All right, we're gonna talk about
the true children of God. You know, the Apostle Paul, as he was guided
by the Holy Spirit, has so much to teach us concerning not only
just the difference between the true gospel and a false gospel,
and that's a big thing, you know, that's mainly the theme of the
book of Galatians, that there are false gospels, there's many
of them, you know, Christ spoke of it in the broad way that leads
to destruction. But there's so many truths in
the book that are brought out in the book of Galatians that,
as I mentioned this last week, that they're keys that unlock
the mysteries of the Bible. I was driving down the road and
on the sign outside of a church down the road there, I think
they had this question. I think it's the title of the
morning message there. And it says, is the Bible misunderstood? Well, the answer to that is yes,
the Bible's misunderstood. The Lord himself, when he approached
the Pharisees, who were the biblical scholars of their day, the students
of the Old Testament. He said, remember in John 5 and
39, he said, you do search the scriptures, for in them you think
you have eternal life. There they which testify of me.
And then he went on to tell them how they perverted the law of
Moses. Well, the unbelieving Jews had perverted the purpose
of the law. You remember he said back here
in verse 19, wherefore then serveth the law. Why was the law given
to Israel? We dealt with that last week.
But if you want to find a summation of exactly what the unbelieving
Israelites did to pervert the law, read the book of Romans
chapter nine, especially verses 31, and then on into chapter
10 and verse four. And that's where Paul talks about
how the Jews sought righteousness by works of the law, not by faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And when Christ came along and
spoke his message of grace, salvation, forgiveness, righteousness, being
justified before God based on a righteousness that we have
no part in producing, a righteousness that he alone accomplished in
his obedience unto death, a righteousness imputed, when he came along and
preached that message, they stumbled over that. Now, that word stumble
in Romans nine, it's like they got ensnared. And what they got
ensnared with was their own ideas and their own misunderstandings.
They thought the law was given to make a sinner righteous. Well,
the law can't do that. And they turned it into that.
You remember in Romans 10 there, he tells them, you know, they
were ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish
a righteousness of their own. And that's a summation of how
they had perverted the law. They didn't know why the law
was given then. And that's why Paul comes to this point. The
law was not given to make a sinner righteous before God. The law
cannot do that. Now, it's no fault in the law.
Remember Romans 8, he said, in that it was weak through the
flesh. The fault's in us. Sin in us, that's the problem.
We're the problem, not the law. And Paul says that in Romans
7. You remember he said, I was alive without the law, but when
the law came, sin revived and I died. In other words, when
I really saw the purpose of that law, I found out that what that
law was given for was to bring me in guilty before God and to
show the impossibility of righteousness by my works. So they had perverted
that. So Paul here, he's telling the
Galatians, he said, don't let them deceive you. Don't let these preachers come
in and interject anything between the sinner and Christ for salvation,
for righteousness, for eternal life. Christ alone makes the
difference between heaven and hell. Christ alone makes the
difference between saved and lost. It's his righteousness.
It's his blood alone. It's not circumcision. It's not
joining a church. It's not getting baptized. It's
not trying to live a good life. Those things have their place.
But they have no place in the ground of being saved or being
kept saved. That's Christ alone. He must
have the preeminence. Now Paul has set forth several
key truths that open an understanding of the scriptures to us, and
that's one of them. You know, you think about that. If you
understand that, then that really opens up the whole Old Testament
to you. I mean, you think about that. When you see God bringing
commandments to Israel that are conditioned on Israel, and then
you see them fail. And that's a glaring testimony
of how if salvation were conditioned on you or on me, we would fail. And that's why we're so thankful
for the covenant of grace. That's why we're so thankful
for Christ, our surety. He kept the stipulations and
the qualifications and the requirements and the conditions of the covenant
to save us. And that's a key truth. It helps
you when you understand that in the history of the Bible.
Mostly what Paul's dealing with here, obviously, is justification
before God. He brings out the truth of Abraham
and the promise made to Abraham, which was not of law, but of
grace. God put no conditions on Abraham
as far as his salvation. He found him in the Ur of the
Chaldees as an idolater, and God had justified him. It says
he justified the ungodly, not the qualified. not the one who
would cooperate. And so that's a truth that opens
up another part of the Old Testament before Sinai and the law was
given. Everything about Abraham and
his life was in God's sovereign decree and purpose forward-looking
to what the Bible here in Galatians 3 calls the seed, Abraham's seed,
and that seed is Christ. And Abraham saw him as the Messiah
promised who would come and do for Abraham what Abraham couldn't
do for himself, save him from his sins, justify him, and establish
righteousness, not only for Abraham, but for all who would follow
the example of Abraham, and that's believers, sinners saved by grace. So the true purpose of the law
was added because of sin, to show us our sin, show them their
sin. Now what he's going to do, beginning
at verse 23, he's going to set forth the abolishment of that
law as a code given to the nation in that form. And it was abolished
by the coming and the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And then he's gonna show us who are the true children of God.
So look at verse 23. He says, but before faith came. Now look, what's he talking about?
Well, look at verse 22. The scripture hath concluded
all under sin. That's all Jew and Gentile. Paul
dealt with that in Romans three. that the promise by faith of
Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. So in other
words, that law brought them in guilty so that they might
look to another covenant, a grace covenant, a covenant of promise
fulfilled in someone whom God promised and appointed and prophesied
who is none other than Messiah the Christ. And so they were
never to look at that law as a way of salvation. But, verse
23, but before faith came. Now that's an important phrase.
Before faith came. What does Paul mean by faith
there? Well, he's not talking about
the grace of faith. You know, when the Holy Spirit
brings a sinner under conviction of sin, what else does he do? He gives us faith to believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe. We believe. Well, he says here, but before
faith came, he's not talking about that grace of faith as
the gift of the Holy Spirit, whereby we believe in Christ.
That grace was just as active in the Old Testament believers
as in the new. Look over at verse six of Galatians
three, just as an example. It says, even as Abraham believed
God, Abraham had faith to believe God. That's a gift of the Holy
Spirit. For by grace are you saved, through
faith, that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. So Abraham believed. So that
believing, that grace of faith was given before the Old Covenant
was ever brought into existence. And then we can go back through
the Old Testament, we can look at some of the Old Testament
believers under the Old Covenant. Moses himself. Christ said, Moses
wrote of me. In Hebrews 11, look at all the
ones that are listed there who lived under the old cover. They
believed. So when Paul writes here before
faith came, he's not talking about the grace of believing. The Old Testament saints had
that same spirit of faith, the same grace of faith as its nature,
its object and use, just like we today. We have a, you might
say we have more light, a clearer understanding, but it's the same
gospel. Abraham didn't believe he was
saved based on his believing or based on his works. He believed
he was saved based on the imputed righteousness of Christ. And
that's what we believe. Abel, Enoch, you could go right
on. But what Paul means is, The doctrine of faith, the promise
of the gospel, which was and is Jesus Christ crucified, establishing
righteousness, and risen from the dead. He's talking about
the object of faith. He's talking about Christ. Before
faith came, you could just as well say it this way, before
Christ came, that promise of faith, the object of faith, The
body of doctrine, what was Abraham's faith? He believed God, what
God promised him. What did God promise him? He
promised him that Messiah would come and do for him what he could
not do for himself. And before the Messiah came,
here's what he's saying, verse 23, we were kept under the law.
That's the nation Israel. That law was in force from Sinai
to the cross. That law was in force up until
the time that the Lord Jesus Christ said, it is finished. And he gave up the ghost. And
it says there that the law, before faith came, we were kept under
the law. Now, that kept under means restrained. That's what it means. Some translations
say we were guarded by the law. It's in the sense that God put
a guard over you. And some translators say that
it can even be translated imprisoned by the law. And he said, before
faith came, we were kept under the restraint of the law until
the time of Christ. Now I want you to turn to Hebrews
chapter nine. I want to show you something
here. You know, people today talk a
lot about what they call reform doctrine, and they talk about
the Reformation. And you know what they're talking
about. They're talking about back in the late 1500s, 1600s,
people like John Hus, and Zwingli, and Luther, and Calvin, and all
that. And they talk about the Reformation. And historically,
that's OK. But when somebody asks me, do
I believe the doctrine of the Reformation? I tell them yes,
but it's probably not what you're thinking about. Now I do agree
with some of those men in the Reformation, Calvin and Luther. I don't agree with all of what
they said, but I do agree with some of what they said because
it's biblical. But whenever somebody asks me if I believe the doctrine
of Reformation, here's where I go to. Look at Hebrews chapter
nine. He's talking about how God set
up ordinances under the old covenant for the nation Israel. The tabernacle,
the holy of holies, all of that, that system, see. All that system
was, you know what it all depended on? It depended on the priesthood. And what he says about that priesthood,
look at verse seven of Hebrews nine. But into the second went
the high priest alone. You see, there's the high priest
going into the holy of holies. That second there is the inner
chamber, the Holy of Holies. Once every year, not without
blood, which he offered for himself and for the heirs of the people,
the Holy Ghost, this signifying, now this was the signification
of God the Holy Spirit. As long as that high priest went
in there one time of year and God accepted that in a ceremonial
temporal way, It was a testifying of the Holy Spirit, verse eight,
that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest,
while as the first tabernacle was yet standing. In other words,
that first tabernacle, or temple, was only to stand, you see, for
a temporary period of time until the actual way into the holiest
was made manifest, that means appeared. on earth, and that's
talking about Christ who is the way to God, the way into the
holiest by the blood of Jesus. And he says in verse nine, which
was a figure for the time then present, it was for that time,
not for all time, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices
that could not make him that did the service perfect, could
not justify, could not make them righteous, as pertaining to the
conscience, that is, the court of conscience. In fact, it was
the opposite. It was a reminder of sin and
guilt and deservedness of damnation. And he says in verse 10, which
stood only in meats and drinks and diverse washings and carnal
ordinances, imposed, now remember, we were kept under the law, it
was an imposition, it was a restraint, imposed on them until the time
of what? Reformation. Now what time is
that? Verse 11, but Christ being come
and high priest of good things to come. You see that? That's
the Reformation I believe in. I agree with everything about
that Reformation. There's not one disagreement
between God's people and that Reformation. Because that's the
time of change. And later on he says, when the
priesthood changed, the whole law changed. Now go back to Galatians
three. That's what he's saying here.
He says, before faith came, we were kept, or shut up under the
law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
And what he's talking about, now Christ was revealed before
then, as far as the revelation of truth. You see, he was revealed
to Abel, he was revealed to Noah, Abraham, on and on, Moses. The
revelation here is talking about that manifestation where Christ
would actually appear on earth. He was born. unto us a child,
a son is born, unto us a child is given. Or no, it's the opposite. A child is born, a son is given.
And then his birth, and then his growing, his life on earth,
and his actually accomplishing salvation. It was all until the
time of Christ. So he says, look at verse 24
now. He says, wherefore, for this reason, the law was our
schoolmaster, or literally our tutor, our custodian, or our
guardian, to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by
faith. To bring us unto Christ, that
law was their custodian. And here's the issue of time.
It was given for that time to bring us to the time of Christ.
In other words, and there's two approaches to that. There was
no salvation in the law. But when you consider the whole
law and the pictures and the types, for example, the Ten Commandments
was a code that brought them in guilty. And then you had the
ceremonial law. You had the priesthood, the tabernacle,
the sacrifices, all of that, the washings, all of that. And
those were all pictures and types of Christ. So as the law showed
the impossibility of salvation by works, it showed that there's
only hope of salvation by God's grace in Christ. There's no hope
of salvation in the law. But then also another way of
looking at this is what he's talking about is it's simply
that it was given for that time to bring us to the time of Christ.
So either way, but they both make sense. And he says that
we might be justified by faith, not by our believing now. but
by Christ, the object of faith. That's what he's talking about.
We're justified by Christ. Now, we do believe in him. We
do rest in him by the power of the spirit. But our believing
and resting in him is not our righteousness, is not our ground
of salvation. Christ is, and what he accomplished
on Calvary. So verse 25, he says, but after
that faith is come, after Christ come, we're no longer under a
schoolmaster. Now, how plain can it get? People say, well, we're still
under the law or under part of the law. No, he said after faith
came, we're not under the schoolmaster. Now, you and I, we never were
under it. I know preachers and maybe even
mom and dad or grandma and grandpa tried to get us under it, but
we never really were under it. He's talking about the nation
Israel here. We were under that guardian. We were under that
custodian until Christ came, but now we as a nation are no
longer under that. So after faith has come, we're
no longer under the schoolmaster. We're not under the tutor. And then in these last verses,
he gives what I believe are some of the clearest scriptures to
define who the true children of God are. And you can You can
kind of parallel this with Romans chapter nine, the first part
of Romans chapter nine. Well, all through Romans chapter
nine, actually. But look at what he says. You see, Christ came. He fulfilled the law, every jot
and tittle. He fulfilled all of its moral
precepts. He kept the law. He fulfilled
all of its types and pictures and prophecies. He fulfilled
it all. Everything about that law that
had anything to do with picturing the person, the finished work,
the mediatorial offices, prophet, priest, king, the surety ship
of Christ was fulfilled in full by him. And Daniel said it, you
remember in Daniel 9.24, when he's come he will finish the
transgression, he will make an end of sin, he will establish
righteousness, he will bring in an everlasting righteousness,
he will seal up the vision. A vision in the Old Testament
is the word of God, you know that, it's not necessarily something
you see. When the Bible talks about the
people have no vision, What that means is that they have no word
from God. God has cut them off. In other words, they're not hearing
from God anymore. God has abandoned them. And of
course, we know that under the old covenant terms, they failed
and that's what happened. That's what would happen on any
of us if salvation were conditioned on us. So he sealed it up and
he brought in the holiness of God. That's what Christ did. So That old covenant is gone now. And then he brings it in. He
says in verse 26, for you are all the children of God. Now,
why is he doing this? Remember what these Judaizers
were doing. They were saying now, yes, we're saved by grace. Yes, we believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ, but in order to be a real true child of God, you gotta
be circumcised. You gotta keep certain days. You gotta stop eating certain
things. Uh-huh. And that's a denial of
the gospel, in order to be really righteous. You want to be righteous,
don't you? If you're a Christian, well,
now here's what you got to do. That's where they go wrong. That's
where they go wrong today, isn't it? You really want to be holy. You know, it's like Jim and I
were talking to a fellow. last week who called, who'd seen
some messages over the internet, and he talked about growing up
in the same kind of religion that basically we all grew up
in. And you know how he described it, he used a word that I think,
and I remember it, described it fully to me. He called it
frustration. Frustration. Because he said,
I tried to live a good life. I tried to meet the standard.
Tried to live up to snuff. And he said, I just couldn't
do it. And it just frustrated me. And then there'd be times
I felt like I could do it. And you know what that is. It's
either a frustration or it's a false security. Because let
me tell you something, if you can remember in false religion,
if you grew up in that, if you did not have that frustration,
if you felt secure, you know what the problem was then? You
were too blind to see the self-righteousness of it. Exactly, I know. But he says here, how are you
righteous before God? How are you justified? How are
you saved? How can you, who are a sinner, claim confidently Be
a true child of God. Well, here it is. You're all
the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. Now he's talking
about believing in Jesus Christ. The context tells us. Is Christ,
and you say, well, and you know, the atmosphere that I grew up
in would cause me to say something like this. Well, do I believe
enough? Or am I sincere enough? Or am I doing enough? Well, do
you realize that's the opposite of believing in the Lord Jesus
Christ? Because if we really believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
the question is, is Christ enough? Did he do enough? Is he able
enough? Do I believe he's able? Remember
Paul said, I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that
he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against
that day. In the book of Hebrews, he is able to save to the what? The uttermost, that means all
the way. Them that come unto the Father
by Him. You see, my confidence cannot be based on my believing,
my resting, or my abilities. It has to be based upon what
Christ accomplished alone. That's why we sing that song,
My Hope is Built, on nothing less. than Jesus' blood and righteousness. That's why we sing that song,
What Can Wash Away My Sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Somebody might say, well, have I been baptized enough? Well,
how many times is enough? Think about it. Or have I gone
to church enough? Most motivational messages under
that system are no more than legal threats of punishment.
It may be unspoken now. It may be veiled, but it's there
and you know it is. Or mercenary promises of earned
reward. Now nobody's going to stand up
behind a pulpit and say, well, today I'm going to preach a legalistic
message to you today. I'm just going to whip the hell
out of you, or something like that. No, they're not going to
say it that way. They know better than that, you
see. That's not the way false religion
operates. That's not the way it goes. Or
I'm going to promise you all the blessings that you can do
if you'll just do your part, if you'll just live up to snuff.
No. Well, how are you true children of God? By faith in Jesus Christ. That's what he's saying. The
law's abolished. Look at verse 27. For as many
of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
Now, that word baptized literally means to be placed
into. That's what the word baptized
means. Sometimes we'll say it means immersion, and that's okay. There are people who believe
that he's talking about the ordinance of water baptism here. And if
that's the case, it would mean this, for as many as you have
been baptized into Christ, when you confess Christ in believer's
baptism, you actually put on Christ. That was an act of faith.
But now, here's my view of this. I don't believe he's talking
about water baptism at all here. First of all, it wouldn't fit
the context. And besides, I think this is where a lot of people,
you know, when Paul's talking about circumcision and against
circumcision, and he says baptism here, and a lot of people say,
well, baptism in the New Testament is the replacement or, well,
that's what they would say, the replacement for circumcision
in the Old Testament, and there is absolutely nothing in the
scripture that teaches that. That's tradition. It's clear
that circumcision in the Old Testament was a type and picture
of the new birth. Circumcision of the heart. You
can see it in Deuteronomy and we have so much New Testament
testimony on that. Romans chapter 2, 28 and 29. Galatians chapter 6. These passages
right here. Circumcision on the eighth day
was a type and picture of the new birth based upon the resurrection
of Christ. So I don't believe he's talking
about water baptism here. Here's what I think he's talking
about. Turn back to Romans chapter six. And I'll hurry here. Look at verse three. Now here's
the same thing he's talking about, I believe. Now remember what
the word baptism means. Now there are times in the New
Testament that when it says baptized or baptism, it is talking about
the ordinance. Be baptized in the name of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And believers are to
be baptized as a confession of faith. Not to be saved, not to
be cleansed from sin, but to confess that we're saved and
cleansed by the blood of Christ. Now you know that, all right?
But sometimes that word baptism is used in different contexts.
Sometimes we'll talk about the baptism of fire. He's certainly
not talking about water baptism there. The baptism of fire is
the trials that a believer goes through here on earth because
of our testimony of the gospel. But look at Romans 6.3, he says
in verse three, know you not that so many of us as were baptized
into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death. Now, how was
I baptized into his death? Well, look at verse four. Therefore,
we're buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ
was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even
so we should also walk in newness of life. Now, that's what I believe
he's talking about. He's talking about union with
Christ. We were placed into Christ before the foundation of the
world when God chose us in Christ. We were placed into Christ at
the cross when Christ, as our surety, died for us. Our sins
were already imputed to him, and he came and he died, and
when he died, listen, here's the way we say it, and this is
what we confess in water baptism. When he died, I died. When he
was buried, I was buried. When he arose again, I rose.
because he did it as my substitute, my surety. I was placed into
Christ. Now, when we confess him in believer's
baptism, we're placed into the, or immersed into the water, and
we come up out, because it's symbolically confessing our death,
burial, and resurrection with Christ. So, back here in Galatians
3, what I believe he's saying is for as many of you as have
been united to Christ, put into Christ, you've put on Christ. Like clothing. Now what is it
to put on Christ? It's to believe in him. That's
what he's talking about. It's a metaphor there. It's not
literally, physically putting him on, you know, no. That'd
be silly. No, you believe in him. You rest
in him. You trust him. You've put him
on. And that's what we do when we believe in him. We put him
on like a garment. That doesn't mean it's just an
outward thing. It means we believe. We do it with the heart of faith.
So if you've been united to Christ eternally, redemptively, you
will put him on. You'll believe in him. You'll
rest in him. You'll trust him. And he says
in verse 28, there's neither Jew nor Greek. Now he's not saying
that there never was any Jews and never was any Greeks or Gentiles.
And he's not saying they're still not Jews and they're still not
Greeks and Gentiles. No, they're still here. There's
men here and there's women here. There's black and white here. There's old and young here. We
don't deny that those differences exist, but what he's saying as
far as being a true child of God, those differences make no
difference. You see what he's saying? It
means nothing. If you're a Jew, that doesn't
get you any closer to God. If you're a Gentile, that doesn't
get you any farther from God. It's all Christ and God's grace
in him. There's neither bond nor free.
You might be free, you might be a slave, you might be whatever,
a servant. We're all servants in some way.
We work for somebody, don't we? But it doesn't matter as far
as our righteousness before God. He says they're neither male
nor female. You know, the Bible has a lot to say about the role
of men in church and the role of women. So that difference
is recognized, but as far as our standing before God, it makes
no difference. We're justified through Christ
based on his righteousness. You're all one in Christ Jesus,
and verse 29, and if you be Christ, if you belong to Christ, that's
what that's saying, if you belong to him, then are you Abraham's
seed, you're Abraham's child. Abraham, we're God's children. Abraham is a father in one sense. He's the prime example of how
God justifies the ungodly. And we believe the same gospel
that Abraham believed. We look to Christ for all salvation. And we're Abraham's seed children,
true children of God. if we belong to Christ and heirs
according to the promise. In other words, we are heirs. We didn't earn it and we didn't
deserve it. It's all of Christ and him alone. Okay.