel directly
from the Lord Jesus himself. But meanwhile, there's sort of
a parallel path. Paul is sent away to Tarsus.
Peter is visited by the Lord. A sheet full of unclean animals
is let down. And Peter is in a trance, kind
of in a dream state. And the Lord speaks to him and
says, rise Peter, kill and eat. And he didn't want to do that.
This is in Acts chapter 10. He didn't want to. And so he said, no. No unclean
thing has ever crossed my lips. We're not going to do this. And
the Lord appeared three times to him and he told Peter, he
said, Peter, what God has cleansed, don't you call common or unclean. This is a very important lesson.
And it taught Peter that the Lord had purified the Gentiles
by himself. And so it was his will to show
this to Peter. And so it was at that time that
Peter was sent to Cornelius Centurion, a Gentile, and his household
also Gentiles, and he was there with the Gentiles, and he preached
the gospel to them, and they believed. Peter preached the
gospel to Cornelius and his household, and Cornelius and his household
believed and were baptized, and the Spirit of God fell upon them.
And Peter witnessed that, and he said, God Himself has given
witness by His Spirit that He has accepted the Gentiles for
Christ's sake. And so this was a powerful and
significant event in Peter's life to teach him that the gospel
was not just for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles. That the
church was made up not just of Jews, but of Gentiles. In fact,
it wasn't made up of all Jews at all. It was made up of the
elect Jews and the elect Gentiles. And so, after this, in Acts chapter
11, some of those who had been scattered, remember the persecution
that arose when Stephen was stoned? There was a persecution that
arose then. A lot of the people there were scattered, and some
of those were from Cyprus and Cyrene. And those men who were
scattered went to a place called Antioch in Syria. And there in
Syria, in Antioch, when these men came, many heard the gospel
and believed, and they became disciples of Christ. So now there's
a church, a little church in Antioch. But the church of Jerusalem
heard about this and so they sent Barnabas to Antioch to help
them. Who were preaching and to help
those who had believed. And as I mentioned, Barnabas'
name means son of consolation. So he went there with his gift
to comfort the believers. And he exhorted them that with
purpose of heart they should cleave to the Lord. Acts 11 verse
22 and 23. And so the Holy Spirit teaches
us that believers are to look to Christ and so be comforted. But while Barnabas was in Antioch,
he went to Tarsus because he wanted to find Paul. This was
God's directing Barnabas there. Barnabas found Paul there and
so he brought Paul back to Antioch. Paul and Barnabas met there with
the believers in Antioch for a whole year. So the disciples
in Christ in Antioch were first called Christians. This is the
history. I'm giving you sort of a thumbnail
sketch of the history. But while they were there in
Antioch during this time, there was a prophet named Agabus who
said that God was going to send a famine in Judea. So the church
in Antioch thought, let's send relief from the famine to the
believers in Judea. So they gathered up all that
they could, every man according to his own ability. And they
sent a gift by Paul and Barnabas to Judea to the believers there.
And they went and they took that gift to the churches in Judea.
That was the area around Jerusalem. So they didn't go there and meet
with the elders, but they did take a gift to those churches.
And on their return, and you see this at the beginning of
Acts chapter 13, the Spirit of God spoke that Paul and Barnabas
should go on their first missionary journey that God was going to
send them. And this is what took place in Acts 13, when they first
preached the gospel there to another city called Antioch,
which was not in Syria, but was up somewhere else. Alright, so
a long time passed. Paul and Barnabas returned to
the church of Antioch and then they told the believers all that
they did, that God did with them while they were on this missionary
journey. There was a great rejoicing because of God's work through
the gospel that was preached in these cities where Paul and
Barnabas went. So that's kind of a long summary, but that's
a thumbnail sketch of what happened in Paul's ministry before this
time, and in Peter's also, in order to prove that God had determined
before to save the Gentiles. Now, in verse 1 of chapter 2,
Galatians chapter 2, It says then, 14 years after, I went
up again to Jerusalem. So he came back to Antioch, he
had told the believers there with great joy of all that had
happened. And they were there for a long time. The totality
of the time when he had gone to Jerusalem the first time,
come back to Antioch, went to Judea with a gift, went back
to Antioch, was sent on the missionary trip, came back to Antioch, all
those times was about 14 years. And so this was about 17 years
after his conversion that he went to Jerusalem. And at this
time he went up because God had told him, the Lord Jesus had
told him to go to Jerusalem. This is why Christ told him this,
because there were people who came from Jerusalem to Antioch
and they were teaching the believers there, trying to teach them,
that they must be circumcised in order to be saved. So that's
the setting here. All this time had passed and
now there's this big issue that came up about the Law of Moses. and whether the believers had
to be circumcised. And this is a big reason for
the book of Galatians. Did they have to? Was there something
else needed? Well, it says here in Galatians
chapter 2 verse 2, "...and I went up by revelation," that means
Christ commanded him to go up explicitly, "...and I communicated
to them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately
to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run,
or had run in vain." Paul determined to tell Peter, James and John,
the apostles there, in private the gospel that Christ had given
him to preach to the Gentiles. And the gospel that he preached
to the Gentiles, the Lord had blessed and saved many Gentiles
and bore witness to the fact that they were His by the Spirit
of God and by miracles and other signs. And so this was the success
of the gospel. And he told them all these things.
But he told them in private because he wanted to be sure that they
were preaching the same gospel he was preaching. He didn't have
any doubt that he was preaching the gospel. But he wanted to
make sure that they were preaching the same gospel. Otherwise, there
was no point in getting out and talking to the rest of the gathering
there at Jerusalem about this issue of circumcision if the
apostles weren't aligned with it. But they were. They were
totally aligned with it. And then he says in verse 3,
So Titus had come with Paul. Not only Barnabas, but Titus had come. And Titus was
a Greek. That means he was a Gentile, not a Jew. And he wasn't circumcised. These false brethren had claimed
that you had to be circumcised to be saved. Titus was uncircumcised
and the Lord had saved him. And Paul brought Titus in order
to bear witness to the gospel, the work of Christ in Titus'
life, and the fact that even though uncircumcised, the Lord
had given him his own spirit and blessed him with salvation.
So there was no question about it. And he refused, he would
not submit to these false brethren about circumcising Titus because
of this big issue. Should you be circumcised? Should
you keep the Law of Moses in order to be saved? That was the
issue. And Paul said, no, no, no. We're not going to circumcise
Titus. And Titus was completely at liberty.
He did not feel compelled to be circumcised. And Paul refused
to submit to those false brethren who attempted to make him feel
like he needed to be. Now this was a big issue. Why
was it such a big issue? Why were these people, and these
people were called Judaizers. That means they were Jews who
tried to convert believers to the Jewish religion. Judaizers. They went about Judaizing Christians.
Let's make you Jews by following the Law of Moses. That was their
aim. Why were they doing that? Was
it just so they could circumcise people? Was it just so they could
say, well we've got a following? It was partly that. It was partly
that. It was mostly because of this
tendency of false religion to give men a cause for boasting
before men. They wanted to have disciples
following after them so they could boast in their disciples.
They themselves had a reason, they thought, they had a reason
to compare themselves to others and find themselves to be better
than others. I follow Moses. Who do you follow?
I'm circumcised, what about you? And all these things. Well I
don't eat that, what about you? All these differences they could
find between themselves. And so the Jews had this arrogant
attitude that they were God's special people because of their
birth to Abraham, because they had the Law of Moses, and because
they followed all these little rules and traditions. Like not
eating with the Gentiles and several other things. And so
in verse 5, Paul says, "...to whom He gave place by subjection."
No, not for an hour. That the truth of the gospel
might continue with you. The truth of the gospel. So there's
two opposing things here. There's what the Judaizers were
teaching and what the gospel teaches. The Judaizers said,
you must be circumcised. You must keep the law of Moses.
That's not what the gospel says. Paul made this the issue. That's
why I've entitled this message, Everything Matters. Because everything
ultimately comes down to either supporting the truth of the gospel
or opposing the truth of the gospel. We're either for Christ
or we're against him. You can't be in the middle here.
But the Judaizers, the whole issue here comes down to a matter
that has to do with which covenant you're under. And this is the
part, the rest of Galatians is about this. In fact, most of
the New Testament is about this. Which covenant are you under?
The book of Galatians especially. And the book of Hebrews. And
the book of Romans talk about this. In Hebrews it says that,
look at Hebrews chapter 8 for example. I'll just show you a
couple of verses from a few of these books of the Bible to show
you how prominent this was in the New Testament. Hebrews chapter
8, he says in verse 10, For this is the covenant that I will make
with the house of Israel after those days, saith the LORD, I
will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts,
and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.
And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man
his brother, saying, Know the LORD, for all shall know me,
from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their
unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities will I remember
no more. In that he saith a new covenant, he hath made the first
old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth
old is ready to vanish away." So here's the thing. There's
two covenants here, aren't there? There's the old, and according
to the Hebrew writer, it's going to vanish away. It's being put
away. It's abolished. Why? Because
the new has come. And Galatians is all about this
too. We're going to see this more and more as we get into
the book of Galatians. But he talks about this in Romans.
Remember Romans chapter 7 verse 4? You've died to the law by
the body of Christ. You're no longer under the law.
In chapter 8 verse 4, you fulfilled the law in Christ. The law of
God is fulfilled in you. who believe. This is the message.
And in Romans 10.4, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness.
So Romans and Galatians and Hebrews are all about this distinction
between the old covenant and the new. And Hebrews chapter
13.20 talks about the blood of the everlasting covenant. And
in Matthew 26.28, Jesus holds the cup out to his disciples
and says, this cup is the New Testament in my blood. So the
New Testament, the New Covenant was made in the blood of Christ.
And this is repeated in Luke. And then in the book of Acts.
And in Ephesians he talks about there's only one Lord, one faith,
one baptism, one body. And the middle wall of distinction
is broken down. All of these books of the Bible,
even in Revelation, he makes a distinction between the synagogue
of Satan and the church of the living God, the New Jerusalem.
So throughout the New Testament, this is the issue. This is the
big issue here. And this is the issue that came
up here in Jerusalem. So much of an issue it was that
Paul was not going to budge one inch. Not a little bit. And you
might think, well man, he was so rigid and dogmatic and narrow-minded. Yes, he was. Because God's glory
And Christ's purpose and success in His life and death was at
stake here. The message, the power of God
to salvation was at stake. This is the whole issue. Everything
matters. To Paul, everything mattered.
He wasn't going to just let this go. No, Titus is not going to
be circumcised. I came here to be sure that the
apostles are preaching the same gospel that Christ gave. And
they are. And so he goes on. This is the issue. To deny, to
add something, like circumcision, to the requirement for a believer,
either before salvation or after salvation, is essentially, it
boils down to this. It means there is no such thing
as a new covenant. It's all just one big covenant,
and we call it the Law of Moses. And yes, Christ came and died
and so on, but that's just to make salvation possible. You
have to do these things in order to make it work for you. That
was the message of the Old Covenant. You've got to keep the Law of
Moses. And so they met together, the apostles met together, and
then after their private meeting, then they had a public meeting
with the elders. And this is in Acts chapter 15.
Look at Acts chapter 15 with me. Because this is the account
of where Paul and Barnabas And then Peter, and then the Apostle
James, collectively, in public, in Jerusalem, declare the fact
that we're saved by grace alone. And this is the new covenant.
In verse 1 of chapter 15, Acts chapter 15, And certain men came
down from Judea, coming down from Judea, even though it's
south of Antioch, because Jerusalem was high, it was on a hill, and
so they had to come down in elevation. certain men came down from Judea,
taught the brethren, and said, Except you be circumcised after
the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. And when therefore
Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with
them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others
of them should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders
about this question. So the men of Antioch the church
at Antioch and the explicit revelation that Paul mentioned in Galatians
2 verse 2 by Jesus Christ that he should go there to settle
this question. Those both agreed together and
they sent Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem to the apostles and
elders about this question. Verse 3, "...and being brought
on their way by the church, they passed through Phanisee and Samaria,
declaring the conversion of the Gentiles, and they caused great
joy unto all the brethren." You can imagine the excitement, the
enthusiasm, the gospel was having such a broad effect. This is
the gospel they believed, and these people in Phanisee and
Samaria heard this. This is amazing, the power of
the gospel to save these Gentiles. They knew what it meant to be
saved, in verse 4. And when they were come to Jerusalem,
they were received of the church and of the apostles and elders.
And they, Paul and Barnabas, declared all things that God
had done with them. And Titus was with them, as we
saw in Galatians. And there rose up certain of
the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying that it was
needful to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law
of Moses. Here we go again. What were they saying, essentially?
They were saying that the Old Covenant was still in force.
Because the Law of Moses is the documentation of that covenant.
The Law of Moses, the Ten Commandments, all the ceremonial laws, all
the civil laws, the whole thing together is called one covenant. And if you adopt or adhere to
any part of that covenant, then you're saying, I'm under the
whole thing. That's why in Galatians chapter 5, Paul said, Now look,
I, Paul, say unto you that if you be circumcised, you are a
debtor to do the whole law. Because it's one covenant. And
these men were trying to say, there's really only one covenant.
And whatever we believe about Christ, it's got to be swept
under this bigger umbrella of the old covenant. The law of
Moses. You've got to keep Moses' law. But why was the law of Moses
given? It was not given to save. It
was given to convince men that they are sinners, bankrupt, naked,
helpless before a holy God, and can do nothing to save themselves. They are guilty before God and
deserve God's wrath. That's what the Law of Moses
does. But Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law
being made a curse for us. He came and fulfilled the Law
of Moses in all of its just demands for our punishment. And he also
fulfilled the requirements of the Law of Moses in all of his
obedience. And the New Covenant is this.
It's that God has found all men to be sinners and yet has found
one man to stand for his people and answer God in fulfillment
of his law in both precept and penalty for them. And he's done
it all. He's finished the work. Now we
are to rest in that. Their sins and iniquities will
I remember no more. I'll pour out my spirit upon
them because Christ has made them holy before God by his one
offering. That's the new covenant. But
Moses says, no, no, it's an individual thing. You have to obey God on
your own personal obedience. You're only accepted if you keep
the law. Those two things are antithetical. But the law pointed
forward to the fact that Christ would be the one who actually
fulfilled all the requirements that we broke. And all that we
did to offend God in that law. The law was meant to teach us
our sin is against God. It's His law. We've sinned against
God, against Thee, Thee only have I sinned and done this evil
in Thy sight. And it's exceeding sinful because
our sin rises up and multiplies in the face of God's law. It
proves that in our heart we're sinners. And we cannot do anything
to justify ourselves. The law of Moses will not clear
the guilty. And so that's what these men
were holding to. How could they be believers in Christ? Because
they didn't really believe Christ was everything in their salvation.
And that's the big thing. That's everything, isn't it?
Everything matters. Verse 7. It says, so, in verse
6, And the apostles and elders came together for to consider
this matter. This was after Paul had his private meeting. In verse
7, And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up and
said to them, men and brethren, you know how that a good while
ago God made choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth
should hear the word of the gospel and believe. He's talking about
Acts 10 and Acts 11 where he went to Cornelius, preached the
gospel, they believed, they received the spirit of God, they were
baptized. And then he goes back to Jerusalem and the men there
said, hey, we hear you went down and ate with some Gentiles. And
says, yeah, but look, God has cleansed them. What am I going
to say? Verse 8. And so Peter continues. And he
says, and God, which knoweth the hearts, Bear them witness,
giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did to us." So God gave
them His Holy Spirit, just like us. And He put no difference
between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. That's
what the Old Covenant does. It makes a difference between
men based on either their birth, their blood, or their will, or
their works. John 1, 12, and 13. But Peter
said, no, God purified their hearts by faith. Now, therefore,
why tempt ye God? Who in the world would tempt
God, knowing what we know as Jews, to put a yoke upon the
neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were
able to bear? Only a hypocrite could say that
this was a good thing, to be under the law of Moses. But we
believe, Peter said, that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
we, we Jews, we apostles, shall be saved even as those heathen
Gentiles. That's amazing. This is the most
powerful statement I think he could have made. I'm going to
be saved, said Peter, just like that heathen Gentile who looks
to Christ alone. What a humble thing to say, but
a true thing. Peter understood it, didn't he?
Verse 12. Then all the multitude kept silence
at what Peter said, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul,
who declared what miracles and wonders God had wrought among
the Gentiles by them. They listened as they told them
all about their mission and journey and everything that God had done.
And the Gentiles. Verse 13. Now James is going
to say something. This is the Lord's brother, James.
Not James John's brother, but James the Lord's brother. And
after that, After they had held their peace, James answered,
saying, Men and brethren, listen to me, hearken to me. Simon hath
declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles to take
out of them a people for his name. So what did Peter say?
I went to the Gentiles and I preached to them, and guess what? God
saved them. God took out of the Gentiles,
not all the Gentiles, but out of the Gentiles, he took a people
for his name. And James says, and to this agree
the words of the prophets. And he quotes from Amos chapter
9 verses 11 and 12. And I'm just going to read what
he says about those words here. Verse 16, and after this, this
is from Amos, After this I will return, and will build again
the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down, and I will build
again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up, that the residue
of men might seek after the LORD, and the Gentiles, upon whom my
name is called, saith the LORD, who doeth all these things. What
is James saying here about this prophecy in Amos? He's saying
that there's a tabernacle of David. And God's going to set
it up again. And He's going to set it up and
the residue of men are going to seek the Lord. And those on
whom God has named his name, put his name on them, called
them by his name, they're going to seek the Lord and he's going
to save them. This is what James is interpreting the Old Testament
prophecy about the tabernacle of David in terms of the saving
of the Gentiles. This is amazing. What does it
mean? Well, in the Old Testament, remember, King David had commissioned
and provided everything needed to build this temple for the
Lord. And Solomon actually put it together
and it was beautiful. And men came from all sorts of
nations to this temple. And that was a picture of how
the Lord Jesus Christ, as the son of David, 28 generations
down from David, born to David as his son after the flesh, he
himself would reign as the king, not on earth, But in heaven over
all of his people, and he would bring his people, and they themselves
would be the stones in that temple. Like they put physical stones
to build a temple, Christ would take people and make them living
stones in his temple, and he would dwell in them, they would
be his people, and he would be their God. Let me read to you
from 1 Peter chapter 2, because this explains it in words that
amplify what James said here in Acts chapter 15. This is the interpretation of
Old Testament scripture. This is why the disciples were
so excited to hear Jesus expound the Old Testament scriptures
to them on the road to Emmaus. You mean, you are David's son? Yes. And you're going to build
a temple? What is it? It's the people of God, the body
of Christ. He says here in 1 Peter 2, verse
2, "...as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word,
that you may grow thereby. If so be you have tasted that
the Lord is gracious to whom coming to Christ as unto a living
stone." Christ is that living stone,
disallowed indeed of men. He was rejected of men, but chosen
of God and precious. You also, as lively stones, are
built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also
it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief
cornerstone, elect, precious, and he that believeth on him
shall not be confounded. To believe on Christ is to be
anchored on the foundation. There is no other foundation
that any man can lay save Jesus Christ. And he is that cornerstone. Verse 7, Unto you therefore which
believe, he is precious. But unto them which be disobedient
in unbelief, the stone which the builders disallowed, the
same is made the head of the corner. And a stone of stumbling,
and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word,
being disobedient, were unto also they were appointed. These
men who rejected Christ in unbelief were appointed to that damnation
that they will receive. But you, you believers, are a
chosen generation. a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a peculiar people, that you should show for the praises of him who
hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, which
in time past were not a people, but now are the people of God,
which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy."
The Gentiles. He's talking about the Gentiles.
This is what James is talking about. And so back in Acts 15,
James says this. "...that the residue of men might
seek after the Lord," verse 17, Acts 15, 17, "...and that all
the Gentiles upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who
doeth all these things." These people called by my name. That's the elect of God. Known
unto God are all his work from the beginning of the world."
So not only is it recorded in scripture, but God knew he was
going to do this before time began. From the beginning of
the world. When the world's foundation was
laid, God already knew he was going to save the Gentiles by
Jesus Christ. This is the reality, this is
the substance that the Law of Moses could only foreshadow. David's kingdom, David's reign
as king, was only a shadow of what was to come. Moses' law,
the first covenant, was only a shadow of Christ coming and
fulfilling that law and saving his people. So how important
was this? It was of ultimate importance.
Everything matters here. What is done in Jerusalem sets
the precedent. It establishes the truth of the
gospel. of Jesus Christ is the only truth
by which we're saved, not the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses
simply pointed forward to the New Covenant and the Gospel tells
us about that eternal covenant made by God the Father with His
Son to save His people where Christ would act as their covenant
head. He would do everything God required
for them to be saved. And in doing everything for them,
God would pour out all of his blessings and fulfill all of
his promises in Christ. And all those who were in Christ
are in that covenant. That's what this is talking about.
That Christ is enough. That His work is enough to save
us. And to say, no, we need Moses'
law is to say, the new covenant hasn't come. There is no new
covenant. We still have the old covenant. And this is the way
we're saved. Individual obedience, not Christ's obedience. Individual
punishment, not Christ's substitutionary punishment for us. See how important
this was? And this is why Paul got so upset
when he saw Peter acting like he did in what follows, which
we'll cover next week. Next week we'll get to the details
here, and I want to get through verse 16 at least next week,
so let's continue then. Let's pray. Father, we thank
you for the truth that the Lord Jesus Christ is our covenant
head, and by His own blood He has fulfilled all requirements
necessary for all blessings and promises that you made in Him
to be ours. And they're ours, all who believe,
are built up into this temple in which He dwells, and dwells
in us. And He is the foundation, and
we're the living stones. This is an amazing thing that
we could be partakers of this life, this eternal life in righteousness
and all the blessings of God in Christ. And that we would
know it by this God-given faith, this life that lives in us, Christ
in us, who lives and causes us to believe and see Him and rest
upon Him. Help us, Lord, to declare and
hold and cling to the Lord Jesus Christ as Barnabas exhorted the
believers then, with our whole heart, with purpose of heart.
We would forsake everything that opposes Christ or threatens us,
but we would stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has
set us free, and not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
And we would so worship you for Christ's sake and declare your
goodness to us, give praise to you for your grace, and we would
live in hope and in love for our Savior and in love for his
people. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.