So let's pray. Lord, we thank You for this day, we thank You for this time, we thank You for all that You do. I just pray that You would bless this time, help it to be profitable to us. In Your name I pray. Amen. So we're going through, as you know, the whole Christ If you can understand it and get through to it, it's an excellent book and it can really redefine your view of what Christianity is all about. Where have we been? So where have we been in this? The whole book revolves around this controversy that happened in Scotland a zillion years ago about this creed called the Octorower Creed, as Jerry Dutt says, and the issue was that this one little presbytery was making, requesting their future ministers to say, this creed, I believe that it is not sound and orthodox to teach that we forsake sin in order to our coming to Christ, and satiating us to the covenant with God. So they were saying, it is wrong to say that you have to repent from your sins to come to Christ. which at first Blutch is like, what? But it's truth. And the General Assembly of the whole Presbyterian Scotland did not like it, and so now we have this battle going on between these two groups. Not a physical battle, but they're working this out. And the men who were standing up, supporting the creed, were called the Morrow Men, based on a book, Marrow, Morrow, Marrow. Chris, where are you? Marrow, Marrow. the Merrow men, and Thomas Boston. They were defending the creed. And they accused the men who supported the creed, which is the General Assembly, of legalism. And that's what we've been talking about. What is legalism? Legalism is the belief that you have to do something plus Jesus. I have to do this. plus Jesus. And so they were accusing him of being a legalist. Now, three weeks ago, I went through the excellent chapter on legalism. It's very easy and simple to understand, and it was a no problemo. Two weeks ago, Jerry went through the Order of Salvation, where he went back to his Catholic roots and he confessed to us that he's a legalist. And basically, a lot of us fall into this trap of being legalists, where we want to add something, even though we're all justification by faith alone. Because realize, the groups debating this are justification by faith alone. Last week, Christian went through how legalism creeps into all of us, and that the answer is the gospel. section of, this is Christian's chapter, and I don't want to step on his toes, but just to kind of lead us into this week, he said, if it is said then such free grace, grace, Jesus Christ is the answer to this question, will lead people to conclude, let us go on sinning that grace may abound. We are on safe ground, for that was the conclusion some people drew from what Paul called my gospel. But antinomianism can never be its fruit, as he demonstrated, and we shall see in the next chapter. So this is about antinomianism. And what Sinclair Ferguson has been clear to say is that the opposite of legalism is not antinomianism, that they're the same problem. And so, what is antinomianism? What's that 50 cent word? All that means is this, the antinomian in its fullest, complete sense is, I get saved and I get to do whatever I want. In other words, grace is so great, Jesus Christ, He died for my sins, my sins are paid for, woohoo, I can do whatever I want, I'm not bound by anything. That's antinomianism as extreme. Legalism is, I've got to do something to get Jesus. I've got to repent. to get Jesus, or I've got to do this to get Jesus. And the argument is, no, you just have to come to Christ. And so the Marrow men, though, were accused of being antinomian. They were accused of saying, hey, you can do whatever you want to do. And just like the men that are debating, the Marrow men believed in justification by faith alone. And really, the Merrow book that they're talking about, remember, so the book, the Merrow book was the one that sort of stirred these guys' minds up to realize that legalism had crept into their mind also. And they had gone through this, Boston in particular had gone through this several years before when he read the Merrow book. And he realized, you know what, I had let legalism creep into my mind. So this Merrow book is kind of the main driver here of defending this creed, but the second half of the Merrow book had to do with the Ten Commandments, which seems kind of weird, right? If you're an antinomian, then you wouldn't even care about the Ten Commandments. or any law, because that's what you're saying, nothing matters. But the charge was still made to these men, that you're an antinomian, that's what you are. And there was a lot of fear about antinomianism because they didn't want their people to believe that and just live crazy and not care anything about growing in Christ or becoming holy or godly or anything. So like Paul, they were taught where sin abounds, grace abounds more. And there were no qualifications for coming to Christ. And they also, that different levels of sanctification did not decrease or diminish justification. In other words, the more Christ-like you became over time, as I hope we're all becoming, does not affect your standing before God. You're justified once and for all at the beginning. So the guy that comes to Christ Right now, he has the same standing before the Lord as some guy who's been a saint for 50 years. There's no difference. That does not affect your standing before God. And yet they were accused of antinomianism. This is the Merrow man in Thomas, Boston. And it's an old accusation, Sinclair Ferguson said. He said, you know, Jesus was never accused of being a legalist. And he was contrasted with John the Baptist when we read scripture. Jesus Christ made few positive references to the law, he ignored sacred cows, had his most violent words for the Pharisees were all about the law, and went to dinner parties with sinners. And his opponents were upset with him with his indifference to the law. That's one of the things they're upset about Jesus, that he seemed to them indifferent to the law. How dare you heal someone on the Sabbath? What are you doing? It's the law. And he let his disciples do all kinds of things. Remember, they ate without washing their hands, they picked corn on the Sabbath. I mean, they were always getting accused by the legalists of being against the law, which is an antinomian. So the question is, the question for me and you as we live our lives as believers, does the gospel, did the gospel completely dismantle the law out of our lives? And the Marrowmen were being accused of this just like Jesus was accused by the Pharisees. That's why, if you go back to Stephen's sermon in Acts 8, when he starts talking about the temple, that's when they really start pulling their beards and throwing rocks at him and killing him, because he's speaking against the temple, which represented the law and everything that they were doing. So strands in a thread. The term antinomianism has its root in the Lutheran Reformation, as Luther kind of had his aha moment through the Holy Spirit and he relayed the release that he felt from the bondage of sin. Remember, now that he's saved, that bondage of sin is gone because all of sins have been paid for. His manner of speech seemed to condemn the law. You know, you go over here and it looks like you're getting rid of everything over there. So Luther's so rejoiced about the fact that he no longer has to be guilty about his sin that his language seemed to show that he was completely against the law. He would ask, are passages in the Bible, is this law or is this gospel? That's what Luther would do. Well then his men, the people that followed him kind of took this a little bit down the road and eventually you had this radical edges of the Anabaptists went to extremes. where they said, you know, you don't do anything. In other words, you get saved and you're on your own. And the Reformed churches were afraid of antinomianism. They didn't want that because it's wrong. And we're gonna get into why that is. An antinomianism group pushing against Reformed theology, antinomianism basically denied any role of the law in the Christian life at all. Romans 6.14, you are not under law but under grace, they would use, that was their verse. Again, you know what the analogy of Scripture is, right? You never pluck a verse out of Scripture and make a whole doctrine out of its own. If there's another verse that relates to that, you use Scripture to interpret Scripture. This contrasts with the confession of faith that teaches that the law is not a covenant of works for the believer, But it does function as a rule of life. That's what the Confession says. No, no, no. It's not how you get to Christ by the law, but it is a rule for our life. And of course, not all antinomians are equal or identical. Many, many led moral lives, and he wants us to maintain a position of not being quarrelsome as we go through this. So the extreme sort of Let's go through the extreme side of antinomianism. Those who are, as I talked about, they believe the rule of law, the law has no role in the believer's life. We've established that. And it's associated with this hyper-Calvinism. where the theological positions of Scripture overwhelm everything else. In other words, if you take to a logical conclusion, if you sit back, and you should never use logic, you should use Scripture, but if you use logic and say, look, I was a tulip, I was, you know, I'm totally depraved, I was elected, limited atonement, I'm preserved forever, P, preserved, there's nothing I can do, nothing I can do. So if you take that to its logical conclusion, you just go about, there's nothing I can do to affect my salvation. And so these men, these hyper-Calvinists, were taking that and applying it to everything. They emphasized, these hyper-Calvinists, antinomianism, that believers walk in the spirit, indwelling not the written law, rules and guides for the Christian life. So I'm spirit-filled, I don't have to worry about all this stuff. That would be their position. Now, you have to think about, you know, Jesus Christ started the New Covenant in the Last Supper, right? He says, I'm going to start the New Covenant. Well, where did we first learn about the New Covenant? Well, it's Jeremiah 31, 31 and following. And if we go back and read that in verse 33, one of the things it says is in the New Covenant, which you and I are in, that the law will be written on your hearts. Well, what is that all about? The law is written on your heart. And so it's hard to understand how can you take this position with that Jeremiah 31 passage. And remember, this is the key. The legalists and the antinomianists make the same error. They separate the law of God from God. They separate them. The legalist view looks at the law as something, God is a policeman, he's made this law, now I have to jump through hoops to get through that. Then antinomianism separates God from the law in that, oh, that law doesn't apply to me anymore. God made that. That doesn't come from him. I can ignore it. We would say the position of Scripture is that the law emanates from who the law is. You can't separate them. They come from God. Remember, God before time began was in a relationship. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And they had this relationship. And the aspects of those laws worked within them. In other words, God never lied to the Holy Spirit. God never stole from Jesus, understand? And so that's part of who God is. But the problem with the antinomian and the legalists is they separate, they pull the law away from God. And so the antinomians place emphasis on grace to the extent that the law had no role on the believers. Justification could happen, in other words, you get saved, you're fully made right for God, but it cannot affect your life, there does not have to be evidence of a holy life. They were afraid of mingling good works and justification. And they separated the idea of the foundation of our salvation, which is justification, with the evidence of your salvation, which is good works. They separated that. They taught that the law was a verse to grace. And antinomious had no relevant place in the Christian life for practical manifestation. In other words, that a spirit-filled life would lead to a holy life. And this is far from what Boston and his colleagues were like. And he makes the point that if we were to know Boston, we would think he was a legalist in the way he lived his life. But the Merrow men in Boston were nothing like that, antinomious, that strange. So now we're going to kind of get into the nitty gritty about the law. We're going to, what he's going to do is he's going to give, he's going to talk about the law and we're going to make a case for the law in the life of the believer in the sense as it emanates from God. has always, by a lot of people, and it's a little bit controversial, there's a three-fold division of the law. And when we talk about the law, we're talking about the Mosaic Law. So Moses comes down from the covenant, from Mount Sinai, and he makes a covenant with the people, and he gives the law. And he gives the Ten Commandments, and he gives the rest of the Book of the Covenant. And there's three separate components, if you take a look back. Now, as you read through, Leviticus, Exodus, Numbers, it can be sometimes hard to tease away what's civil and what's not, but nevertheless, there's three parts. One is the moral law, which is the Ten Commandments. That's the moral part of the law. The second part is the civil law. How are we going to run the nation of Israel? How are we going to run this country as a country? What's our government going to be? And then the third part is the ceremonial part. How are we going to reconcile ourselves to God but the temple? So you've got three parts of the law. You've got the moral law, that's the Ten Commandments, how we live amongst ourselves in a moral sense, how the government runs, the Israel nation, that's the civil law. And then the third part is the ceremonial law, which has to do with the temple, all that stuff that Christian went through Wednesday nights on Leviticus. And traditionally, in reformed circles, this is accepted. And there's some controversy, but we're teaching the book. The first one is still relevant, the moral law, but the other two are done with. There's no more civil law, and there's no more ceremonial law. The Antinomians rejected this. They don't see a three-fold division. They think the law is the law is the law. It's all gone. Their view is the entire Mosaic law had ceased to have a role in the New Covenant. The Law of Moses had its time, now we're in the New Covenant, inaugurated by Jesus Christ. Night and Lord's Supper, Jesus says, this is the New Covenant, as He starts, as He shows them Lord's Supper, the next day He goes and dies on the cross as a sacrifice, His blood now replaced the blood of the animal that Moses threw on the people, the Mosaic Covenant, and now you and I are New Covenant people, and so we're no longer under the Old Covenant. And so He says, He doesn't want to get too deep into this. But I want to read a quote from page 144, if you're tracking with us. Okay, I'm just going to read a couple of quotes from this. I didn't want to read all this. This is the Merrow men, what their position is. It should be a working principle in our interpretation of Scripture that it does not set law and grace over against each other in absolute terms. And then I'll read the last one. The new covenant in Christ establishes the law, not only externally, but internally. Christ died, quote, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. Now Hebrews, the book of Hebrews, written to the, who's there? Oh, the Hebrews. It quotes Jeremiah 31, which is the most clear, that I already talked about, the most clear prophecy regarding the new covenant. Hebrews 8 and 10. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. For those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws into their mind, write them on their hearts, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. You know, that's the covenant right there, right? The whole covenant is when God makes covenant with us, I will be your God, you will be my people, and I will dwell with you. That's the covenant. And part of that is He will write His laws on our heart. What laws? Okay, so you're trying to figure this out. You're a Christian, you're doing your weekly Bible study, you're reading Hebrew. What laws are written on my heart? And everything would seem to point to the Ten Commandments. I mean, does He really care if you wear wool and cotton together? Or you eat a pork chop? Is that part of it? No pork chops? He makes a good point here. So when you look at the book of Hebrews written to the Hebrews, We have this concept that the laws written are hard, but we have other places in the Hebrews where it says, one, the patterns of the old covenant had been fulfilled by Jesus. You know, that little temple was an echo of what was in heaven. And Jesus Christ himself went into the real temple in heaven and put his blood on the altar, in a sense, and paid for our sins. And then, unlike the other priests, Christ sat down because the work was finished. So that part's gone. No more ceremonial law, Jesus Christ has fulfilled all that. And then also he said to the readers of Hebrews that those who have no lasting city are citizens of a new Jerusalem. Okay, that gets rid of the civil law. You're not a part of this Jerusalem down here, that's gone. We're a part of the new Jerusalem in heaven. So St. Clair Ferguson uses this argument to say, look, Hebrews makes it clear that ceremonial law is gone because Christ fulfilled all that, and the civil law is gone because we're no longer a part of this world, our citizenship is in heaven. but that still leaves the moral part. So the Marrow noted that the Christian, according to Paul, quote, is not outside the law of God, but under the law of Christ. That's what we are as believers, we are under the law of Christ. And now he's gonna use biblical theology to explain his position about the Ten Commandments. Now biblical theology, if you've taken my, we've gone through this a couple times in my class, has the idea of when we look at scripture, not only are the words of scripture to be taken literally, but also the themes and overall arching concepts are also inspired. I'll give you an example, the best one. So you say, you know, you want a proof text for something, and that's what we're not going to have. A proof text, the idea is kind of like, oh, you believe Jesus is virgin-born, where did you get that from? And you say, well, in Isaiah they prophesied he would be born of a virgin, and then we have in Matthew and Luke talking about how he was virgin-born with Mary. So we have proof text, if someone Someone, you know, where it clearly states he's going to be a virgin born. Those are proof texts that prove our position. One that doesn't have a clear proof text, but we all accept, would be the idea of the Trinity. There's no verse that says there is a God who has a Father, and a Son, and a Holy Spirit, and He's three in one. There's not that. But using biblical theology, reading scripture in verses, and looking at overall concepts and themes, we come to the grounds that yes, there's a Trinity. Three separate, but one, parts of God. Can't understand it, can't explain it. So that's the idea. So we're gonna use that same sort of biblical theology, not a proof text, we don't have a verse to say this, but we have to look at scripture to see where we come up with the idea. So classical Reformed theology viewed the law of God in terms of three epochs. The first one is creation. Creation, man is made in God's image, male and female, and they reflect the character of God. So when we are made in God's image, it doesn't mean that God looks like us. It's we have His character, we're able to communicate, we're able to love, we're able to do all these things that my dog can't do because he's not made in the image of God. We're living in obedience to God in terms of holy living where it was intuitive. So this is before the fall, obviously, where we're in communion with the Lord, He is our God, we are His people, we are dwelling with Him in the Garden of Eden, and we want to do His laws, or intuitively written on our heart, and we want to obey them. And we are called to imitate God by having, just like God had dominion over the world, we're called, at that time, to have dominion over the earth, and reproduce His image throughout the earth. And of course the fall occurred, and we lost all that. Now, we still have the image of God, but the image of God now has been marred because we sin. And that's why Paul, in Romans 2, 14, can say this about the Gentiles, where he says, when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, but by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they don't have a law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse them, or even excuse them. So generally man, even though we can sear it and scar it and ignore it, man generally as a whole has this law written in our hearts as a vestige of what was in the beginning. But we've been marred because of the fall now. And that's why no matter where you go, and this is C.S. Lewis' point in mere Christianity, that wherever you go, people don't like it if you cut in line. Hey, that's not right. What do you mean that's not right? Who said? You know it's not right, because we have this law still a little bit there on our hearts. So that's the first one. The first epoch was the creation. Then we have the second epoch is the epoch of Moses. 2 Corinthians 3.3 says Paul states, the law came in. This is in reference to the Mosaic administration. The ten words in particular, the ten words being the Ten Commandments. Paul saying Romans 7 that the law is written on tablets of stone, carved in letters of stone. That's the Ten Commandments. And so quickly, he has these characteristics of the law of Moses given to him that he lists these out. One is, the law is given in written objective form, external to man, not internal. So in Eden, we had it internally written on our heart, we fall, we lose that, but now God's going to give it to us external to us, written out. There is a, and point two is there's a glory related law, but when it's compared to the ministry of the Spirit, it's tiny, because the Spirit, the glory of Jesus in the Spirit is just so tremendous. It's like the, it's like sun, you know why? I'll tell you something. I'll give you this great example. It just popped into my head. Do you know why August is called the dog days of summer? Do you know that? Anyone know? Anyone, anyone, anyone? Okay, I'll tell you. So, the brightest star, or the closest star, or the brightest star to us is Cirrus the Dog Star. Right? Cirrus the Dog Star. And that's a winter constellation. But winter constellations are in the sky here during the daytime. So the ancient Greeks or Romans, whoever, the Thebans, I don't know who they were. Anyway, whoever came up with this thought that August was hottest because you had the sun and you had the dog star up at the same time. Hence, the dog days of summer. Well, that's a great illustration. Sirius is the Ten Commandments, the law. It's bright, it's got glory to it. But the sun, Jesus Christ, outshines it in so much more. Point C, 3, the commandments are mostly 8 out of 10. Most of them are cast in negative terms. Thou shalt not. Thou shalt not. Thou shalt not. The commandments are set within a specific historical context. At the time, you've got idol worship going on, you've got servants that are owned, families extended beyond the nuclear, you're mostly farmers or you're a herder. Other particulars about the law, so it's very specific people, specific time frame from Moses on. It's to make them holy people separate from the other nations. A lot of it was, look, you're going to this promised land, there's a bunch of bad people in there, and I don't want you to imitate those bad people. I want you to be separate. Here's how you do that. And associated with ceremonial regulations that were repeated to cover sins, to reconcile access to God. So the Ten Commandments, though, belonged to a specific category within the law as a whole, distinct from civil life or worship. And remember, even Jesus said the Ten Commandments sum it all up, right? Love your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul. Love your neighbor as yourself. That's the Ten Commandments. But the Ten Commandments are separate and this is what makes them kind of special in three ways that separate them from the civil law and the ceremonial law. One, only the Ten Commandments were written by God. He wrote those out himself. Two, they're the only part of the law that were written in stone. I can see Charlton Heston now breaking those. But he remade them. And the third part, which I thought was very interesting. So, you know on the Holy of Holies, once a year, the Day of Atonement, in order for the priest to make atonement for the sins of the nation for one year, once a year, the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies, to the Ark of the Covenant, he'd have two goats, and he'd take one goat, he'd kill it, he'd get that blood, and he would throw it on the, as Ross Baer would say, he would sprinkle blood on top of the Covenant, the Ark, the box. And that would atone for the sins for the year. But what was inside of that box? It was the Ten Commandments. The only part of the law that was deposited in the Ark of the Covenant, under the mercy seat, where the blood sprinkled on the mercy seat symbolically atones for the breach of the commandments underneath. Ten Commandments are in there, and by throwing this blood on there, that blood atones for those sins that the whole nation had committed violating the Ten Commandments that were within the box. As Boston noted, this is a vivid symbolism in which, quote, justice is satisfied and judgment fully executed or fully represented. So that's what separates the Ten Commandments from the other laws, the civil and moral law. Again, written by God himself with his finger, they're in stone, and they're in the Ark of the Covenant where they put the blood, where the high priest would put the blood to atone for the sins of the people for a year to cover the sins. So that's the second epoch. We had creation, where the laws were written in our hearts, Intuitive, we had the Mosaic Law, where since we've sinned, we're all fallen, Romans 5. Now the law's written in stone, it's external to us. And then we have the third epoch, which is Christ. The law of God, written on tablets of stone, sealed in the ark, is now written in the hearts of the believers again. External regulation, once again, becomes an inner disposition. within the context of sanctification having begun, glorification not consummated. So you understand, so you're justified. In other words, we talked about this, once your sins have been covered in the beginning, when you come to Christ, you cannot be more justified. You are justified as anybody else who is justified. But then you have this process of sanctification where you, we, hopefully, are becoming more and more like Christ, and at the end, we will be glorified. We will be like Christ fully, never able to sit again, hallelujah. And apparently, neither the civil law nor the ceremonial laws include any of this. That's why we're, you know, that's how, you know, we're not, you have churches that are Messianic Jews, where, I mean, they're Gentiles, but they become a Messianic Jew, where their church service is all about recreating the stuff from the Old Testament. It's like, hey guys, that was the wrapping paper on the presents. You don't play with a wrapping paper once you open the present, right? All that stuff pointed to Jesus. We're done with that. He's better than all of that, and that's why we don't do that. As with Old Testament prophecy, so Old Testament law, in the light of its fulfillment, that the real structures were always present in the ancient Word are fully preserved. The Marrow Brethren traced the law of God through the Bible using a Christocentric biblical theology. And so that idea, that biblical theology, yes, we don't have a verse that says the Ten Commandments are still exactly in play, or this is still in play in the Christian life, but looking through, taking a step back from the Bible, looking at the importance of how it processes through, the Marrow Brethren came to that conclusion. All aspects of the law are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. This is brought to us, brought to light by His coming. It's not created by Him at that time, and was always there. He likes this quote. I like this quote, because when we went through the Holy Spirit book, he used this quote to explain the Holy Spirit. But I'll read it again, by B.B. Warfield, because I think it's a great quote. B.B. Warfield commenting on the Old Testament relationship to the New Testament says this, but only dimly, even not at all perceived before. Thus the Old Testament revelation of God is not corrected by the fuller revelation which follows it, but is only perfected, extended, and enlarged." So as you read the Old Testament, And you want to understand what it means, you have to look into it in Christ, because Christ unveils what the Old Testament is about. You know, on the road to Emmaus, He's walking with those two guys, they have no clue who He is as Jesus, you know, after He's dead, buried, and resurrected. And they're having this Bible study with this guy that happens to be Jesus, although they don't know it. And in that part, Jesus says He showed them how all the Old Testament was all about Him. And then they sat down to have a sandwich, and they saw who he was, and he was gone. So when we read the Old Testament, we can understand things in light of Christ, because Christ now makes it revealed to us. And this includes many things, but it includes the law. The Marrow Brethren believed in three-dimension characters of the law, not because of tradition, not by proof-texting, in other words, they didn't have a verse that said it specifically, but by a careful biblical theology handling of the text of the whole Scripture of God. So, the experimental strength. So the fear of the 17th and 18th century can be summed up by New England minister Thomas Shepard. So this is what they were worried about. This is what Thomas Shepard said about antinomianism. Those who deny the use of the law to any that are in Christ become patrons of free vice under the mask of free grace. That's what they're worried about. The concern was that teaching antinomianism would lead to rejection of biblical imperatives, thou shalt do thee. Because, you know, if you look, I mean, read the New Testament, there's all kinds of, you shall not inherit the kingdom of God if you do d-d-d-d-d, I mean, it's all in there. I mean, there's a vice list and a pro list. There's a vice list, you know, from sexual sins to anger, malice, gossip, all that stuff, you're not to do. But that's not, something you do to get, that's something that you will do because you got. The concern was that teaching this would lead to a rejection of biblical imperatives, turning grace of God into lasciviousness. There is a famous tune. I don't think we'll sing this in church sometime. I don't know how it goes. I'll just read the words. Free from the wall, oh blessed condition, I can sit as I please and still have remission. Right? I think I got that in a Cracker Jack box once. Then Sinclair Ferguson talks about this sort of analogy. So you're riding in the car with your pastor and you're speeding, which I can't imagine anyone speeding, but nevertheless, you're speeding and you say, We're under grace, not under law. And I said, Peve and I used to go to this church when I was in school. And every week we came to it, there's a red light. I couldn't make a left turn because of the red light. And there was no cars around ever. And we're late always. That's us. It's part of our not time. And so I would chant as I ran this red light every week, the red light is made for man. Man is not made for the red light. I was going to use it on the cop when he got me, but I never had a chance. So, thankful. So anyway, you're speeding, and you say, hey, we're under grace, not under law. And the pastor says, well actually you are, these are blue lights behind you. But in terms of the Christian life, saying you are under law is not the correct response. It doesn't deal with the problem. Again, these guys say it better than I can say it, so I might as well just read them instead of trying to reword it. If you are not under the law, but rather you are despising the gospel and failing to understand how the grace of God and the gospel works. There is no condemnation for you who are under the law because of your faith union with Christ. But the same faith union leads to the requirements of the law, being fulfilled in you through the Spirit. Your real problem is not that you do not understand the law, it is that you do not understand the gospel. For Paul says that we are in law to Christ. Our relationship to the law is not a bare legal one, coldly impersonal, no. Our conformity to it is the fruit of our marriage to our new husband, Jesus Christ. And so whenever we get into Andre land, you know, you've got to take this with a grain of salt, because somebody could say to me, hey, you said that completely wrong. But, you know, this is the way I look at it. John 17, 17, this is Passion Week. He's getting ready to go to the cross. We have the so-called High Priestly Prayer. And this is Jesus praying to God in front of the apostles. starting in verse 17, sanctify them in the truth. Talking to the apostles. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask for these only, but also those who will believe in me through their word. That's us. Here we go, here we go. that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent them to me. So Paul's favorite sort of phrase, word for you and me is not Christian. Paul didn't talk about us being Christians, he talked about us being in Christ. And so I would say, again, don't take this literally, please. In a sense, coming to Christ, it's almost like we join into the Trinity. We have the Holy Spirit. Christ and the Holy Spirit are so closely united after His ascension that having the Holy Spirit in us makes us in Christ. Christ can't be in our hearts as Himself, because He's got a human body in heaven. But because He's so united to the Holy Spirit, you can say that being the Holy Spirit indwelling us, we are in Christ. And so as we pray, or as we live, we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us. When we pray, we pray through Christ to the Father, and it's like we become a part of the Trinity. And if we're a part of this, if that's what salvation is all about, not just having your sins paid for, but uniting you to God and you knowing God, wouldn't you think that your desires would change, that you would want to participate in that relationship the same way they participate amongst themselves? They don't lie to one another. They don't steal from one another. They have this loving relationship that you and I have through, and our only standing in there is because of the blood of Christ. We have nothing to offer. It's not they don't let you in, oh, you know, he's a good guy, and I died for my cross. No. He repented from his sins. No. It's because you, as the Holy Spirit moving your heart, you put your faith in Him. And He allows you into this because of His blood on the cross covering your sins. And so now, as Christians, we should live wanting to please Him because of the... It's just like, you know, when you get married, I hope, if you got a good marriage, you know, we were talking about this yesterday, I mean, what kind of nut job would I be if I didn't marry Piba? I mean, she has affected me after 34 years. I'm a lot neater than I was before. I'm not quite as obnoxious as I used to be. She's tamed me down. So how could you say, yeah, I'm a believer in Christ and I do whatever I want to do? He says, practical antinomianism has many forms today. Secular gospel of self-acceptance masquerading as Christianity. I've heard this. God accepts me the way I am. I shouldn't get a straitjacket from the law. Doesn't God love you for who you are? That's what he said. God is gracious. He accepts me as I am, unlike you who are judging me. And that's why you have, you know, Christians who live and identify themselves in their sin, yet call themselves Christian. It doesn't make sense. Again, although the problem involves rejection of God's law, on a deeper level, like legalism, it separates God from the law. It's a failure to understand who God is. Yes, His love for us is not based on our qualifications. He doesn't love you for who you are. He just loves you for, we don't know why, but He does. But it's wrong to say that God accepts you the way you are. He accepts you despite the way you are, and He receives us only in Christ and for Christ's sake. And that, not only that, once He finds you or gets you, He does not leave us the way He found us. He changes us. He transforms us into the likeness of his son. Without that transformation, we have no evidence that we were ever his in the first place. So again, somehow I got, and I'm happy to do it, it's not a whine or a complaint. I taught, I had legalism chapter and I had the antinomian chapter. I loved them both. Great, easy, no problemo. It's really a great study. But they had the same problem. That's my task, is to explain to you that both problems, both issues, legalism, antinomian, separate God from His law. And as Christians, as we enter into that relationship with Him, that law, thou shalt not steal, becomes a part of us as we seek to please Him. It's not a basis of our qualification, but it's because of a part of who He is. And in terms of this, the whole point is you cannot reject your sin and come to Christ. You can't do it. So you come to Christ, and everything that happens afterwards is fruit from that relationship. Alright, let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your blessing. We thank you for your word. I pray now you bless our service. May you worship you in spirit and truth. In your name I pray. Amen.