THE ACCUSATION AND ARGUMENT AGAINST JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH (Part 2)
KEY VERSE – It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Gal. 5:1) SECONDARY THEME VERSES: “A man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ” (Gal. 2:16); “If righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing” (Gal. 2:21).
THEME: Salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone releases us from the yoke of the law, freeing us to live a life of love through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Legal (Imputed) Righteousness: We are justified by faith in Christ (Gal. 2:16). Imparted Righteousness: Immediate Moral Change at conversion (Gal. 6:15); Gradual Moral Change through the fruit-growing work of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) which requires our cooperation (Gal 5:16-17, 25, 6:8). We cooperate by using CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection, Confession/Thanksgiving. Foundational verse, “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” (Heb. 10:14)
Good Teachers: (1) Constantly re-evaluate what they are doing; (2) Set large goals; (3) Ask – “Does everything I do contribute to learning?”; (4) Prepare well; (5) Check for understanding; (6) Like teaching; (7) Get results from their teaching; (8) Have perseverance. Don’t give up.
TEACHING GOAL: Show how the law fails totally to provide hope of salvation.
TEXT FOR THE DAY:
“But if, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker.
“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing! (Gal. 2:17-21)
ACCUSATION AND ARGUMENT AGAINST JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH (Part 1)
1. The Accusation Against Justification by Grace
2. The Underlying Assumptions in the Accusation
PAUL’S REBUTTAL (Part 2)
3. Rebuilding a System of Law Proves the Christian is a Lawbreaker
4. Seeking to Live By the Law Destroys All Hope of Salvation
REVIEW
THE ACCUSATION – Those justified by faith still sin. Thus if Christ teaches justification by faith it means that Christ promotes sin.
Three underlying assumptions hidden in the accusation of the Judaizers: (1) Common virtue (virtue needed to produce a civilized society) and Christian virtue are the same. (2) Fear is the only viable motivator for Christian virtue. (3) Grace is an unreliable motivator for holiness and Christian virtue.
REBUTTAL OF THE THREE UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS —
True Christian virtue is motivated by love, not fear. Thus we are told to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, mind, strength and soul. As the members of the Triune God serve each other by love, so we are to be motivated to Christian virtue and service by love for the Triune God!
ILLUSTRATION: Apocryphal story. Jesus tells his disciples all to pick up a stone for him. All pick up large stones. Peter thinks this through and says a stone is stone and picks up a small one. They walk for four hours and then Jesus says, let’s have lunch. He turns all of the stones into bread. Peter has a very small lunch. Jesus tells them again to pick up a stone for him and carry it. Peter now understands and picks up a large stone. He carries it for four hours and almost gets a hernia. Jesus leads them to the side of a river and tells them to all throw their stones into the river. Then Jesus directs them to continue their journey. Peter remonstrates about throwing the stone into the river instead of turning it into bread. Jesus asks, “Who were you carrying the stone for, Peter. For yourself or for me?”
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets. (Mt. 22:37-40, ASV)
“To see the law by Christ fulfilled / And hear His pardoning voice / Changes a slave into a child / and duty into choice.” (Cowper)
Love, not fear, is the underlying motivation for all true Christian virtue. Fear, as a motivation for serving God is sub-Christian.
INTRODUCTION
Paul did not deal with the underlying assumptions. He did build a strong case why those justified by faith can live a virtuous life, not driven by fear, but motivated by love.
TABLE ACTIVITY: What arguments does Paul use to show why a person truly justified by faith will live a virtuous, godly life? (Use the Flip-Chart to record Paul’s arguments.)
I. REBUILDING A SYSTEM OF LAW PROVES THE CHRISTIAN TO BE A LAWBREAKER
If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. (Gal. 2:17)
WHAT DID PAUL DESTROY? (tear down, demolish throw down)
He threw down the ceremonial law as obligatory for followers of Christ. For example, he did no demand circumcision as a rite of passage for Christian converts. He did not demand observance of Jewish table laws and thus ate with the Gentiles.
Paul uses the person pronoun, “If I rebuild what I destroyed . . .” but he is really referring to Peter too, for Peter destroyed the law when he ate with the Gentiles in the house of Cornelius (Acts 10-11)
He said that observance of Jewish ceremonial law did not provide merit with God, the righteousness demanded of God.
“For he himself is our peace who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.” (Eph. 2:14-15)
Neither Peter nor Paul destroyed the need to obey the moral law. Both, throughout the NT, reinforce the need to obey the moral law again and again!
REBUILDING THE LAW – WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
Simply reinstituting the ceremonial law as essential for both salvation and personal righteousness before God.
The Judaizers wanted to rebuild the system of human merit that came crashing down on the Road to Damascus. Paul did not want to rebuild that ceremonial system and lock Christians inside its wall.
I PROVE THAT I AM A LAWBREAKER
(1) He is a lawbreaker for tearing down the law in the first place.
“If I rebuild something that I have torn down, I admit that I was wrong to tear it down” (Gal 2:18 – God’s Word Translation).
(2) Both Paul and Peter are lawbreakers because taught others to break the ceremonial law.
(3) He will be required to live by the ceremonial law again which no Jewish person ever kept perfectly and thus he will be a lawbreaker again.
Rebuilding the ceremonial law puts him back in the bind of being unable to fulfill the ceremonial law and thus setting himself up to be a lawbreaker again.
(4) They will have no salvation from the moral law, thus continual guilt.
“Anyone who, having received justification through faith in Christ, thereafter reinstates law in place of Christ makes himself a sinner all over again.” (FF Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians, pg. 142)
(5) By reinstating the ceremonial law they will end up breaking the moral law.
“If it is regarded as “sin” for a Jewish-Christian to eat with a Gentile, it is sin only in the sense of a technical breach of a regulation, but if a Christian allows such a regulation to stand between him and eating with a brother-in-Christ, then he is breaking God’s law in a much more heinous sense, for he is doing violence to the will of God as clearly revealed in Christ” (Duncan 1934:69 as recorded in Hansen, pg. 73).
(6) They will be undermining the foundation of their justification.
“. . . by observing the law no one will be justified.” (Gal. 2:16)
The minute you revert to law observance for acceptance with God you deny justification by faith.
II. SEEKING TO LIVE BY THE LAW DESTROYS ALL HOPE OF SALVATION
“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE LAW TO THE JEW
ILLUSTRATION: A typical Jewish attitude to the law from an epitaph on a first century tomb: Here lies Regina . . . She will live again, return to the light again, for she can hope that she will rise to the life promised, as a real assurance, to the worthy and the pious in that she has deserved to possess an abode in the hallowed land. This your piety has assured you, this your chaste life, this your love for your people, this your observance of the Law, your devotion to your wedlock, the glory of which was dear to you. For all these deeds your hope for the future is assured. (Taken from Ryken, pg. 62)
“It was unimaginable (I suppose) for the Jew to conceive of a moral life that did not take its starting point from the law of Moses.” (Scot McKnight, 123)
For Paul the “works of the law” are more than just ceremonial “ethnic boundary markers.” They are also the foundation of moral righteousness.
WHAT IT MEANS TO “DIE TO THE LAW”
“To die to the law is to renounce it and to be freed from its dominion, so that we have no confidence in it and it does not hold us captive under the yoke of slavery.” (Ryken, 72)
So by dying to the law, the law loses all control over him. The law has no control over a dead man. He has no further relationship with the law. He is abandoning it as a means of eternal salvation.
Paul used the concept of death as a means of breaking his relationship with the law. When you are dead traffic laws, civil laws … all laws lose any power over you.
PAUL PERSUADED BY THE LAW TO RENOUNCE THE LAW
Why doesn’t he say, “It was through the Gospel I died to the law”? Instead he says “Through the law I died to the law. . . .”
QUESTION: How did the law persuade Paul to renounce and abandon the law?
(1) Paul Died to the Law Through the Death of His Substitute
“I am crucified with Christ . . . . “ (Gal 2:20)
(2) Paul Already Had the Curse of Death on Him Due to the Law.
“The law by his experience under it taught him his own inability to meet its spiritual requirements and its own inability to make him righteous, and thus led him to abandon it and seek salvation in Christ.” (Button (1921:133) as quoted in Hansen, 74)
“Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” (Gal. 3:10) “Cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out.” (Deut. 27:26)
The law silences our praise of our works; it shows none are righteous, we become conscious of sin (Rom. 3:19-20). The helps us know what sin is (Romans 7:7). The law helps us see sins ugly head (Romans 7:8). The law puts me to death, showed me my desperate, impossible state (Rom. 7:9-10).
A Closer Look at the Rich Young Ruler in Luke 18:18-24
TURN TO / READ Luke 18:18-24
QUESTION: Which of the Ten Commandments does Jesus fail to quote?
The first four commandments relate to our relationship to God, the final six in our relationship to man. Jesus quotes Law 5-9 but does not quote # 10 about covetousness.
“If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.” (Matthew 19:21-22)
A Closer Look at Romans 7:7-11
TURN TO / READ: Romans 7:7-11
The best illustration of Gal. 2:19 is found in Romans 7:7-11.
Paul would not have accepted Voltaire’s analysis of mankind, at least for himself: “Tormented Adams in a bed of mud.”
Paul certainly had an understanding of sin in a theological sense. If you would have asked him what sin was, he would have given a good explanation. But he didn’t have a personal understanding, a spiritual understanding of sin. He only discovered that when he dug beyond the external idea of sin and saw sin as a power in his heart.
Various translations of Roman 7:7 – I would not have known what sin was except through the law (NIV). It was the law that showed me my sin (NLT). Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin (ESV).
The Tenth Commandment: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” (Ex. 20:17)
The principle of evil that dwells in my soul found a means and way through the Tenth Law of the Decalogue to stir up within the center of my being multiple types of sinful desires. If there was no Law # 10 forbidding sinful desires, the sinful desires would still have existed but I would not have been aware of them. (Rom. 7:8, Paraphrase)
Covet means to have wrong desires, lust. Lust means over-desire. You can actually ‘lust’ after good things, e.g. have an over-desire for a good thing, can be lust, or coveting.
“. . . when the commandment came . . . “ (Rom. 7:9) … when he started thinking through the implications of the Tenth Commandment.
The Tenth Commandment caused Paul to lose all hope in fulfilling the moral law.
ILLUSTRATION: Paul’s life was as if he was passing through a great tunnel. The tunnel was the law but at the end of the tunnel would be heaven and eternal life. Then he became aware of how he was continually breaking the law, how he was under a curse, how he had no hope of heaven. His law tunnel caved in on him and crushed him to death.
Do we realize how wicked our hearts really are? Do we ever seriously examine our hearts in the light of God’s Word?
ILLUSTRATION: George Whitfield, the great British evangelist, wrote something like this: I sin when I pray, I sin when I preach. Indeed my own tears need to be washed with the blood of Christ.
When we are conscious of our own heart’s depravity, and die to any hope of winning God’s acceptance by our good behavior and good works, we will then truly appreciate and understand justification by faith.
SO WHAT???
1. Love, not fear, is the only acceptable, underlying motivation for Christian virtue.
2. By not rebuilding the law Paul avoided putting all Christians for the next 2000 years into legal bondage to Jewish ceremonial law.
3. When we claim to be ‘dead to the law’ we mean that the law has no authority over us as to our justification by faith, our hope of eternal life.
4. The Law is God’s gift that is used to show us our sin and prepare us for the Gospel message.