Galatians chapter 2 is perhaps, especially the latter part of it, the heart of the gospel, revealed the error that Peter made. when he was in Antioch and he was, before the Jews came from James, in Jerusalem, he was with the Gentiles eating and holding fellowship with them. But then, when the Jews came, he separated from the Gentiles and he did with his actions What he did with his actions actually was a sermon against the gospel of God's grace. So we covered this in the last few sermons. And last week we went through verse 16. And I want to begin there and finish up the chapter today, Lord willing. So let's pray. Father, we ask your blessing today that you would give us grace to understand your Word, and we would receive it as the Word of God, and it would be the greatest joy of our heart to see the Lord Jesus Christ willingly giving himself for us, and see you having predetermined from before the world began to do this. to display your great glory, to the praise of your grace, and for our salvation, to make us your own, your own children, and to give us to the Lord Jesus Christ as his own, his own bride. Thank you, Lord, that in this salvation you've taken away our sins by our Savior, and you've clothed us in his everlasting righteousness, which he established by his own obedience in his death. Thank you for this grace. Now, Lord, we pray by your Spirit, we would be given grace to receive these things. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In verse 15, the Apostle Paul says, "...we who are Jews by nature, and not sinners among the Gentiles." He is referring us, he's referring Peter, and he's talking, he's included himself. to the fact that the Jews, according to the law, were separate from the Gentiles, and they considered themselves not to be sinners, because they had the law, and they tried to keep the law. And their attempts to keep the law were their confidence before God, in coming to God. And so they classified themselves as Jews by nature. They were born as Jews. They were taught as Jews. They practiced the law of Moses in whatever way they did. Not perfectly, not continuously, not completely, but in some sense they had an outward show of keeping the law and so they were called Jews by nature. But these who were called Jews by nature had learned something. They were not sinners among the Gentiles who didn't have law, who didn't keep the law. They tried to keep the law and they trusted the law. God had given it to them. And they had learned something. They learned that a man is not justified by the works of the law. It took a long time for them to learn that. God held that lesson back for over 1,500 years. From the time he spoke to Abraham until the coming of Christ was about 2,000 years. And think about the long time they were in Egypt. 30 years, I think. Then they left Egypt and they were delivered into the wilderness and then finally Canaan. They were in that land of Canaan until the coming of Christ. All that time they were under the law. Now, there's a few things about the law we need to understand. First of all, the law is comprised of two parts. We think of it, we hear a lot of times the law is made up of the moral law, the ceremonial law, and the civil law. Or sometimes it's called the moral, civil, and ceremonial law. But that's not a good division of the law. In fact, it's kind of a misleading division, even though that's commonly used to divide the law. Really, a better division of the law is what God requires of sinners. And then the second part is what God does for sinners in Christ in order to make them acceptable to Himself. The first part is in the Ten Commandments and everything that follows that amplifies the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not kill, and then He amplifies what that means. Thou shalt not steel, and then he amplifies what that means. From Exodus chapter 20 and on through for a few chapters there, he gives us an amplification of the Ten Commandments. All that God required of men. And then in the second part of the law, we know that's the Levitical priesthood, and in that part of the law, God laid out as a figure, a picture, foretelling of what Christ would do in order to make his people right with God according to His justice. And that's the part that the Jews who believed Christ had learned. They had learned that they were not justified by their own works. By their own works, they only drew down greater condemnation from God upon themselves. Greater guilt, a greater sentence of condemnation. And they learned this over a long course of time. They learned it not only through the law, but even God in the law In the first five books of Moses taught that a man couldn't be justified by the law. Remember Hagar? We're going to get to that in chapter four. In chapter four, Paul says, you that want to be justified by the law, do you not hear the law? The law itself tells you that Abraham had two sons, and only one was a child of promise. The other was a child of the flesh. And so that's what the law is. It can't save a man. The prophets bore witness to this. Habakkuk says that just shall live by faith. And David said in the Psalms throughout, in Psalm 32 for example, that the man that is blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. So the law itself, the Psalms and the prophets all testify to the fact that we're not justified by the law. But the law, as I said, was divided up into two parts, these two parts being not the moral, civil, and ceremonial part, that's three, but the requirements of God on men in order to be right before Him. And then the provision by God of salvation in Christ, which was typified by all the sacrifices, the priesthood, the tabernacle. And then the Sabbaths. The tabernacle was the place where men meet with God and God meets with men by the mediator. The mediator does for God all that God requires to reconcile sinners to himself and satisfy his justice, magnify his law. That's done in the tabernacle by the meat-eater. The priesthood, they're the ones who make that reconciliation through the sacrifice, that's the third part. And then the rest, the Sabbath is the declaration to us, our entering into that and giving honor and praise to God for what He's done for us in Christ. So that's the division of the law, those two things, the requirements and the fulfillment of what's necessary to bring sinners to himself in the Lord Jesus Christ, typified by all those sacrifices by the priesthood, the tabernacle, and the rest, the Sabbaths. But the law also is a covenant. It's not something you can pick and choose. The law is not something you can say, well I want to obey this law and I don't want to obey that one. If you fall under the agreement of the covenant of the law, you have to keep the entire law without failure. Completely, perfectly, continuously. Now we saw that last time in Galatians 3. The man that doeth those things shall live in them, and he that doesn't keep all the law is a cursed man. So the Jews had learned that we're not justified by the works of the law. That was the lesson the law had taught them, and it was a painful lesson. And how painful it is in our own lives when God teaches us that lesson. But he taught here that we're justified by the faith of Jesus Christ. In other words, the one who made Himself one with His people, who took our nature, who owned our obligations under the law, both the precept and the penalty, and fulfilled them both to the glory of God and for our salvation. By Him we're justified. He is the object of our faith. And He it is we believe in order that we might receive that justification in our conscience, in the peace and joy of our soul. And so in verse 17 he says, "...but if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners." Is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. Peter had professed before the Jews came, and he had taught before the Jews came, in a sermon in many places throughout the book of Acts, that even the Gentiles were justified by God's grace in Christ. And he himself said, I am going to be justified like they. That's what he said in Acts 15, 11. But here, Peter had, by his actions, had begun to deny what he had been teaching and preaching. And so Paul says, if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we Jews, who depend no longer on the law, but like the Gentiles have forsaken the law and don't pay any attention to the law, for our justification we look to Christ alone. He says, if while we seek to be justified by Christ in this way, we ourselves also are found sinners, Is Christ, therefore, the minister of sin? Is the Lord Jesus Christ the cause of our sin? Of course not. Is He the one who makes us sinners by coming to Him and fleeing from the law as a way of being righteous? No. He doesn't make us sinners by fleeing from the law and trusting Him alone. We were already sinners under the law without our abandoning the law before Christ came. But in abandoning the law, entrusting the law for justification, entrusting our own personal obedience before God to fulfill His requirements, and fleeing to Christ, we're not made sinners. though the Judaizers thought we were, thought that Peter was, thought that Paul was, and all those believers who wouldn't be circumcised and keep the law. So he says, if while we seek to be justified by Christ, And in fact, we are justified by Christ in trusting Him. We ourselves also are found sinners by men. Or we ourselves oppose the very doctrine that we once preached and make ourselves sinners. Christ is not the minister of sin. He didn't do this. Verse 18, "...for if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor." If I try to rebuild... the law as a way of coming to God, being accepted by God and justified and even sanctified by the law, then I make myself a transgressor because I confess that I have to keep the whole law. And therefore, the law itself condemns me for failing to do so. I deny Christ. I deny the whole reason for the atonement. I deny the reason for His incarnation and His life and death on the cross. I deny the reason why God sent His Son. And then in verse 19, and this is where I want to spend most of our time. He says, For I, through the law, through the law, this covenant under which God placed the Jews, this declaration of God's requirement for men, I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. And then he expands on how this happened. He says, In verse 20, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, in this body, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God. I don't try to mix the law and God's grace. Because if I do that, this is what the result is. For if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. He died for nothing. His death was a waste. The entire accomplishment of his salvation really meant nothing if I'm justified by the law. If righteousness comes by the law. Okay, so in verse 19 he says, I through the law am dead to the law. A death has occurred. A death has occurred. When a death occurs, we want to know who died. Don't we? We want to know how did it happen. I died. That's who died. I died not alone, but with Christ. You see, All men are, by God's decree, married to the law. This is spoken of in Romans chapter 7, if you want to turn to Romans chapter 7. He says in verse 1, Know ye not, brethren? For I speak to them that know the law, how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth. That's what the law is. It has dominion over us as long as we're alive. And then he gives an example from the law. So marriage endures, by God's decree, endures as long as both husband and wife are alive. Marriage is for life, but if either the husband or the wife die, the marriage is broken. And then he says in verse 4, he uses the law to set forth the principle that we're married, in some sense, to the law. Wherefore, my brethren, you also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit to God. This is the same thing as being taught in Galatians chapter 2, where we just read in verse 19, he said, I, through the law, am dead to the law, So, who died? Well, I died. I, through the law, am dead to the law. How did it happen? Through the law. What was my relationship to the law? I was married to the law as a wife to a husband. But through the law I died, which means that my husband killed me. That sounds severe. That sounds like a husband that's very strict. The law was my husband, but I was unfaithful. The law demanded my death, according to God's justice. My husband put me to death. It was the death of cursing, even the death of the cross. Galatians 3.13, it says this, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, that's the curse, being made a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree. So the death required by the law was a death of cursing, the death of the cross. And we know death is the payback for sin. The wages of sin is death. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. God was offended. His law required that I die. But I could not die and live. So God provided for me beforehand. He provided for me beforehand in His Son. marriage. He provided his son. He appointed him to be my surety, my substitute. Christ died for me, but it was more than the death of my substitute. He could not merely die in my place. He had to first be chargeable with my sins. How could he be charged with my sins? How could I live and Him be charged with my sins? How could I be righteous? All these things are answered here in this verse. How could I, the sinner, be righteous? Well, I was chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. I was joined to Him then by eternal election. Chosen in Christ. That's the joining by God of every elect sinner. It was God's choice of me in Christ. It was a choice to salvation. But not merely salvation. It was a choice to marriage. God the Father chose a wife for His Son. And He joined her to Him by an eternal decree. It was God's will. It was a union of God's will and purpose and decree. Nothing could break that union. God made it from eternity. So I was espoused. I was promised in marriage to Christ by God the Father. I was joined to Him by God's decree to be my husband. But at creation, God created me by creation. He created me in Adam. And in Adam, my covenant head, by creation I fell into sin. My sin was the cause of my condemnation. By my sin in Adam I died. I was therefore born dead in sins. That's the consequence of my sin in Adam. Born dead in sins. I was conceived in iniquity. Psalm 51 verse 5. And I came from the womb speaking lies. Psalm 58 verse 3. Even as others. Ephesians 2 verses 1 through 3. When I sinned in Adam, I came under condemnation. I was pronounced guilty and sentenced to eternal death. In Adam. When I sinned in Adam. And my spirit then died when Adam died. When Adam sinned, I was guilty. When Adam sinned, I was condemned. And when Adam sinned, my soul in Adam died so that I was born conceived in sin. By my relation to Adam, I was put under the law of God. I was married to the law. The law was a holy and good husband, but I am carnal, sold under sin. Therefore, the law, being holy and just, treated me with strict justice. And as a demanding husband required that I be put to death for my unfaithfulness, the law served me with a sentence, a death sentence. The law placed requirements on me, but I failed to meet them. I could not meet them because I'm a sinner, carnal, sold under sin. Because the law made demands but provided no way for me to be reconciled, although it anticipated this in the second part of the law, therefore its demands for my obedience only served to strengthen sin's grip on me. My guilt could not be removed. Not by the law. By all that the law demanded, which I failed to meet, my guilt only increased. And the law sealed to me an eternal condemnation. Sealed me up to this, like in a prison. By nature I was a child of wrath, even as others. And I walked in rebellion. Every promise that the law made of life was contingent on my own continuous, complete, and perfect obedience. And hence, the law, as a husband, kept me under the bondage of guilt, condemnation, and futility. I had a legal husband, but I got no hope for my husband. Ironically, the law demanded obedience from me and held out death to me for my disobedience. You have to obey to live. But if you don't obey, then you're cursed. And I was already a sinner. But all that the law did only served to increase the strength of sin in me and bring me under greater condemnation. Because the law is the strength of sin. My husband made huge demands on me and threatened me with eternal death. But that husband, the law, provided nothing for me. But then... Oh, wonder of God's infinite grace. Then God revealed His eternal purpose of love and grace and salvation in Christ. To me, the law was only a servant to my bondage and my death. The law itself was a holy and good husband. The problem was in me. My problem was with God. I had offended His law. I had offended Him. While I was in the prison of God's law, without strength either to pay my own ransom for my own release, and without strength to obey one thing of all that God demanded, Christ came into the world. He to whom I had been espoused from eternity by God the Father in eternal election. He who was my surety by his own engagements of love to bring me back again and reconcile me. by removing my offense to God in His own death, to satisfy God's law and justice, and fulfill God's law and righteousness, and raise me up from death to life, even when I was under the wrath of God and worthy of it, as pronounced by the law. And while I was without strength, and the enemy of God as a guilty sinner, corrupt in my heart and mind, opposed to His law, then stepped forth my heavenly husband, And I have been joined to him by an eternal decree. He had willingly already before entered that covenant marriage and owned me as his espoused bride. Therefore, he stepped forward as my redeemer to ransom me from sin and death. And he was joined to me in God's eternal decree. All of my obligations to God's holy law became his obligations. He took my nature and in that nature answered every demand of justice for my punishment in satisfaction to God. He fulfilled every requirement for my righteousness. He acted as my surety. He answered every accusation and met every obligation with Himself. He gave Himself for me. As He was one with me, all of my sins were therefore charged to Him. As I was joined to Him when He fulfilled the demands of God's law for my death, I died. I died with Him. I was crucified with Christ. And in His life and in His obedience in death, He by Himself fulfilled every requirement God's law placed on me. In His sufferings and death, He endured the curse of death I deserved. He was made my surety by God from eternity, and He engaged to be my surety from eternity. God gave me to Him and joined me to Him by the promise to be His bride. He espoused. He therefore owned my debt, and He paid my ransom. He redeemed me from all iniquity and from death itself. His payment of Himself took me with Him into death, because we were joined together. His death was my death. His satisfaction was my satisfaction to God for my sins, my offenses against God. His obedience is my everlasting righteousness. His justification and resurrection to eternal life is my justification and my resurrection. Though I died with Him, I rose with Him. Marriage is only broken by death. When either spouse dies, the marriage is broken. The law of God can't die, but in my marriage to the law, I died. By the law's demands for my curse, I was cursed in the death that Christ died under the curse as my substitute. But He is more than a substitute. I was joined to Him in His death, and therefore I was crucified with Christ. And I died with Him. I died to sin with Him. I died to sin's guilt. And I died to sin's condemnation. I died to the guilt that the law pointed out. And I died to the condemnation that the law required. By my death with Christ on the cross, my marriage to the law was broken. By my resurrection with Christ, in His resurrection, I was made alive to live to God and to be married to Christ by His Spirit. When it pleased God in the time appointed, in the time of love, He called me by His grace, by His Spirit. Christ Himself called me from spiritual death to spiritual life. Christ came to me. He who was appointed as my Redeemer, who gave Himself, gave His life a ransom for me. When He paid my ransom and redeemed me from sin and death, in the time appointed, also sent His Word, the Gospel, the Gospel of His eternal achievements for sinners. And He gave me life, and by His grace He freed me from the enslavement to sin. gave me the liberty to believe on him who made himself known to me in this saving work." Hebrews 1.3 says, when he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. That's the word by which he quickened us. It's a word of love, isn't it? I am crucified with Christ. By my union with Christ, my sins were charged to Him. They became His. By that same union, in His death, I died under the curse of God's law. I satisfied the demands of the law for my death. I died with Christ. My death broke my marriage to God's law. I died to the law. My relation to the law was severed. broken and terminated. By that same union, His obedience is my righteousness, and life is the reward of righteousness. By that righteousness which is mine, by union with Him, His justification to life is my justification to life. Therefore, though I have been and remain crucified to sin and to the law by the body of Christ, yet I live. Who lives? I live. But not I. Christ lives in me. How? My death with Christ was at the hand of my husband, the Law. My life with Christ is by the hand of my Redeemer, Christ. Just as I was condemned when Adam sinned, so I was justified when Christ rose again. When he was justified, I rose with Christ, my covenant head. But in my experience, I had no life until Christ came by his spirit. He killed all my legal hopes, which were futile, vain hopes, which I held while I was married to the law. And all my legal hopes died. And he revealed himself, who is the life. He told me how he had by himself purged my sins. And in that word of revelation to my soul, He gave me life and a look of sight to Him as all of my salvation. He did not merely bestow life upon me. He didn't just give me life like an animal. But He who was joined to me by eternal election, joined Himself to me when He took my nature. And He joined Himself to me by His Spirit. when he came to live in me, and gave me this faith by his grace, I died to the law, that I might be married to another, even to Christ, with whom I died under the law, and with whom I rose in justification, and now, by whose spirit given to me, I now live. By the law I died to the law, that I might live to God. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet it is not I who live. The life I live is Christ living in me. I'm joined in love to the Son of God by His Spirit of grace and life. Christ is my life. If Christ is my life, then He's my hope of glory. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Now, the cementing bond of my union with Christ, what holds that bond together? It's the everlasting love of God. In Romans chapter 8 it says, who can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That's the bond, the cement that holds us to Christ in union. The love of our husband. My life is Christ living in me by His Spirit. His life is mine because of this union. By His righteousness, by the faith of the Son of God, His life is given to me. Because He was obedient to God in all things, and His obedience was mine by my union, my everlasting union with Him. Therefore, His everlasting life is my reward. His sin-atoning death and righteousness is the only object of my confidence and my hope. Therefore, it says here, I live by the faith of the Son of God. I live by His life. I live by His death. I live by His reign and glory. His intercession and advocacy. I draw upon His life in communion with Him by this faith which He gives by His Spirit dwelling in me. Look at John chapter 6. I want to show you this. Jesus had told the people listening to him, I am the bread of life in verse 35. In John 6, verse 51, he says, I am the living bread which came down from heaven. John 6, 51. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, Not like the manna. But if you eat of this bread, you shall live, he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. And look at verse 56. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him. You see the union? Faith The faith that God gives to us, this faith that was given to us when we were enslaved to sin and unbelief, this faith that looks to Christ only, in that look obeys the gospel. The gospel which is the law of the Lord Jesus Christ for his people, the law he fulfilled for them. His love for them and His accomplishments for them, by which they now believe Him and love Him. By that grace, we're given this faith to believe and look to Him. And that God-given faith works by love. It is by this God-given faith that we're freed from the blindness of our unbelief and enslavement to our sin. It works by love. It's both the fruit of the Spirit of God and it produces love in us by the Spirit of God, by the Lord Jesus Christ living in me. So though my body is now dead because of sin, my spirit is life because of righteousness. A resurrection has occurred. Look at Romans chapter 8. I'll show you these things. Romans chapter 8. He says in verse 9, but you are not in the flesh, you're not in the unregenerate state of a person who is a natural man. A person of the flesh. Unregenerated. He says, but in the spirit. You're not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you." If the Spirit of God dwells in you, you're not in the flesh, you're in the Spirit. Christ is your life. Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he's none of His. But if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. Whose righteousness? Christ's righteousness, but it's mine, because it was given to me by God, a free gift. Whose life? It's His life, but it's given to me because of His righteousness. Whose spirit is life in me? His spirit is life in me. And because His spirit dwells in me and His life in me because of His righteousness, in verse 11 it says, "...but if the spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. So, even though my body is dead because of sin, because Christ dwells in me, I cannot die. Jesus said in John 11 verse 25 and 26, I am the resurrection and the life. Whosoever believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. That's the first resurrection. And whoever believes in me and lives shall never die. That's the second one. We'll never die. Our verse 11 here says that the spirit of him that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in you. He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies. That's the consummation of our redemption, when our bodies are redeemed. And so though my body is now dead because of sin, my spirit is life because of Christ's righteousness. I shall never die, for he who is the resurrection and the life is my life, and I now believe in him. And this faith that God gives by His grace is the evidence, according to the Lord Jesus, that I have passed from death to life. One more verse. Look at John chapter 5. John chapter 5 and verse 24. Jesus said this, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, Hath everlasting life, he already has it, and he shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death, from condemnation, to life. That's justification. That's life, isn't it? How did it happen? The Lord Jesus Christ gives us life because of His righteousness. He tells us what His Father told Him to say and do, and He did what He did because of His Father's Word. And believing what His Father gave Him to tell us about Himself, His own accomplishments, He says, the one believing, so believing, has already passed from death to life. He has everlasting life. Faith is the evidence of it. Verse 25, Verily, verily, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. That's the life. Now, back in Galatians 2, just briefly here. We'll close this down. I want to read this to you. Put it together. Galatians chapter 2, and verse 19. I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I might live to God. I'm not just dead to the law. I've been made alive that I might live to God. And how do I do that? Well, I died with Christ. I am crucified with Christ. My husband, the law, killed me. The law is the ministration of death. Nevertheless, I live. How? Because I rose with Christ, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. I live by looking to Him who is my righteousness, who loved me and gave Himself for me. That's how I live. I don't live by the law. My relationship to the law has been broken, severed. Abolished. I've been put to death. I have no more connection to the law than a dead man. Because I died with Christ and now I live to God. Not without law to Christ, but I have the law of the gospel. The gospel that pronounces life because of the righteousness Christ revealed, which I received by God-given faith, and with that faith now I love the Lord Jesus Christ by His Spirit. The fruit of His Spirit is love, joy, peace, and all those things. Faith works by love. Faith doesn't consider itself able to be separate from others by what it does. Faith sees itself as a great sinner, and when it sees its brother overtaken in a fault, it considers itself that we might also fall were it not for God's grace. And so we uphold one another in this grace that God's given us. I do not frustrate the grace of God. To try to go back to the law and live by the law, either for justification or sanctification, or for rewards and glory, or to answer God in judgment, or any of those things, is to frustrate the grace of God. It's to pretend to do one thing and do another. It's to say one thing like Peter and practice another. It's like the Israelites, when Elijah said, Why halt ye between two opinions, if Baal be God, serve him? But if God did serve him, we've been raised from the dead that we might live to God. May God give us grace to see Christ and so live in him. Let's pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you that you prearranged and predetermined everything, everything in this world, from the smallest matters to the largest. You determined the course of the butterfly, numbered the hairs of our head, and it's because of you that the sparrow falls. Sin entered into this world, we in Adam fell, but are now in Christ made alive. You brought all of this to pass in order that you might show your great grace and demonstrate your great grace and your mercy towards us in the Lord Jesus. Such grace, it's one thing to save us from our sins, but to join us to the Lord Jesus Christ in eternal union. And to give us your Spirit and make us one with Him by your Spirit. And to cement this union with the bond of your love, your eternal love. And give us this faith to know it and live upon Him and draw this life from Him by faith. And now to look for your salvation and to rest upon His accomplishments. both fulfilling the requirements and fulfilling all the pictures of the law that would bring us to God, we who have sinned against you. We stand in awe and we say, Lord, we're not worthy of the least of your mercies, but we pray that you take glory to yourself and magnify our Savior. In his name we pray, amen.