The title of the message this
morning is Every Believer's Confession of Faith. Throughout church history,
we often see written confessions of faith, statements of faith,
And sometimes that's not all bad because it's simply people
listing what they believe the Bible teaches if that's what
their confession of faith is about. But every now and then
you come to a verse or a set of verses that kind of summarizes
the believers, the true believers, the true Christians' confession
of faith. And this is, we're gonna look at some verses here
that sort of does that. And we could go throughout the
scripture. The Bible is our confession of
faith, but as you know, people claim to believe different things
about the Bible. And I've been thinking about
that a lot lately because here pretty soon I'm gonna begin a
series of messages on our television program. about interpretation
of scripture. When you read your Bible, and
when you try to get some meaning out of it, are there any rules
or any principles that we need to use? Somebody says, well,
you interpret it your way, I interpret it my way. Well, how do we know
what's the right way? And I've got a list of rules
of interpretation that I'm gonna deal with on television. I want
people to take it as a challenge. Read the scripture. And pray
that the Lord will open their understanding. And of course
we know that it has to be revealed. We know the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them.
They're spiritually discerned. But I always think about Acts
chapter 8, where Philip went out to preach to the Ethiopian.
And he asked him, do you understand what you're reading? And the
man said, how can I except some man show me? And so then Philip
began there, remember he was reading Isaiah 53, and he preached
unto him Jesus, salvation by Jehovah, by grace, and things
like that. That's what I'm going to be dealing
with in that series. But here you have, in like two or three
verses, a summary of what we believe. Of course, statements
are made, and they may be short statements, but they're full.
But let's look first. Look at verse 11. Paul, first
of all, starts out in this verse telling them by what he says
here. the importance of what he's written
to him. He says, you see how large a
letter I have written unto you with mine own hand. This is something,
this was so serious. You know, Paul's usual method
of writing these epistles was he had a fellow minister, maybe
a younger man like Timothy or somebody like that, and he would,
the Holy Spirit, would inspire Paul to speak the words and the
other person would write it down for him. He mentions that one
over in Romans 16. I think the man's name was Tertius.
So he was a believer who was a fellow minister, and he helped
Paul. And Paul would dictate it, and
Tertius wrote it down. I think that's Romans 16, 22,
if you want to check me out on that. But that's okay. All right.
But that was a huge... But Paul, when this issue of
grace versus law came up in the Galatian churches, Paul said,
no, I've got to write this myself. And probably it was the largest
letter that Paul, you know, Galatians, not really a large letter as
far as the length of it, but it was probably the largest letter
that Paul had written with his own hand. And he said, that's
what he's saying here. You see how large a letter these
are now, now, you know, these are the verbally inspired word
of God. But Paul wanted to emphasize
this is a serious issue. This is not just some side issue
over which Christians can agree to disagree. Either salvation
is by God's grace based on the righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ freely imputed and received by faith, or it's by the works
of man. It cannot be both and they cannot
mix. You remember he mentioned that in Romans 11, how grace
and works do not mix. So you can't have it both ways.
The issue here in Galatians is how God justifies the ungodly. How can a man, a sinful creature,
be justified before God? And Paul says it's by God's grace
through the righteousness of Christ, through the blood of
Christ. It's not by circumcision, it's not by physical pedigree
with Abraham, and it's not by keeping the law. Those things
are mutually exclusive. So he says in verse 12, he says,
as many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain
you or compel you to be circumcised, only lest they should suffer
persecution for the cross. Now the desire of these false
teachers was to make a fair show in the flesh. And so to do that,
what they tried to do was force the Galatian believers into being
circumcised so that the unbelieving Jews would accept them and not
persecute them. In other words, we're gonna give
in to their demands, and that'll help us to get along with them.
Now, you know that's the way of man, isn't it? That's the
wisdom of man right there. Here comes a group challenging
the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace in Christ, saying,
well, you've gotta be circumcised to be saved. You've gotta be
circumcised to be righteous. And so these false teachers say,
well, let's do it, and that way we'll get along with these people.
They won't persecute us. They won't deny us, they won't
ridicule us. And what Paul's saying, well,
that's the same kind of attitude that the Pharisees had who gloried
in outward appearance. There's nothing scriptural about
that. There's nothing related to the gospel about that kind
of thinking. In fact, it's a denial of the gospel. That's what he
wrote back in Galatians 5. If you be circumcised, Christ
will profit you nothing. He won't do you any good. Listen,
if you can be saved that way, you don't need God's way. So
it's either or, you see. And that's why he says there,
lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. They
knew that if they stood ground against circumcision, they would
be persecuted by the haters of the gospel. And how many people
do you know today who would tell you, well, we believe what you
all preach there, but, We just wanna get along. We don't want
our families to come against. You see what I'm saying? That's
the whole issue. So Paul says, all they're doing
is just making a fair show in the flesh. Christ himself said
of the Pharisees, they do indeed appear righteous to men. But they weren't righteous. And
they certainly didn't appear that way before God. So in essence,
what you learn here, is that to compromise the gospel and
the ground of salvation in order to relieve that persecution is
to deny Christ. That's it. That's how serious
it is. Somebody says, well, I just don't
want to make people mad. Well, I don't either. But that's
just the way it is. That's the nature of our message. We're not of the world. We're
in it. But we're not of it. And understand
this now, you know, everybody goes around who claims to be
Christian and say, oh, I want to be Christ-like. I want to
be Christ-like. Well, be Christ-like in the realm
of John 15, 18. Marvel not if the world hates
you. The world, it hated me before it hated you. And he said, they'll
throw you out of the synagogue. Now, that doesn't mean we're
going around looking and trying to get people to hate us. It
simply means we're not gonna compromise the truth in order
to win their friendship and their admiration and their praise.
And that's what these false preachers were doing. He says in verse
13, he says, for neither they themselves who are circumcised
keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised that they may
glory in your flesh. Now, they're telling you, now
think about this, they're telling you to be circumcised in order
to be righteous. Well, remember what Paul said
up here in verse three of chapter five? He says, for I testify
again to every man that is circumcised that he's a debtor to do the
whole law. You see, that kind of thinking, that kind of preaching
is an indication that a sinner can keep the law. In other words,
we're law keepers, you know. And Paul says, well, they're
trying to get you circumcised. They don't keep the law. The
law says do or die, do and live, disobey and die. In Galatians
3.10, cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things
which are written in the book of the law. And here's the point,
if we could be law keepers, we don't need Christ. If we can
keep the law by anything we do, we don't need God's grace, we
don't need God's mercy, we don't need the righteousness of Christ
imputed. We've got one of our own. So Paul says, well, now
they don't keep the law. They're indicating that they
did. Maybe some of them said they did. I know people who claim
to keep the law, but they don't. We're all sinners. I was telling
them in the TV program this morning, I was talking about total depravity.
And people don't like, most people who claim to be Christian, either
they don't know anything about it or when they hear the words
total depravity, they just don't want it, they don't like it,
they don't believe it. Because total depravity, when you say
every one of us by nature are totally depraved, it conjures
up in the minds of people some vision of a raving lunatic or
some totally immoral person. who is just the dregs of society. But that's not what total depravity
teaches. And I always go to Romans 3 on
that passage, that passage there to define total depravity, which
means number one, we don't have righteousness, number two, we
can't work righteousness, and number three, we don't want righteousness
God's way. We want it our way, like Cain,
but we don't want it God's way, by grace. Our way gives us glory.
God's way gives him all the glory. And so somebody would talk about,
well, we're all totally deprived. We're born that way. We're born
dead in sin. And somebody says, well, no, we're not. We're born
innocent, and then we choose to sin. And I asked this question.
I said, have you ever known anyone in the history of the human race
who did not choose to sin other than Christ himself? And he's
God man. And the answer is no. Well, why is that? Total depravity. We've all sinned and come short
of the glory of God. So those who say, well, we're
innocent until we make the choice, they'd have to agree. Everybody
makes the choice to sin. I don't know what else they'd
say, but anyway. You see, this whole thing is
the fact that the law brings us in guilty based on our best
efforts to keep it. And that's why we need salvation
by grace. It's not by the works or the
wills of men. So they desire to have you circumcised
so they can glory in your flesh. They can boast in you. They can
boast in converts. You remember Christ spoke to
the Pharisees about that, their motive. They went out, he says,
in Matthew 23, verse 15, he says, you go out and you encompass
sea and land. You circle the earth trying to
get converts. What do they do? They're glorying
in flesh. How many do we get? It's like today. How many decisions
did you have, you know? That's the measure of a preacher's
success, especially evangelists when they come in to hold a revival.
How many did you get down there? That's the measure of their success.
That's glorying in the flesh, just getting a convert. Well,
we do rejoice when a sinner is brought to salvation, but not
to glory in the flesh, to glory in the Lord. All right, so in
verse 14, here he starts with every believer's confession of
faith. Let's read these next three verses
and then we'll go back. But God forbid that I should
glory, now that word glory means boast. It's the same word rejoice
in Philippians 3, 3, we rejoice in Christ Jesus. God forbid that
I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom
the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. Or in Christ
Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything or uncircumcision but
a new creature or literally a new creation. And as many as walk
according to this rule, this canon, this doctrine, this truth,
this teaching, peace be on them and mercy and upon the Israel
of God. Now take each phrase, but God
forbid that I should glory. As I said, that word glory means
to boast. It means to have confidence.
That's what it really means. We boast. I have confidence.
I have assurance. And what do I boast in? What
do I brag about? You could even say that. What
do we brag about? Us? What we do? How much we do? No, except saved,
except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The only thing
in which true believer's glory boasts is the glorious person
and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what he's
talking about. The cross speaks of his death as our substitute
and surety to redeem us from our sins and establish the only
righteousness upon which God is just to justify the ungodly.
That's what the cross is, it's not a piece of wood, it's not
a piece of jewelry or anything like that or something that you
put on the church. It's a symbol, it's a metaphor of the whole
experience that Christ went through in his obedience unto death,
even unto his resurrection. As our substitute, he took my
place. My sins were imputed, charged,
accounted to him. His righteousness that he established
at that time on the cross is imputed to me. It was imputed
to Abraham. It was imputed to Abel. And so
that's the whole issue. The cross is just another term
for the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel, isn't
it? That's what the cross is. The gospel is the revelation
of the righteousness of God. Now where are you going to find
the righteousness of God? In the obedience unto death of
the Lord Jesus Christ as our substitute and surety. He put
away my sins. He paid my debt in full. He established
righteousness for me. That's what the cross is. It's
not God trying to save you, if you'll let him. It's not Christ
dying for everybody to make salvation a possibility. We couldn't glory
in the cross that way. We'd have to glory in something
else, our faith. Whatever makes the difference
between saved and lost for you, that's what you glory in. If
you say Christ died for everybody without exception, even for those
who perish eternally, then you make the difference between saved
and lost, and whatever makes that difference for you, faith,
repentance, obedience, or combination thereof, that's what you glory
in. That's what you boasted. I believed. You didn't. But that's
not what we glory in. We do believe, but even that
faith is a product of the cross. Spiritual life is a fruit of
Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. God gives us faith. We're his
workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. So what
do we glory in? We glory in the cross. Jesus
Christ crucified, his blood, his righteousness makes the difference
between saved and lost. And we glory in the Lord Jesus
Christ and his cross, and that's his person and his finished work.
We boast in Christ. And he says, look here in verse
14, here's the next phrase, by whom the world is crucified unto
me and I unto the world. This glorying in Christ, in the
cross, his finished work, do you know that's what separates
true believers, the elect of God, the church, from the fallen,
cursed, dead world. That's what separates us. It's
not what we wear. It's not the fact that some have
a TV and some don't, or some watch certain programs, some
don't. It's not how you wear your hair. It's the cross. And he says this establishes
my whole relationship with the world. Because of our faith in
Christ, our glorying in his cross, our pleading his righteousness
imputed alone for all salvation, the only way we can look at the
unbelieving world is as cursed and dead. That's what it means
to be crucified. Cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree. We look at the world as cursed. The unbelieving world
is cursed. That's what it says. But on the
same token, The unbelieving world looks upon us as cursed and dead. You see it? Eye unto the world.
That's how they look at true believers. How do they look at
the Lord? When we hanged him on that cross, don't say hung,
it's hanged. That is grammatically correct, folks. When we hanged
him on that cross, and I say we, what was the charge, or what
were the charges? He was a malefactor. That's a
criminal. Well, he didn't commit any crimes,
but that's the way we looked at him by nature now. He's a
blasphemer. He's the son of God incarnate
who always did the will of his father, who spoke perfectly the
word of God. And we called him a blasphemer.
You remember what, I can't remember if it was King Agrippa or Felix
who said, Paul, much learning hath made thee mad. Looked at
him as crazy. You've gone crazy. Have you ever
thought that? Every now and then, you know, you go through this
life as a believer and you kind of look up and you say, have
I gone crazy? And then what does the word,
what does the Holy Spirit do? He keeps bringing us back to
the word of God. That's what he does. But that's
the relationship to the world. The world is crucified unto me.
It's a dead, cursed world. I thank God for many of the good
things in the world that he's given us to honor him and bless
him. But as far as a relationship
with God, those who stand in unbelief outside of Christ, how
do we look at them? As cursed. And that's why we're
preaching to a lost world. That's why we're trying to get
the gospel. That's why we evangelize as a church. We're trying to
tell men of the only way of salvation and blessedness. And that's the
issue. I look at verse 15. Now here's
the next phrase. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
availeth anything nor uncircumcision but a new creature or a new creation.
When it comes to salvation, when it comes to the forgiveness of
sin, when it comes to righteousness before God, being justified,
I'm not guilty. I'm righteous in God's sight.
When it comes to eternal life and glory, being a Jew, physically
circumcised, or being a Gentile, physically uncircumcised, means
absolutely nothing. It doesn't add to my salvation,
it doesn't add to my righteousness before God, and it doesn't take
away from it. All my righteousness is Christ. It's all by grace. What I do or what I don't do
adds nothing to that. Now my relationship, it's like
one old preacher said years ago, he said, what I do or don't do
does not establish my relationship with God. But my relationship
with God in Christ as a sinner saved by grace does determine
what I do and don't do, has some effect on it, some influence
on it. The Jew in all his religion has
nothing to recommend him unto God. And the Gentile, whether
religious or irreligious, has nothing to recommend himself
unto God. The only thing that counts before
a holy God is a new creation. And what is that new creation?
That's the church. That's the redeemed of the Lord.
Remember over in Galatians chapter three where he talked about in
Christ Jesus, there's neither Jew nor Greek. It's all in Christ. In Colossians 3, he made that
statement too. Christ is all and in all. This
new creation is what God himself by his grace has created in Christ
Jesus. It's all of grace. It's all based
on the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it all comes
about in our experience by the power of the Holy Spirit. It
doesn't come by our works. It doesn't come by our will.
It comes by God. Salvation is of the Lord. So
it's his church, the chosen of God before the foundation of
the world, redeemed by the blood of Christ and made alive and
called out of the world by the Holy Spirit in the preaching
of the gospel. And this avails with God because
it's his work. Circumcision availeth nothing.
Uncircumcision availeth nothing. But this avails with God. This
means something to God. That's what that's saying. This
is important to God because it's his work through the Lord Jesus
Christ and it gives him all glory in salvation. A sinner saved
by grace. Remember the Bible says there's
more joy in heaven over one sinner that cometh to repentance. That's
the work of God. That avails something. And then
look at verse 16. He says, and as many as walk
according to this rule. Now that word rule, we get our
English word canon, C-A-N-O-N, not a cannon you shoot a cannonball
out of, like the canon of scripture, the body of truth. And it means
doctrine. It means teaching. Now this canon,
this rule, He says, as many as walk according to this rule,
they live and abide and walk in this teaching. This is their
lifestyles, what he's saying. This is their conversation, that
means their walk. And it's all in this rule. Now
this rule in the Bible is stated in many places in many different
ways, but it's all the same thing. But it's summarized here in that
statement that we opened with in verse 14. God forbid that
I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the rule. We have nothing to glory. Let him that gloryeth,
let him gloryeth in this. We glory in the Lord. We glory
in Christ. We rejoice in Christ Jesus. We
have no hope of salvation but Christ. We have no righteousness
before God but Christ. We have no hope of forgiveness,
but you see, you can go on and on with that. And what he's saying
here, everybody that walks according to this rule, this is the gospel,
the power of God unto salvation. All who truly trust and follow
and love the Lord Jesus Christ walk, conduct their lives by
this truth. Another way of stating is what
the writer of Hebrews stated in Hebrews 12 in verse 2. We
run the race of grace looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith. That's just another way of stating
this. It means the same thing. We look to Christ. We hope in
him. And that's the confession of
every true believer. And it provides him with the
motivation for all obedience in every way. And the following
statements apply to all who walk according to this rule. Now here's
the things that he says. If you walk according to this
rule, if you're a true believer, here's what he says. Number one,
peace be on them. Now that peace, we can speak
peace to them because God has been reconciled to them. And
they're reconciled to God. And the basis of that reconciliation
is the righteousness of Christ imputed. That's what 2 Corinthians
5 is about. God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. And
then the ministry of the gospel, the church, as we go out as ambassadors
of Christ, we say, be ye reconciled to God. On what basis? For God
made him sin, Christ who knew no sin, for us that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. Righteousness imputed
to Christ, or sin imputed to Christ, righteousness imputed
to us. There's the ground of reconciliation. That's the ground
of peace. That's why Christ is called the Prince of Peace. That's
why the angel up on Christ's birth, pronouncing that birth
to the shepherds, he said, peace on earth and goodwill towards
men, which literally means goodwill to all those who walk according
to your will. Well, that's what Christ is.
He's not talking about peace between nations. That didn't
come about with the birth of Christ. or the death of Christ,
because Christ himself, he said in the last days, there'll be
wars and rumors of wars. Well, hadn't there always been
that? Yes. And what he meant by that, he said, it's gonna
be just like it always was. People are gonna fight, fuss,
war, all that's gonna happen, but there's gonna be peace between
God and his people based upon the death, the cross, the blood,
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And sinners are
going to come to him by the power of the Holy Spirit on that same
ground and find that peace that passes understanding and bringing
them to look to and rest in Jesus Christ and his righteousness
for all salvation. You see, this is peace established. This is not you making your peace
with God by your works or your reformations. This is receiving
that peace that Christ accomplished in his obedience unto death.
And it also shows that sinners who seek salvation or any benefit
or blessing by their works are not at peace with God. Think
about it this way. In reality, whether they know
it or not, any sinner who comes before God pleading anything
other than the cross, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, is
in essence declaring war upon God. That's not peace, is it? And then he says, and mercy.
We can say to all who glory in Christ and his cross that the
covenant mercy of God has been bestowed upon. This mercy here
is the loving kindness of God towards his people based upon
propitiation. A sin bearing sacrifice who makes
satisfaction for our sins. It's God's unconditional love
for his people because Jesus Christ, who by his one sacrifice
for sins met all the conditions to save us and secure us. It's
covenant mercy. And then he says upon the Israel
of God, all who glory in Christ, all who glory in the cross are
identified in scripture as true spiritual Israel. Now I'm not
gonna go back through all these scriptures. But that has been
made so plain in the New Testament. I think about Romans 2, 28. He
is not a Jew, which is one outwardly, but he is one which is one inwardly,
and circumcision is that not of the flesh, but of the, not
by the works of men, but of the heart. That's the new birth.
Romans 9, they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. Who is Israel? Who's true Israel? Children of
the promise. who are the children of the promise.
Remember back over here in Galatians chapter three, since we're right
there, remember he says for you are, verse 26, you're all the
children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. He says for as many of
you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ, there's
neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, you're
all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ,
then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.
That's who the children of promise, that's spiritual Israel. And
we could go on and on. You know, the nation Israel under
the old covenant, they were the chosen people of God for a temporary
and specific period of time. They lived under that conditional
covenant for that span of time, and the Bible shows us they failed
miserably to meet its requirements. And through that, God gave us
a grand testimony of the state of all of us by nature, Jew and
Gentile. That if salvation were ever to
be conditioned on us, we'd be failures. We'd fail miserably. But the true Israel of God, that's
the people of God under the new covenant in Christ Jesus. Christ
fulfilled all the conditions, and we're made the righteousness
of God in him. Look at these last verses. He
says in verse 17, from henceforth let no man trouble me for I bear
in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. What Paul's expressing
here in conclusion, he's weary. He's expressing even his own
physical weakness. I think about our 2 Corinthians
4-7 where you remember when he talked about the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ and he called it a treasure and he
said in verse seven, we have this treasure in earthen vessels.