Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
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for today's program. Welcome to our program. Today's
message will be taken from the book of 1 Corinthians chapter
2. I did a message a couple of weeks
ago from this passage, but I want to go back to it. And the title
of the message is Comparing Spiritual Things. comparing spiritual things. Now, this again is a message
that is one part of a series that I've been doing on how to
interpret the scriptures. And today I'm going to talk about
the seventh rule of interpretation, which is the rule of comparison. The rule of comparison. There
are eight rules that I've been dealing with. I've talked about
the first one, the rule of Jesus Christ crucified and raised from
the dead. Did a message on that a few weeks
back. The second rule was the rule
of first mention. These are rules that I use to
interpret the Bible. The third rule is the rule of
simplicity. The simple fact that if God says
it, it's true. The fourth rule is the rule of
revelation. These things must be revealed.
That's God's work. We're totally dependent on the
Holy Spirit to reveal them to us. Fifth rule is the rule of
language, which has to do with the meaning of words. That's
people doing word studies. That's a good thing. And then
the sixth rule, very much connected to the rule of language, is the
rule of context. I dealt with that last week,
that words have meaning in context. And we have to know the context
to find the meaning of words and phrases and concepts. Well,
today I'm going to talk about the seventh rule of interpretation
called the rule of comparison. And I'm going to read here from
1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 2, where it talks about the revelation
of God. Look at verse 10, 1 Corinthians
2 and verse 10. He talks about the things that
God has prepared for those who love him, his people. And he
says in verse 10, but God hath revealed them unto us by his
Spirit. There's the rule of revelation.
God's revealed the things of truth, the things of the gospel,
the things of salvation to his people by his Spirit. For the
Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
The deep things of God there does not refer to high or deep
intellectual doctrine that's only good for the skilled theologian. The deep things of God there
are the mysteries of the gospel that God the Holy Spirit must
reveal to us or else we will not know them. Man by nature,
fallen in Adam, ruined by the fall, born dead in trespasses
and sins. He lies in ignorance, the darkness
of ignorance and deception. He lies in the slavery of self-deception
and self-righteousness. He has no desire to believe God. And so he goes on in verse 11.
That's why it must be revealed. We must be given life, spiritual
life from above. We must be born again. Those
who have been ruined by the fault must be redeemed by the blood
of Christ. All legal obstacles must be removed
and all legal qualifications must be provided. Well, that's
done in the person and the work of Jesus Christ, the glorious
person of Christ, the God-man, God in human flesh. And the blood
that He shed on the cross is the complete payment for the
sins of His people. providing the righteousness that
God requires for him to be both a just God and a savior. Those are the deep things of
God. And so he says in verse 11, for what man knoweth the
things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him? Even
so the things of God knoweth no man but the spirit of God.
Man only knows what is natural to him. That's why man by nature
believes that salvation is by his works. That's why he lifts
himself up and elevates himself to think that he can do something
to gain God's favor, to merit God's favor. And so we have to
be taught by the Spirit that no, we're sinners. We have no
hope of salvation, of being justified before God, of having a forgiveness
of our sins by our work. It's all by grace. So he says
in verse 12, now we have received not the spirit of the world,
that's the spirit of unbelief, but the spirit which is of God,
that we might know the things that are freely given to us of
God. That's what the spirit of God
teaches God's people. that everything we have by way
of salvation, by way of blessing, by way of eternal life and glory
is freely given to us without a cause, unconditionally given
to us in Christ. Christ fulfilled all the conditions.
I talked about that last week. So salvation is a free gift. Now, I know people will always
add, they say, well, you've got to unwrap the gift. You've got
to do this. Listen to me. When God gives his gift of salvation
to his people, that gift includes the knowledge and the desire
to receive that gift. Else we wouldn't know it and
we would not receive it. That's what the Bible teaches.
That's what God said in the prophecies of the Old Testament concerning
salvation of His people. He said, I'll put my spirit within
them. I'll give them a new heart. Man
by nature will not receive the gift. If left to yourself, to
your own will, you won't receive it. But those who receive it,
it says that God has given them that gift. So it's freely given. Now look at verse 13. Which things
also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth,
but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with
spiritual. Now here's where we're going
to the rule of comparison. Comparing spiritual things. And
what I'm simply saying in the rule of comparison is that we
must interpret Scripture first and foremost with other Scripture,
comparing spiritual things with spiritual things. Whenever people
read the Bible with their preconceived notions, they come with those
preconceived notions not looking for revelation, and illumination,
but looking for validation. In other words, what I mean by
that is do you approach the Bible when you read it just trying
to confirm what you think you already know and believe? Well,
my friend, that's a wrong way to interpret Scripture. That'll
get you in a lot of trouble. That'll lead you astray. I don't
want just simply to confirm and validate what I think I already
know and believe. I want to know what God has in
His Word to teach me what to believe. I want the revelation
of God. I want to be illuminated by the
Spirit. And if what I believe is validated
by God's Word and God's Word alone, then I can rest assured
it's the truth. How are you going to do that?
You compare Scripture with Scripture. You read the Bible. The Bible
is the truth. Now, a lot of times when people
talk about interpreting Scripture with Scripture, they'll invoke
a verse out of 2 Peter 1. I want to read it to you, because
I want to make a point with it. The apostle Peter here is talking
about what he's doing. He's encouraging the people of
God not to follow what he calls cunningly devised fables. the
concoctions of men. He talks about the Old Testament
and the truth that God had for his people then. And he says
in verse 19 of 2 Peter chapter one, he says, we have also a
more sure word of prophecy, where until you do well that you take
heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day
dawn and the day star rise in your hearts, Knowing this first,
here's verse 20. Knowing this first, that no prophecy
of the scripture is of any private interpretation. He says in verse
21, for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man,
but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
Now that verse 20. He says, no prophecy of the scripture
is of any private interpretation. Now, many people have taken that
verse and said, well, that means that no scripture can be interpreted
on its own. It must be interpreted with other
scripture. Well, that's true, but that's not what the verse
is teaching. What that verse is saying is that when God, when
Moses, for example, and the prophets, people like David and Jeremiah,
and we could go on a way through, and the wisdom writers like Solomon,
whenever they wrote down or preached their message, it didn't come
from their own private thoughts and their own private opinion.
It was given them by the Holy Spirit. Moses wrote the first
five books of the Old Testament. but Moses was not really the
author of those books. God is. Moses was just the human
instrument. He was writing not Moses's opinion. It wasn't, this is what Moses
thinks. This is God's word. This is the
fact of the word of God. And that's what that passage
is teaching. I just wanted to interject that
because a lot of people use that to talk about the rule of comparison. But I'm going to give you what
I believe is one of the best examples in Scripture to help
us apply the rule of comparison, interpreting Scripture with Scripture,
comparing spiritual things, comparing spiritual things with spiritual
things. And I want to start back in the
Old Testament, in the Psalms, Psalm 32 is where I'm going to
go, if you want to follow along. And this is one of the Psalms
of King David, the sweet Psalmist of Israel. And he starts off
here talking about blessedness. And listen to what he says, Psalm
32 and verse one. It says, blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. And then verse
two, blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no guile. Whoever, listen, whoever
has their transgressions forgiven, whoever's sins are covered, whoever
is the one to whom the Lord imputeth. What does that word imputeth
mean, impute? It means to charge or to account, to lay to the
account of, In other words, he's saying blessed is the man unto
whom the Lord does not charge iniquity. You know, when you
get charged with a crime, or when a person gets charged with
a crime, first they get accused, and then they get charged, and
then they have to bring in evidence to make the charge stick? Well,
the Bible says that we're all sinners. That's the charge. So how in the world can it be
said that I could not be charged with sin when I'm a sinner? He
says, blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputed not iniquity. He talks about the forgiveness
of sin, transgression. In fact, in these two verses,
he uses just about every Old Testament word for sin that there
is. Transgression, sin, iniquity, guile. Transgression, that means
going, that means breaking the law. The sin, that means falling short
of the standard of righteousness, the glory of God. We've all sinned
and come short of the glory of God. We missed the mark. Even
our best fall short. And then he talks about iniquity.
That's unequal. It doesn't measure up. It's inequitable. Here's the standard. You put
yourself and your works on the scale and you don't measure up. You fall short. And then guile,
what is guile? That's deception and dishonesty. So he said, blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven. In the Bible, apply the rule
of context that I talked about. In the Bible, how does God forgive
sin? Well, the Bible teaches us all
the way through the Old Testament and the New that it's only by
the blood of Christ, the blood of the Lamb. and whose sin is
covered. What does that mean, covered?
Does that mean hidden from view, covered over? Well, it's a reference
to the covering of sin that existed in the tabernacle. You remember
in the Holy of Holies where the high priest went one time a year
into the Holy of Holies on the day of atonement, and he'd bring
the blood from the brazen altar, the blood of a lamb. That was
the blood of atonement on the day of atonement. And what he
would do, he would go into the Holy of Holies and there was
the Ark of the Covenant, that box that was made of Shittim
wood overlaid with gold and had contained the Ten Commandments. And over that, that box was a
lid called the Mercy Seat, had the cherubims over top. And what
happened was the high priest came in there and he sprinkled
the blood over the Mercy Seat. Sprinkled it everywhere, but
he sprinkled it over the Mercy Seat. That mercy seat was a covering. That mercy seat was a type of
the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm gonna get to that rule, the
rule of typology, the rule of types next time. And so the forgiveness
of sin comes by the blood of Christ. I heard a preacher one
time say on television, he said, what is the cost of forgiveness?
You know what he said it was? He said, your repentance. No,
sir. The cost of repentance is the
blood of the Lamb of God. And if you ever see that, you
know what'll happen? You'll come to repentance willingly
by the power and grace of God. You'll repent then. But your
repentance is not the cause. Your tears of remorse, your promises
to do, but no forgiveness of sin comes by the blood of Christ.
That's how sin is covered. It's not just covered over now.
It's not just hidden from view. Those sins are totally removed
legally, objectively by the blood of Jesus Christ who paid and
satisfied the justice of God. And so then he says, blessed
is the man in whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. That's iniquity. In other words, he doesn't charge
that person with the inequity of his sin. And then it says
in whose spirit there is no guile. Now what that's talking about
is a person who's been brought to faith in Christ and repentance,
a person who's been brought to admit the reality of his sin
and his depravity and the fact that it's impossible for him
to be saved, to be blessed, to be glorified, justified based
on his best efforts to keep the law. He's honest about it. He's honest before God about
himself and his sin. God's holy. Remember what Isaiah
did in Isaiah chapter six? Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty. I'm a man of unclean lips. I
dwell amidst a people of unclean lips. I have no hope of salvation
by my best efforts to keep the law. If God were to judge me
right now based on anything that I've done by way of obedience,
I would be doomed to eternal death because it's iniquity.
I know that my only hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood
and righteousness. And I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name, on Christ the solid rock
I stand. All other ground is sinking sand.
Now, in Psalm 32, David spoke of the non-imputation of sin. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. What does the non-imputation
of sin really mean for a sinner? What does it really involve?
What does it include? Well, here's where we will apply
the law of comparison, the rule of comparison, comparing scripture
with scripture. And I want you to go to the book
of Romans chapter four. And while you're turning there,
let me say, you know, a lot of times we'll find, and really
all the time we'll find that if we see it, the best interpreter
of the meaning of the Old Testament is the New Testament. Someone
said years ago that the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed
and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. Well,
a lot of times you can go right to a passage of Scripture where
God the Holy Spirit, through the writers of the New Testament,
quote certain passages from the Old and show what they mean.
And I could show you a lot of that, but I'm just going to give
you this one example. Now here in Romans chapter 4,
the Apostle Paul, as he was inspired by the Holy Spirit, is talking
about how God justifies the ungodly. How God justifies sinners. how God saves sinners, how God
blesses sinners, how God forgives sinners. And he starts off using
Abraham as an example. Look at verse one, he says, what
shall we say then that Abraham, our father, as pertaining to
the flesh hath found? Now here's Abraham, a well-respected
father of the Jewish nation. And the Jews, you remember, the
unbelieving Jews, basically pled three things as to their ground
of salvation. Their connection with Abraham,
their physical circumcision, and keeping the law of Moses.
Well, Paul says, well, what are we gonna say about Abraham? Verse
two, for if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to
glory, to boast, but not before God. To be justified is to be
not guilty. To be justified is to be righteous
before God. Well, how did Abraham become
righteous before God? It's not by his works or he would
have had something to boast about. Verse three, for what sayeth
the scripture? What's God's word say? For Abraham believed God
and it was counted, imputed. That word counted means imputed.
It was charged unto him for righteousness. What was charged to Abraham for
righteousness? Read on. Now to him that worketh
is the reward not reckoned or accounted or imputed of grace,
but of debt. If you're working for it, if
you have to make conditions for it, it's not grace, it's debt,
what God owes you. But to him that worketh not,
verse five, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness. What was Abraham's faith? That's
not talking about Abraham's believing. He did believe. Well, what is
it talking about? Now he jumps to David. And he
quotes from Psalm 32. He says in verse six, even as
David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth
righteousness without works. David, he says, described the
blessedness of the man to whom God charged righteousness without
works. Now, when did David say that?
Well, look at what he says in verse seven, saying, blessed
are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Now, if you go back to Psalm
32 and read that again, you'll notice that the term righteousness
is not there, but that's what David meant. How do I know that? Compare scripture with scripture. Go by the rule of comparison.
This is what God the Holy Spirit says David had in mind when he
wrote those words. When David talked about the non-imputation
of sin, here's what he meant. There's three things included.
What does the non-imputation of sin mean? Number one, the
non-imputation of sin to me means the imputation of sin to Jesus
Christ. You see, God, when He determined
not to impute my sins to me, He had to do something with them.
He cannot just leave them out there in space or limbo. Sin is not a substance anyway.
The debt of my sin is not charged to me. To whom was it charged?
To Jesus Christ. That's what the book of 2 Corinthians
5.21 means when it says, for he was made to be sin. Jesus
Christ, God the Father, made him to be sin or made him sin. My sins were charged to Christ.
The non-imputation of sin to me means the imputation of sin
to Christ. Christ who knew no sin. Christ
who did no sin. For us, 2 Corinthians 5, 21,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. That's the second
thing that the non-imputation of sin means. Number one, it
means sin imputed to Christ. Secondly, it means righteousness
imputed to me. If God does not charge me with
sin, what does he charge me with? He charges me with righteousness.
Second Corinthians 521, for he hath made him to be sin, Christ
who knew no sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. Now, where does that righteousness
come from? It comes from the obedience unto
death of the Lord Jesus Christ as my substitute and as my surety. So as I compare scripture with
scripture, I learned this, the non-imputation of sin, the fact
that God does not charge me with sin. Who shall lay anything to
the charge of God's elect? It's God that justified. It means
that God charged those sins to Christ. Christ took my debt and
he paid that debt in full by the price of his precious blood.
He did it as my substitute. He did it as my surety. and he
drank damnation dry. He paid the debt in full. And
it means righteousness, his righteousness is imputed to me. You see I stand
before God in righteousness that I had no part in producing. It's
the righteousness of God. It's the righteousness of Jesus
Christ who is God in human flesh. And the third thing is this.
The non-imputation of sins, number one, it means sin imputed to
Christ, it means righteousness imputed to me, and number three,
it means spiritual life in the new birth given and applied as
the result. Where sin is not imputed, righteousness
is imputed, and life is given. The Bible says over here that
Abraham believed God, verse 20 of Romans 4. He staggered not
at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith,
giving glory to God. Abraham had the gift of faith.
Abraham, verse 21, being fully persuaded that what God had promised,
God was able to perform. What did God promise Abraham?
Salvation, righteousness through the promised Messiah, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And Christ himself in John chapter
eight made this statement. He said, Abraham rejoiced to
see my day. He saw it and he was glad. Abraham
looked to Christ. And so in verse 22, it says,
it was imputed to him. That's what it means. That's
how you compare scripture with scripture. That's just one of
the many examples. And I hope you'll join us next
week for another message from God's word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
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