Philippians chapter three. The
first hour we looked at the first three verses and we read through
some of the remaining chapter. In verse three it gives us the
simplicity of the gospel. Let's read that. For we are the
circumcision which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in
Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Can you say that?
Can I say that? I rejoice in Christ Jesus and
have no confidence in the flesh. Lord's people are made to say
that, aren't they? If we have no confidence in our flesh in
salvation, it's because he's the doer of it. See, everyone
by nature has some confidence some way in their flesh pertaining
to spiritual things, never knowing that they're truly dead until
the Lord reveals that. And then they are given no confidence
in the flesh and Christ is all. That's called repentance and
faith, isn't it? The Lord makes one to be a sinner. That means
we see God as God. If a man or a woman sees God
as God, we see ourself as the sinner. And in that moment, the
Lord gives faith that drives us to Christ. This is how the
Lord does through his gospel. We are made to have no confidence
in the flesh. This is the miracle of grace in the heart, isn't
it? Paul says to the church, the Romans, he says, chapter
two, that he is a Jew, which is one inwardly and circumcision
is that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter, whose
praise is not of men, but of God. It's the circumcision inwardly.
That's what Paul says. It's not to the praise of men.
You can't, can you say that I know that I'm a believer because I've
done this and I've done that. If you are saying that, you're
not a believer. The Lord's people know that it's
the circumcision of the heart. How are we gonna do that? How
are we gonna circumcise our heart? Well, we can't. That's the point,
isn't it? The Lord does it. The Lord does
it. And it's not to the praise of
men, but unto God. This declares that God gets all
the glory. And most of the time, our flesh wants glory of some
way, shape, or form. Not when it comes to the gospel
and the Lord's people. The Lord wants him to have all the glory,
because they know he's going to have all the glory. That's
the truth, isn't it? He's going to get all the glory. The Lord
makes us confess Christ is all, and that we have no confidence
in the flesh. Well, Paul gives us the reason
he has no confidence in the flesh or reveals to us his pedigree
and says, if you think for a second that you have any confidence
in your flesh whatsoever, I had confidence, but not anymore. I had the right to have confidence
in my flesh. And he gives us his pedigree.
As I mentioned, the first hour, let's read that again. Chapter
three of Philippians. In verse four, he says, though
I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man
thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh,
I more. I have more to trust in the flesh
than any other man. That's what Paul just said. I
was circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the
tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrew, as touching the law,
a Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the church. I put
Christians to death because of what I believe, or what I believed
in at the time. I was the one that brought the
letters. It's touching the law, the righteousness, which is in
the law. I was blameless. I was blameless. But look what
he says in verse seven. But what things were gained to
me, those I counted loss for Christ. Paul had dotted every
I and crossed every T pertaining to the law and the righteousness
thereof. There's only one problem. The
law cannot make a man or a woman righteous by them keeping it.
It does the opposite of that. It creates iniquity. It creates
sin unto death. We can't keep God's law unto
righteousness. It's not possible. It is a mirror.
I was praying for an analogy and the Lord gave me two. It's
a mirror that only reveals what's present. A mirror. It's looking
and can the mirror make you clean? Can the mirror make you beautiful?
That's what men and women are preaching. Keep the law and you'll
become beautiful. It's just a mirror. It just shows
what we are. It's not the fountain of living
water wherewith we are washed and made clean. It can't clean
us. It can't make us whole. It just
shows what we are, that we're dirty, that we're filthy, that
we're dead, that we're dead and we must be made alive. That's
what the law reveals, isn't it? Reveals our sin. It's not a bath
that we get to wash in. It just shows the imperfections.
It just shows the flaws. Well, men and women, when they
see their flaws and imperfection, and some of you know this to
be true, and if anybody's had this done, I'm not picking on
anybody, so don't take offense to it, but Botox is something
people do now. They get injections because they
start seeing more flaws and more wrinkles. They don't like what
they see, so they try to look more pretty or whatever else.
Then they go back to the mirror and they say, now I look better.
That's what false religion does. That's false religion. That's
all that it can do is it, it puffs up. That's what Botox does
it firms and puffs, doesn't it puffs up. And that's all that
false religion can do. It doesn't make one save one
righteous. It doesn't reveal Christ. It puffs up the flesh. That's
what men keeping the law. That's what it does. Just as a true mirror only reveals
what's already there, that's what God's law exposes, that
we, by nature, are dead in trespasses and in sin. That's what God's
law reveals. We are dead in trespasses and
in sin. We cannot approach that mountain
and live. God is holy. God demands justice. God is sovereign. He demands
perfection. Either the law must declare me
as justified or I am damned. Either the law must declare you
as justified or you are damned. It's that simple. Because going
to the law cannot change the destination. It doesn't make
one righteous. But if the law states that we
are justified, God's the doer of it. God's the doer of it.
Now this hour, I want to look at this thought, Christ being
the end of the law. That's what I've titled this
message, the end of the law. Paul says, I was righteous before,
or I thought, I thought I had a righteousness by the law before,
but, and he gives us verse seven, but what things were gained to
me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I
count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss
of all things. And look what he counts them
as. Look what he counts them as, but done, that I may win
Christ and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of
Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may
know him. in the power of his resurrection
and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his
death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection
of the dead, not as though I had already attained, either were
already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend
that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. I love that
last part. I'm trying to apprehend that
which has already apprehended me. I'm trying to get to Christ
who already has me. That's what he says, isn't that
glorious? That's what we do as the Lord's people, don't we?
I've got to have him. He's already apprehended me, but that's my
goal. That's my aim. Paul said, I press
towards the mark. He says it right here in this
chapter. I press towards the mark, forgetting
those things which are behind. I press towards the mark of the
high calling. What is the mark? The Lord Jesus Christ. I've got
to apprehend him because he has apprehended me. Now, I thought
I had a righteousness, Paul says. I was blameless before the law.
I had a righteousness before the law, but I was wrong. I counted
all but loss that I may win Christ. As a matter of fact, I'll go
a step farther, Paul says, it was all dung. It was all dung. It didn't merit me anything. All the law keeping that I did
did not accomplish anything. in salvation. Paul says, now
I have no confidence in the flesh. Why? Because I see that I have
no righteousness. Paul said, in me that is in my
flesh dwelleth no good thing. Can you say that? In me that
is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. If you can say that, the
Lord's the doer of it. If you can say that, the Lord's
the doer of it. Our righteousness is filthy rags, isn't it? It's
dung. It's worthless. It's worthless. But we have hope. Romans 10 says, for Christ is
the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. And what does Paul mean that
Christ is the end of the law? What is he talking about? The
end of the law? Well, to answer that question
this morning, I want to observe three distinct type of law, three
distinct definitions, if you will, or specifications of the
law as given in the scripture, three distinct ones. The first
one is the moral law, the moral law. You can take the Old Testament
law that the Lord give to the children of Israel, and you can
break it down into these three categories. Number one's the
moral law, how men live to please God. The second one is the ceremonial
law, the ceremonial law. And that's what men do to meet
the demands of atonement before the Lord, what they sacrifice
unto him. The third is a civil law, what
men do, men or women do towards each other. So it's the moral
law, the ceremonial law, and the civil law. Now, what does
Paul mean that I don't have my own righteousness, which is of
the law, but his? What does he mean that he is dead to the law? Well, in Galatians chapter two,
he tells us, I do not frustrate the grace of God for if righteousness
come by the law, Christ is dead in vain. If righteousness can
come through and by the law, why did Christ die? He died in
vain. He died for nothing. If you and I can be made righteous
because of what we do, whether it's a moral law that we keep,
a ceremonial law we keep, or a civil law we keep, unto the
Lord, if we can be made righteous because of that, why did Christ
have to die? Because there is no righteousness
in keeping the Lord's law. The entirety of the law was not
given to fix sin. It was not given to fix sin. It was given to reveal sin. It is our schoolmaster bringing
us unto the Lord, showing us we have a need. We can't keep
God's law. We are not holy. It shows us
that he is other than we are. It's the same as being in a dark
room and having a flashlight and shining it upon a wall and
seeing the writing upon a wall. It would be the Lord's law. It
just reveals sin unto us. He has to show us who he was
so that we see what we are. It revealed sin. And until that
light shines on that sin, we would never have seen it, would
we? We would never have seen it. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, there shall be no flesh justified. Therefore, by the
deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his
sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. No flesh is
justified in the Lord's sight by the keeping of the law. It's
the knowledge of sin. Keeping the law for righteousness
brings nothing but death. The law doesn't just show us
that we have sin, the law shows us that we are sin. That's the
problem. See, sin is not a condition whereby
we need to take medication to fix. Sin is not something that
we can cure by doing. Sin is what we are. And I like
using this analogy because it's simple, and I'm a simple guy.
But a dog doesn't become a dog the first time it barks, does
it? No. A cat doesn't become a cat because
it meows and purrs. It is a cat, and that's why it
does that. A dog barks because it's a dog. We know you shall
know a tree by the fruit that it bears. We know an apple tree
because it has apples that come forth. And we know that an apple
can't bring forth an orange. It just ain't going to happen,
right? So what am I saying? We're sinners by nature. We're
sinners by what we are. It's the polluted blood that
we have. Therefore, we sin in everything that we do. Understand
something, even me standing here before you preaching the gospel,
unless the Lord washes it in his blood, it's sinful. It's
sinful. The best prayer we've ever prayed,
it's sin before God, unless the Lord Jesus Christ washes it in
his own blood. We can't do anything to please
him. It's all sin. This is what the law shows us.
And in trying to keep it just brings more condemnation. It's
the contrary to us, isn't it? Law shows us it's our sin nature.
First Corinthians, Paul tells us when he wrote to the Church
of Corinthians, the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin,
it's the law. Without the law, sin had no strength,
but now it does. That's what God says sin is,
not keeping of the law, not keeping of his ordinances and what we
are. See, it's not a behavioral issue.
Men preach about sin as if it's a behavioral issue, and it's
not. It's not a behavioral issue. I'm getting my life straightened
out. I'm doing better. I'm working
harder to have a better life and not sin so much. You can't.
Driving a car, you're sinning. We're going to go eat here in
a minute. That's sin. Do we see what I'm saying? It's not what
we do. It's what we are. This must be understood of our
total depravity. We're completely depraved by
nature in every way, not able to get to God nor please God
by the keeping of his law. But there's good news. Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. So
you're saying all I have to do is believe? Yes. Yes, believe
him. And if he gives you faith, you
will. And if he doesn't, you won't. It's that simple. He must
give us faith. He must. Doing something or not
doing anything cannot merit salvation. Doing or not doing doesn't change
our standing with God. Men believe they can change their
standing with God. Did you know that? If a man chooses
God and he becomes saved because he chose God, he changed his
standing with God because of his choice. That's not true,
is it? We can't change our standing
with God by nature. We're depraved. We're dead. We're in sin. What I need a new
nature. I need a substitute. I need a
savior. That's what the law reveals to
us. So am I saying that there's absolutely
nothing we can do to please God? Yes, exactly. There is nothing
you can produce. There is nothing that I can produce
that pleases God. But Christ did. Christ did. Everything that he did was perfect. Everything that he did was pure. Him keeping of the law wrought
righteousness for his people because he was holy, he was undefiled,
he was separate from sinners, and he is our substitute. That's
our hope. See, they that are in the flesh
cannot please God. God hates our best intentions
unless they're in Christ Jesus. Do we see that? He hates the
workers of iniquity and that's all that keeping the law can
produce is iniquity. The Lord says, I hate that. And
it's not a hate like you and I have where we're frustrated
abundantly. No, it's a hate unto death. It's
an eternal everlasting. If he hates you, he's always
hated you. And if he loves you, he's always loved you. It's that simple.
It's an everlasting God. What is our hope? Christ is the
end of the law. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believeth. There's our hope. So which law? Is it the moral
law that Christ is the end of? Is it the ceremonial law that
Christ is the end of? Or is it the civil law that Christ?
Yes, all the above. The law in its entirety, every
jot and tittle, every single detail, Christ Jesus lived for
his people. Christ Jesus fulfilled for his
people, honoring his father. Christ is the end of the law.
Turn with me to Romans chapter seven. Paul gives us an allegory of
how it is possible for us to be dead unto the law, to be dead
unto sin. Romans chapter seven, verse one. Know ye not brethren, for I speak
to them that know the law, how that the law hath dominion over
a man as long as he liveth, for the woman which hath an husband
is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. But if
the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband."
What's Paul saying? Well, you and I are alive right
now. Is that not true? And the only
thing that relinquishes the demands of the law is death. Why? Because
the wages of sin is death. Do we understand that? So what
happens is when a man dies by the law's demand, if he is found
having his sin, that law demands a second death. Now the flesh
is going to die. That's the curse that was given
to Adam. The only hope that you and I have is that when Christ
died, I died. When Christ died, you died. And what happens when that happened?
Verse two again, for the woman which hath a husband is bound
by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. But the husband
be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if
while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, She
shall be called an adulteress. The only way that the Lord Jesus
Christ, our nearest of kinsmen, could redeem us is satisfying
the law's demand. See, he didn't push it to the
side. He honored the law in every way. He kept the law in every way. He fulfilled the purpose, his
purpose in redeeming his people by honoring the law. So she shall
be called adulteress. But if her husband, be dead,
she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though
she be married to another man. Wherefore, now in the light of
what he just said, listen to this. Wherefore, my brethren,
ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that
ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from
the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the, now
he just said, wait a minute, he just said, when we were, that's
past tense. When we were in the flesh, you
mean we're not in the flesh anymore? Not if you're in Christ. Not
if you're in Christ, you're not. When we were in the flesh, the
motions of sin which were by the law did work in our members
to bring forth fruit unto death, but now, I mentioned this the
first hour, I'm gonna mention it again. When is it not right
now? It's right now all the time, isn't it? It's right now we are
delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held,
that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness
of the letter. We are dead to the law by being
in Christ Jesus when he died. The law's demands of death were
satisfied when Christ died. When his people were in him and
he died, they died in him. And the law relinquished because
it was fulfilled. Any right to them, the law then,
as it talks about here, being loosed. We have been loosed.
from this law. Do we see that? Why? Because
we've been made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus by his
death, by his burial, and by his resurrection. We've been grafted I wrote down
the word married. We've been married to Christ
in perfect oneness and perfect unity. I also wrote down the
word grafted. Do we know what grafted means? If you have a, I mentioned
a tree a minute ago, and some of the young ones may not know
what this is, but you can take a limb from a certain tree and
put it on another one. and you fuse it together and
the sap from the tree goes into the branch and it creates a different
kind of fruit. We've been grafted into our true
vine, the Lord Jesus Christ. We've been grafted into the Lord
Jesus Christ, bringing forth fruit unto righteousness. What
is that? Is it what we do with these hands? It's the faith that
he gives us. Anything that we produce that
he's pleased with has to come from him. Do we see that? It
has to come from him. This is the glorious work of
the Lord's spirit by their gospel. This is what he's done for his
people. He's grafted us in. We're now married to him. The
Lord couldn't marry us because we were married to the law. So
he had to take our sin, the punishment of the law, into himself and
go to the cross of Calvary. satisfying the law's demand,
satisfying justice when the wrath of God was poured out upon him.
And now we are loose from the bonds of sin and death. We are
loosed from the demands of the law. And we've been put in perfect
union with the Lord Jesus Christ and his father. That's what Christ
did. That's what Christ did. Now the Lord's not looking for
the law of morality that we're keeping, how we live or how we
sacrifice unto him with the law of ceremony or how we treat others. We should treat others with kindness
and love. We're commanded to do so in the scripture. But he's
not looking to that for our righteousness is. He's looking to Christ. That's
our only hope. That's our only hope. As soon as we look to ourself,
We're not looking to Christ and that's unbelief. Somebody asked
me recently, what about the verse that says, examine yourself,
examine yourself, see if you be in the faith. That is so simple. It's so simple to answer that.
He's saying, look at yourself and see if there'd be one thing
you're looking at other than Christ. That's what that means. It doesn't mean that you've been
called to be a fruit inspector of yourself and others. Look
to yourself right now. Examine yourself. See if you
be in the faith. See if there be anything in you
that you are looking to. See if there be anything in me
that I am looking to. other than the Lord Jesus Christ, because
if there is, I'm not a believer. If I'm looking to something other
than the Lord Jesus Christ as my righteousness before God,
I am not a believer. It's that simple. I am not dead
to the law. The law still has demands against
me. But if you're looking to the Lord Jesus Christ alone,
by the eyes of faith that he has given, you are dead unto
the law, married with perfect union unto Christ. He's all of
our justification. He's the one that fulfilled every
requirement. We're still here in Romans 6. Let's look at verse
6. We're in chapter 7. Now let's
look at chapter 6, verse 6. Knowing this, that our old man
is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed,
that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead
is freed from sin. See, we have to be dead. That word freed means justified. We have to be justified. We have
to be dead in order to be justified. Now, if we be dead with Christ,
we believe that we shall also live with him. Knowing that Christ,
being raised from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no more dominion
over him. For in that he died, he died
unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise
reckon ye also yourself to be dead indeed unto sin. Now that
word reckon, and I've said this several times, but that's not
the, I'm from the South as many of y'all can hear in my pronunciation
of words. That ain't me saying, yeah, I
reckon I'll be there Sunday. That's not what he's talking
about. This is a reckoning. This is, I use this example because
it's a very simple example. If you have reckoned your bank
account to have $25 in it, then you've counted every single penny
in that bank account yourself and made certain that it has
$25 in it. That's reckoning. That's reckoning.
What does he say here? Likewise, reckon ye also yourself. to be dead indeed unto sin, but
alive unto God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Let not sin
therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it
in the lust thereof. Neither yield ye your members
as members of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourself
unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members
as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have
dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under
grace. What then? Shall we sin because
we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Now I've heard this particular
passage preached in false religion the wrong way. And if God would
be my help and give me the ability this morning, I want to clarify
what Paul's talking about here. The glorious gospel is right
here, hidden in plain sight, plain sight. When he says let,
When he says the word let, if you look in verse 12 again, let
not sin therefore reign in your mortal body. Now you can look
this up. The word let is the same exact word as the word reign
that's in there. It's the same exact word. You
can look it up. What is he saying? What does reign mean? It means
to be king of, as in a king that reigns. He's saying, The king,
sin, shall not therefore reign in your mortal bodies. He's saying
it's the same as the word, I'm sorry, I lost my place. When he says let, he's not, He's
not implying in false religion let Jesus into your heart. That's
not the word he's saying here. He's saying reign. That which
reigned in you, sin. He's saying sin that reigned.
Not sin therefore reign in your mortal body. He's not saying
don't allow sin to reign in your mortal body. He's saying unto
you and I that sin cannot reign. It's no longer the king. It doesn't
reign over you. It's not sin that reigns. That
which reigns now is the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, sin
will not reign over you any longer. That's what he's implying. That's
what he's telling us. He's telling us that we're dead
to the law and alive unto Christ. When he died, his people died
to sin. They died unto the law. They
died unto self. And in time God says live and
he gives repentance and faith that looks to Christ. He's not
telling you and I that we should have. begin now, he's not saying
if we're dead to the law and if we're dead to sin then we
should work on the moral law a little bit and keep that law.
That's not what he's saying when he says let sin therefore not
reign in your mortal body. He's saying that which reigned,
that which was king was sin and it will not reign in your mortal
body. Why? And he tells us why. Verse 14, for sin shall not have
dominion over you for you are not under the law but under grace,
but under grace. And verse 16 gives us more clarification. Know you not that you to whom
you yield yourself servants to obey his servants you are to
whom you obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto
righteousness. Now this could be taken as him saying you better
yield your members unto obedience unto righteousness or you're
not his. That's what it sounds like he's
saying. Let's continue to read and see what he's telling us.
But God be thanked. that ye were the servants of
sin, but now ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine
which was delivered to you, being then made free from sin. Well now, if he's saying don't
let sin reign over me, don't let it reign in my mortal body,
now he's saying I'm free from sin. So which one is it? Yes.
Sin does not reign in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ people
because they've been given the faith that looks to Christ in
all things. They've been given faith that looks to Christ in
all things. It doesn't reign in our body anymore. You're saying,
I don't sin anymore. Not in God's eyes. Now you and
I can see it, can't we? You and I can see the sin that
we are that does so easily beset us, the unbelief that we are,
but not in the Lord's sight. We've been made free from sin.
You became servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men
because of the infirmity of your flesh, for as ye have yielded
your members, servants, to uncleanness and to iniquity, even so now
yield your members, servants, to righteousness and to holiness.
For when you were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness.
What fruit had you then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed?
For the end of those things is death, but now being made free
from sin and become servants unto God, you have your fruits
unto holiness and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is
death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Paul asked this question. He says, what then shall we continue
in sin that grace may abound? And he says, God forbid. I've
heard men say that God is saying unto you, don't sin anymore. That's not what he said. The
reason, the reason that we don't sin is because God forbids it
in his sight, because they've been put away by the Lord Jesus
Christ. Do we see that? Can you say with Paul and understanding
now that we are no longer under the law, but under grace, can
you see that we are dead to sin because we died in Christ Jesus
unto sin and unto the law? Go back with me to our text in
Philippians chapter three. Can you say that you counted
all things but loss? Can you call that which you believed
in before dung that you may win him? Paul did, very clearly,
didn't he? Very clearly. He says in verse eight, chapter
three, yea, doubtless I counted all things but loss for the excellency
of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered
the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may
win Christ. Can you say Christ is all? Christ
is all. It is not what you do, not what
you have done, not what you are going to do, but Christ is all.
If so, the only way that someone can say that from the heart is
if the Lord Jesus Christ has given new heart. The only way
that we can see that we are free from the law is look to Jesus
Christ alone. Look to Jesus Christ alone. He's
the one that kept the moral law for his people. He didn't sin
in anything that he did. Every single law that pertained
to morality, how he should have lived before his father, he did
it perfectly in every ordinance, in every way possible. He never
sinned one time. He was perfect. He kept the moral
law for his people. He kept the civil law. The Pharisees
came to him and said, Lord, What's the greatest commandment? And
he said, love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul,
and strength. And the second's likened to the first, love your
neighbor as yourself. And if you look at the 10 commandments,
they're broken into two categories. The first five is unto God, the
second five is unto man. This is what the Lord's saying.
There's only love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind,
soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, period.
You and I can do neither. You and I can, we've never loved
our neighbor as ourself. We don't even love our brethren
as we love ourself, do we? Christ Jesus we did, and Christ
Jesus we did, why? Because he did. He loved his
neighbor as himself. He loved his father with all
his heart, mind, soul, and strength. He kept the civil law before
his father. It's our hope that Christ kept
the ceremonial law also. whenever he was offered up on
Calvary's cross, every ordinance that was given in ceremony in
the Old Testament from the high priest down to the sacrifice,
Christ Jesus fulfilled that law on the cross of Calvary. When
he offered up himself unto his father as the lamb, the sacrifice
for his people, shedding his blood, and the father unsheathing
the short of justice and piercing the heart of his only son, pouring
out his wrath upon him, allowing us to be loosed from the law,
loosed from death, loosed from sin, You believe he kept the
ceremonial law perfectly? He kept it, didn't he? He kept
the moral. He kept every single bit of God's law that you and
I might be made the righteousness of God in him. And if this is
your hope. If this is your hope. Christ Jesus. has made you free
from the law of sin and death. It's that simple. If Christ Jesus,
if what I just declared unto you is your hope, Christ Jesus
hath made you free from the law of sin and death. First Peter
chapter two tells us who his own self bore our sin in his
own body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live
unto righteousness by whose stripes you are healed. See, sin is gone
forever. We've been justified in the Lord's
sight. We've been made the righteousness
of God in him. Romans chapter 8 tells us this,
the righteousness of the law has been fulfilled in us. The
punishment that was demanded for sin by the law has been put
away. The Lord did that. Romans chapter
eight says, for if you live after the flesh, you shall die. But
if you live through the spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body,
you shall live. What does that word mortify means?
It means to put to death. If by the spirit you put to death
the deeds of the body, how are you gonna put to death the deeds
of the body? What he just told us by the spirit. What does the
spirit say? Come, take of the water of life freely. Come to
Christ, look to Christ. How do we mortify? How do we
put to death the deeds of the flesh? Look to Christ. Don't
look to yourself. Don't look to your ability to
put to death the law. We can't. We can't. We'll be
condemned, won't we? Don't look to mortify the deeds
of the body in what we do. Look to Christ Jesus alone. And all those who the father
elected that Christ redeemed in the spirit regenerated Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth everyone
that he died for every single person that Christ died for has
been made the righteousness of God in him every single one of
them they are now dead to the law because of his death.