Now we're gonna talk about the
offense of the cross. The offense of the cross, beginning
in verse seven. As you know, the Apostle Paul
has been admonishing and correcting the professing believers in the
churches at Galatia for their wavering or being diverted away
from a sincere, singular look to Christ, the look of faith.
and being dissuaded from that walk and that look of faith by
these legalistic, unbelieving Jewish professors who claimed
to be Christian but who were not because they wanted to bring
themselves and others under the law for salvation, for righteousness. They preached the law of circumcision,
the law of holy days as forming some part of the ground of a
sinner's salvation. And Paul said, he's very plain.
He's very open about it. He doesn't mince words. He says,
that's another gospel, another of a different kind. It's not
just a version, another version of the true gospel. It's a total
denial of Christ and his righteousness alone. And he makes that clear,
and he says, if that's the way you're going, he said up here
in chapter five, he said, then Christ will profit you nothing,
absolutely nothing. You think about that. To be a
professor, to be one who claims to be a professor, to believe in Jesus Christ, but
to be lost in your sins. And he says that if you seek
to keep any law of obedience for that reason, in order to
attain or maintain salvation, you're a debtor to do the whole
law. You've got it all to keep. I mean, saying, well, I'll do
my best, that's not enough. Now, that doesn't mean that we
as believers or we as true Christians shouldn't do our best in all
of these areas, but we need to recognize that our best is not
what saves us. Our best is not what makes us
righteous before God. Christ alone, by the grace of
God, is that. And so if we claim to be saved
by our works, then we're debtors to do the whole law, and that
means keep it perfectly without any flaw. That's an impossibility. That's a burden. That's a legalism. That's a condemnation. And then
he says, if that's what you believe, then Christ has become of no
effect unto you. You're fallen from grace. You
deny what you claim to believe. And that's interesting to understand
that, because understand that these false preachers that had
infiltrated the churches at Galatia, they claimed to believe salvation
by grace. It's like people today. Just
about everybody you know will say, well, we believe salvation
is by grace, not by works. But they'll say, you have to
do this, or you have to do that. You've got to meet this condition.
And what he's saying is, well, you're falling from grace, you're
denying, that doesn't mean you've lost your salvation, that means
that you're denying what you claim to believe. So Paul starts
out, look down at verse seven, he says, you did run well. Now
he's talking about running the Christian race. He's talking
about how they started out and up to the point that these false
preachers had infiltrated the churches, They were doing so
well. Now, doing well, he's not commending
them or giving them accolades for their obedience and their
works, but he's simply saying that you have persevered in the
faith. You've run the race of grace.
How do you run the race of grace? Over in the book of Hebrews,
chapter 12, the writer of Hebrews describes it this way. He's talking
about running the race, I call it the running the race of grace.
And he talks about how there's so many hindrances in the Christian
life. There's so many obstacles in
our way, a lot of them within ourselves. It's not just people
outside, now there is that. I mean, we are at odds with the
world, we're at odds with Satan, but we're also at odds with the
flesh, we're in a warfare. And there's so many obstacles.
And one of the greatest obstacles within ourselves is the sinful
doubt and unbelief that still remains that we have to fight.
That's part of the warfare of the flesh and the spirit. And
he says in Hebrews 12 and verse one, wherefore seeing we also
are compassed or surrounded, compassed about or surrounded
with so great a cloud of witnesses. Now that's all the ones that
he had mentioned in Hebrews 11 who were by the grace of God
stalwarts in the faith. They were people of faith. They
looked to Christ. That's what that means. He's
not commending because they had so much faith. He's commending
them because they simply believed in and rested in the Lord Jesus
Christ for all salvation. The crucified, the risen Lord
Jesus Christ. And he says, let us lay aside
every weight and the sin which does so easily be set. Meaning
that sin of unbelief, that sin of doubt. He says, and let us
run the race with patience. Patience there means endurance.
The race that is set before us. Now, how are we to run it? Well,
look at verse two. looking unto Jesus, that's Jehovah,
our Savior, the author, that's the beginner, he's the beginner,
and the finisher, he's the completer of our faith. In other words,
what we believe of our salvation is all wrapped up and founded
upon the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, God in human flesh,
and what he accomplished and finished at Calvary to put away
our sins and to make us righteous before God. We don't look to
ourselves to complete it. We're completing Christ, the
scripture says. We don't look to ourselves to finish this thing
because Christ already finished it and our hope is in him, not
in ourselves. You say, well, I want my faith
to grow. I want my faith to grow too.
But my faith is only going to grow as I look to Christ even
more. And I tell you something, to
me it goes like this, and I tell you all the time, and I'm not
saying this to brag, I mean, I've been preaching this gospel
for over 30 years now. I hope I've grown in grace and
in knowledge of Christ, but I just simply do not see myself as getting
better and better. I just don't see that, if I'm
honest with myself. But I'll tell you what I do see.
I see myself clinging to Christ more and more for salvation,
for hope, for righteousness, for eternal life and glory. And
so he says, who for the joy that was set before him endured the
cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand
of God on the throne of God. That's Christ our intercessor.
Go back to Galatians 5 now. So he says in verse 7, you did
run well. Who did hinder you? Who did hold
you back or drive you back that you should not obey the truth?
You remember back over in Galatians 3.1, when he started out there,
he said, oh foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you? Who's
put a spell on you? That's the literal translation
of that. In other words, you're like people that some, like people
have been bewitched. Here you are looking to Christ
for all salvation. Here you are depending upon him.
having your hope in him. And then all of a sudden, some
Jewish professor comes in and divert your attention onto yourself
and what he says you're supposed to do. You have to be circumcised.
You have to keep this day. You have to do this in order
to be saved, really saved, really holy, really righteous. And you've
listened to him. You've given him your attention. You've given him some credit,
and it's like somebody's put a spell on you. Now the reason
that's such harsh language is because that's the way the flesh
is. You know, the flesh, when we talk about the flesh, we're
talking about our sinful desires, our self-righteousness, our inward
corruption that we have to fight. But the flesh grabs hold of that
stuff, it's like a drug. Somebody comes in and preaches
something that makes me feel good about myself. And the flesh
loves it and grabs hold of it like a drug. It's like a drug
addict. And you act like, well, somebody's
put a spell on you. Well, it's like a drug addict.
So who has done this? Now, he's asking this rhetorically
because they know who's done it. He's pointed out who's done
it. But what he's saying is, who do they think they are to
do this? When they come in and preach
salvation or any part of it or any degree of it conditioned
on the sinner, who do they think they are? Are they greater than
God? What does God's word say? What does the gospel say? You
understand what he's doing there? So anybody who comes in and preaches
that which is contrary to the word of God for a sinner to be
saved, they're setting themselves up as God. That's how serious
this is. Here's God's word. I know what
God says because I have his word right here. And I know people
say, well, everybody interprets it differently. Well, there are
rules of scriptural interpretation, folks. And everybody interprets
it differently. Somebody says, well, it means
this to you, it means that to me. Doesn't matter what it means
to you or it means to me. What matters is what does it
say. So here's the gospel, which is the revelation of the righteousness
of God in Christ. The gospel is not a revelation
of simply how to make you a better person. Now the gospel, when
God brings a sinner to salvation, By His grace, it does make that
person a better person, I believe, in a lot of ways, and we could
talk about that, but it doesn't make, listen, listen. There's no way that we can claim
any righteousness or holiness except what we have in Christ. Nothing else. You say, well,
I have a new heart. Well, that's right. Holy Spirit
gives us a new heart, but that new heart looks to Christ, rest
in him, pleads his righteousness alone. Well, let's go on. Verse
eight, he says, this persuasion cometh not of him that calleth
you. This persuasion didn't come from God. This legalism, they've
been persuaded to look at and even to believe in some of them
that took them away from the gospel. It didn't come from God.
God's the one who calls his people into the kingdom. God's the one
who convinces them of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.
The new birth is of the Lord. It's not of blood. It's not of human generation. It's not of the will of the flesh
or the works of the flesh, and it's not of the will of man.
The new birth didn't come as a result of your will or your
decision. Because if left to yourself,
your decision would be to disregard and disbelieve and oppose the
gospel of Christ. That's what the scripture teaches.
Those, anytime the gospel was preached in the book of Acts
or in the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John, and
those who rejected it, it was understood. They don't have ears
to hear and eyes to see. What Stephen say when they opposed
the gospel he preached, he says, you stiff-necked, which means
proud, unbendable, they won't submit, uncircumcised in heart
and ears, that's the new birth, the lack of the new birth. And
so he says this persuasion, this legalism that you're entertaining
here, that you're tolerating, that didn't come from God. That's
not of Christ. That's not of the Holy Spirit.
It comes from men. It comes from the flesh. It's
a sinful thing. It's an evil thing. It promotes
an evil conscience. You know what legalism does?
Works salvation. You know what it does? It gives
you a guilty conscience, and you'll find some religious way
to relieve it. What kind of ways do men find?
Well, confession, baptism, rededication, all kinds of things. and they're
not biblical. How is the legal condemned conscience
cleared in the scripture? Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. I have righteousness in him. That's how it's cleared. Remember
in Hebrews chapter 10 there where it talks about we have boldness
to enter the holiest, that's the very presence of God. On
what basis? Well, because I confessed today,
or because I went to church today, or because I was baptized today,
or because I walked an aisle. No, we have boldness to enter
the holiest by the blood of Jesus. That's it. That blood is his
righteousness, his righteousness imputed. So it didn't come from
God, and then verse nine, look at this, he says, a little leaven,
leaven of the whole lump. Now leaven in the scripture,
and you see this in the Old Testament, is a symbol of sin. It's a very
small thing, you know. I don't know how many of you
bake bread or whatever, but you put that leaven in, that yeast,
and it spreads throughout, you put a little bit in, don't you?
And it spreads throughout the dough, and it makes the whole
lump, the whole lump of dough. It makes it rise. And it takes
a little leaven to get to the whole lump of dough. And that's
what he's saying. This error, it may seem small
to men and women. You know, somebody says, well,
you're just splitting hairs. You ever heard that? You know,
you're just trying to be too minute, too picky. And that's what, Paul was accused
of that. And he says, oh no, he says,
this thing is serious now. It starts out small, but boy,
it spreads to the whole lot. Do you remember during the Passover
feast when Moses instructed Israel about the Passover? And you know
what the Passover is all about. It's about the blood. What did
God say to Moses and the Hebrew children when they were in Egypt?
Put the blood of the spotless lamb and take that blood and
put it over the doorpost and the lentils. And he said what?
When I see the blood, I'll pass over you. He didn't say when
I see how good you're doing or how well you're doing or how
much you believe even. Yes, we ought to do well. Yes,
we're required to believe. But that's not the basis or the
ground of our salvation. He said, when I see the blood,
I'll pass over you. And then he instituted in Exodus
chapter 12, the Passover feast. And one of the things that they
had to do in that Passover feast in that week was they had to
clear their house of all what? Leaven. Because leaven is a type of sin.
And in salvation by the blood of Christ, we can apply that
in several ways. Number one, there's no sin in
Christ. You know, these people talking
about how Christ was made a sinner on the, he wasn't made a sinner.
In no way, shape, fashion, or form was he ever made a sinner.
He was made sin, the scripture says, and that's the imputation,
the accounting, the charging of our sins to him. And that's
what that's about. But secondly, in the blood of
Christ, all sin is taken away as far as the legal implications
of it. God says, I'll remember their
sins no more. He will not hold them against
them. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.
Now, when you introduce the works of man into that transaction,
no matter how small it may seem, a little leaven leavens the whole
lump. And that's the way of false doctrine. It seems little to
men. It seems harmless to men. People
today look at religious doctrinal differences as being very, very
minor and very harmless. And those who point the religious
doctrinal differences out as being unkind and unloving and
unchristian. But my friend, it's not the way
in the scripture. We need to examine and judge
these things by scripture. And here's the point. Nothing
in our, in, in the salvation of a center by the grace of God
in Christ, absolutely nothing can rival or even stand alongside
of Christ and his blood, his righteousness imputed as the
one and only ground of salvation. Nothing. Look at verse 10. He says, I have confidence in
you through the Lord that you will be none otherwise minded,
but he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever
he be. Now Paul seeks to encourage these Galatians by expressing
his confidence in them as true believers who will heed his warnings.
He said, I'm confident you'll listen to me. And what he's trying
to do, he's trying to encourage them. to look to Christ. He's trying to recover them.
You know, he talks about recovery over in Galatians chapter six.
Person being diverted or taken away in error, being recovered. And he says, I have confidence,
but Paul has no such confidence towards these false teachers
who sought to lead them astray. Now he's saying, I have confidence
that you'll listen. If you're a true believer, you'll
heed these warnings. That's the bottom line. You'll
listen to what God's word says, the Holy Spirit will not let
you, will not let you ignore them. But now these false teachers,
he said, I don't have any confidence in them at all. He that troubles
you, he'll bear his judgment, whoever he is, doesn't matter
what his reputation is, doesn't matter what his name is, it doesn't
matter how much of a following he has, doesn't matter how much
people praise him. Goes back to Galatians 1 when
he said, though we are an angel from heaven, preach any other
gospel unto you than that which we have preached, let him be
anathema. You see, man's reputation and name has nothing to do with
this. This is God's glory. This is
God's honor. So those who reject or deny Christ
and his righteousness alone as the only justifying one will
bear the punishment of unbelief and religious pride, according
to their false doctrine, unless, unless God brings them to repentance. So verse 11, he says, and I brethren,
if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross
ceased. These false teachers had accused
Paul of preaching their doctrine of the necessity of circumcision
and holy days as for salvation. In other words, they said, well,
Paul believes the same thing we do. Paul, his reply to him
is this, well, if that's true, then why do I suffer persecution
from those who preach that? Why are they persecuting me?
Those who are offended by the gospel I preach. He says, then
is the offense of the cross ceased. You see, the gospel of God's
grace is the gospel of the cross. And what that means is that's
the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, and him crucified
and risen. It's the good news of Christ,
the God in human flesh, Emmanuel, who finished the work of the
salvation of his people. And that gospel of God's grace
was an offense to these false teachers. But if Paul preached
what they preached, then there'd be no offense of the cross. That word offense is an interesting
word. If you transliterated it, into
English, we get our English word scandal from it, a scandal. They called the gospel a scandal,
scandalous thing. And literally what it means,
it's a word that they used back then for a movable stick or a
trigger of a trap, like you put a box up and put a stick there
and an animal gun, you pull it out and it'd be trapped. It's
like a snare. And what it refers to is any
impediment placed in the way and causing a person to stumble
or fall. A stumbling block, you see, you
remember that word in scripture. This is a stumbling block or
an occasion of stumbling. That is like a rock which is
a cause to stumble. Here you are walking and somebody
throws a rock in your way and you stumble over it. They can
refer to that. Figuratively, in the scripture,
it was applied to Jesus Christ. whose person, whose message was
so contrary to the popular religious ideas of the day of the Jews
concerning the Messiah that they rejected him and by their stubbornness
and unbelief, what did they do? They stumbled over. He was a
stumbling block to them. You see, any person or thing
by which one is entrapped and drawn into the air of sin. And
it's used several ways. We won't go into all those scriptures,
but what is he talking about, this offense of the cross? Well, someone had an outline that goes
something like this, and I'll hurry. He said, it's doctrine
of atonement offends man's pride. What that means is the gospel
of the cross leaves sinners saved by grace absolutely no room to
boast. We can't boast in our works and
we cannot boast in our will. We can't say salvation is because
we chose to do this and others didn't choose to. If that's what
you believe, you're boasting. But you see, Paul said it this way, by the
grace of God, I am what I am. Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus
Road wasn't saved because he chose to accept Jesus. Christ
revealed himself to Paul and changed his heart. Secondly,
it's simple teaching offends man's wisdom and artificial taste,
somebody said. In other words, somebody said,
well, it's just too easy, you know. And you'll hear people
say stuff like this, you know, when we preach salvation based
on the righteousness of Christ imputed without our works, you
know, people will all make, well, if that's true, I'll just live
like hell if I want to. You say, that's too easy. Give
me something to do. Give me ceremonies. Give me works. Give me step one, two, three,
and four. Just believing in Christ, that's too simple. Thirdly, it's
being a remedy for man's ruin offends his fancied power to
save himself. I can get myself out of this.
I'm the captain of my own fate. I'm the ruler of my destiny. That's when man thinks that he
makes the difference between saved and lost, not Christ. We
were talking about that last night, Andrew, when you're talking
about, you know, here's man in his sin, lost in his sin, on his way to
hell, and here's man saved by the grace of God. Who makes the
difference? Christ does. It's the grace of God. And then
fourthly, it's addressing all his sinners offends the dignity
of man. You know, on the book, What Is
Salvation, had a review of the book. And it was a fairly good
review. I mean, you know, I told the
guy, I said, I don't expect a lot of people to agree with it. You
know, I expect opposition to it. You know, you go into it,
you preach the gospel and you write these things and you want
people to believe it. and and search it out with the
scripture but you know it's kinda like what i call the isaiah syndrome
who have believed our report you know and uh... you know it's
it's fun it's something how the lord he called the prophets to
the ministry and then he tell them nobody's gonna believe what
you say you know that's that's kind of discouraging but what
what the issue there is that this is for the glory of god
whether no one believes it or whether everybody believes. We
want everybody to believe it. I want to see everybody come
to a saving knowledge of Christ, and that's my prayer. But one
of the things that this reviewer said was kind of interesting,
and he said, modern Christians, and I can't remember the exact
word he used, Jim, you may remember, modern Christians might be offended,
I think. I don't know if he said offended,
but it's kind of like this scandal, this offense. Modern Christians,
may be offended over Parker's view of the verbal inspiration
of the scripture and the fact that he believes that all men
and women alike deserve hell. Well, that's what the Bible says.
Yes, I believe that this is the word of God, verbally inspired,
inerrant. And this book says that by nature,
all of us, even our best, we deserve condemnation. If that's
not so, then the ones who don't deserve it, they don't need salvation.
They don't need grace. But we do, don't we? The Bible
teaches that. Well, let me just sum up the
offense of the cross like this. The offense of the cross is the
fact that it exposes man's sin and depravity, the sin of his
best efforts upon which he relies to save himself or make himself
righteous, and gives him no other way but Jesus Christ crucified
and risen to the exclusion of every other way. The offense
of the cross is this. Here you are trying to work your
way into God's favor, doing your best, And some preacher stands
up and says, that's evil in the sight of God. That's a false
refuge. It will not save you. It will
not bring you forgiveness. It will not make you righteous.
It's a refuge of lies. There's only one way, one way
alone, not two ways, not three, not many, one way. And that's
the way of God's sovereign grace in Christ Jesus based on his
righteousness imputed alone. No other way. There's not the
denominations, the major religions of the world. Christ said, I
am the way, the truth, the life, no man cometh unto the Father,
but by means. So Paul says here, look back
at verse 12, that's the offense of the cross. Now he says, if
I preach salvation any other way, then that's ceased, that's
removed. But he says in verse 12, I would that they were even
cut off, which trouble you. That cut off, that word shows
how strongly Paul felt about this matter, how serious it was
to him. And it's a play on words, really what it is. It's like
circumcision, the cutting off of the filth of the flesh. And
what he's saying here is this, as they desire to have you circumcised
in order to be saved or to be righteous or to be holy, I desire
that they themselves were cut off totally from you. That's
what he's saying. Now Paul's not trying to isolate
them and protect them from having any contact with the world, you
know, anything like that. But he's simply saying this,
they're troubling you and I just wish they were removed from you.
Because listen, there's no substitute, there's no profit that comes
from anyone who entertains any notion of salvation. but by the
grace of God in Christ. Okay.