Well it's a delight to see you
all. You're very welcome. I've been looking around just
in the few minutes we've had from the beginning, and I'm looking
and seeing so many young people here in the congregation this
morning. And you used to be children,
and now you're young adults. It's amazing to see you all here,
and it's a real privilege to be able to come and worship together
and to lift up the Lord Jesus Christ in our midst. Welcome. I want to begin this morning
by just reading a few verses from Matthew chapter 11. Matthew
chapter 11 and verse 28. The Lord Jesus Christ says, come
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. and I will give
you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest
unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden
is light." That's a very fine way of beginning
our New Focus Conference with an invitation from the Lord for
his people to come unto him. For those who feel weary, for
those who feel downtrodden, for those who encounter the challenges
and the difficulties of this life, As His people, we resort
to Him. We go to Him. For He declares,
my yoke is easy. Come and welcome to the Lord
Jesus Christ. What a happy prospect for weary
sinners. Why is it a good thing for us
to come to the Lord Jesus Christ? Because He says, my yoke is easy. The burden of grace, the burden
of God's goodness, the burden of God's mercy towards sinners
is not grievous. The Lord's commandments are not
grievous. The Lord Jesus Christ, even in
these few words, they were directed to his audience in the day in
which he delivered them, was drawing a comparison between
that burden, that yoke, which the Lord Jesus Christ gives,
and that yoke that is laid upon men by religion, that yoke that
is laid upon men in this world, that yoke which the flesh is
so ready to receive and to labor under. He was comparing the law
of Moses and the gospel of grace and truth. Previously, the Lord
Jesus Christ had made this comment. He said, blessed are the pure
in heart. Turn with me please to Acts chapter
15. Acts chapter 15. Acts chapter 15 is a well-recognized
passage because it deals with a big problem which was taking
place in the church, the early church. There were troublemakers
in the church. We sometimes think that troublemaking
in churches is a new thing, not at all. It's been there for a
long, long time. And there were troublemakers
in the church, men and women we might suppose, who desired
to bring in a heavy yoke, a burden upon the Lord's people. They
wanted to bring the Lord's people, who had been redeemed by grace,
who had been blessed by the gospel message that had been preached,
back in under the rules and regulations that was the heavy yoke of the
law. The Lord Jesus Christ was saying,
blessed are the pure in heart. And what a blessing it is! to
be fit for the presence of God, to be holy, to be righteous,
to be prepared for the presence of God. Blessed indeed, happy
people, happy people are those who have a pure heart before
God. Blessed are the pure in heart
whence this purity of heart. Peter tells us in Acts chapter
15 and verse 9, he tells us where a pure heart comes from, that
pure heart that the Lord spoke of. He says that the Lord has
put no difference between the Jews and the Gentiles, between
all men, because He has purified their heart by faith. That's where a pure heart comes
from. It comes from the experience
of God's grace. It comes through a knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It comes through faith in the
blood of Jesus Christ. Because the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanses us from all sin. And faith leads us to look to
Jesus, leads us to concentrate upon Him, and to trust Him for
all that we need to be ready to stand before God. To have
a pure heart is to be justified by God. It is to be righteous
before Him, and it is a blessed, blessed condition. But you see
there were people in those days... who wanted to bring the Lord's
people under a yoke of bondage, back to the law of Moses. They used the word circumcision,
and by circumcision, they meant that all of the laws that previously
had been followed from Moses onward had to be imposed again
upon the Lord's people. And Peter, he stands up in Jerusalem
before these men, and he says, why are you tempting God? Why are you tempting God with
this attitude? Why do you want to put a yoke
upon the neck of the disciples? Not the Lord's yoke, which he
says is light and easy, but this yoke, says Peter, which neither
our fathers nor we were able to bear an unbearable yoke. Here was a group of people trying
to put an unbearable yoke onto the shoulders of the disciples. And he says in verse 11, But
we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall
be saved, even as they The light yoke of grace is that yoke which
the Lord Jesus Christ freely gives to his people, to those
who come to him. There's a beautiful little phrase
in 2 Corinthians chapter 11. You don't need to turn to it,
let me just mention it to you. In chapter 11, verse three of
2 Corinthians, there's a lovely little phrase and it says this.
The simplicity that is in Christ. The simplicity that is in Christ. And I think that that principle
of the simplicity that is in Christ is something that always
ought to regulate our approach to the doctrines and the theologies
and the way in which religion is often presented to us today. The simplicity that is in Christ. I have never heard anyone speak
of the simplicity that is in John Owen. Or the simplicity
that is in Louis Berkoff. Never heard those phrases used.
But there is a simplicity in the Lord Jesus Christ. There
is a loveliness in looking to Him. There is an ease in our
approach. There is a comfort in His hand
upon us. And Paul, in using that phrase
in Corinthians to the believers in Corinth, he was demonstrating
an anxiety that he had in his own heart. Something had happened
to those Corinthians and he was concerned about it. Here's what
he says to them, I fear, I fear, through subtlety, your minds
should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. See, Paul's anxious, he's concerned
that something is happening to these believers at Corinth. And he uses this phrase, the
simplicity that is in Christ, to direct them back once again
to this salvation that they had received through grace, the easy
yoke of Christ. And it is this subject that I
want to draw our attention to this morning. My title is Dead
to the Law. The verse that I've hung my thoughts
on, which actually we won't refer to very much, nevertheless I'll
repeat it to you, is found in Galatians chapter two and verse
19, and it says this, for I through the law am dead to the law, that
I might live unto God. And this corruption of the gospel
that Paul had to contend against in Corinth and in Antioch and
in Jerusalem is here being fought out. in the streets and in the
churches and in the congregations of Galatia. He's having to return
to exactly the same problem that he has dealt with several times
before in the experience of the new church. Why? Because there
were those who sought to come and rob the church of the simplicity
that is in Christ, to lay again a heavy yoke of obedient duties
upon the Lord's people. The saints in Galatia were being
troubled by some who wanted to pervert the gospel of Jesus Christ
with works. That was what they were doing.
And Paul is endeavouring in his letter to the Galatians to resist
that and to restate the uniqueness of God's grace in Christ. The fact that there is no need
for works, that indeed works themselves are the opponent,
are the problem when it comes to a true understanding of grace. That we have to regard ourselves
as being dead to works. and works righteousness and to
laws and duties in order to properly receive and understand and live
in the light of the blessings that come to the people of God
by grace. Look at Galatians chapter 1 with
me please. Galatians chapter 1 and verse
11. Here the apostle is drawing our attention to the
fact that the gospel that he has previously preached to these
Galatians, these believers in the churches of Galatia, was
a gospel that came from the Lord Jesus himself. And he says, I
certify you brethren. Now when he says brethren, you
can put your own name in there. He says, I certify you, John. I certify you, Margaret. I certify
you, Robert. I certify you, brethren. You
can have all the wisdom that you like. You can have all the
knowledge. You can have gone to the best universities. You
can have doctorates. You can have degrees. You can
have diplomas. But here's the only certificate
you need. I certify you. I certify you that the gospel
which was preached of me is not after man. That puts it in a
different category altogether. It is by the revelation of the
Lord Jesus Christ. It is Christ's light and easy
yoke that has been laid upon your shoulders. And I certify
that that's the truth. But here is a people and they
are being confused and disturbed by those who want to lay laws
on their shoulder. Paul had learned the gospel from
the Lord Jesus Christ. he gives something of his own
experience of grace. And then he tells them, as the
first chapter of Galatians unfolds, that there was no difference
between that gospel which he had received immediately, that
means directly from the Lord Jesus Christ, you remember his
conversion on the road to Damascus, how that Jesus himself spoke
to him, and that gospel which the disciples at Jerusalem preached. Because he tells the Galatians
that many years later, after he had already been in the work
of an apostle preaching the gospel, he went to Jerusalem to have
a discussion with the disciples, the apostles that were there.
And this is what he tells the Galatians and what he tells us.
He says, in conference, when I spoke to them, they added nothing
to me, but rather they gave me and to Barnabas the right hand
of fellowship. So what Paul is saying is that
there is no different Gospels. There is only one Gospel. There
wasn't a Pauline Gospel and a Petrine Gospel. There wasn't a Gospel
which was for one group of people and a Gospel for another group
of people. There is one Gospel and there
was no difference between the Gospel Paul preached and the
Gospel which Peter preached. And that's an important point
for us to remember. because Peter, pillar of the
church that he was, made a mistake. He got things wrong. He was intimidated
and he acted inconsistently when he was in the company of men
who wanted him to obey and follow certain kinds of actions. He acted inconsistently and he
drew away several people, including Barnabas and the Jews that were
there who were believers. Paul had a name for what Peter
did and those that followed him. Listen to what he says of them.
They walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel. They
didn't walk righteously. They were going under the law
thinking that they were being more righteous by doing it, and
Paul says that on the contrary, they walked not righteously. They walked not righteously according
to the truth of the gospel, nor according to the simplicity that
is in Christ, nor according to the easy light yoke that he places
upon his people. They were adding something more
to grace, and they were bringing fleshy works into their relationship
with God. They said, Christ has made us
right with God. We are just by His faith, but
we still have a duty to keep God's holy standards. That's
what they said. They said if we fulfill God's
law, our obedience will honor and please God. And Paul knew that that doctrine,
that teaching struck at the very heart of the true gospel of Jesus
Christ. Indeed, he says, if you look
with me at verse 19 of chapter 2 in Galatians, he says, I through
the law, I'm dead to the law. Don't bring me back under it.
Don't lead me back there. That's got nothing to add or
contribute to me. I regard myself as dead to it
because that's what I am. I, through the law, am dead to
the law. The law is spent. The law is
finished. The law is legally done as far
as my spiritual standing before God is concerned. I am crucified
with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in
the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me. He says, I do not frustrate the
grace of God, for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ
is dead in vain. That's how serious this matter
was. If there was to be any involvement
of works, if there was to be any engagement with the law,
it undermined entirely the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to show you two things here
briefly, little asides as it were, just with respect to this
issue that Peter had fallen into, the mistake that he made. First
thing is this. The elect are not righteous by
Christ's law keeping, but Christ's faith. That's what Paul says
here in Galatians 2.16. It is not by the works of the
law, neither ours nor Christ's. It is the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's being measured against a
completely different standard. The obedience of Christ was his
obedience unto death. It was the fact that the undiable
one, the immortal one, the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son
of God died that proved his obedience. Law cannot Law does not make
a person righteous, never did, never will. There's no value
in it for the Lord's people. Law's purpose is to mark and
measure sin. And that is why it is called
the law of sin and death. For he says in verse 16, chapter
2, by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. That was the first thing I wanted
to point out. The second thing is this. Peter separated because,
listen, he feared them of the circumcision. Isn't that amazing? Peter. Peter. of all the disciples,
of all the men. And yet, hadn't he already had
an incident exactly like this? You should have known better.
There was once a little girl stood at the side of a fireplace
and said to Peter, aren't you one of his followers too? And
he said, no, I'm not. And he used words which I'm not
going to use here from the pulpit this morning. But he swore. And he said, I'm not one of Jesus'
followers. And Peter had to be brought back.
He had to be brought back to the Lord. He had to be humbled
before the Lord. He had to be commissioned by
the Lord. Why should Peter of all men be frightened? but he
feared them of the circumcision. And fear, here's my point, fear
is how legalists, how lawyers, how those who would bring the
Lord's people under the law still manipulate the minds and the
emotions of men and women today. They do it by fear. That is how
they wield power. That is how they derive control. And it is happening in churches,
ostensibly Christian churches, ostensibly gospel churches, all
over our land today. Fear is being invoked in the
minds of the Lord's sheep. If a minister frightens you,
If he embarrasses you, if he shames you, then he's not worthy
of the title minister. The Lord says, fear not little
flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the
kingdom. Perfect love casts out fear. And it is as we trust the Lord
Jesus, it is as we have faith in Him, it is as we understand
the fullness, the completeness, the comprehensiveness of the
work of grace, and that Jesus Christ has accomplished and fulfilled
everything that we need to be pure in heart, blessed before
God, happy before God. There is no place for being downcast
and weighed down because we haven't done enough and we haven't lived
as well as we should have done. When we look to the Lord Jesus
Christ, our sight is drawn from our own fleshy weakness and failures
to trust in his complete righteousness for us. This is the power of
the gospel, and that's the easy, light yoke that we bear. Some
say, Galatians is talking about justification, not sanctification. Wrong. Wrong. It's talking about
sanctification. It talks about what Christians
do. It talks about a believer's walk
and conversation. It talks about how we live in
the flesh. Paul is talking about holiness
of life. Paul says, we know a man is not
justified by the works of the law, but by faith of Jesus Christ. So too, he says, the life, verse
20, which we now live. The life which we now live, that
is the life which we now live as justified men and women. We live by the faith of the Son
of God. Our justification and our sanctification,
I'm not sure of the value of even trying to tease these two
things apart. Everything comes from the Lord
Jesus Christ. No flesh will ever glory in his
presence. Of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. We've touched on chapter one
and chapter two. In chapter three, the apostle
Paul brings a number of proofs, a number of arguments to bear
upon the fickleness of the Galatians' thinking on this matter of the
law. And I just want to touch lightly
upon a few of those as we bring our thoughts to a conclusion.
The first thing he asks the Galatians in chapter 3. Let's just read
some verses together. Galatians chapter 3 in verse
1. He says, O foolish Galatians! Who hath bewitched you, that
ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ
hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only
would I learn of you. Received ye the Spirit by the
works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are
ye now made perfect by the flesh? What the Apostle is saying to
the Galatians and what he is saying to us is this. What is
it that lifts up your soul? What is it that lifts up your
soul? Life in the Spirit is living
by faith, not by works, not by the duties of the law. comes through faith. Comfort
comes by faith. Assurance comes by faith. These are the things that give
us that experience of the blessedness of the purity of heart. The Lord
Jesus Christ declares it to be so and these are the evidences. We don't find hope in our works. We don't find assurance in our
doing. Our comfort, our peace of conscience
comes from faith in Christ. Faith in the efficacy of the
blood which he shed on our behalf at Calvary. Everything of blessedness
comes through faith to believers. And it is as we have that gift
of faith given to us, granted and bestowed, that we enter into
the experience of what it is to be a child of God and a follower
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Law and duty is precisely the
opposite. It sinks your soul. It sinks
you down. It brings you into dark places. It gives you a sense of foreboding
because you never feel you can do enough. And when you do fall,
as you will fall, because see this? It's all it's good for. All it's good for. Nothing good
in the flesh. It's only going in one direction. And if I whip it, and poke it,
and strike it, and beat it, in order to make it go in the other
direction, I'll tell you where I'll end up. Right down in a
deep hole. And there will be no comfort,
and there will be no hope, and there will be no assurance for
me. Paul says, what lifts you up?
What lifts up your heart? What lifts you up in praise?
Paul is saying precisely what the Lord Jesus Christ had already
said to Nicodemus long ago. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. It is
the spirit that quickeneth the flesh profiteth nothing. He asks these Galatians to be
honest with themselves. And I ask you to be honest with
yourself. Think about your experiences,
your experiences of life, your experiences as a believer. When
are you most blessed? Is it not when the Lord Jesus
Christ is preached in all his glory? Is it not when He is lifted
up before us on the cross? Is it not when we see the blood
being spilled and we understand by faith the blessings and benefits
of its application? Or is it when the law is set
out before you? Is that when your greatest blessing
comes? When someone tells you what you
should be doing and how often you should be doing it? What is it that causes us to
praise the Lord? What lifts up our hearts in thankfulness
and worship? I shake my head and I wonder
how any who truly know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior
can preach works, law, duty to the saints of God. The next thing
Paul says to these people, we find it in verses six through
nine. Let me just summarize it for
you. He says, how did you receive the blessings of God originally? How did you originally receive
them? Right, I can see your heads are
all down, so you're starting to read it, so I'll just read
it. We'll do it together. You're not getting away from
me. Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to
him for righteousness. Know ye, therefore, that they
which are of faith the same are the children of Abraham. For
the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen
through faith preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying,
In thee shall all nations be blessed. How did you receive
God's blessing? Faith has always been God's way
to bless his people, right from the very beginning. And Abraham's
experience proves it. These Pharisaical Christians,
these legal Christians, so-called, that were coming, causing trouble
in Antioch and in Corinth and in Galatia, they were espousing
Abraham as their Father. Father Abraham. And they were
looking back to Father Abraham and all of the history of the
Jews. But Abraham obtained righteousness
by believing the promises of God. He got the inheritance. He became an heir with Christ. That's what his inheritance was.
Inherit. He was the heir. He got his inheritance
as an heir with Christ, that being seated in heavenly places,
being of a pure heart, blessed of God, by faith, not by works. That's the whole point. The covenant
blessings, they came by promise and by grace, and they were received
by faith. The law wasn't even given at
that time. It would be 430 years later. Thus, no spiritual blessing comes
from the law. You can't get a spiritual blessing
from law. There's no comfort in our efforts,
our fleshy efforts, our works. If it's the blessings of God
we seek, we must find them in trusting Christ. That's the bottom
line. Verse nine he says, they which
be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. Who are Abraham's
children? The people of faith. The promises
of God in Christ to Abraham and to his seed are the promises
to the people of faith. And these are the covenant blessings
which we possess as those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Then Paul says, verse 10, for
as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse,
for it is written, cursed is everyone that continueth not
in all things which are written in the book of the law to do
them. So here's his next argument. He says, you who want to go to
the law, do you realize what you're asking? Will you find
contentment under that law? Will you find peace under that
law? No! No! A hundred times, no! The law brings a curse. Now shame
on those men who bring the Lord's little ones under the law. because they are bringing them
under its curse. They say to me, you don't understand
the law. Well, I say to them, you don't
understand the gospel. The simplicity that is in Christ. Don't knock it. If this is what
the Lord has given us, why would we want to go anywhere else?
Why would we be foolish Galatians and go somewhere else to seek
God's blessing when the reality is that all we will get is a
curse? There is no curse in the gospel. There is no heavy yoke in the
gospel. it brings peace, and it brings
contentment. Paul writes to Timothy, 1 Timothy
6, verse 3, and he says, if any man teach otherwise, and consent
not to wholesome words, that is the gospel, the simplicity
that is in Christ, that's the wholesome words. If they don't
consent to that, even, he says, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and to the doctrine which is in accordance to godliness, from
such withdrawal. Now that's what Paul says to
Timothy. You can't be part of it. You can't be under it. If they're going to preach law
to you, if they're going to rely on your efforts in order to bring
you closer to God, don't listen to them. You will get no godliness in
the law. I looked it up. There is not
one reference in the New Testament to, in all the references that
there are to godliness, there is not one reference to law in
relation to godliness. 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 3, see
Peter knew better. He says, according as his divine
power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life
and godliness. It's given. Everything that pertains
to godliness is freely given by the power of God to His people. Through knowledge of Him, which
is faith, we appropriate all these blessings of godliness.
For He hath called us to glory and virtue. Why would you seek
a curse? Why would you seek law? Why would
you seek all the despondency that is going to come from that?
And I spoke recently to a woman who had been in a church. I think
she told me for more than 20 years. Bless her. And she never
in all of those years felt that she had done enough. Every Sunday
she would go to church and there was always more to be done. Always more. More giving. More visiting. More doing. Laid on the sheep's back. Where was joy? Where was the
joy in the Lord for that woman in all of those years under that
sort of regime? Sheep are not beasts of burden
and such preachers as lay a heavy yoke upon the Lord's sheep ought
to be separated from. Next thing Paul says is this,
what does your Bible tell you? What does the Bible say to you
Galatians? What does the word of God tell
you with respect to this desire that you have to get back under
the law? Well, look at verse 11. But that no man is justified
by the law in the sight of God, it is evident. For the just shall
live by faith, and the law is not of faith, You know, Polk,
he knew who he was contending against, and he could not have
been any clearer or more explicit in these matters. He says, the
just shall live by faith, and the law is not of faith, but
the man that doeth them shall live in them. Okay. If the law is not of faith, what
has it to do with the people of faith? The law is not of faith, and yet we are told that it is
the Christian's rule of life. Ridiculous. Nonsense. Justified people live, grow,
praise, give thanks, Yes, and serve their God, the Lord Jesus
Christ, by faith. Paul says in Romans 1, our reasonable
service is faith. Not law, not duties, not works. The Old Testament and the New
Testament both witness to the fact that the just shall live
by faith. And law is not of faith. Could
it be clearer? Faith brings blessing. Law contains
a curse. It is evident. Don't go there. The just shall live by faith.
The prophets said it, the apostles said it, the Lord Jesus Christ
himself said it. I am sorry, Westminster Confession
of Faith. But the believer's rule of life
is not the law, but it is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The final point that Paul makes
here, verse 13 and 14. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. For it is written,
cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree, that the blessing
of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ,
that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Why did the Lord Jesus Christ
die? Why did the Lord Jesus Christ
die? all of God's gifts of grace come
through faith in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether
it's Abraham you're talking about, all the promises that he received,
the promise of the Spirit, the cleansing of the heart, the eternal
life, the taking away of our sins, all are secured by the
death of the Lord Jesus Christ. You find me a blessing that didn't
come to you through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
I will be mightily surprised. All the promises of God's grace
and his pleasure come to his church by grace through faith. And that's why the Apostle Paul
says in verse 14, that we might receive. Why did the Lord Jesus
Christ die? That we might receive. Why did he lay down his life?
That we might receive. Why did he shed his blood? That
precious blood. Why was it? The sacrifice of
Christ upon the cross was the only way that we might receive. You're not going to get anything
of a blessed, spiritual, eternal nature outside of the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ died. That's what it says. He died
to take away the curse of the law. Redeemed means bought. It's looking at that great transaction
that was effected upon the cross. The price that was paid for the
redemption of the people was the precious blood of the God-man,
Jesus Christ. And it was a costly work. It
was an expensive payment. Paul says in 2, chapter 2, verse
21 of Galatians, if righteousness come by the law, then Christ
is dead in vain. Some people try to make a play
on Paul's words here. They say that we are redeemed
from the curse of the law. So the picture is that here's
the law and in the law's pockets, there's a blessing in one pocket
and a curse in the other. And the Lord Jesus Christ, he
came to take away the curse. of the law. So now if we embrace
the law, all we're going to get are its blessings. But that's
not what Paul's saying at all. In Galatians 4, verses 4 and
5, he says, When the fullness of the time
was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under
the law, to redeem them that were under the law, under the
law in its entirety. Not a part of the law, not a
division of the law, not a ceremonial law, or a judicial law, or a
moral law, but the law in its entirety. And it's wrong to dissect
it up. Remember what we said about the
simplicity that is in Christ. If they start making it complicated,
you don't need to go there. There's a simplicity in the gospel
that warms the hearts of those who are the people of his choice. It is by the shedding of his
blood that we have the inheritance of grace. And that's the gospel. And that's why the question of
law or grace is so important to the Lord's people. When the
Lord Jesus Christ died, He was fulfilling God's eternal plan
and purpose. He was bringing salvation by
His redemption to a chosen people. And He bought liberty for those
who were convicted by sin. Those who were in bondage to
the law. He secured access to God the
Father and lasting comfort from God the Holy Spirit. He granted
a right of access and a right to every promise. to those who
are made joint heirs together with him of all the blessings
that he is going to get from God. He made this all possible
at the cross. There is no reference to the
law. There is no need for the law. Why would these Galatians desire
to turn back to the weak, beggarly elements and desire again to
be in bondage? Why would they? And why would
you? Why would I? Rather, let us with
the Apostle, as he begins chapter 5 of Galatians, say this, Stand
fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and
be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Or verse 5,
let us wait through the Spirit for the hope of righteousness,
that is, the eternal life which Christ has promised us, rid of
this body of flesh, rid of this weakness of sin. And he has promised
to give us by faith in him. Brethren, like Paul, you can
put your own name in there. Brethren, you are free from the
law, from its curse, from its claims, from its bondage. We look to Christ for every blessing. Let us stand fast in our liberty
and live by faith in the Son of God, our Saviour. This is
the gospel of grace. This is the simplicity that is
in Christ. Amen.