So let's turn to Galatians chapter 2. Now last time when we were talking about what the false teachers had said, we left us at the point where we saw how persuasive their argument was. They came down from Jerusalem and they had absolutely everything on their side. They had a chapter and verse of the law. We referred to that, you'll remember from, for example, Genesis chapter 17, that the law of circumcision, for example, is clearly defined there as an eternal ordinance, an eternal law. That anyone who is not circumcised was to be cut off from the community of God's people and rejected from the covenant. These are very threatening things and these are very terrifying things to a conscience which wants to be secure. And so these false teachers could point to chapter and verse like that. They also came down from the mother church, where the apostles themselves had lived and walked with Jesus. The Lord's own brother James was the leader of the church there, and they had centuries of cultural tradition and practice that had shaped their conscience. And then, as Andrew reminded me after the study last week, something I'd not thought of before, but it's very apposite and relevant to the book of Hebrews as well, they had the whole temple structure there, like all visible religion. which had been there for centuries, millennia, was on their side. And against all of that, you had Paul, with no New Testament because he was writing it, and a vision of Jesus who appeared to him on the Damascus Road. So who are you going to believe? Well, you believe the one that sets your heart free. You believe the one where your conscience comes to peace. And that's what Paul had said to them. As I came preaching this gospel and explained to you that Jesus was and is the Messiah and as I explained to you what it meant for him to be crucified and he was publicly portrayed as crucified among you, you believed that gospel and you received the Holy Spirit by hearing with faith, chapter 3, we'll come to that, not by works of the law, So what has set you free? My gospel. What's going to bring your conscience under bondage again? The people who come down from Jerusalem. So where do you stand? Do you understand in the freedom of Christ as he truly is? Or do you understand under the bondage of the law of those who interpret Christ not as saviour but as judge? So when that principle of justification by works of the law surfaces again, it's not in this time in relationship to circumcision, it is in the principle of eating and drinking. Because that too was one of the boundary markers. And Peter, you remember, had desisted from eating with the Gentiles and started eating with Jews only, thereby saying to the Gentiles, if I eat with you I'm damned, if I refrain from eating with you I'm righteous. That tells us a lot about sometimes the way in which we relate to people who are different to us. We can sometimes send a message, you know, if there's someone in our family who's off the rails, if I eat with you, I'll get contaminated, so I'm not going to your place. What are we selling to them? So Galatians 2 verse 15 to 21, let's read this. Mine is the New American Standard version. Yours will be slightly different. We are Jews by nature and not sinners from amongst the Gentiles. Paul there is referring to a well-standing and recognized division. The Jews who have the law and therefore the covenant promises. The barbarians and those outside who are strangers to the covenants of promise. And it was just a common way of speaking in Israel. We are Jews, they are sinners. Thank you God that I'm not like other people. Nevertheless, even that, knowing all of that, a man, nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Christ, even we who have believed in Christ, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, since by works of the law will no flesh be justified. But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be. For if I rebuild what I once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. And it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly. So let's see how far we get through this. The Gospel speaks thus, by works of the law will no flesh be justified. The principle that you find in Galatians 2.16 is repeated in other places. There are some examples there. Another way of putting it is in Galatians 2.21. If righteousness could come through the law then Christ died in vain. If there was the possibility anywhere under heaven that a man or a woman could fulfil the law and therefore have a righteous standing before God, then Christ had no need to die. If that possibility existed, then Christ has died to no purpose. It is a confronting and salutary fact to us to realise that there is no human being who ever keeps the law. No human being who can keep the law. no human being who wants to keep the law or wishes to keep the law. That flies in the face of everything that the flesh says about human beings. We like to think of ourselves as legal, law-abiding, upright citizens. We like to think that we've got something to present before God, and particularly Christians think that we are pretty good at keeping the law of God. But if there was the possibility for any person anywhere to keep the law and thereby be justified, Christ did not need to come. People could save themselves if only they had enough information, or if only their willpower was exercised enough, or in some way they could break out of their laziness and their lethargy. So let's hammer the pulpit and preach at them more commitment so that they'll really, really work hard. But yet by this they are not justified. So the Jerusalem Bible translates Romans 3.20, which is a similar thought, helpfully. No human being can be found upright at the tribunal of God by keeping the law. All that the law does is tell us that we are sinful. Now if the law is not telling you that you are sinful, like if the law according to your conscience is telling you that you are righteous, then you stand on the side of the people who came down from Jerusalem. If the law in your conscience is telling you that you're a good person, that you've got it together, that you're not like the other people, subtly, unconsciously perhaps, you've actually sided with the bad guys in relations. There is never any justification in the law. The matter is not one simply of the boundary marker issues, like circumcision, Sabbath keeping, dietary laws, but anything by which we say we have something to present before God, something that is true of ourselves. This principle of justification by the law crosses all cultures. It works its way from the human heart through the human conscience in relationship to whatever law the conscience latches on to in every religious philosophical system. The church becomes captured by it. Our own inner mental and emotional life becomes captured by it. So while the issues for us, as we have kept saying, are not the same as they were for Paul and those who came down from Jerusalem, the principle is still the same. That we will be under pressure to justify ourselves by works of the law one way or another. But even if we were to say that it were possible to keep the whole law, well that's just what should have happened anyway. Like it doesn't give you any brownie points. I mean that's just what you're created to do. Now Paul's going to have a lot to say about the relationship between grace and law later, but here he's just simply got a negative equation. Works of the law equals condemnation before God, contrasted with faith in Christ which equals justification before God. That negative contrast is really very important, not just for Galatians, but for Romans and the whole structure of Paul's theology. Works of the law, this is the first time that he has used that phrase, I think, in Galatians, by works of the law, shall no flesh be justified. Works of the law are anything that we cling to, to present ourselves before God outside of Christ. anything at all that we think will give us some standing or status before God. The point to be observed is that no one can or does keep the law, quoting Luther. The law requires perfect obedience towards God and it damns those who do not yield such obedience. Now it is certain that no one yields this obedience or even can, nevertheless this is what God wants. Therefore, the law does not justify, it condemns. The law does nothing but accuse the conscience and manifests sin which is dead without the law. Now this is a wider debate, but if I just make this comment, the law has come not to make us good but to make us bad. The law has come, not to make us good, but to make us bad. The whole of human flesh, everything, all of human logic, and it's very interesting reading Luther, he puts reason in the same bracket as law, as an enemy. We in the Western Evangelical Church often think that reason is our best friend. Luther says, no way, because your reason is going to be informed by law and flesh and conscience and all the other things. Your reason has to be reborn by grace and you have to develop a reason by grace that is not reasonable. You have to have an irrational reason to believe the gospel. But our reason and everything within the flesh and all the world system tells us to make the world better you increase laws. To expunge crime you increase the punishments. to cleanse society, you become more demanding on what society accepts or doesn't accept. And so eventually societies drift by one means or another, through democracies they do it in one means, through dictatorships they need to another, do it for another means, but one means or another, all societies drift towards totalitarianism. Because that's the only way they understand law. The Church always drifts towards totalitarianism, because we think the law is our friend in keeping everyone in order. The law, in fact, comes to reveal sin, and in other places, as we'll come to see in Galatians chapter 3 and elsewhere, the law stirs up sin, the law increases wrath, the law brings more bondage to our conscience, the law brings fear, And so it drives us to grace. But you're saved by grace, not by law. To illustrate the point, as I've often said, and some of the folk from our congregation have heard this, we're going to institute a new law in this building which is starting at 5 to 10 on the 25th of February 2010, and the law is this, no one in the bounds of this building must think of an elephant. You are strictly forbidden You must not think of elephants. Indeed if you think of elephants between the hours of 5 to 10 and 10.30, you're under pain of death. Now what's happening in your head? Suddenly you've got a whole herd of them, haven't you? They're multi-dimensionable, multi-dimension... and the more you prohibit them, the more detailed they become. It's just what the law does. So justification in the top of page 2 is solely on the basis of faith in the crucified Christ. Justification is at the heart of the letter. Justification is drawn from the language of the law courts and is thus forensic. We talk about it as a forensic term, forensic meaning legal. And you can see how this works in Deuteronomy chapter 25. I'll just turn back to that as a very clear example in the Old Testament. Here, the Lord through Moses is giving instructions about how judges in Israel are to operate. If there is a dispute, between men and they go to court and the judges decide their case and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked. Now justify, what does your translation have there? Acquit or? Acquit, justify, it's a legal term, can you see? Justify the righteous, condemn the wicked. Justification on the one hand, condemnation on the other. And it shall be if the wicked man deserves to be beaten and so forth. He may beat him 40 times. Elsewhere, we're told that a man may not justify a wicked man. He may not acquit a wicked man. Now that caused Paul a big problem, I think. How can God be just and the justifier of ungodly men? And that was one of the hinges on which his theology was built. or turned or something. You don't build on a hinge, you turn on a hinge, don't you? But that's the sort of language that's behind this language of justification, this sort of setting rather behind the language of justification. It relates to the declaration of one standing before God, in this case the judge of all the earth. So if you appeared before a judge and he acquitted you, that means you are acquitted, you are free to go, you are justified before the judge's judgment. It had nothing to do with the judge's personal opinion of you. It all had to do with how it was before the law. It is a forensic term. If the judge gave a judgment just on his own personal opinion, he was a corrupt judge. And you get a picture of him in Luke chapter 18, who did not fear God nor respect man. So one is given a righteous standing before God by faith in Christ. Galatians 2 verse 16. Nevertheless, knowing that a man is not acquitted, justified, declared righteous before the judge of all the earth, nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Christ. So the question then arises, how can one be justified by faith in Christ when the law has been transgressed? And the answer is that through Christ there has been a judgment which has been enacted. Now if you keep your hand in Galatians chapter 2 and go back to Romans chapter 3, Paul uses a multiplication of terms, he puts one term on top of another. He says in Romans 3 verse 21, but now apart from the law, that is, without reference to keeping the law, apart from the law, what a statement for a Pharisee to make. Apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested. Little wonder some of the others thought he was a heretic. How can God declare a person righteous apart from the law? How can God justify ungodly? I mean, ungodly means that they're not godly. Ungodly means they're guilty. Ungodly means that before the judge of all the earth, they're condemned. So how can God justify the ungodly and still be just? Apart from the Law, the righteousness of God has been manifest, being witnessed to by the Law and the Prophets. He said there's some testimony to it, but we didn't see it until Christ came. Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, for all those who believe, So there's righteousness which comes, justification which comes, acquittal which comes through faith. Now in English we have words like faith and belief, to have faith, to believe, to trust, but they all translate the one group of words from Greek. So we could put it this way. Even the righteousness of God through faith in Christ for those who have faith, or for those who trust. For there is no distinction. Why? Because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So that puts everyone in the whole planet on the same footing. No one's justified by works of the law. So everyone on the planet only has one means of justification which is by trusting God's verdict in Christ. And then he uses these terms piled one on top of another. Being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. Now you see those three terms, propitiation, redemption, justified. They come from three big Old Testament backgrounds. Justified, law court language. It's a declaration of acquittal that comes. Redemption, Exodus language, slavery language, buying back out of debt language, letting the captives go free type language. Propitiation comes from temple language, sacrifice, day of atonement, blood offerings. So in one sentence, Paul brings together the three great areas of Old Testament background. How do you live before the law of God? How do you live in relation to the worship of God in the temple? How do you live in relation to the history of your people of God, where your whole history is a history of redeemed people? And he says, the redemptive history, the law background that you've had and the forensic justification or acquittal that comes from the law court, The propitiation, the sacrificial system, he said, everything is fulfilled in Christ. If there's any propitiation that was ever symbolized or enacted in the Old Testament system, it's fulfilled in Christ. If there's any justification that was ever there, symbolized in the Old Testament or enacted, it is fulfilled in Christ and the whole exodus reality that you've lived in as God's people is now fulfilled in Christ who is the new Moses, the new exodus deliverer who brings you out of the house of slavery into the house of God's freedom. So Paul puts one term on top of another, he says the whole of our history tells us that justification has to come through Christ and therefore If God is justifying us, it is on the basis of the fact that there has been an effective redemption, an effective propitiation, and an effective justification. If God is justifying ungodly people, the wrath of God has been propitiated in Christ, the slavery under which we lived has been broken in Christ, And the broken law under which we laboured has been met in Christ's body. And that's what he goes to speak at great lengths about in Galatians chapter 3. Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. So in verse 26 of Romans 3 he says this is for the demonstration of his righteousness at the present time. All of those other things in the Old Testament economy had a place. But in this present time he is declaring the righteousness which he has granted to us and won for us through Jesus Christ as a gift by his grace so that he would be just and a justifier of those who have faith in Jesus. So God justifies ungodly men and women because in Jesus Christ all of the ungodliness has been judged. God is able to receive sinners, because in Jesus Christ all of the wrath against sinners has been propitiated. God is able to welcome His children in as His children, rather than slaves, because in Jesus Christ the redemption has been fully accomplished. So He is just. But He's just in Jesus Christ. He's not just in what He gives to us. To put the thing in a very practical way, hands up the person here who would like God to give them what they deserve. Well you better sing Augustus Toplady's hymn with great power. Rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee. Because if God were to give us what we deserve, hell's doors are open. So when we receive a gift of justification, we receive it entirely as gift. And God does not trammel up the beauty of the gift by telling us all the time how much it costs. As parents sometimes trammel up our relationship with our children by telling us, telling them, do you know how much it's cost to put you through uni and what are you doing with your life? I'm sure your parents never said that to you and you've never said that to your kids or anything like it, have you? You don't know what it's meant for me to have you as a son So how free is your relationship then? God never trammels up the beauty of grace by constantly shoving in our face what it cost Him. There is a cost, but as Pedephus I said, it's freely and triumphantly born. And the point of the parable of the prodigal son is to emphasise the joy of the father in receiving the prodigal's home. And yes, there is something the Father and the Son and the Spirit have had to bear, and it's had to be something that we can barely comprehend because it's so deep. But the joy is what's at the forefront. The glorious liberty of the children of God is what's at the forefront. And we can sometimes become so niggardly, so extenuated, so tenuous in our approach to God, because we in our own relationships give with strings attached and often look for some sort of response that says, well, you know, all of my hard effort's been worth it, you know, my kids have turned out good, as if it's got anything to do with you. Might just have to do with the grace of God, mightn't it? I just ask you that when you're talking about faith in Christ would recur, which is mentioned Yes, we need to be careful with the word literally because it is a legitimate translation to go either way. Faith in Christ or faith of Christ, it's either a subjective or objective genitive, both are possible translations. Faith in Christ is only possible because the faithfulness of Christ. You are not saved because you have faith, but you are saved because Christ is faithful and faith receives that. Now, just make me a little aside here. Many of us have heard of Richard Baxter, the reformed pastor guy. In my understanding, and he's dead so he can't sue me, In my understanding Richard Baxter, well he's alive, but in heaven he won't see me. In my understanding of Richard Baxter's theology, he was eccentric on this point. That Baxter stood for a line of people, stood in the line of a number of folk who said we are justified because we have faith. So faith becomes a new work. Faith becomes something that is rewarded. Faith is only ever a receiving instrument. The entire thing is gift in Christ. The entire thing is gift in Christ. I understand why some translators go for the faith of Christ and some go for faith in Christ. Both legitimate translations. And in the wider context, faith in Christ is only because of the faithfulness of Christ. Epistas can mean faithfulness and it can mean faith. And I'm just a little bit wary that we don't say there's only one possible way of taking pistis, the Greek word for faith or faithfulness. What we must emphasize is that whatever translation you go with, it's grace. Whatever translation you go with, it's grace. Is that okay? Thank you for raising that, that's very good. Sorry, what was that Neil? You're alright, okay. Do you need to see a surgeon? Look in the mirror. One is given a righteous standing before God by faith in Christ. Note well, the basis of a justified standing is Christ's role as the crucified one. Christ's own faithfulness, to expand the point we were just making. Justification and the remission of sins are two sides of the one event. There can be no verdict of justified if sins have not been dealt with. Psalm 65 verse 3 in the NIV says this, When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgression. When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgression. Our faults overwhelm us, but you blot them out. Now we could use many other examples from Psalm 32, blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity and so forth. The point of referring simply to Psalm 65 there is this, that justification is not a verdict over the top of sin. Justification is a verdict built on the destruction of sin. Justification is a verdict that sin has been judged. Justification is a verdict that God is just because the judgment has been enacted. Justification does not say, you are accepted, all things considered. Justification says, you're accepted, all things are judged. That's why you're accepted. So you're accepted because of a just judgment which has been enacted. You are not accepted in a way which circumvents a just judgment. The justification that you receive is just. God does not leave the guilty unpunished, as he says in Exodus chapter 34 when he's revealing his glory to Moses. The question is, where are the guilty punished? And that's where we come to the next little point there. There is a doctrine in Paul which we could call co-crucifixion. Co-crucifixion. That is, that when Christ was crucified, we were crucified. Now, there's various ways in which you can understand this from within the framework of the scriptures. They are not mutually exclusive, they reinforce one another. From one point of view, you can say that Christ is our representative, using the priestly language where he goes in before God on our behalf. And he, like the high priest, carries on his breast the 12 tribes of Israel and he takes us into the presence of God and there makes atonement for us. So there's representation language. There is substitution language. the good shepherd who lays down his life on behalf of, it's a substitution, it's taking the whole language of the Old Testament sacrificial system when one had their hands laid on the animal and those sins are transferred symbolically from the person to the animal. But what happened in a typical sort of type or a representative fashion in the Old Testament happens actually in Christ as a substitution. But neither representation nor substitution really do full justice to what happens on the cross. Because Paul is saying so close is the union that Christ has with us that when he goes to that cross, yes as our representative and yes as our substitute, he does more than just represent us or substitute for us, he actually carries us with him. And both those terms, representation, substitution, are helpful. We don't have another term to describe what Paul meant there. You could have it something like identificationary, substitutionary, representational sacrifice. Bit of a mouthful. But what Paul says in these verses that I've mentioned there, which we won't look at just now, is that the death that Christ died was our death. The judgment that He endured was the place where we were judged. The burial that took place after his death was our burial, and the resurrection that took place after his death was our resurrection, because you and I can never afford to think of ourselves apart from Christ. One with Christ, united with Christ, crucified with Christ, buried with Christ, raised with Christ, and so you can legitimately say When your conscience and the law and the world and the flesh is telling you, you are a sinner, you deserve to die, you deserve judgment, you can say, yes I do and I have died and the judgments come and I'm alive on the other side of it. I am alive on the other side of my death. I have been killed, I have been buried and I have been raised And now I live and move and have my being in Christ at the right hand of the Father. And so what is so of Christ is so of me. Everything that attaches to Christ in his person now belongs to me. And everything that the world and the flesh and the devil tells me is true of me is not true of me because it's not true of Christ. So, Luther might say to the devil, up your nose with a rusty fork. Someone sent me an email during the week, and I didn't bring it to quote, so I'm not quoting it exactly, but Luther was writing to one of his friends, who was a little bit morose and was under the hammer from the world and the flesh and the conscience and the law and the devil and all the enemies, hammering away as he gets into our heads, doesn't he? And Luther said, look, we must cast aside these dark and morose thoughts. The devil always tries to make us gloomy. He said, sometimes we have to drink a bit more, sometimes we have to make merriment, sometimes we have to tell jokes and have the company of good friends. He said, even sometimes we have to commit some sin just to get up the devil's nose. And then he says, so that we can teach him that we are not worried over scruples. Now all of this is contrary to human reason. Because human reason tells us you are justified by being alive to the law. Whereas gospel reason tells us you are justified by being dead to the law. Let me try and read you a little bit from Luther 156-157. Human reason Now let me go back to one. If you want to live to God, they say, that is, to be alive in the sight of God, then you have to live to the law or you have to live according to the law. But we say in opposition, if anyone wants to live to God, he must completely die to the law. Human reason and wisdom do not understand this doctrine. Therefore they always teach the opposite. If you want to live to God, you must observe the law, for it is written, if you would enter life, keep the commandments. This is a principle and maxim of all the theologians, he who lives according to the law lives to God. Paul says the exact opposite, namely that we cannot live to God unless we've died to the law. Therefore we must climb up to this heavenly altitude in order that we may establish for certain that we are far above the law, now in matter of justification he's speaking about. In fact, we are completely dead to the law. Now if we are dead to the law, then the law has no jurisdiction over us. just as it had no jurisdiction over Christ who has liberated us from the law in order that we might live to God. To die to the law means not to be bound to the law but to be freed from the law and indeed not to know anything about it in our conscience. Therefore if anyone wants to be alive in the sight of God strive to be outside the bondage of the law, and confine it to the grave of Christ. The soldiers were astounded when Christ had risen from the grave. Similarly, those who saw the girl raised from the dead were astounded. Thus human reason and wisdom are astounded and dazed when they hear that we are not justified unless we are dead to the law. Reason cannot grasp this. Isn't that gorgeous? So all believers have died in relationship to the law, Romans 6 verse 2 and 11. But the point stressed here at the same time is that they've died in relation to the law, Paul, sorry, died in relation to sin, but the point stressed here is that at the same time they've died in relationship to the law. Paul no longer lives under the power of the law, but he's been released from its domination or dominion and has entered into a new life. So also the exegesis of Paul's point in Romans 7 verse 1 and following, which we won't look up now, where the best understanding of it is in relation to the contrast between bound to the law and now married to Christ. Normally in Jewish society, the woman had no option open to her to leave a marriage, so she was bound to her husband as long as he lived. Husbands could put away their wives, but not vice versa. The law, Paul argues in Romans 7, will never let us go or give us our freedom. He will never die. In the illustration, Paul is making the point that therefore there was no way out of being bound to the law, except that the old husband, in inverted commas, that is the law, died, or she died to her husband, but in Christ a death has taken place in which we've died to the law and are now remarried to Christ. So that even though the law and all that it stood for in terms of Jewish identity and practice, for example, was still alive, in the sense that it was still active in the world and its demands were still vibrant in the believers' ears, we have in fact been released from that marriage to the law and married to Christ in His resurrection. The old marriage to the law was fruitless, but now we are married to Christ that we might bear fruit for God. The emphasis is on the woman being bound under the Jewish economy without hope of release, but now the church is married to a new husband in Christ in whom the law, who would never let the wife go free, has been put to death. Now, Paul expounds that in that way there, he expounds it in a different way here, but the point is the same. There's no release from the bondage of the law unless a death takes place. And where a death takes place, a new situation arises, because the other side of that death is not death, but life. So in Christ, a death has taken place which is followed by a resurrection, and so we have been raised to newness of life in Christ. And all of the things that had kept us bound and under the domination of guilt and therefore in domination of Satan because of the fear of death and all that hinges on that. Everything Luther's saying to us in that earlier reading, you can sign to Christ's grave because that's where he's left it. But he's not left you in his grave. He's your husband now, and you're married to him, and Luther has this beautiful picture in one of his treaties on the liberty of a Christian man, where he says you have this beautiful bridegroom, Christ, adorned in all his richness and glory, and then you have this poor, miserable sinner whom he's marrying. But when the wedding ring of faith comes between them, everything that is Christ is yours, and everything that was yours is Christ's. And we keep thinking to ourselves that we are standing on one side of the grave when in fact in Christ we're on the other side of the grave. And the nature of the spiritual battle is to believe where we really are. and to believe God's verdict about us, and not the verdict of the world, the flesh and the devil, and to receive the inestimable gift of justification and life in Christ by grace, simply because of God's goodness, without thinking that we have to do something of enormous power to earn it. I was speaking to a group somewhere on one occasion and I said, if we said to you, that you could receive the Holy Spirit if you crawled around the building five times backwards over broken glass and the Holy Spirit would descend upon you, you'd do it, wouldn't you? You'd say, oh, yeah. It's how deeply embedded it is, you see. But to receive the Holy Spirit by hearing with faith, oh, it's too easy. The flesh just wants to have its say in it all. The flesh just wants to have something by which it says, yes, I've done it. which is a way of saying, I've got God in my pocket. So we live in this new relation by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. And we have to take those pronouns personally. The Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. And even as I'm saying that, there might be things that are creeping into the back of your mind or around the edge of your consciousness, even as I'm saying this. And saying, but what about that? And how could you? And what about that? And you don't think that you're going to be let off the hook for what you did back in so and so? And what if... Even as you're actually saying the truth of the Gospel, all of that hovers around. And you've just got to stand in grace and say, no, I'm a man or a woman in Christ. Be gone, Satan. You've got no place here. No, I'm preaching, not teaching. We're going to stop. Galatians 3 verse 1 to 5, that's where we'll pick it up next week.