THE ACCUSATION AND ARGUMENT AGAINST JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH (Part 8)
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 that Christ death is the only way of salvation thus enabling us to serve God out love.
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 ARGUMENTS AGAINST / FOR
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH
1. The Accusation Against Justification by Faith – Godlessness
2. The Underlying Assumptions in the Accusation – Fear & Love
Why We Can’t Go Back Under the Law
3. Rebuilding a System of Law Proves the Christian is a Lawbreaker
4. Seeking to Live By the Law Destroys All Hope of Salvation
Why I Can Live a Godly Life Apart from the Law
5. I Am Motivated to Godliness by Christ’s Love for Me.
6. I Am Liberated from Sin’s Power by My Death with Christ
7. I Am Indwelt by Christ and He is My Strength
8. Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret
9. Depending on the Law for Salvation Makes the Crucifixion of Christ Meaningless
KEY “SO WHATS” FROM POINTS 1-8
GAL. 2:17
“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!”
1. Those justified by grace are not perfect. They still sin. They are “Simul Justis Et Peccator.”
2. The old man (old self) or Adamic Nature can still dominate and control a child of God.
3. Justification through faith in Christ appears to be a dangerous doctrine because it removes obedience to moral codes as a means to eternal salvation.
GAL. 2:18
“If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker”.
4. Many claim that we need the law. Fear of not meeting God’s demands is the best motivator for holiness.
5. So, though delivered from Jewish ceremonial and cultural law we tend to build our own system and lock ourselves up in religious duties.
6. Love, not fear, is the only acceptable, underlying motivation for Christian virtue. Holiness generated by fear is sub-Christian.
7. The believer’s heart must be re-engineered so that the love of the Triune God is the main motivation for living a godly life.
GAL. 2:19
“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.”
8. 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.
Paul had labored all his life with a nagging fear that he wasn’t doing enough, that he wasn’t good enough. His understanding of the law as a ladder to heaven gave him hope. When the ladder broke he was broken.
“The religious commandments were so heavy that they crushed my spirit and I gave up, with no hope of please God” (Paraphrase of 2:19).
9. Christ’s sacrificial death for me personally on the cross should motivate me to live a righteous life pleasing to the Triune God.
There is a 180 degree shift from living to meet the laws demands to now living so as to love and please God.
GAL. 2:20
One outline often used for Galatians 2:20: The Relinquished life, The Exchanged Life, The Empowered Life.
I have been crucified with Christ . . .
10. The “old man,” our “old nature” is not eradicated when we experience redemption and are adopted into God’s family.
11. When we are born-again we are automatically “Born Crucified.” Christ’s death simultaneously cancelled my sin (dying for me) and delivered me from its power (my dying with Him).
12. Our union with Christ in His death is an objective, historical event that is also mystical in that it transcends rational thought.
“. . . buried with Him through baptism into His death . . . united with Him . . . in His death . . . our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with that we should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone who has died has been freed from sin” (Rom. 6:4-8).
13. We can only imitate Christ and be conformed to His image as we reckon ourselves crucified with Christ.
READING: “The practical outworking of union with Christ comes into focus in Paul’s ethical appeal (5:13-6:10). There we find that the experience of union with Christ includes both passing (being led of the Spirit) and active (walking in the Spirit) dimension. So it would be a mistake to take Paul’s words I no longer live, but Christ lives in me as a proof text for total passivity in the Christian experience. The very next phrase underscores the necessity of active faith: the life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God (v. 20). We do not become just empty pipes that God’s power flows through, as I’ve heard preachers say. I no longer live as an egocentric person in obedience to all my selfish passions and desires, for Christ is now at the center of my life. Now I live in obedience to him, for he loved me and gave himself for me (Hansen, 76-77).
“Walk in (live by) the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature . . . If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body you will live . . . Abstain from sinful desires . . . You were taught . . . to put off your old self . . . . put to death whatever belongs to you . . . . rid yourselves [of your earthly nature] . . . (Gal. 5:16; Romans 8:13; I Peter 2:11; Ephesians 4:22; Col. 3:5-8).
It is not hocus-pocus …. It is focus …. Focusing on our union with Christ in His death and resurrection and focusing on pleasing and glorifying Him with our lives!
. . . 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 . . .
14. The Triune God dwells in those justified by faith, redeemed by grace.
“Everything is different now, because we ourselves are different. See how daringly personal Paul makes it: Christ ‘gave himself for me’. ‘Christ . . . lives in me’. No Christian who has grasped these truths could ever seriously contemplate reverting to the old life” (Stott, 66).
And when we know that where one member of the Triune God is, the other members are there too. Bible verses indicate that both the Father and the Spirit indwell the believer. Thus our hearts are a McMansion …. Not because we are good but because who indwells us. The Bible speaks of our bodies being the temple of God! (I Cor. 6:19)
“Jesus replied, ‘If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him’” (John 14:23). (Note: The word home in vs. 23 is the identical Greek word for “mansions” (KJV) and “rooms” (NIV) in vs. 2.
HYMN: “CHRIST LIVETH IN ME”:
Once far from God and dead in sin,
No light my heart could see;
But in God’s Word the light I found,
Now Christ liveth in me.
Christ liveth in me (2x)
Oh, what a salvation this,
That Christ liveth in me.
As rays of light from yonder sun
The flowers of earth set free,
So life and light and love came forth
From Christ living in me.
As lives the flower within the seed,
As in the cone the tree,
So, praise the God of truth and grace,
His Spirit dwelleth in me.
With longing all my heart is filled,
That like Him I may be,
As on the wondrous thought I dwell,
That Christ liveth in me.
15. Christ’s power within us, like a time release capsule, is released as we come in faith to Him, contrite (crushed, broken, contrite, humble, desperate, weary) with the sole purpose of seeing His name glorified in our lives.
When we ask that Christ’s life be manifested in and through us, His character qualities, we are always praying according to His will.
“From the perspective of Paul’s argument, the point is that, although justification in Christ does mean that one abandons dependence on the law and becomes a sinner in that sense (v. 17), it does not mean actually committing sin, since it also and at the same time means living a new life of union with Christ: Christ lives in the believer, and the believer lives his present, earthly life by faith in Christ” (Ronald Fung, 124)
Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret
16. Accepting the reality of my oneness and union with Christ in His death and resurrection and resting in that reality. Resting in Him, living in the reality of this divine union daily as His life (strength, patience, kindness, grace, mercy, goodness) flows into me and through me.
QUESTION: Luther said, “A person stares at the Gospel like a cow stops at a new gate”. What did he mean?
IX. DEPENDING ON THE LAW FOR SALVATION MAKES THE CRUCIFIXTION OF CHRIST MEANINGLESS
I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing! (Gal. 2:21)
“[Gal. 2:21] . . . the key verse of the Epistle to the Galatians; it expresses the central though of the epistle. The Judaizers attempted to supplement the saving work of Christ by merit of their own obedience to the law. That, says Paul, is impossible; Christ will do everything or nothing: earn your salvation if your obedience to the law is perfect, or else trust wholly to Christ’s completed work; you cannot do both; you cannot combine merit and grace; if justification even in the slightest measure is through human merit, then Christ died in vain” (J Gresham Machen , Ryken, 77). [J. Gres’am May’chin, last of the great Princeton Theologians who broke away and started Westminister Seminary and also the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.]
DEPENDING ON THE LAW NEGATES THE CROSS
QUESTION: Is Paul overstating the problem? Why can’t it be both/and instead of either/or?
Paul is adamant that attempting to be righteous through law / rule keeping negates the value of the cross, the death of Christ.
READING: “For the sake of argument, assume that there is another way to be justified, apart from the work of Christ. Suppose that there is some procedure for getting right with God. Imagine, for example, that what Paul’s opponents were saying was true, that God will accept us only if we keep the law of Moses, getting circumcised and all the rest of it. Now explain why Christ died on the cross. Obviously not to justify sinners, because this is something that sinners must do for themselves. The cross is necessary only if it has the power to bring sinners into a right relationship with God” (Ryken, Pg. 77).
“The establishing of the law is the abolishing of the Gospel” (M. Luther).
Adding something to the Gospel is like taking an Olympic Gold Medal and covering it with bronze.
“If we add works of the law to the sacrifice of the cross, then indeed we make a mockery of Jesus’ death just as the soldiers who spat upon him, the thieves who hurled insults at him and the rabble who shouted, ‘Come down from the Cross!’” (Timothy George as quoted by Ryken, pg. 78).
“If we can be saved by our own works, then Jesus was a false Messiah who died a worthless death on a meaningless cross” [for nothing] (P. Ryken, 77).
“To commend ourselves to God by [our] own works … it to refuse to let God be gracious. It is to tell Christ that He need not have bothered to die. For both the grace of God and the death of Christ become redundant, if we are masters of our own destiny and can save ourselves” (Stott, 66).
RIGHTOUSNESS – NOT GAINED THROUGH THE LAW
God is a just God. He will not require debts to be paid twice.
You need to forsake your best works, your best deeds to be saved.
George Whitfield is quoted as saying, “I have even to repent of my tears”. Tears, how every sincere cannot save. “ Could my tears forever flow, these for sin could not atone / Thou must save and Thou alone”.
Luther said, “Now the truth of the Gospel is that our righteousness cometh by faith alone without the works of the law”.
The Gospel is a slippery object because of our slimy hands. It is hard for us to grasp it. (Tim Keller)
SO WHAT????
1. The old man, the Adamic nature, that can still dominate the believer, was crucified through our union with Christ in His death. In a real sense we were “born crucified”.
2. We can only be conformed to the image of the Triune God by embracing our union with Christ in His death and resurrection.
3. The believer’s heart needs to be re-engineered so that we are motivated to do God’s will through love and not fear or a need to earn salvation.
4. The power of the Triune God will flow in us and out through us as we come to Him in total brokenness and need with child like faith accompanied by a supreme desire to glorify Him.
5. The minute we feel we need to do anything to earn God’s pardon we are making the cross of Christ meaningless.