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We're in Galatians, chapter three,
and I'm doing a little bit of overlap, starting in verse six. Last week, I think we concluded
in verse nine. We're going to go through fourteen. And this is what the text says.
Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as
righteousness, know then that those of faith are the sons of
Abraham and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles
by faith Preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, and you shall
all the nations be blessed. So then those who are of faith
are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. For all who
rely on works are of the law are under a curse, for it is
written curse to be everyone who does not abide by the things
written in the book of the law and do them. Now, it's evident
that no one is justified before God by the law for the righteous
shall live by faith, but the law is not a faith. Rather, the
one who does them shall live by them. Christ redeemed us from
the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written
cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree so that in Christ Jesus,
the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that
we might receive the promised spirit through faith. May the Lord bless the hearing
of his word this morning. In his book, Losing Faith in
Faith, and listen to the title of that, Losing Faith in Faith,
Dan Barker writes, quote, Faith is a cop out, a defeat and admission
that the truths of religion are unknowable through evidence and
reason. Now, Mr. Barker attended Azusa
Pacific University in the early 70s. Serving later as a pastor
in a Quaker congregation and assembly of God Church and an
independent charismatic church, he became a prominent songwriter,
accompanying Pat Boone and singers on the Lawrence Welk Show. And
he also wrote two of the most popular BBS drama skits of the
1970s. And then one day. Mr. Barker woke up and realized
that he was an atheist. A few paragraphs after writing
this statement about faith, he speaks about the gospel, thus
revealing his cards on why he lost his faith. He says it was
a mystery to me how anyone could be blind to the truths of the
gospel. After all, don't we all want
love, peace, happiness, hope and meaning in life? Christ was
the only answer, I believed, and I figured all non-Christians
must be driven by other things like greed, lust, evil, pride,
hate and jealousy. And if you listen carefully to
that statement, Mr. Barker reveals the same thing
that he exposed in the title of his book, Losing Faith in
Faith. He has absolutely no idea what
the gospel is, nor does he have the first clue about biblical
faith. His gospel is hopelessly confused with law, and his faith
must therefore ultimately be placed in the wrong thing. In
our culture, having faith is not really a problem. Atheists
like Barker are in a small minority. George Michael in the 1980s,
on the other hand, sang Western culture's anthem. You've got
to have faith. Faith is an immoral imperative,
but faith in what? Emily Osment recently put it
this way in a song. The young singer sings live without
a doubt. All we need is something. All
right. Turn it out. Live without a doubt. All we need is something. Got
to believe in something. Barker says that something is
faith and faith. George Michael sees it is faith
in me, and I tend to think that that's probably what Barker's
faith was in as well. Because if you confuse the gospel
with the law. You have to put your faith in
yourself to keep the law. While Michael's idea is very
popular, another Michael, Michael Angelo said, and I don't know
if this is taken out of context or not, but as we said, faith
in oneself is the best and safest course. Paula Abdul, the great
sage of. American Idol said. Keep the
faith, don't lose your perseverance, always trust your gut. Edwin
Lewis Cole takes this to a whole new level, saying have faith
in God, God has faith in you. Incredibly, now you are the object
of God's faith. Another popular idea is that
faith is possibility thinking. Robert Shuler and Norman Vincent
Peale popularized this in the church, but 50 years before they
came around, William Slater, The individualist anarchist,
son of a congregational minister and friend of William James the
pragmatist, put it this way. He says the essence of faith
is to believe that a possibility exists. Then faith is to dream the impossible
dream, as Andy Williams sang it. It is personified in movies
like Field of Dreams or Tucker. That's what faith is. This pragmatic
faith in human potential and reason might have made the United
States of America a world power, but it isn't what the Bible has
in mind by faith. Today, we enter the very heart
of the Bible's teaching on salvation and on faith, how is somebody
saved? The short answer is that they're
saved by faith and by nothing but faith. Galatians, three, seven, those
of faith are the sons, three, nine, those of faith are blessed.
311, the righteous shall live by faith. 314, we receive the promised
spirit through faith. But what does this mean? Today,
you just can't assume that people know, not even in churches. You can't assume that people
know because we're easily tempted to turn from that which we know,
which seems right to us. Recent informal surveys conducted
by the White Horse and Christian convinces convention show that
most Christians have the exact same answers to what faith is
that the world has that I already told you about. So to counteract
the creeping paganism in the church, we have to look at the
text to see what it says. So our passage, as I told you,
is verses six to 14. It lays out six things, the role
of faith, in salvation, the contents of faith, the opposite of faith,
the results of faith, the reason why we need faith, and finally,
the grounds upon which God can justify a person by faith. These six ideas are tightly argued
by the apostle, and here's the thing, from the Old Testament. Before I get to them, I want
to ask you a question. If you had the opportunity to
share your faith with someone, and I'm not talking about your
personal testimony, I'm talking about the faith with a capital
F, where would you turn? Most people would turn to Paul.
Perhaps many of them might even go to the passage that we're
looking at today. And that's obviously perfectly acceptable.
But in light of how many people think that Paul created a religion
out of nothing or blatantly contradicted Jesus or James, I want to give
you something to think about. It's something that you'll notice
about the passage today, and it's remarkable. These nine verses
contain six quotations from the Old Testament. In other words,
Paul did not rely on visions or dreams or encounters with
Christ that no one could confirm to demonstrate his gospel, even
though he could have. He relied upon God's word. He
went to the law and the prophets. New Testament religion is Old
Testament religion. It is true Judaism. It is not
some Johnny come lately. Would you have any confidence
whatsoever in proving salvation by faith alone from the Old Testament
if you had to? Could you do it? It's there, you know, and it's
a major theme in the Bible. Hebrews 11 does this as we read
this morning. It tells us that Abel offered
sacrifices by faith. Enoch preached by faith. Noah built an ark by faith. Abraham
sojourned by faith. Isaac gave Jacob the blessing.
Jacob blessed the Egyptian sons of Joseph by faith. Joseph gave
instructions about his burial and predicted the exodus by faith.
Moses left Egypt by faith. Rahab welcomed the spies by faith. The judges judged Israel by faith. David conquered kingdoms and
ruled by faith. The prophets prophesied and died
terrible deaths by faith. These people did all of these
works by faith, you see. But works is not faith. I was
reading an article this week which was presented a few years
back at the Evangelical Theological Society meeting, one in the I
think it was a regional meeting in the Midwest. And in the article,
the writer explained his view of faith and this way says, quote,
Most church doctrinal positions on faith would agree that genuine
faith includes knowledge, assent and trust. I prefer to treat
trust as obedience. As Paul expresses it, the obedience
of faith, genuine faith must include obedience. As I when
I read this, I thought this is unbelievable. He couldn't get
it more wrong. No longer is it trust and obey,
for there's no other way it is trust is obey. Faith and works
are identical. One does not flow from the other.
Like, I believe one is the other. You see, the point of Hebrews,
however, is that faith precedes the things that the Old Testament
saints do. There was a time when all they
had was faith. Then works sprang from faith
and fruit like fruit springs forth from a vine in the spring. There is no fruit in the summer. There is. It's the spirit's job
to produce faith or fruit, but fruit is not faith. Paul says
the same thing in our passage today when he says the law is
not of faith. That's in verse 12, and if you
think that it is, you've turned religion upside down, you've
twisted it into a slithering serpent, you've tortured again
the one who was tortured on the cross. There may be no more serious
matter in all the world than this, because it drives a stake
through the heart of salvation. So let's look at how Paul came
to this. I'm going to give you six sections
and I'm going to divide them up according to the Old Testament
verses that are being quoted. So the first one is the role
of faith. Somebody, I suppose, could argue
that Hebrews is making all of this faith stuff up. I mean, where does it say that
these people did these things by faith? The first quotation
in our passage provides the answer. Paul uses Abraham, whom he calls
the man of faith in verse nine, as his paradigm. He does this
because Abraham comes before the existence of Israel. And
thus, to the circumcision party who was forcing the people to
go through that right, this would have been terribly important
for them to understand. He says, Abraham believed God
and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now, there's a
quote from Genesis 15, six. This verse gives you the role
of faith in salvation and the role of faith is to be the means
by which God justifies a person. Abraham believed God and it was
counted to him as righteousness. You see, that's the means by
which God justifies you. It was through faith, through
believing God that he was justified. The words counted as righteousness. This is the Old Testament equivalent
of justification. Listen to how this word is translated
in other places in the ESV in the Old Testament. The word is
translated as counted, calculated, considered, esteemed, imputed,
reckoned, and regarded. You hear that? Notice, Abraham
was not made righteous, but reckoned, regarded as righteous. He was
considered, declared as righteous, even though he wasn't righteous.
All you have to do is read the story of Abraham to find out
this man was not perfect. Paul and Paul, this idea is set
against the backdrop of a legal system, this word justification.
And I think you could probably make that case in Abraham's life
as well, because this statement comes in the middle of a covenant
cutting ceremony in Genesis 15, which is a legal arrangement
between a vassal and a suzerain lord. God pronounced Abraham
righteous because of faith. and thereby he entered into this
agreement with him. Beloved, this is the very heart
of the Christian religion. Christians are declared righteous.
They are, even though they are not righteous. And obviously,
if you're not righteous, your works could not make you righteous,
nor could they get God to declare you righteous. And so Abraham
was reckoned righteous, not through works, but through faith, belief
and faith are synonyms. And I'm going to show you that
when we come to the Habakkuk quote. Second quotation is the
content of faith. We see that Abraham believed
God, but what did he believe about God? OK, that's an important
question. Given all the things I told you
at the beginning of this sermon. Well, he believed that God would
make him into a great nation. In other words, he believed God's
promise Not a curse, not a factoid, not something in a trivial pursuit
game, not a doctrine, not a rebuke, not an idea, but a promise. He trusted something that God
promised to him. Not something he promised himself,
not a dream of his own, but a promise from God. Paul quotes Genesis
twelve three in you shall all the nations be blessed. This
is God's promise to Abraham, and it's the content of his faith.
Let's think about this promise in relationship to Abraham's
belief. This promise was given to Abraham when he was seventy
five years old. It was a promise not to one group
of people, but to the nations, those who would later be considered
Gentiles. The promise is that the nations
will be blessed, and as such, it's good news to the nations.
Paul calls it the gospel. He says that Abraham had the
gospel preached to him, which is amazing. This promise implies
that Abraham would have a son, because how can you have nations
come from you if you don't have a son, right? In fact, this idea
is later codified in the second covenant in Genesis 15, where
the first quote is given. What Abraham believed is that
as numerous as the stars are in the heavens, so numerous with
his descendants be in Genesis 15. And here's the thing. Abraham
believed this promise when he had no son. And he would not
have Isaac, the son of promise, for at least 15 more years. The
point is that Abraham's faith preceded the birth of Isaac.
Those who argue that Abraham was justified by what he did,
going back to James chapter two, where he sacrifices Isaac, they
always fail to take notice of this fact. It just doesn't fit
their system. The context of these citations
shows that those who have faith, the faith of Abraham, that is
faith in the promises of God, our sons of Abraham. That's a
remarkable idea that's tied, I think, to the birth of Isaac,
Abraham's son. In Paul's theology, you have
to understand that Isaac represents those who have faith because
Isaac was a miraculous baby and faith is a miraculous gift of
God. Remember, Abraham did have a son before Isaac, didn't he?
Here's another small fact about Abraham's life that those wishing
to combine faith and works need to keep in mind. After Abraham
heard the promise and believed it, he still was in the darkest
of how God was going to accomplish it. His wife, Sarah, had borne
him no children in all the time they'd been married, and she
was now old, and so she could not bear any children. Her womb
was dead, the Bible says, in several places. It was a physical
impossibility. And so Sarah figured that God
must have another arrangement. Since he didn't specify who the
mother of this great child would be, she hatched a plan to get
her maidservant Hagar pregnant by Abraham. And of course, out
of this scheme, Ishmael was born. Now, you can easily think of
Ishmael as the child of Abraham's works because he was born from
a human perspective entirely because of Abraham's deep bewilderment
about God's promises coming to pass. His faith was genuine,
but it was confused. And I hope that gives you hope
when you read the story of Abraham, the man of faith. Even Abraham's
righteous acts were filthy works, filthy rags. His works, his attempt
to make the promise of God come to pass his own way, ended up
causing more troubles than anyone could ever have imagined. Troubles
that continue 4000 years later to this very day in the Middle
East. This is a perfect example of what happens to anybody who
thinks that their works will bring about the promises or,
in a more general way, will bring about sanctification. And so
Ishmael was born in the natural way through human scheming and
carrying out of a plan. We see Isaac is different totally
in every way. God came to Sarah after the birth
of Ishmael and promised to give her a son. She can only do what
she can only laugh. And I've often wondered, was
it out of happiness or incredulity? This was not possible in any
world. But God will perform a miracle
and Isaac's birth would come to symbolize children of faith
rather than works. This is why he says those of
faith are sons of Abraham. And later in this very letter,
Sarah and Hagar will be used by Paul in the same kind of a
way. And in Romans, the two sons are used in the same kind of
a way in Romans nine. Faith inherits the promises,
just like Isaac inherited the blessing. That's the point. These
people of faith are no longer limited to Jews or to proselytes
that come become Jews through circumcision. These people of
faith include Gentile Christians. The Galatians who were not born
into the promises, but received them through faith in Christ.
And these people include many here in our sanctuary this morning,
Gentiles of many nationalities who gathered to worship the same
God who has given us all the same faith in Christ. Isn't that
an amazing thing? Paul says this entire arrangement
that we now see fulfilled before our eyes was promised to Abraham
4000 years ago to us. Those included are those who
believe those are the sons of Abraham. Do you believe these
things for yourself? Do you trust? Only in Christ,
are you trusting in your parents hope or in the church's hope?
It must be your own hope, you see. As you can see, then Abraham
was justified by faith, by believing the promise of God. That's how
he was saved. That's the object of his faith. It had a very real content. Now,
he couldn't see it. But it's not because it was irrational,
not because it was a leap in the dark, not because it was
blind, but because it hadn't come to pass in time. It was
a promise of the future. It was about believing that God
would make Sarah conceive, even though it was impossible. It
was about trusting that God would deliver on his promise. Now,
today, of course, we look backward, not forward. We look to the death
and resurrection of something that has happened to Jesus. We
believe what we believe is even less preposterous from a human
point of view, because it actually happened in time. in space, in
history, in front of people, in an objective world. I say
that often because you can't overstate how important the objective
nature of Christ's work is. This isn't just I feel Jesus
did something. It's he did it. Now, what are
you going to do with it? We do look forward to just like
Abraham did, though, as well. But the content of our faith,
whether it be Abraham or us, is always the same. It's to look
to Christ. He trusted in the seed, didn't
he? We'll look at that more next week. Our perspective is different. Now we trust through faith that
God will raise our bodies from the grave, just as he did with
Jesus. Anything that is future, we trust because of what has
happened in the past. It's tragic that people turn
the gospel into this. Now, remember, I gave you this
quote earlier from the guy and maybe didn't catch it. So I bring
it back up again. This is what he called the gospel,
he said, I couldn't believe that anybody would not want love,
peace, happiness, hope and meaning in life. That's what he called
the gospel. Friends, that isn't the gospel.
You understand that that's not the gospel. Love, peace, happiness,
hope and meaning in life, that's not the gospel. Those things
might result from the gospel, but they're not the gospel. These
things calling this the gospel completely obscures why Jesus
came and what he did, he didn't die to give me meaning. He died
to give me life, to save me from God's wrath. from eternal punishment
for my sin to make it possible for God to acquit me of crimes
against him, to allow me to be raised from the dead in glory.
That's why he died. The reason Jesus is the only
answer is not because he gives me meaning in life. Plenty of
non-Christians have meaning in life. This is the very problem
this guy had. I couldn't believe that any non-Christian
could have meaning in life, that they could be happy. There's
lots of non-Christians that are happy, that feel at peace, that
experience some kind of love. Come on. But none of them have
those things in their relationship to Christ or to God. Their relationship with their
creator is only one of enmity, striving, belligerence and hopelessness. And when they die, their fleeting
feelings will leave them naked as they stand before the judge
and give an accounting of all the deeds that they've done in
the body. What are those deeds like? Let's
look at it. Here's the third quotation, the
contents of faith. I might have got that one wrong.
We'll look and see when we come to the third citation. All who
rely on works of law are under a curse for it is written, cursed
be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the
book of the law and do them. Now, we read this for the law
passage this morning, it comes from Deuteronomy, twenty seven,
twenty six. This is the last word in a series
of curses that Israel was to call upon itself in a remarkable
covenant ceremony. Now in Israel, you can go to
this place, you can see it on Google. There are two little
mountains that come together and there's a valley in the bottom.
These mountains are called Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. And the
valley below is where the city of Shechem was located. Shechem
is the place that Abraham first went to after God promised him
the land in Genesis twelve, six, which is pretty interesting.
It's upon these two mountains that the entire nation was to
ascend six tribes and six tribes, and they were to yell back and
forth to each other. The curses of the law ending
with this final curse. This must have been one of the
most incredible scenes in the history of the Bible. Imagine
two million people yelling, cursed are we if we do not do everything
written in this law and on the other side from the other mountain,
everybody goes, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen. It heard the echo. What kinds of things are they
yelling? What are all these things written in the law? Well, if
you remember what we read, they are yelling moral laws. They're
yelling laws that you can find in the law codes of the Hittites,
Babylonians and the Egyptians. Cursed is anyone who dishonors
her father or mother. Well, the Hittites believe that's
wrong and had it in their law code. Curses anyone who moves
his neighbor's boundary mark. Babylonians believe that was
wrong. Cursed is anyone who misleads a blind person on the road. Egyptians
thought that was wrong. The point is, the specific laws
here are not only applicable to Israel. They were not invented
by God with Moses on Mount Sinai. They apply to all of God's children
on planet Earth always. And so Moses' citation is not
only applicable to Jews, it's applicable to Gentiles. The law
that Israel was given was a reproduction in stone of the law that he had
written upon everybody's heart. That's the moral law. Why did
God have Israel do this? To itself, curse itself like
this, it was to place them under the curse of the law to show
them the absolute need for faith. That's why they had to yell these
things. It was to set up their failure. Because it was only
through their failure that the promised seed would eventually
come. The point of the citation here
is similar, it's to show that the opposite of faith is relying
on the works of the law. So that's the third point is
the opposite of faith. What's the opposite of faith
works is the opposite of faith. If you rely upon works to save
you, to justify you, to sanctify you, to glorify you, you're under
a curse. And you heard that correctly.
I wonder if it sunk into your heart, though. Why are you under a curse? It's
because to live by the law requires perfection. It's what the text
says, all things written in the law. People will say that this
isn't fair, that God would never require such a demanding, harsh
thing. And in this, they fail to understand
why God gave the law. God gave the law to show our
sin, our inability to equal God's own moral perfection. God gave
us the law to show us what he is like and what we are like.
And this is what the law does perfectly. It's like a mirror. It shows us who we are on the
inside. And therefore, the apostle, after
quoting this verse in verse 11, says it's evident that no one
is justified before God by the law. It's obvious. Now, you can't get any clearer
of a statement than that of the opposite of faith, can you? Fourth
point, fourth quote is the result of faith. Now, it's at this point
that Paul cites his fourth quotation in a remarkable one, it is he
moves out of the Torah now into the prophets. He goes to Habakkuk
two four, which is one of his favorite verses, and it says
the righteous shall live by faith. He didn't make that up. Before
I explain this verse, I found this pretty interesting this
week. Helpful to see that Paul was not the only Jew who understood
the importance of this verse, it is recorded in the Talmud
by one rabbi Simali, who lived in the third century A.D., he
said this six hundred and thirteen commandments were given to Moses.
David came and reduced them to eleven. Isaiah came and reduced
them to six. Micah came and reduced them to
three. Isaiah came again and reduced them to two. Amos came
and reduced them to a single one. Habakkuk further came and
based them on one, as he said, but the righteous shall live
by faith. I was actually kind of blown away when I read that.
Prior to the New Testament being written, the Dead Sea Scrolls
record this. Quote, this concerns this verse, Habakkuk two, four
concerns all those who observe the law in the house of Judah,
whom God will deliver from the house of judgment because of
their suffering and because of their faith in the teacher of
righteousness. Whom some have speculated is
a messianic figure, a hundred years before Jesus was born.
An ancient Jewish commentary on Exodus says this. With all
their professed faith in Egypt, there was no real faith in the
Israelites until they saw God's wonders on the sea prompted by
that faith. They weren't able to compose
and sing the exquisite song of praise through their faith. The Israelites on the Red Sea
became possessed of the Holy Spirit. Very similar to what
Paul says at the very end of verse 14. The point is, even
the Jews recognize that faith was necessary. And you may not
understand this, but Rome has the same kind of an idea. Rome
believes faith is necessary, don't they? But there's perversion that has
gone on. Combining law and faith, even as we can see hints of,
especially in the Dead Sea Scroll quote. People may place their
hopes in the wrong messiah. Might have placed their hopes
partially in faith and partially in works. But the idea is still
rooted that they need faith because it comes from their scripture.
Those who say that Israel was saved only by works in the Old
Testament don't know what they're talking about. It's just as simple
as that. Habakkuk's point is not that
we're saved by a combination of faith and works, but by faith
alone. Habakkuk has. Some very interesting similarities
to Genesis 15, six. Both verses speak about righteousness
using the same word. Abraham's faith was credited
to him as righteousness and the righteous shall live by faith.
Second thing is that both of them use the same root word for
faith. I'm on. And so commentators have suggested
that Habakkuk may have Genesis fifteen six in mind when he writes.
But Habakkuk is hardly alone, the psalm says, I've taken the
way of faith. The proverb says the one who
speaks in steadfast trust, that's faith will make righteousness
known. And another proverb says a man
of faith will abound with blessings. The promise here is what faith
brings, the result of faith is life. That's what I said earlier,
so that's the thing with this fourth. quotes, is that it brings
life. What does faith do? It brings
life. The righteous shall live by faith. Faith raises from the dead. Faith
ensures that we will be raised from the dead. Faith gives us
new life. It is life in Christ. But this
can only come through faith. It can never come through the
law. So let's go to the fourth one. There's a good deal of debate
about the translation of Habakkuk. I could spend a whole sermon
talking about this, but I won't just kind of summarize it for
you. Faith can be translated as faithfulness, and that's what
the debate is over. The translation will be something
like this, the just shall live by faithfulness. Here's the thing, faithfulness
is a work, isn't it? In English, faithfulness means
strict or thorough in the performance of duty. That would be. That we would be justified by
duty is an impossible idea to Paul, who says in the very next
breath breath, the law is not a faith. Imagine if what he really
meant was, but the law is not a faithfulness. That would mean
that the law is not a duty, but the very next thing Paul says
is the one who does them. will live by them. In other words,
the law is of duty, and that's the whole point of the law. This
verse gives us the promise held out in the law of life. Now, I just told you faith promises
life, but here the law promises life. The one who does them shall
live by them. If you obey the law perfectly. That's what the law teaches.
So both of them hold out the promise of life. The problem
is that the law can't give you life, holds out promise, but
it can't deliver on what it promises. The best it could do, as it did
in Jesus case, is show you that you're already alive. That's
why you obeyed the law. But nobody keeps the law perfectly,
except for him showing that they're not alive, but dead. And that's
why, though life is held out in both, It only comes through
faith. That's why faith is so critical.
The reason for faith is that the law can't give you what it
promises, but God can give you what he promises. Through faith
in Christ, through the gospel. As it comes to you and delivers
abundant life. And eternal life. The sixth one
is the grounds of faith. It's a serious error to turn
faith into obedience or faith into faithfulness. When you do this, you obliterate
the law, the gospel, faith, faithfulness, religion, salvation, justification,
earth itself. You attack Christ, however, unintentionally,
who is the only reason why you can be justified by faith in
the first place. You attack his work and you attack,
especially his death. If you confuse these two things.
This is the function of the sixth and final quotation, one serious
problem remains, how can just God justly justify anybody by
faith? How can he do that? If a person
is wicked, God can't just let bygones be bygones. Have you
ever heard me say that before? Someone has to pay. In 313, Paul
begins to get the grounds of our justification, the grounds
of faith, the reason why God can credit faith is righteousness.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse
for us. Friend, that's what you have to believe. No other faith
will save you, justify you, sanctify you, glorify you. Only faith
in the atoning work of Christ on your behalf is going to do
this. Do you believe it? The quotation is from Deuteronomy
21, 23, cursed as everyone is hanged on a tree. I've told you
about how Israel would curse themselves. I told you that anyone
who wants to keep the law remains under a curse rather than a blessing.
In Christ, the curse is turned into a blessing as he's cursed
on the tree so that it can become a blessing to those who believe. Christ became a curse, not through
disobedience, as happened to Israel, but through vicarious
obedience. Through obedience in your place,
as God imputed your curse, your sin, your wickedness to him,
and he was cursed on that tree. He didn't do it because he deserved
it. He did it because he took it
from you, for you. He took the penalty of the curse.
He suffered death and separation from God on your behalf while
he was on the tree. I've sometimes heard it said
that if Jesus were alive today and God's plan was for him to
die, that he could die in an electric chair. Have you ever
heard anybody say that or something? You know, pick something, die
by gunfire or whatever. The cross was just the convention
of the time. Well, that's not true. The cross
was an extraordinary display of God's sovereignty in the Roman
Empire. Crucifixion had not been practiced and has not been practiced
throughout most of the world history, only in that very narrow
time frame. When Jesus was there, was it
really very common anywhere at all? And God did this so that
Jesus could die on a tree. In order to fulfill that law.
I don't know all the reasons why dying on a tree would bring
a curse. I've often wondered, and I can't think of a lot of
things. The Bible says it. I know that the law has been
tied up to the tree ever since the Garden of Eden. I know that
there's some kind of a relationship between the law and the tree
and the inscrutable mind of God. I haven't figured out yet. The
point is that even in his death on the cross, Jesus fulfilled
the law. And he did it that the blessing
might come to the Gentiles that we might receive the promised
spirit through faith. Christ meritorious works all
the way up to the cross is our only grounds for justification.
That's it. Through faith, God imputes to
us the merits of Christ, who loved his father so much that
he did everything he was required to do everything that we are
required to do as sons of Adam. God imputed our sin to Jesus,
and he became a curse. God imputes his righteousness
to us as a blessing. God does this for Jews and Gentiles
alike, and he does it by faith. Faith is absolutely mandatory. Faith saves, but this faith must
have an object and it must be full of the right content. And that content is the gospel,
the good news, the promises of God through Christ, the wise
sages, pop singers, daytime talk show hosts, Christian turned
atheist friends have it all wrong. You've heard the gospel, and
so you are left without excuse. Only faith saves, because the
law has no power to justify you. Faith gives life, and the reason
you need faith is because you cannot live by the law, because
it demands that you do all the law, and you haven't done that.
God can credit faith to you because Christ has died in your place.
Becoming a curse so that the blessing can be exchanged for
that curse for those who trust in Christ merits to save them.
All that is left for me to say is to ask if you believe this,
do you believe it? You have to believe that I can't
believe it for you. Do you believe it? Someday you're
going to face the judge and ask you that question, especially
because you've heard sermons like this. Do you believe it?
Do you believe I did that for you? It's the teaching of the
whole Scripture, not just Paul in Galatians 3. It's the way
God has always done things. Come to Christ and taste that
he is good. Let's pray. Father, please give us faith
and faith alone that you have the power to deliver upon all
of your promises, including even the promise to sanctify us and
to give us good works. Thank you for Jesus and what
he did, and I would pray that. By hearing these words today,
it might impress upon our minds something that we may have forgotten
some that we may have suppressed. Cause us to love you more deeply
for the cost that it brought to you, even though to us it's
absolutely free. Please help your people all to
believe this message from the very oldest here to the very
youngest among us. I would ask for Jesus' sake. Amen.
Faith Alone
Series Galatians
| Sermon ID | 871116482110 |
| Duration | 45:43 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Galatians 3:6-14 |
| Language | English |
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