All right, back to Galatians
chapter 2. Now, our text for tonight is
going to be verse 20 in Galatians 2. And the title is going to be, The
Faith of the Son of God. But I just have to go back and
read this thing again, and I'll try my best not to take all day
doing it. Galatians chapter 2. Alright, may we pray. Lord, we have before us again this
day this glorious, wonderful chapter
of Holy Scripture Yet at the same time, this awful event that transpired in Antioch
in which your servant, Paul the Apostle, found he had no choice but to publicly rebuke Peter
because His actions contradicted the gospel that is all Christ
and all grace, a gospel that Peter knew and believed and preached. Yet under the pressure of the
circumstance, he contradicted that gospel and separated himself
from the Gentiles because of his fear of the Jews who believed and
taught that we must not only believe Christ, but we must keep
the law of Moses. Your word is explicit in so many,
many places that those two things cannot live in the same heart
and soul. You've given us a plain illustration
of this in the Old Testament. Moses led the children of Israel for virtually 40 years in the
desert. Yet when it came time to enter
the promised land, Moses could not take the children of Israel
in. One of the grand and glorious
reasons is that the law cannot give us rest and peace in our
souls. Only Christ and your grace in
him can do so. So another must lead the children
of Israel into the promised land. His name is Joshua. It means Jesus. Jehovah is salvation. Lord, as we read this passage
this evening, Oh, how we beg that you would burn this message into our souls,
that we never lose sight of these things. They are so precious,
so essential, so necessary, so important, that we must not we
cannot surrender them under any circumstance. And if people come among us who promote this gospel that
is part Christ and part themselves, give us the wherewithal to stand
firm on Christ and Christ alone. It is inevitable that at some point in time this
attempt will be made in this place. How long this church from its
beginning stood in believing, rejoicing in and preaching and
teaching this gospel that is all Christ and all grace, nobody
can tell exactly, but at some point Somebody brought in another
gospel, which is not another because it is not good news. And the gospel of Christ left
this place for however many years or decades, who knows? But oh Lord, all we can do is serve our own
generation by the will of God and then fall on sleep until
that day comes for each of us personally and individually.
Give us the strength, the grace necessary to defend this precious
truth of the gospel. Bless us, we pray. for our Savior's
sake and in His name, amen. Let me remind you as we begin
this, we'll not read the entire chapter, but we'll pick up about
where we did this morning, but let me remind you that this is
a letter to several churches in a province in Asia Minor called
Galatia. Hence, they are called Galatians. And this letter is called the
letter to the Galatians. And in those churches, in that
province in Asia Minor, the very same false gospel that is no gospel
at all was being introduced in the very churches that Paul and
Barnabas had preached the gospel in those cities and a church
was born and they had carefully ministered to them and came back
and visited them again to see how they were doing and now writes
this letter because of what he's heard is taking place in those
churches. And that is people from Jerusalem
who claim to be Christians but who also held on to their old
religion, the Jews' religion, as Paul now calls it, and so
added Christ to what they already had. And the one thing that set them apart
from all the other religions of the world was circumcision. Now that, of course, is not all
that there is to the law. And in our day and time, the
actual circumcision itself is not even a point of interest,
let alone being a point of real faith. We've come far enough that that
is no longer the issue. But here is the issue. We are
told to add something that we do to what Christ has done or
what Christ has done is of no use. It is ineffective. And that,
my friend, is a lie. Just as this attempt on these
Galatian congregations was a lie. So we must have some real understanding
of these things because they are so very important and critical. Paul tells us in the first part
of this chapter that he had been to Jerusalem. He met with the
apostles. He told them what gospel he preached
to the Gentiles, and they saw that there was no difference
between their gospel and his. But somewhere along the way,
in the Jerusalem church in particular, there were false brethren, as
Paul calls them in this chapter, brought in unawares. So that
there were people in the congregation in Jerusalem who at heart were
still Jews in that old religion. And yet they are professing to
be believers in Christ. And they are the ones who have
come and disturbed these Galatian congregations. So in verse 11,
chapter 2 of Galatians, Peter comes to Antioch. Now Antioch
is not Galatian. It's not in Galatia. This is
a congregation some distance north of Jerusalem in northern
Palestine where Peter and Barnabas and others ministered the Word
of God and the Lord blessed immensely in that work. So when Peter was
come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face because he was
to be blamed. For before certain came from
James, Peter did eat with the Gentiles, indicating now that
he ate what they ate. He had no scruples, neither should
he have, given the fact that Acts chapter 10 is in our Bibles. He ate with the Gentiles, but
when they were come, certain men came from James, who was
the seemingly the presiding elder in the church in Jerusalem. He
did eat with the Gentiles, but when they were come, he withdrew
and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.
And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that
Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation." That
word dissimulation now has within it that this is hypocrisy, this
is pretense. These people claim to be so holy,
and so they separate themselves from these Gentile sinners. And
a man that has been saved knows one thing, and if he doesn't
know this, I don't believe he knows anything about grace. You
know what he calls himself? the chief of sinners, the chief
of sinners. Now if you've got a problem with
that, you've got a problem. So Paul said in verse 14, but
when I saw that they walked not uprightly, speaking of Peter
and the Jews from Jerusalem and Barnabas and the Jews from Adiak,
when I saw that they walked not uprightly, according to the truth
of the gospel. I said unto Peter before them
all, now don't you know this hurt Paul to have to do this?
To stand up publicly and rebuke another apostle who's Paul's
senior, both in age and in membership in the college of the apostles.
Peter was an apostle long before Paul was an apostle. But you
can't let this just go under the rug. You have to confront
it. Peter committed this act in front
of that entire congregation. Therefore, you must speak to
him in front of all, not behind closed doors. I said to Peter before them all,
If you being a Jew live after the manner of the Gentiles and
not as do the Jews, why do you compel? Why do you make it essential,
necessary? I lost my place. Why compel you
the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? Submitting themselves to
the right of circumcision. Verse 15. We who are Jews by
nature and not sinners of the Gentiles. Paul is not in any
sense saying that he himself is not a sinner. If you read
your Bible, you know better than that. Knowing, verse 16, we need to
ask ourselves if we know this. Knowing that a man is not justified
by the works of the law. You cannot ever, if you live
to be a thousand years old, you cannot ever have sufficient works
to justify your soul. And if you could, you'd be making
an antichrist out of your works. Because Christ alone is the one
who justifies us before God. knowing that a man is not justified
by the works of the law, now watch this statement, but by
the faith of Jesus Christ. Now that phrase, the faith of
Jesus Christ, not the faith in Jesus Christ, the faith of Jesus
Christ, appears three times in this very chapter of Scripture.
And one more, and I believe the next chapter of Galatians. And
if I remember right, one more time, and I think it's the book
of Ephesians. So it's not, this is not a grammatical
error. This is not a mistranslation.
There is a difference between of faith, the faith of Christ,
and the faith that is in Christ. There is a difference. A man is justified, how? By the
faith of Christ. We're not justified by faith.
How are you justified? By Christ. Make sure you make that distinction.
When you hear a preacher say, if you'll get faith, God will
save you, He is making faith a work and not a grace and that
ain't no faith at all. All that is is a person's confidence
in themselves and it cannot last and it will not justify before
God. But by the faith of Jesus Christ
now that's our subject and our title for tonight, but I'm gonna
wait till I get to verse 20 to deal with the whole thing because
that's the Verse 20 is the third time in this chapter that that
expression is used All right, verse 16 after that expression
by the faith of Jesus Christ Even we have believed in Jesus
Christ Faith does believe in the Lord Jesus Christ now listen
to me But that faith that believes in Christ is the faith of God
that is communicated to us in the new birth. You cannot exercise
that faith until you're already born again. It is never the cause of the new
birth, it is always the result. And those two things have to
be distinctly remembered when it comes to the subject of faith. Even we have believed in Jesus
Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, for by
the works of the law. Now some people try to make a
big to-do over the moral law as opposed to the ceremonial
law, but in the Bible There is never, ever, not one time the
word ceremonial law or moral law. It simply says the law,
the law of God. It's all one, cannot be divided. So when people want to make these
little nice distinctions, well, this is talking about the moral
law, not the ceremonial law. Well, the people that were causing
all this disturbance in the Galatian congregations That wasn't the
moral law. That was the ceremonial law.
The law of circumcision was a ceremony performed by the priest when
a male child was eight days old. The law is the law and grace
is grace and the two cannot be joined. Cannot be done. Cannot be done. All right, the
last phrase in 16. For by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. Not one has ever been, nor shall
one ever be. You cannot find an instant, not
a single one in all the Bible, where a person is justified by
their works. Verse 17. But if while we seek
to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners,
is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid, for if I
build again the things which I destroyed. Now let me stop
right there. Make sure you see the connection.
This is tantamount, this is equal to what Peter did when he got
up from the Gentiles table and went on the other side of the
room and segregated himself to be among just the Jews. He is building again the things
which he destroyed. Don't you remember when Peter
was on the rooftop at Simon the Tanner's house in Acts chapter
10? And God gave him that vision of those sheets coming down from
heaven with all different kinds of animals in it. And the Lord
said to Peter, rise and eat. Oh, he said, nothing unclean
has ever touched these lips. Oh, my goodness. He must have
been a mighty good man. No, he was not telling the truth. Now, he might have lived up to
not eating certain meats, you know, as according to the Old
Testament law. But the Lord Jesus said, it's
not what goes in your mouth that condemns a man, it's what comes
out, out of the heart, precede evil thoughts and murders and
so forth and so on. If I build again the things which
I destroyed, If you see me, let me word this just right, if you see me go back, join up
with, have fellowship with free will Baptist churches, and that
takes in every rank and type and kind you can find, then you
know that I'm building again the things that I destroyed. And he adds, I make myself a
transgressor. Now there's an if in that verse,
verse 18. I don't know that there's ever
been a case, but if there were, this person would be lost. Verse 19, now Paul is referring to himself
which he did also in verse 18 but he spoke those words I think
in regard to Peter but he used himself as an illustration. Verse
19, for I through the law, through the law, am dead to the law that
I might live unto God. Now I showed you in Romans chapter
7 verses 1 through 4 this morning an illustration of that very
exact thing in verse 19. Alright, we come to verse 20.
Here's our text. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless,
I live. Yet, not I. It's not really me that lives. But Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, in this body, I live, here's that expression, by the
faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. By the faith of the Son of God. Let's take this phrase by phrase.
The first one is, I am crucified with Christ. I'm crucified with
Christ. Paul describes himself as a member
of Christ's mystical or spiritual body. Believers, people who are
saved through the Lord Jesus and His shed blood, are people
who are members of His spiritual body, the Church, the Bride of
the Lord Jesus Christ. How about turning to Hebrews
7? Let me just read you one statement if you'd like. If you don't,
it'll be fine. Hebrews chapter 7. Verse 10, and when we talk about being
members of Christ's body, here's an illustration that will
greatly help us in understanding these words. Verse 10, Hebrews
7, speaking about Abraham who paid tithes to Melchizedek and
referring to his ultimate offspring by the name of Levi, who was
the head of the priest tribe in Israel. It says, for he was
yet or still in the loins of his father, that is Abraham. Levi was not even born and would
not be born for a long, long time. Yet it says that he was in Abraham's
loins when Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek. So the priesthood
of Israel is subject to the Lord Jesus Christ because they paid
tithes to Christ in Melchizedek. So when Paul talks about himself
Being a member of Christ's body, it means that He, as well as
we who are believers, were in the loins of Christ when He lived,
when He suffered, when He died, when He was buried, when He rose
again, when He ascended. And the scripture demands that
we see this, that all who are in Christ, these things belong
to them. because He represented us. He's
our surety in those awful covenant settlements in that covenant
of grace that took place before time became our substitute and
our redeemer. Alright? Paul uses another expression
similar to this in Romans chapter 6, which we need not go to. I'll
just give it to you, just a short part of it. buried with Christ
by baptism unto death. And yet, He died and we didn't. But we're in His loins. He represents
us. He acts for us so that what He
does, we are said to do. When He obeyed the law, Believers
are said to have obeyed that law in Christ. And that's the
only way you can obey it. Colossians 2.12 says, Risen with
Christ to newness of life. This is talking in spiritual
terms. This is not literally. Ephesians
2.6 Sit together with Him in heavenly places. When? Right
now. Not tomorrow. Not when you die. Right now. We are said to be
seated in Christ and that is the past tense of seat. Seated
in Christ in heavenly places. Alright, let's go back to Galatians.
Let's pick up another phrase out of Galatians 2.20. You've
got to look at this and understand what Paul is saying, how he words
it, the order in which these things come. The first one was,
I am crucified with Christ. Then he says, nevertheless, I
live. Wait a minute. He takes it back. Yet not I, but Christ lives in
me. Now you make sure you note this.
He does not start with I live in Christ. It begins with Christ
lives in me. And there's a tremendous difference
in those things. To be one with Christ, because
Christ lives in me, is the sole cause of every wonder and miracle
of grace to come in time or eternity. Everything God has for a sinner
Everything without exception that God has for a sinner, you
find it in Christ. In Christ. Now Paul is not talking
about a natural life. He's not talking about his physical
life. Have you ever traced him through
the book of Acts? He had a tough time physically
and mentally. beaten, imprisoned, and everything
under the sun that is imaginable, shipwrecked. Paul is rejoicing in this life,
spiritual life, in the Lord Jesus. We might as well get this in
while we're on Galatians 2.20. There has not been, there is
not, and there will not be anything in our flesh that is
made holy. Nope. Nothing. We have in us the old man, as
he's called in our Bibles, and he's just as bad as he's ever
been. Our natural man is still just
that, flesh. And flesh is not anything but
sin, of course. By the same token, nothing in the flesh is made
holy. Just in case you've got a problem
with that, let me read you this little verse out of John 3. Because
I know that sounds In today's thinking, that statement went
out with Noah's Ark or something. If I can get to it, I want to
read you this verse. John chapter 3. These are the words of the Lord
Jesus Himself. John 3, 6. Here it is, plain as day. John
3, 6. That which is born of the flesh
is holy? Nope. It's flesh. And that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit. And don't ever confound the two. They cannot mix. You can't blend
one with the other. Flesh is sin. The Spirit is life. life and holiness. Nothing in the spirit, man is
made up of three parts, body, soul, and spirit. Nothing in the spirit of the
believing sinner is left unholy, nothing. Spiritually, He's perfectly
holy because Christ lives in me and He gives me that perfect
holiness in Himself. It's impossible to have a saving
interest in Christ and not be spiritually holy. Alright, let's
take the next phrase. I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless,
I live. Yet, not I. It's not me that
lives. It's Christ who lives in me.
But Christ lives in me. Christ lives in His people. It's not I that live in Christ,
but Christ lives in me. It is not first, let's find out
what comes first, it is not first our interest in Christ, but it
is Christ's interest in us, which He has had forever. Ever since God gave us to Him
in the covenant of grace in old eternity, Christ's people were
given to Him He was charged as their surety under covenant settlements. All that He came into this world
and experienced and did and said was all a part of that agreement. Christ right in us, R-I-G-H-T,
Christ right in us is the cause. Our right in Him is the effect. The cause is Christ lives in
me and the effect is that our Lord Jesus makes us perfectly
free and perfectly holy, spiritually speaking. Now here's the rule
of all rules. Straight out of the Bible, 1
John 4, 19 says this, we love him because he first loved us. And anything else to do with
this whole matter is to get the cart before the horse. All right, I think I've got a
couple more points to get across and I'll be through. Or is it more correct to say
finished? Here's the fourth thing out of
this statement in Galatians 2.20. Right in the middle of the verse,
after Christ lives in me, we have this expression. and the
life which I now live in the flesh, 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." Alright, we want to work now on that expression,
the faith of the Son of God. Let us take notice how wonderfully
Paul keeps ringing the bell on this subject of faith. It is
a grand and glorious subject indeed. Paul is declaring that
all of his life is in Christ, from Christ, in Christ, from
Christ, and by Christ. And you and I must understand
and see the very same. All of Paul's enjoyment of this
life is by faith of the Son of God. Paul is not telling you
how much faith he has. He's telling you how much faith
the Lord Jesus has to give. Yet it is by these lively actings
of faith that the Lord's people enjoy such high privileges in
Christ. Now here's the third thing about
that expression. The faith of Jesus Christ. All, everything,
every last single thing, all is in Christ. Yes, Christ is
himself. His people's all. We've seen that in so many places
in our Bibles I don't even think we could count it. But our joy
in this life in which we live in this world will be more or
less as we are enabled to live upon Christ Himself. Drawing
from Him all that we need all our resources, all our hope,
all of our peace, all of our righteousness, all of our salvation,
drawing it simply from him, enabling us to discover that both the
life that is in Christ and the faith Paul speaks of from Christ
are from one and the same person. Fourthly, faith is not an act
of the child of God any more than the life in Christ is an
act of the child of God, which gives birth to that faith. Paul's
expression warrants this conclusion. He says that the life he now
lives in the flesh, you see it there? About two-thirds of the
way through the verse, the life which I now live in the flesh,
this life that he now lives in the flesh, he lives by the faith
of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. All right, two more things here
in regard to this 20th verse of Galatians chapter 2. Christ,
when it comes to faith, Christ is called the author and the
finisher of our faith. He is the giver of faith. If
you'll turn to Philippians 1 verse 29, we can plainly see this. It's also covered in Ephesians
chapter 2 verses 8, 9, and 10. Let me see if I'm going the wrong
way. Philippians chapter 1, just over to your right. Let's see. Past Ephesians, then you'll hit
Philippians. Chapter 1, verse 29. People will argue you until they're
blue in the face that you must come up with faith. You have to have faith. This book teaches in many passages,
not the least of the verse that we're about to read, that faith
is a gift, a gift, a gift. God doesn't give you His gifts
because you deserve them or because He knows that you'll
rightly use them. When God gives you something,
it comes with all the necessary wherewithal for it to become
and do and be all that God purposed it to be. He's the author of
it all. All right, verse 29, Philippians
chapter 1, for unto you is given in the behalf of Christ, given
in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him. Believing on Christ is what?
A gift. Unto you it is given in the behalf
of Christ, not only to believe but it's also given for us to
suffer for his namesake. Faith is not of our making. The life of faith, like all other
life, is first a life of receiving, receiving. Mr. Hawker calls it incomings
before outgoings. Air received before we can breathe
out. The first is the cause and the
last is the effect. I told you once not long ago
about drawing insulin out of a vial, out of a glass bottle.
If you don't put any air in there, you ain't going to get no insulin
out. You put the amount of air in that you purpose to get that
amount of insulin out. Otherwise, you're not going to
get any. You might get a dribbling, but it won't be what you think.
Because that bottle is vacuum sealed. And that's how it is
with our Savior and ourselves. If He doesn't give us what we
need, we won't ever have it. We cannot find it or produce
it or develop it. It's His gift. It's His gift. It is first the faith of Christ
and then by His grace and Spirit it becomes faith in Christ. Paul said to the Philippians,
where we're in Galatians, I'll just quote you the statement.
Paul said in Philippians 3.12, speaking of Christ, he said,
I follow after, if I may apprehend that for which I also am apprehended. So our apprehending is the result
of Christ apprehending us. ever the other way around. Our safety arises not from our
faith, but from our Savior's love. The eternal God is your refuge
and underneath, Deuteronomy says, are the everlasting arms. David said in Psalm 119 verse
117, hold thou me up and I shall be safe. That's the whole thing
in a nutshell. It is first the faith of Christ
by Him, by His blood and righteousness, His person It becomes our faith
in Him. Okay, I told you this morning...