Welcome to Pilgrim Talk Radio. I'm Reverend Lee Johnson. With me, Mack the Knife, Daryl Kingswood, and Mr. Bo Jangles. Mack the Knife. Mack the Knife. Yeah. And Mr. Bo Jangles, Reverend Scott Henry. Better than Sammy the Shark. That's true. Shelly the Shrimp. Clem the Catfish. All right. You got any more? Yeah. Are we done yet? It's a game my daughter has. I thought I'd mention it. That's a nice little shout out to your daughter there. Little shout out to her. That's good. That's good. Just for the record, since the Winter Olympics are over, America had more overall medals than Canada. Listen to this. It just needs to be said out loud. Who won the men's hockey? I don't remember. Who won the little boys hockey, which is the women's hockey, but you know. Wow. Anyway, what are we on here today? We are on Communion of the Saints. That's question 55, if you're following along. 55? And the question is, what do you understand by the Communion of the Saints? The answer is first that believers, one and all, as members of the Lord Jesus Christ, are partakers with Him in all His treasures and gifts. Secondly, that each one must feel himself bound to use His gifts readily and cheerfully for the advantage and welfare of other members. So, communion of the saints. Sounds a little bit like we may pick up where we left off last time. Well, we have to. Talking about Jesus. So why don't we start with you, Daryl. Well, just pointing out that this question flows naturally out of the preceding question and answer. Dealing with the communion of the saints, the catechism had identified our belief in the Holy Catholic Church as a chosen communion in the unity of the true faith, that through the work of the Son of God, by His Spirit and His Word gathering and defending and preserving for Himself under everlasting life, just chosen communion. that I am and forever shall remain a living member of this community, this communion. And so it's a communion of saints. It's a communion of those who are set apart in Christ Jesus. It's those who are set apart from who they were in Adam. to having a new identity in Christ. Now, what do you mean? I understand by that, but you notice it's a communion of saints. That's our identity in Christ Jesus. That's how we are to think about ourselves in Christ Jesus. All who are in Christ Jesus, by God's doing, all of those who have been engrafted into him, and received of all his benefits are saints, and that is how they are to think about themselves. So is it okay if I say I'm both sinner and saint? No, I don't agree with that. I don't think the Bible ever ever identifies God's people as new creatures in Christ Jesus as sinners. We struggle with the remaining sin. Darrell Bock You are a saint that is still sinful. Robert Chisholm Struggling with sin. Darrell Bock To say you're a sinner is to say you're still an Adam. Robert Chisholm An Adam. And that means you're condemned and you're under condemnation. And this is the reality of the work of God where he conveys us. He transfers us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his son. We are, our citizenship now is in. heaven, our identity is in Christ Jesus. We set our minds on things above where Christ is. We gain our whole understanding of ourselves from what God says about us in his word. So it's honoring to him, not to go according to our experience, right, but rather this is what God says. And by his doing, if we are in Christ Jesus, this is who we are. And here, those who are members of the Holy Catholic Church are to think of themselves as members of the communion of saints. Therefore, they're saints in union with Christ. Darrell Bock Even when you read the epistles, they're all addressed to the saints in Christ Jesus. And even the Corinthians, as bad as they were in the city of Corinth, they're still addressed as the saints in Christ Jesus. And we're saints who are still dealing with sinfulness. Darrell Bock The sin that remains but does not reign. Darrell Bock It doesn't reign, right. Darrell Bock Because we've been delivered from our enslavement to sin in Adam, the condemnation of sin. in Adam, the guilt of sin in Adam. So you're saying there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ? Well, that's what Paul says in Romans chapter 8 verse 1. And I'll just draw your attention, or the listener's attention, or Nick's attention if he's paying attention. to a passage like this in 1 Peter chapter 4 and verse 18 where Peter is quoting from Proverbs 11 31 and it says now, if the righteous one is scarcely saved where will the ungodly and the sinner appear? Well wait a second here, they seem to be two distinct groups. The righteous and those who are described as the ungodly, the sinner. So which one are you? Because you can't be both. According to scripture, you can't be both. You can't say, unless you want to redefine what it means to be a sinner, and that's often what people are doing, rather than saying, no, this is how God refers to us. This is how we are to think of ourselves. This is who we are in Christ Jesus, as we are, as the catechism puts it here, that believers, one and all, as members of the Lord Jesus Christ. as members of his body. He is the head, understanding the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. And you find that particularly in Romans chapter 5, verse 12 to the end of that chapter, then into Romans chapter 6, where Paul really deals with, you know, a lot of people will say that we're still the old man. And yet the old man is our identity in Adam as sinners. Now we are new men in Christ as saints. That's the communion we have with Christ Jesus. That's one of the benefits that are ours in Christ Jesus. And that's what we need to understand. And that's what Paul said in Romans 6, the old man has been crucified, slain, and buried. Yeah, but he's being crucified. Scott's just laughing. No, because we change it. But it doesn't say that, does it? It says that he is crucified. You know, and even the catechism, there's a lot of people who hold to the catechism and they'll say, you know, but I still believe this, that we're sinners, we're sinners, we're sinners, and the old man is still clinging to us, things of that nature. And yet the catechism, and it's dealing with the benefits there are of the result of the sacrifice and death of Christ on the cross is that by his power our old man is with him crucified, slain, and buried. The crucified isn't he's being crucified. It's past tense finished. And you don't bury a partially dead, right, or somebody who was crucified. It was certain that they were dead before they were buried, right? so that the evil lust of the flesh may no more reign in us, because we've been set free from the reign of sin, the enslaving power of sin in Adam, haven't we, Scott? And therefore, we're to think of ourselves as God thinks of us. That's part of taking every thought into captivity in obedience to Christ, in obedience to His work on our behalf. Yeah, and what does God say about us? We're saints. We are those that are redeemed. We're washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. We are new creatures in Christ Jesus. We have been born from above. The Spirit of God now rules within us, reigns within us, who has created us anew. And we still deal with … We're not denying the reality of sin. No, and I think what J. Adams teaches and how he has relayed this is that what we struggle with is as new creatures in Christ is rehabituating the body. And because we've lived in a certain lifestyle for so long that certain habits and things are hard to get away from. Which Paul would say being led by the Spirit, mortifying the deeds of the flesh, of the body, the body of sin. And it's not going to be finished in this life. I mean, in this life, as Paul says in Romans 7, we often find ourselves not doing what we ought to be doing and doing things that we ought not to be doing. We ought to confess that to the Lord. We ought to repent and turn away from those things. And our hope is not in doing better. Our hope is looking to the One who was crucified in our place and recognizing because He, what He did for us, we are not condemned because there is therefore no condemnation in Christ. And if we are those believing and trusting in Jesus Christ, we need to recognize what Paul says, that we have been reconciled to God and that He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." That's who we are. We are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. His perfection has been covered and clothed, imputed to us, and that's how we are viewed now by the Heavenly Father. And we gain entrance into the throne of grace because we are covered and clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and His blood. You know, I've said this before, that one of the great things with the Old Testament and the sacrificial system is understanding the images that are given there and that they refer to the work of Jesus Christ. And the one where the two rams are taken and one is slaughtered and the blood is sprinkled in the temple, or on the tabernacle, or on the instruments, and all the things that go on in the sacrificial system. And the other one, the high priest would come out once a year, and he would place his hands upon the head of that goat, and he would pronounce the sins of Israel upon that goat, and then it would be banished out into the wilderness, which gives the distinct understanding that that goat would never be able to find its way back into the camp again. And so that's what we have in Christ Jesus, is that that's expiation. Our sins have been cast away from us, and the propitiation, God's anger, has been appeased by the wrath of Jesus, by the work of Jesus Christ. His wrath is appeased. And it's not simply that His wrath is appeased. It's not simply that our sins are cast as far as the East is from the West, never to be remembered against us again. But we are now made favorable in Jesus Christ, and now we cry out, Abba, Father. God has become our Father through the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are His children. And He loves us who are in Christ Jesus with the same infinite, eternal love that He loves His own dear Son. So you're saying we are no longer the believer who is in Christ Jesus, who has Christ's righteousness imputed to him. Is no longer a child of wrath? No. Is no longer a son of disobedience? No. Is no longer in Adam? No. Is no longer under the condemnation of sin? No. No longer under the condemnation of the law? No longer walking in darkness, no longer under the wrath of God, no longer under the disfavor of God, no longer are things happening together for their destruction. Oh man, this sounds like it's good news. And this is what I think that, as you were saying, that there's disobedience in the church when we don't say what God says. Darrell Bock Exactly. And we'll continue to. to struggle with disobedience. Darrell Bock To a certain degree, yeah. But in recognizing that I'm not condemned. But see, for the believer, he doesn't say, well, you know, if I'm not condemned, then it doesn't matter what I do. That's not the heart of a believer, because you're a new creation in Christ Jesus, and now you desire holy obedience. And I don't know about you guys, but I find this to be a real stumbling block in the church, that because people don't understand their true identity in Christ – I'm not saying that they're not believers. I'm saying there's misunderstanding, there's fog in the brain, there's just not simply studying and learning and growing as we ought. But we like to hear redemption, redemption, redemption, justification, justification, justification, and then we move into the doctrine of sanctification. In light of you being justified by the perfect work and the perfect death of Jesus Christ, if you are one who is justified, redeemed by Christ alone, you are a new creation and now you are to walk in holiness. Remember where we ended. Remember right there at holiness. Right there at holiness. In our identity. All right. Be back in a minute. Time in. We're back. And Scott was in the middle of talking about our identity in Christ, called the walk in holiness. Go. That's what we're called, the walk in holiness, as those who are justified in Christ Jesus. Darrell Bock When you are a new creature in Christ Jesus, you have a desire to please the Father. Our Heidelberg Catechism, question and answer number one, speaks in this way, that the Holy Spirit works in us and He makes us heartily willing and ready from now on to live unto Him. He makes us desire to serve the true and living God. We are no longer creature worshipers and servers, as Paul makes mention of in Romans 1. We are now those who worship and serve the Creator. And worship and serve always go together. What you or who you worship or what you worship, you serve. And what you serve is what you worship. And so we are called to do good works. Not to be justified by our good works. Ultimately, listen to this, ultimately we are justified by good works, by the good works of Jesus Christ. You have to have the good works of Jesus Christ. You have to have Christ fulfilling every jot and every tittle of the law. You have to have His positive righteousness in fulfilling all of the covenant of works. You have to have Him fulfilling that or you have no salvation. And if you do have that, you are engrafted into Him. His life dwells within you and you have now a desire to serve Him by walking in good works. What are good works? Those that are done out of true faith. They're done according to the standard of the Ten Commandments. and they're done unto the glory of God. So you have the motivation, you have the goal, and you have the standard there. The motivation is faith, the standard is the commandment, and the goal is for God's glory. And every child of God delights in that and desires that and ought to be continually stirred up, fan into flame the gifts that God has given to you. Paul said in Titus chapter two and in Titus three, I think four times he mentions that our people are to maintain good works. Jesus in Matthew 25, when he talks about the righteous and he talks about the unrighteous, the sheep and the goats, he makes that. He says, look, when I was hungry, you gave me food. When I was thirsty, you gave me drink. When I was naked, you clothed me. When I didn't have a place to stay, you came and you brought me in. When I was in prison, you came and visited me. When did we do this? If you've done it unto the least of these, my brethren, you've done it unto me. That was the lifestyle of the redeemed, is that they ministered to one another. Paul said in Galatians 6 that we are to do good to all men, but especially the household of faith. And what's good is what God says is good. And that's how we are to live now as those who are born of the Spirit of God. We are, as Paul said in Ephesians chapter 2, that we are saved by grace through faith and that not of ourselves, it's a gift of God, not of works of righteousness which we have done unless we should boast, but we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. That's the life of the believer. So it sounds to me a little bit like now we've completely gone into the second part of this question about what do you understand the community of saints that each one must feel himself bound to use his gifts readily and cheerfully for the advantage and welfare of other members. And I'll just mention two catechism questions here. Number one, the Holy Spirit makes us heartily willing and ready to live unto Him. Amen. And number two, question 110 on the Eighth Commandment. If we do not use our gifts, God regards that as stealing from Him. That's right. The misuse and waste of His gifts, I believe is the phrase the catechism uses, is a violation of God's holy law. Darrell, you want to add anything to that? Well, when Scott was talking, I was just thinking about Titus chapter 3, where Paul talks of the kindness and the love of God, our Savior, toward men. And when it appeared, it was not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us. He did it through the washing, regeneration, renewing of the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, that having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life so there's a passage all about God's absolute sovereignty in salvation according to his eternal purpose God is the one who saved us according to his purpose he's the one who saves us as he wrote to Timothy by his grace and then Paul says saying this is a faithful saying and these things I want you to affirm constantly Darrell Bock And they want to stone you when you do. Darrell Bock Yeah, right. Why? Why affirm this sovereign power of God, God's sovereign grace, His undeserved favor and blessing lavished upon us so that we are fully and completely accepted in Christ, this grace that people would think, well � Darrell Bock Lest we forget it. Darrell Bock Or so like, well, now, like Paul says, people are going to say in Romans 6 that people will say, well, let's sin all the more so grace can abound. Isn't that what grace is going to do? Don't we think it's going to give us license? No, not if you really understand. That's why Paul says, I want you to affirm constantly these things, that those who have believed in God should be careful. What are they going to be? To maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men. That's what it's going to do. You understand God's redemptive purpose. You understand what takes place in this sovereign work. of a transformation and change when you're born again where, as Paul has said, this washing of regeneration, this renewing of the Holy Spirit, this being justified by His grace. And let our people also learn to maintain good works to meet urgent needs. that they may not be unfruitful. Darrell Bock Twice in Titus 2, twice in Titus 3, we have to be continually reminded to be a people that walk in good works. Darrell Bock Right, because this is real. Paul is saying basically you abide in Christ. You take that teaching of Christ in John 15, And you find the outworking, the application, it's not explicitly stated. But the idea is, Paul is saying that if you hold fast to this truth concerning God's sovereign work of salvation, you will abide in Christ. And if you abide in Christ, what did Jesus say? You will bear fruit, the good fruits of righteousness and every good work. This work that God begins is a work He brings to completion. You will work out your salvation with fear and trembling as God works in you both to will and to do according to His good pleasure. The problem is you haven't been looking to Jesus. Darrell Bock And then expect persecution. Expect tribulation. Expect the chastening hand of our Father. Expect pruning to take place that you might bear more fruit. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1, that when someone goes through the difficulties of life and tribulation, that you are comforted by God as you go through that in order that you might be able to comfort anyone else who goes through the same tribulation that you go through with the same comfort with which God comforts you. And what comfort is that? That comfort goes back to our own comfort in life and death. Christ, the only comfort. I belong to Him. This is the exact opposite from what most evangelical churches do today. When they want to focus on, we want to have a people of good work and we want to bear fruit, they preach ultimately the law. They're saying, you need to go out and love one another, help people cross the street, make sure you're helping the little lady. Moralism. Therapeutic moralism. And the Bible is saying, preach Christ. And as we see His glory, we're transformed into His glory, and we become more and more like Him. And then they will do the good works. Created in Christ Jesus, as Scott has quoted from Ephesians 2, for those good works, and we'll walk in them as we look to Christ, as we focus upon our identity in Christ. When I sin, I know, I've forgotten who I am. I've forgotten Jesus. I've taken my eyes off of Christ. Sometimes my worst sins are probably religious sins, hypocritical religious sins, going through the motions, ritualistic, superstitious, those kind of things, that empty kind of vein drawn near me with your lips and your heart's far from Him. I think that's more offensive. Those are the righteousnesses that are as filthy rags. All that stuff you can swallow. Darrell Bock You know, just a little clarification about the hypocrisy. You're not a hypocrite. And even though you go through the motions at times, you're not a hypocrite there. Ben Wattenberg No, that's why I said hypocrisy. Darrell Bock The hypocrite is the one who doesn't believe it. Darrell Bock He will go through the motions and he'll do it, but he doesn't believe it. And you believe it, and we believe and trust the teaching of Scripture. And sometimes, you know, we don't feel like it. We don't feel like being kind. And this is why you simply have to go and ask the Lord to fill you with the Scripture. Darrell Bock So Scott just put on his pastor hat there and said, Darrell, stop beating yourself up so bad. And also, don't disparage the grace of God. You're not a hypocrite. So I appreciate that. You can't be a hypocrite. No. But there can be hypocrisy where, you know, Paul says, let love be without hypocrisy. In other words, we can pretend to care more than we do care, or we can pretend that we're more loving than we really are. A genuine love, and that's the fruit of the Spirit, and that's the work of God in our hearts. And as we abide in Christ Jesus, He produces that within us. As we look to Him, I can't stress it strong enough as, you know, Ephesians. Yes, we run with endurance a race, as I said before, but we must do it looking unto Christ Jesus. Because He is the one who has endured the cross. He is the one who has purchased our redemption. He is the one who has purchased all the blessings that are ours. He's the one that made the fruits of righteousness, the good works. It's in Him we're created. So what blessing do you not have? What blessing? There's none. All blessings are in Christ Jesus. Why do we pray for the blessings? You see, again, it's not understanding who we are in Christ Jesus. What we ought to be praying for is that God would enlighten us more and more by His Spirit and Word, that we might appropriate the blessings that are already ours in Christ. But I was going to bring up one verse that just came into my mind about doing good works. Jesus speaking to the Pharisees, or to His disciples, and He's referring to the Pharisees, and He says to them, Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. He's not talking about justification. He's not talking about – I mean, many would like that to be the case. Oh, I have the righteousness of Christ, I'm in heaven. He's simply saying if your works, your lifestyle, if your behavior does not exceed that of the Pharisees who have not the Spirit and you have the Spirit of God, if it doesn't exceed their works, there's no life in you. Darrell Bock So is it fair to say you better be more than a pretender? Scott Horrell You better be more than a pretender. Darrell Bock Yeah, because they were hypocrites. Scott Horrell They were hypocrites. Darrell Bock And that's what Christ continually – you see his scathing rebuke of them, oh, you hypocrites. Scott Horrell I think that's a practical righteousness that he's speaking there. Darrell Bock You mentioned – Scott mentioned in terms of the blessings that are ours. and praying that we might have a deeper sense of those blessings, what truly our inheritance is in Christ Jesus. And that's what Paul's prayer is in Ephesians 1. In Ephesians 1, he prays for these saints, and he prays that the eyes of their understanding would be enlightened, that they might know what is the hope of his calling, that they might know what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly place. So he's praying. This is what is true of you. What I'm praying is that you would know it. God would grant to you that spirit of enlightenment so you would know it more and more. You would enter more fully into that. You'd take hold of that. You'd embrace Christ. And when we don't, we don't live right. It's like the guy who purchased a ticket and got on the ship and then was eating out of the trash can and some of his friends came out from the dining room and eating that lush food that was in there and they see him and they went over to him and said, what are you doing? Why don't you come in there and eat? Well, I didn't purchase that. So they grabbed his ticket and showed him, look at the bottom right here, all meals included. And this is how we often live as the people of God, because we don't know who we are, and we don't know what has been granted to us in Christ. And if we don't know, we don't live right. And I, you know, we've got to wrap up here, but this is one of the reasons that Luther would say when he was tempted, I'm a baptized man. Because that was what helped remind him he was a new creature in Christ Jesus. It reminded him who he was to be identified with. So he could say you could sin boldly. Yeah, they would tell him to lengthen that often, huh? All right, well, we are just about to wrap up, but just to let everybody know, at the end of March is the end of the program. And if you're upset about that, send emails to Scott Henry's Facebook and to KCRO. We'll see how much trouble I get him for that. But we'll be back next week, AM 660, KCRO.