the book of Luke and I want to
visit a few verses out of the second chapter of Luke this morning
and if you If you haven't got your Bible
yet, those of you who are watching by way of the internet, then
please do so. I want you to follow with me. I've got a few verses I want
to share with you as we open the Scriptures and we consider
the subject of Christ fulfilled God's law. Christ fulfilled God's
law. Now you'll recognize this passage
of scripture, the second chapter. Our Lord Jesus has been born
of a virgin and the shepherds have been directed by an angel
to go to Bethlehem and see that one who's the savior of sinners. And they came and they saw him,
and they saw his mother, they saw Joseph, and they rejoiced
in the goodness of God in sending this Savior to the world, the
Savior that the angel of the Lord had announced. unto them
that had come, that one who would reconcile men to God. And we would be reconciled by
the death of the Lord Jesus. Now before I read these verses
to you, let's ask God to bless our time together. Lord, we do
make request of you that you would meet with us by your Spirit
We so need the presence and the power of the Spirit of grace. Lord, come and minister to each
of us. Bless all who are under the sound
of my voice. Bless us with the knowledge,
the saving knowledge of God. Keep us ever looking to Jesus,
who is the author and the finish of our faith. Speak through the
message, through the word of God. Lord, this is the incorruptible
word which we read lives and abides forever. Now take these
things that we shall speak of concerning our Lord Jesus, And
Lord, reveal them unto us by the spirit of revelation. Bless us all for Jesus' sake. Amen. Now, let me read just a
very few verses here in the second chapter of Luke. And I want to
begin at the 21st verse. As I've already said, our Lord's
been born. He's fulfilled the prophecies
of the Old Testament, that is, those pertaining to his entrance
into this world. He is indeed Emmanuel. He is
God with us. And now we get to the second
chapter of Luke in verse 21. And when eight days were accomplished
for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus. Oh, what a sweet name. Notice
it's in all capital letters. This is Jehovah who saves. This is God, our Savior. The scripture continues, which
was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
22nd verse says, and when the days of her, Mary's, purification
according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought
him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. Verse 23, as it
is written in the law of the Lord, every male that openeth
the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. and to offer a sacrifice
according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, a pair
of turtle doves or two young pigeons. And we'll end our reading
there with verse number 24. As we look through the New Testament,
at the life and the death of our Lord Jesus, we discover that
he has a very near relationship to God's law. And as we inspect
his life, As we examine all facets of the 33 to 34 years that our
Lord lived in this world, we often find in the Word of God
his relationship to God's law set forth. Now, you'll notice
in the New Testament, as you study this subject, that he has
a relationship to the law of God, and that law of God is set
forth in three different ways. First of all, by law in the New
Testament is often meant all of the Old Testament scriptures,
all of the word of God. I asked Ron to read that passage
in John chapter 12, for in verse 32, Verse 34, and he's read it
to you, so we won't look back at it, but it says this, John
12, 34, the people answered him, we have heard out of the law
that Christ abided forever. And how sayest thou then that
the son of man must be lifted up? Who is this son of man? There, our Lord Jesus and his
relationship to the law of God is set forth in this way. All
of the Old Testament, all of the law of God promised his coming. It pictured his coming. Everything
in the Old Testament pointed us to the Lord Jesus. As you
read the word of God, as you study the Old Testament scriptures,
always be looking for the Savior. Because all of the law of God,
according to that passage that Ron read to us in John 12 and
34, all of the law of God speaks of him. The people said we've heard out
of the law that Messiah or Christ abides forever. Well, where is
that found? Well, it's found in a number
of passages of Scripture in the Old Testament. Psalm 110 and
verse 4 says, the Lord has sworn and will not repent. Thou art
a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. You're a priest
forever. The people said, we've read out
of the law that he abides forever. Well, now you're talking about
him dying. You're talking about being buried
in the ground like a farmer puts a seed in the ground and he won't
have any produce. He won't have any fruit unless
that seed, unless it dies, then it brings forth much fruit. They
said, now, we don't understand that because we've read out of
the law. We've read out of all of the
Old Testament that when this one who is set forth in the Old
Testament, that Messiah, when he comes, he will live forever. He will live forever. And indeed
He does. So all of the Old Testament is
considered to be God's law. Psalm 45 and verse 6 says, Thy
throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of Thy kingdom
is a right scepter. And then again in Psalm 72, 17,
His name shall endure forever. Forever. So all of the Old Testament
sets forth the eternality of the Son of God, that is, Messiah. So by the law of God, number
one, we're to think of all of the Old Testament scriptures,
all 39 books, which all point to him. Now secondly, also by
the word law used in the New Testament, is meant a few times
the writings of Moses, which would be what we call the Pentateuch. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy. You know that. Look over at Luke
chapter 24, and I'll come back to Luke 2 in a little bit, but
look at Luke chapter 24. Luke chapter 24. And let me read verse 44, Luke 24, 44. And he, our Lord
Jesus, this is after his resurrection now, he's laid down his life
for the sheep. He has already satisfied divine
justice. He died according to the word
of God. 1 Corinthians 15, three says
that. And now he's been raised again
and he reveals himself to his disciples. And here we are in
verse 44, the last chapter of Luke. And he said unto them,
these are the words that I spake unto you while I was yet with
you that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law
of Moses. Well, is he talking about all
of the Old Testament scriptures there? No. Because then he says,
and in the prophets and in the Psalms, those things concerning
me. So he's speaking now specifically
of the writings of Moses in the first five books of the Bible
and also in Psalm 90 and perhaps even the book of Job. Some people
think that Moses wrote the book of Job, but everything that Moses
wrote being led of the Spirit of God,
being himself inspired to write these things on parchment, he
wrote about the Messiah who was coming, about the Redeemer, about
the Lord Jesus, and now our Savior is saying to his disciples, now
listen to me and look at me, he says. Everything Moses wrote
has now been fulfilled concerning me. You remember in John chapter
five, our Lord Jesus is speaking to the Jews who were all upset
with him anyway. He had healed a lame man on the
Sabbath day. And then he said, my father worketh
and I work. And then they were ready to stone
him to death because they knew he was claiming to be the son
of God. He then says at the end of John
chapter five, don't think that I will accuse you. That's what
he said to them. There is one that accuses you,
even Moses, in whom you trust. That's what he said to them.
And then he said, had you believed Moses in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, Deuteronomy, Psalm 90, had you believed Moses, you would
have believed me. And then he made this statement.
You better get this down. This is very vital. For he wrote
of me. That's what he said. He wrote
of me. So in the New Testament, when
we read of the law of God, especially in relationship to our Lord Jesus
Christ, but even generally as we read of the word law in regards
to the law of God in the New Testament, there are some times
when it refers to all of the Old Testament scriptures, and
then other times it refers to just the writings of Moses. And
there were people who, they so esteemed Moses. They trusted
in Moses. They believed Moses. They said
they love Moses. And our Lord Jesus says, if you
love Moses, if you to believe Moses, you'd believe me. He wrote
to me. That's like the motto of Moses
would be this, I wrote of Jesus Christ. That's Moses motto. All right, then thirdly, so by
law is meant all of the Old Testament. By law is also meant, in some
portions of scripture, the writings of Moses himself, as he wrote
by the inspiration of the Spirit of God. But also by law, thirdly,
is meant the law that God gave to Moses, which consisted of
moral laws along with the religious or the ceremonial laws, just
one law there. But it has to do with our conduct
or the conduct of the Israelites and those rituals or ceremonies,
the religion toward God. Now understand this. Our Lord
Jesus came into this world to fulfill all the law of God. Whether you're talking about
all of the Old Testament, he fulfilled it. Or you're talking
about just the writings of Moses, he fulfilled it. Or if you're
only talking about the law that God gave to Moses to give to
the Israelites, he fulfilled that too. Our Savior said this
in Matthew chapter five. He said, he said, thank not that
I'm come to destroy the law or the prophets. He's now speaking
about those laws that God gave to Israel in the book of Exodus. Things pertaining to their conduct,
thou shalt have no other gods before me. Laws pertaining to
the tabernacle. Laws pertaining to the sacrifices. Laws pertaining to all the ceremonies. He said, think not that I'm come
to destroy the law or the prophets. I'm not come to destroy, but
to fulfill. And then he said to those thousands
of people who gathered there to hear him in that Sermon on
the Mount, he said, for I send you till heaven and earth be
passed away. One jot or tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till
all be fulfilled. Now, who fulfilled it? That's
the question. Who fulfilled it? Well, you're
talking about all of the Old Testament, just the writings
of Moses, or the law that he received up on Mount Sinai. Who
fulfilled it? Our Lord Jesus did. He said,
I didn't come to destroy it. I didn't come to cast the law
of God aside as though it was an unimportant document. I came to honor God's law. I
came to fulfill God's law. You see, He did what we couldn't
do and what nobody can do. No man or woman, born of no man
or woman, no son or daughter of Adam can ever fulfill, honor
God's law. All the dictates of God. We've
broken it. I thank God we had a Savior who
came to keep it. He came to honor it. He didn't
come to destroy it. You know, when Moses was given
that law of God up on Mount Sinai, the Lord said to his servant,
as the Lord was giving him the law, and the Lord had etched
the law in two tablets of stone written with the finger of God.
And Moses is up on the Mount receiving this law. And God said
to Moses, go get down for thy people. Get off this Mount for
thy people, which you brought, which thou broughtest out of
the land of Egypt. They have corrupted themselves.
That's what God said. They've turned aside quickly
out of the way which I commanded them. In other words, they're
already breaking this law. As soon as God's law was written,
man was breaking it immediately. You've got to understand that.
God said they made a molten calf. And they worshipped it. They
sacrificed to it. And they said, these be thy gods,
O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
And God was ready to destroy them. And Moses sought sought
God in prayer. He said, oh Lord, don't destroy
your covenant people. Remember your covenant to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. Don't destroy your covenant people.
And as Moses made his way back down that mountain, Joshua was
waiting for him. And Joshua said, there's a noise
of war in the camp. And Moses said, it's not the
noise of war. It's not the shout for mastery. It's not the cry of them who
are being overcome. It's the noise of them that sing,
that are celebrating that I hear. And Moses, when he got down to
the bottom of the mountain, And he saw what the children of Israel
had done. He saw the golden calf. They
had already broken the very first law of God. Thou shalt have no
other gods before me. And what are they doing? They're
worshiping a golden calf. And he took those two tablets
of stone and he threw them down and he broke them, indicating
that's what they were already doing. You see, man would, if
he could destroy God's law, do away with God's law. There are
many people who don't even believe there's the God who must be answered
to, the God to whom we must give account. But you can't destroy God's law. God wrote it again. And then our Lord Jesus came. And of those laws that God gave,
He kept them all perfectly. See, the law is what Paul says
in Romans chapter 7. The law is good. It's hopeful. It is the mind and will of God. It's the revelation of what God
demands, a just and holy God. He can accept nothing less than
perfection. And that's outward perfection
as well as inward perfection. That's what God demands. And our Lord Jesus, He kept it
perfectly. in order to save us. As our representative,
all of the laws of God, he perfectly obeyed. However, that's not enough. Even though our savior has obeyed
God's law perfectly in our state, that's not enough to establish
righteousness for the people of God. There's that issue of
the, of death, which God's law demands. You see, yeah, God's
law's gotta be kept perfectly. Our Lord Jesus did that. But
we've broken God's law, you see. And the word of God says the
wages of sin is, you know what the word is, death. Death. Somebody's gonna die for your
sins. Either you're gonna die forever,
or you have a substitute who died for you already. But somebody's
going to die. There is the penalty of God's
broken law that's got to be dealt with. God's law demands perfection
or else death. And of course the law is correctly
summarizes, thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy mind,
soul, body, and strength, and love your neighbors yourself.
And we can't keep God's law. You know that. Any honest person
whose mind hasn't been deluded and deceived by false religion,
you know you can't keep God's law perfectly. Even if you think, well, I'll
start keeping it perfectly now, which is an impossibility, still,
what about all you transgressions through the years? Hey, what
about being born in sin? What about our native, native
depravity? Now somebody's got to die for
that. God said in his word, the soul that sinneth, it shall die. God's not gonna go back on his
word. He'll never reverse that. There's got to be death. There's
got to be death. That's illustrated in Genesis
chapter three, when Adam and Eve sinned, God got death. He said, in the day you eat thereof,
you'll surely die, Adam. Well, Adam didn't drop dead when
he sinned. But I'll tell you what, there
was death in the garden, because God killed innocent victims. God shed their blood. God robed
them. Death, death. And the scripture
says, Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures.
Now, go back to Luke chapter two, and here's what I want you
to understand. And I'm gonna be dealing with
this subject also again this evening. I want you to understand
that from the very beginning of our Lord's earthly journey
till he was what, nearly 34 years of age, something like that.
But from the very beginning of his earthly pilgrimage to the
very end when He ascended up into heaven. His life was a life
of obedience to God's law. And he obeyed it and he fulfilled
it perfectly. Perfectly. He had to do it to
establish righteousness for us. He had to live a perfect life
and he had to die, he had to die the death of a criminal. Because you see, all of the iniquities,
all of the sins and transgressions of all of the people of God were
put to his account. And the law of God found our
sins, charged to him, and the law of God, which demands death,
right? Now you know that. The law of
God that demands death got death from God's sacrifice. Justice killed him. Justice killed
him. The scripture says in Isaiah
53, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. It satisfied God to bruise
him in the stead of his people. That's substitution, isn't it?
And this is our delight. Here's the gospel. Christ died
for our sins according to the scriptures. And so here in Luke
chapter 10, our savior, eight days after his birth, he is taken
to Jerusalem, taken to the temple to be circumcised. Why? In obedience to the law. In obedience
to God's law. And then 40 days after his birth,
Mary and Joseph went up to the temple so that she could be symbolically
purified by sacrifices. And that's when the Lord Jesus
was dedicated and redeemed by the two birds that were killed.
If you paid close attention, when I read these verses here
from Luke the second chapter a few minutes ago, you notice
that the mentioning, the continual mentioning of the law. The law. Jesus, he was circumcised
according to the law. Look at verse 22 again. When
the days of her purification according to the law of Moses
were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him.
Look at verse 23. As it is written in the law of
the Lord, every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy,
sanctified. dedicated to the Lord, verse
24, and to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said
in the law, in the law of the Lord. Look again down in verse
27. And he came, this is Simeon,
he came by the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents
brought in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of
the law, Look at verse 39, verse 39. And when they had performed
all things according to the law of the Lord. You see, our Lord, right from
the get go, right from the beginning, from eight days after his birth,
he began to fulfill God's law, God's law. What's his name? Jesus. He was named. After eight days, he's named.
But they didn't just pick a name out of the air. No, the name
that he received was the name that Gabriel had given to Mary
and then had given to Joseph concerning the naming of this
baby. This is a special baby. This
is a one of a kind. There's not another one like
Him. His name is Jesus in all capital letters. This is God
our Savior. And He is named. He's named. He who is our God is our Savior. He's Emmanuel, God with us. He came to fulfill God's law. Now, look at another reference
with me, Galatians chapter four. And I'll give you a little bit
of time to find Galatians chapter four, but look over there with
me. Galatians chapter four. Our Lord, he came to fulfill
the law of God. Whether the law you consider
all of the Old Testament, he fulfilled all the prophecies
and pictures regarding his first advent, he fulfilled them all.
Or if you're considering only the writings of Moses, he fulfilled
them all. Or if you're just considering
God's law as given by Moses, that law God gave to Moses on
the Mount Sinai. He fulfilled God's law. He's
made under the law. That's what this scripture says
here in Galatians chapter four. Look at verse four. But when
the fullness of the time was come, when the time was complete,
God sent forth his son. We didn't send for him. God sent
him on a mission of mercy. God sent forth his son made of
a woman. The seed, he's the seed of the
woman, Genesis 3.15. Made under, under the dominion
of, under the authority of the law, the law. To redeem them
that were under the law. to do for us, to do for all of
His people, to do for His elect, to do for those God gave Him
in covenant grace, that which we could not do for ourselves. He came to redeem us, that we
might receive the adoption of sons. And because you're sons,
God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father. Now we know the yoke of God's
law was a heavy yoke for men. You remember in Acts chapter
15, the very first Sovereign Grace Bible Conference, and Peter
says to those Judaizers, why do you seek to put a yoke the
yoke of legality, of laws on these people. Even our fathers
couldn't live under that kind of yoke. They weren't able to
bear that. Why would you put it on anybody,
any of the people of God? The yoke of the law was heavy,
and even though men, according to the law of God, offered sacrifices
to sin, we know that those sacrifices never put away any sin. They
were given according to God's law, but they didn't put any
sin away. Our Lord Jesus, he came to do
something about sin. He was born under the authority
of God's law. He would obey all points of the
law in perfection. As our representative, as our
substitute, he'd do that for us. And then he went to the cross
of Calvary to satisfy the further demand of the law for death,
for sin. Oh, he was the perfect one himself,
yes. He lived for us. That obedience,
bless the name of God for his obedience. But the scripture
says he was obedient unto death. Now don't leave that out. There's
no righteousness without death. You can just forget it. Look
with me, go to the book of Daniel. Let me give you this verse over
here. Look at Daniel chapter nine. Look at Daniel chapter
nine. And let's look at verse 24, Daniel
chapter nine and verse 24. And some of you are familiar
with this verse of scripture. Most of you are probably. Daniel
chapter nine and verse 24. Daniel says, 70 weeks or 490
years are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city
to finish the transgression Now, when did that happen at the cross
of Calvary? Our Savior finished the transgression. He shut them all up as it were
in a bag and he tossed them into the depths of the deepest sea.
He put them behind in God's back. He finished the transgression.
All of the transgressions of his people were considered as
one great transgression. Daniel 9, 24 then continues,
to finish the transgression and to make an end of sins, to consume
them entirely, to destroy them, and to make reconciliation for
iniquity, to make things right, because we're not up to keeping
God's law. And watch it, and to bring in
everlasting righteousness. Now the rest of this verse has
to do, or the previous part of this verse, has to do with his
death. This is no different. He came to bring in everlasting
righteousness. Here's the very crowning achievement
of our Savior. He died and brought in everlasting
righteousness. and to seal up to fulfill the
vision and the prophecy and to anoint the most holy. As it says
in 2 Corinthians 5 21, for he hath made him to be sin for us
who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. That's talking about the death
of our savior. So we read again back over here
in Luke, the second chapter, how he was born under the law. He's born under the law. Now, notice in the 22nd verse
again. And when the days of her purification
were according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they
brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. Now, I want
you to hold your place here and just go back to the very last
book of the Old Testament. And that's Malachi chapter three. Malachi chapter three. Let me
see if I can tie this together for you. You know, when you get
to the book of Malachi, get to the end of the book of Malachi,
400 years of silence went by. God didn't speak. But the sum of Malachi's very
last words, chapter three, verse one, now watch it. Behold, God says, I will send
my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me. It's our savior
speaking concerning John the Baptist. And then he says, and
the Lord whom you seek, watch it, he shall suddenly come into
his temple. Now let's go right back to Luke
chapter two. Malachi right toward the end
of his writing says, he shall suddenly come into his temple. And here we are in Luke chapter
two, and there in verse 22, to present him to the Lord. And in verse 24, to offer a sacrifice, there's that man, Simeon, he's
laboring in the temple. And then all of a sudden, in
fulfillment of our Lord's words of Malachi chapter three, suddenly
he came into the temple. As Simeon had received the word
of God, you're not gonna die till you see the Lord Christ,
till you see Messiah. And he suddenly comes into the
temple to fulfill God's law, to fulfill God's law. And the first thing is, he's
submitted to be circumcised. to be circumcised. Circumcision
doesn't picture baptism. That's wrong. It pictures regeneration,
the cutting away of the filth of the flesh. We read in Romans,
the second chapter, that he is a Jew, not one who's outwardly
or in the flesh a Jew. but one who is inwardly a Jew
being circumcised by the Spirit of God using the sword of the
Spirit. We have been wounded in the heart. And our Lord Jesus, He came into
this world and the first thing He did was He submitted to circumcision,
which indicated several things. Number one, it identified Him
as Abraham's seed. It identified him as Abraham's
seed. That was the seal of the covenant.
It was an indication that a man was a Jew. He was circumcised. And that which indicates to us
that we're the people of God indeed is that we've been born
again of the Spirit of God. We've been wounded in the heart
and then brought to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's all
of our confidence and He's all of our salvation. Is He all of
yours? If He's all of your confidence
and all of your righteousness and all of your hope, you've
been circumcised in the heart. The second thing about circumcision
and our Lord Jesus, without circumcision, Jesus of Nazareth could not be
recognized as being the seed of Abraham and the seed of David,
or the son of David. You see, this is, Luke is led
by the Spirit of God to identify who this little baby is. He's
Jesus. Well, how do we know he's the
promised Messiah? because he's the seed of Abraham
and he's the seed of David. And that circumcision was the
seal of it. Thirdly, why did he submit to
this law of circumcision? Thirdly, because without circumcision,
he couldn't be recognized as a teacher in Israel. He couldn't
even enter the temple if he had not submitted to circumcision.
He would have had no access to any of the synagogues or to the
temple in Jerusalem. Without circumcision, he would
have been regarded by the Jews as an uncircumcised Gentile and
an apostate from the faith of their fathers. So he had to be
circumcised. And then fourthly, by submitting
to circumcision, some of his blood was shed. And that foreshadowed
him pouring out his life's blood unto death by order of God's
law in the most painful, ignominious manner possible, the death of
the cross. Because without the shedding
of blood is no remission of sins. And I'll tell you something else.
By submitting to this ordinance of circumcision, Our blessed
Savior voluntarily, voluntarily made himself a debtor to do the
whole law. You can jot this verse down.
I won't take the time to look at it, but it's Galatians 5 and
verse 3. For I testify again to every
man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole
law. When Messiah, Jesus, the Savior,
when he submitted to circumcision, he therefore said, I'm a debtor
to do all of God's law. I'm bound to do it. He purposed to do it in old eternity
in the covenant of grace. And now in time, he comes into
this world. He's a little baby born as a
baby, having joined his deity to our humanity. And he submits
to circumcision, which indicates to us, and this is a glorious
truth, I am bound and I'm a debtor to do all of the law, and I'm
doing it for my people. Isn't that wonderful? Such good news. Ceremonial law of God consisted
in sacrifices. Quite a bit of it's about sacrifices. Our Lord Jesus here obligated
himself to offer to God, not the blood of bulls and goats,
but his own blood as that penalty for our sins. He's bound to do
the whole law, which means he's got to die for transgressors
like us. Did his death satisfy God? Absolutely,
because God raised him from the dead, and then he went back to
glory, and he took his seat upon the right hand of God. Oh, that
God the Holy Spirit would teach us these three things, and I'll
quit. We were under the authority of the law of God and debtors
to do all of the law. Obedience to God's law was required,
but impossible. Therefore, we were under the
death penalty. Number two, the Lord Jesus was
made under the law for a specific reason. Why'd he come down here? Ask any number of people why
Jesus Christ came into this world, and they'll give you various
answers, but they won't give you the gospel answer. He came
to redeem those who were under the law. He came to buy us back
from the demands of righteous justice. He came to satisfy God. He didn't
come to try to save. He came to save. And he did save. He said, I fulfilled all the
law. He saved his people. I tell you
something happened at Calvary that satisfied heaven and shook
the very pillars of hell. Something that caused the devil
to be whipped and beaten and defeated. What happened at Calvary? Christ died and satisfied the
justice of God. Everything God demanded of you,
my sinner friend, if you're a believer, if you're ever brought to believe
Him, the Lord Jesus Christ satisfied. That's the good news. And then
thirdly, one last reference in Romans 3. Look at Romans chapter
3. How do we honor the law today? How do we really fulfill the
law? Our Lord Jesus fulfilled it for
us. But look at this, Romans 3 verse
24 says, being justified freely without a cause in us, by His
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to
declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are
past through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at
this time, His righteousness, not yours. Yours are filthy ragged. His righteousness. He's the Lord
our righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of
him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It's
excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but
by the law of faith. Therefore, we conclude that a
man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Is he the
God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles?
Yes, of the Gentiles also, seeing it is one God which shall justify
the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith.
Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid, yea,
by faith. we establish the law. We believe
on him who fulfilled the law. Christ fulfilled the law. Whether
you talk about all of the Old Testament, or the first five
books of the Bible, or the law that Moses received from God
on those two tablets of stone up on the Mount of Sinai, our
Lord Jesus fulfilled it. He's an able and glorious savior. And we bless his name. Let's
close in prayer. Thank you, Father, for the gift
of your son. He is indeed the law keeper. We're law breakers by nature. He's the law keeper. And he's
the law fulfiller. He fulfilled it by living a life
of perfection and then dying under the curse of a broken law.
And by his death, he put away our sins and he brought in everlasting
righteousness. Lord, take these things and drive
them home to our hearts. We ask for Jesus' sake.