The School of Christ with Chip Brogden
24. The Gospel of Grace, Part 2
(upbeat music) - Support for this program comes from listeners like you. To find out more, visit us online at theschoolofcryst.org. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Living in the New Covenant, part 24 of the overall series, and this is part two of what I'm calling within this the gospel of grace. We've come quite a long ways. We still have a ways yet to go, but the end is in sight. I'm always kind of a little bit sad to come to the end of an epic series like this. But there is still always much more to share by the spirit. It's just, I enjoy it. I enjoy getting into the depth of it. I still feel like there's much more that could be said, but perhaps something that has been said in the last 23 messages resonates with you and gives you deeper insight and revelation and appreciation for all that God has done for us and bringing us in Christ so that we can live in this new covenant. And for purposes of the recording, my voice is not so great, my throat, I'm still having problems. So just give me some grace on that and try to overlook how I sound and focus more on the message and not the messenger. How about that? So we will resume where we left off last week. We started out talking about no other gospel and got a part way through it. We're gonna finish up that part of it. This week and then maybe a couple of more, three more after this and we'll be finished with the series. We'll leave it with the Lord and leave it with you. We'll go back and tie up those solutions. This evening, dead to the law, law versus grace and walk in the spirit. Again, covenant has been the focus of our study. First mentioned in the book of Genesis chapter six and we started there and began to study this idea of a covenant, the Hebrew word is "bereth." It is Strong's number H1285. A covenant is not just a promise, it is an alliance, it's a treaty, it's a pledge that brings two or more parties together as one and these covenants in the Bible are made between people, between nations. Also between husband and wife as in the marriage covenant but the most significant biblical covenants are the ones made between God and mankind. That's the first mention of covenant in Genesis six when God told Noah, "I'm gonna make a covenant with you." So God has made many covenants in his dealings with mankind. The last covenant before Christ was with the Jews, with the Hebrews with Israel, they broke that covenant. And so in the midst of that, God says, "I'm going to make a new covenant." And he also said he is going to make Christ give him as a covenant to the people. So the, what we call the new covenant is rightfully referred to as the only covenant. It is new to the Gentiles, it is or new to the Jews, I should say, but to us Gentiles who were not Jews. It's the only covenant that God ever made for the redemption of man and he made it through Christ. The covenant that he made with Israel that they broke, he says, "I'm going to make a new covenant since you broke this one." And we have studied all of that in great detail. So now we are living in this new covenant and it is also called the everlasting covenant in Hebrews 13, 20 sealed by the blood of Jesus. In fact, Hebrews will be the capstone of this series as we go through and understand and discern by the spirit, the ultimate revelation of this new covenant and what it meant to both Jews and Gentiles in terms of their relationship to the institutional religion of their day, which was Judaism. But right now we're still looking at how the early Gentile believers in Jesus adjusted themselves to the demands of the Jewish believers that they should be circumcised and keep the law of Moses in order to be disciples of Jesus. So that's what we are looking at at the moment. This is the end of a series of covenants God has made throughout his dealings with man. As I say, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and finally the new covenant, the everlasting covenant, the covenant sealed by the blood of Jesus. Well, we said previously that the early Ecclesia, those early believers in Jesus, they were not born again as fully mature, as spiritually advanced. Even the filling of the Holy Spirit is the beginning of a journey. It's not the end of a journey. And this helps to explain why spirit field people can be some of the most carnal fleshly people you'll ever run across. It's a lot of the reason for that is they mistake spiritual power for spiritual maturity. They misunderstand that spiritual gifts means spiritual growth and maturity. And that's not absolutely not the case. We see that when the Holy Spirit first is poured out, it is one of the evidences of that is the gift of speaking in tongues. There's also the gift of prophecy. And with that, a whole distribution of spiritual gifts, as the spirit wills, as he leads and as he provides, but spiritual gifts are not indicative of spiritual fruit. So someone can be filled with a spirit start speaking in tongues and have absolutely no spiritual growth whatsoever. How do I know because that's me? When I was filled with the Holy Spirit at the age of 12 and spoke in tongues, I was a babe, I didn't know anything. And that did not prevent me from being filled with the spirit because it's not about earning or working towards the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It's the grace of God, he pours out his spirit. He bestows gifts according to his will. So spiritual gifts are not indicative of spiritual growth and maturity. And that's why you have the letter to the Corinthians. Paul said, you're filled with the spirit. You've got all of these spiritual gifts. You come behind in no spiritual gift and yet you are carnal. You can't handle the meat. I have to give you with, feed you with milk because you can't handle the meat. There's all kinds of sin in the camp. And so to me that that is an indictment against the modern day charismatic movement and the deception that spiritual gifts, prophecy and speaking in tongues, that that is the apex, that's the acme, that's the sign of spiritual maturity. Actually it's not. It is what makes spiritual growth and maturity possible, walking in the spirit, but where are you going? If you're walking in the spirit, where are you going? It's not for sitting still, it's not for sitting in church and just having exciting church services. What is the point of walking in the spirit? You're on a journey, you're going somewhere. Where are you going? That's the question. So spiritual fruit is more indicative of spiritual maturity than spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts are designed to encourage, to build up, to motivate, to invigorate, to strengthen, to guide us, but to propel us forward into Christ-centered spiritual growth and maturity. So if you are from a charismatic background, if you have been filled with the spirit, if you have exercised spiritual gifts, that's great, that's wonderful. What else are you doing to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus? How has your walk progressed since that early encounter with the Lord? You don't have to take my word for it. You can look in the book of Acts and see they were all filled with the spirit in Acts chapter two, but they still had what I call the residue of religion that they had to get over. They had some growing up to do. Spiritual gifts and miracles notwithstanding. Again, even that is not dependent upon spiritual growth and maturity. Even these babes in Christ can exercise these things. But you see some of that growth and some of the growing pains associated there in the book of Acts, especially when it gets to the point after 10 to 14 years of preaching Jesus only to the Jews that God through a sovereign act of divine intervention poured out his spirit on the Gentiles. And that created a controversy. God set up that controversy to shake them out of their comfort zone and get them to consider the possibility that faith in Jesus and the good news was not just a Jewish phenomenon. Yes, Jesus was Jewish. Yes, he was a Jewish rabbi. Yes, we are as Jews, believers in Jesus. We are still trying to be Jewish and we have created this sect or this denomination within Judaism called Nazarenes. And that's how they went for the first 10 to 14 years. They were the spirit field denomination within the Jewish religion. Right there were the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes. But God was not content with that. And he had given them a good news and a command to go into all the world, preach to the gospel to all people, make disciples of all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem, yes, but not limiting yourself to Jerusalem. So even persecution did not change them. It scattered them, but they still preached Jesus to the Jews only. And finally through that sovereign act of God there in the household of Cornelius, Holy Spirit was poured out of pungentiles and the Jews reluctantly, I gather from the way it reads kind of reluctantly said, "Well, I guess salvation is being offered to the Gentiles as well." But that created a huge controversy. Certain men, it says in Acts 15, five, came up to those new believers. They're in Antioch where they were first called Christians. Not in Jerusalem, but in Antioch, because in Antioch that's where the first non-Jewish believers began to gather into fellowship and Saul and Barnabas, or Paul and Barnabas, were teaching and instructing and leading people into a Christ-centered faith. But Acts 15, five, it says some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up saying it is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses. And so with that controversy and that context in mind, let's go back to Galatians chapter two, beginning in verse 11 as we read, that when Peter had come to Antioch, Paul says I've withstood him to his face because he was to be blamed. For before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles. But when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, "If you being a Jew live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews? We who are Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified. But if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, his Christ therefore a minister of sin, certainly not. For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For through the law, I died to the law that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, 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 comes through the law, then Christ died in vain." So we read this last time again, Paul refers to the certain men who showed up, as now he calls them false brethren, secretly brought in who came in to spy out our liberty that we have in Christ that they might bring us into bondage. You know, they're doing the same thing today. Certain men, and it may be Messianic Jews, or it may be fundamentalist Christians, or Baptist, or prophetic people so called, or whatever the particular denomination or sect is, often they trying to bring you into bondage, and to get you to submit to them. It's interesting that Paul resisted this. He says, "We did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you." He is uncompromising. We are going to obey God, and not man. We are going to submit to God, and we will resist every effort of religion to try and bring us into bondage. So that is what religion does, my friend. You can choose to walk in the liberty and the freedom in which Christ has made you free, or you can allow yourself to be brought back into bondage to religion. You know, some people are in bondage to the idea of fellowship. They have to have fellowship, can't live without fellowship, can't live unless they are interacting with other people, in a church service, or in a group someplace, and they're always looking for others, always looking for others. I'm saying, I'm not going to tell you not to do that, but I'm saying that represents something that could possibly bring you into bondage, or a certain pet doctrine, or a certain favorite belief. And that's all you talk about. And you're trying to persuade everybody to agree with you along this very narrow interpretation of things, it could be prophetic things. It could be eschatology, the last days, it could be the rapture. These are the kinds of things, some people they just, their whole mission in life is to tell everybody that divorce is a sin, and to condemn anyone who's ever been divorced. These are the kinds of religious things that tend to bring people into bondage. It doesn't set them free because it doesn't point them to Christ. Now, I'm not going to say that everyone who engages in these activities are false brethren, sometimes they are genuine, but they're genuinely deceived, they're genuinely misled. Paul pointed out these certain men, and called them false brethren. Now, he didn't say that Peter was false. He didn't say that Barnabas was false, but he says because of fear, fearing those who were of the circumcision that Peter withdrew himself from the Gentiles, and even Barnabas, his right-hand person, his associate, the main person next to Paul there in Antioch was going along with this, because Barnabas, it means son of consolation, and I think that he wanted everyone to get along. He wanted, he was an appeaser. He wanted only the best. He had every good intention, but the challenge with that is there is a time to submit, and there is a time to resist. And the problem with God's people is they typically end up under the influence of religion, submitting the things that God never called them to submit to, and resisting the Holy Spirit instead of resisting the spirit of religion. So that religious spirit was so strong. Even Peter and Barnabas were influenced by it and were led astray, and as I say, there is Paul there standing in the gap, watching what's going on, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He knows exactly what these false brethren are trying to do, and he marvels, it says in verse six, I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel. See, this isn't his first rodeo, my friend. He's already been through this in Antioch, and now he is writing to the believers in the province of Galatia with the same thing going on, and they're falling under the influence of this teaching that says, well, we've got to be circumcised. We've got to keep the law of Moses. We've got to start observing the Sabbath day. That's another thing that people get hung up on. The Sabbath day, is it Saturday, is it Sunday? Are you supposed to have instruments? Are you not? What do you do? What do you don't do? What do you not do? And that's the focus of their entire existence, is to try and persuade people how to keep the Sabbath, when to keep the Sabbath, what you're supposed to do. Same thing with meeting, or with house church. Oh, we've got to do a whole thing about why we're supposed to meet, what we're supposed to do when we meet, how the meetings are to be organized, where the meetings are supposed to take place. We have a chronic case of meetingitis. We have a chronic fever of fellowship. A fellowship fantasy that we keep going back to over and over and over and over again, because somewhere deep down inside, we haven't gotten to the point where Jesus is enough. When Jesus is enough, then you can stand there like Paul and see how the crowd is going and say, "You know what?" He said to Peter before them all. "I'm not going in your direction." That took some guts. That took some intestinal four to two. But that's someone who's been persuaded in Christ. That's someone who has his priorities where they need to be. And he's not going to sacrifice and compromise that in the name of fellowship. How much do we give away and compromise in the name of fellowship? Of not going against the pastor, not going against the people, not doing anything that might call some might be upset or offended. And we get led right away from the simplicity of Christ and we get stuck into this bondage. Paul says, "We did not yield submission even for an hour "that the truth of the gospel might continue with you." I mean, the whole thing is just going over a cliff right now and Paul's watching this happen and he says, "Nope, not going to do it." Praise the Lord for that. Hallelujah for that. And may God raise up men and women of faith, men and women of conviction, men and women of principle, men and women, men and women of revelation who were satisfied in Christ. And if they have fellowship, great. If they don't have fellowship, it makes no difference. Because they know that he is with them always. They know that God sometimes calls them to seasons of solitude. He calls them into the desert. He calls them into the mountaintop alone to pray. He calls them to walk alone. And if they encounter other people, wonderful, but they're not dependent upon other people for their faith or for their motivation or for their encouragement or whatever the case may be. You take it where you can get it, but you're not dependent upon it because you're dependent upon Christ and you're satisfied in him. And I think that really is the foundation of everything. Everything makes sense once you get that figured out. Once you settle in yourself that, that Jesus is enough, everything else, wonderfully, just kind of makes sense from there. This is why we're not going to be led astray by the religious spirit. We're not going to say Jesus is enough, but we need this, that and the other on top of that, no. Paul was persuaded, and I pray that you and I will be persuaded as well. It's at this point of the greatest possible darkness when even Peter and Barnabas are being led astray, that Paul held forth and rebuked Peter publicly, saying to them in front of everybody, in front of the Jews, in front of the Gentiles, in front of the believers, in front of the non-believers, in front of God and everybody else. Bringing forth this wonderful revelation, this wonderful truth, I have been crucified with Christ. And this is the starting point for the gospel of grace because it means I died to the law when I died with Christ. Tremendous, powerful revelation. But that revelation that was part of Paul's principled response to what he saw going on, that had not yet been codified. It had not been written down. It had not been preserved in a way that people could learn and benefit from it. It had not yet been incorporated into a body of teaching and of practice. This was just barely coming forth at a moment of controversy and conflict, and that's the way revelation comes. Listen to what I'm telling you here. Revelation does not come to you, typically sitting on the mountaintop, meditating, basking in the presence of God. And then you get this, you're struck by lightning with this divine revelation. It usually doesn't happen that way. You know how it happens? It happens in the midst of your frustration. It happens in the midst of your wrestling with God. It happens when you're in this dark place, when you're in this depressing place, when nothing makes sense when you're perplexed. And you get before God and you seek Him, and you might have to seek Him a long time. But you're persistent in prayer, persistent in prayer, persistent in prayer, always pray and never quit. Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. The Greek verb there is a verb that expresses continual action. You don't ask one time and then get mad when you don't get it. You continue to ask and you will receive. Continue to seek and you will find, keep on knocking and the door will be open or you'll knock down the door, one or the other, or some other door will open. Persistence, persistence, persistence. But it's in the midst of these difficulties and these conflicts and challenges and controversies that you despair and you get before God and then here comes the breakthrough. And the breakthrough for Paul, I mean, it was at that moment in the Damascus road experience where Christ revealed Himself to Paul. But see, Paul says, I had to go into the desert, into Arabia. He had to get along with God and wrestle with God to be able to express these things and to understand the significance of them and what is the implication? What is the significance of the fact that I am crucified with Christ? How is that significant? What is the meaning of that? Will it means, among other things, and these were the kind of things that would come to Paul there in the desert wrestling with this wonderful revelation. If I was crucified with Christ, then it means I died with Him. It means I was buried with Him. It means I was raised with Him. It means I ascended with Him. I'm seated with Him in the heavenly places. I'm ruling and reigning with Him. And He would, no doubt, have heard of the revelation in John 15. I am the vine, you are the branches. And He would extrapolate from there that if I am in Christ and Christ is in me and the vine and the branches are one, that not just me, but all of the body of Christ, all of us members, individually of the body of Christ, members together, all of us collectively are the crucified, dead, buried, resurrected, ascended, seated and overcoming branches of a crucified, dead, buried, resurrected, ascended, seated and overcoming vine. It cannot be otherwise. And once He saw that and began to put these things together and then He returns and then He sees the possibility that this Jesus movement can get religious in a hurry and was being threatened by religion, which would kill it faster than anything the devil, anything else the devil could throw at it. He tried persecution, that didn't stop it. He tried threatening from the religious system, that didn't stop it. The fastest way to stop it is for certain men, certain believers, so called, of the sect of the Pharisees, injecting and poisoning it with the leaven of religion. That's how you kill it. But that revelation sustained, Paul, then I want to make some points now and just kind of free base here a little bit, making some points because we're not doing a full-blown study of Galatians, we're just going through and observing some of the distinctions that Paul made as to why these Gentiles who were not Jewish, who never had a covenant with God to begin with, why faith in Jesus is not requiring them to suddenly adopt the entire yoke of Judaism. That they can have faith in Jesus, it doesn't mean they have to be a disciple of Moses in order to be a disciple of Jesus. Somebody say amen, say, oh me, or respond in some way that you understand what I'm getting at. You don't have to be a disciple of Moses in order to be a disciple of Jesus. It's the disciples of Moses who are going around saying you must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses in order to be saved. You don't have to be a disciple of Moses in order to be a disciple of Jesus. In fact, it's the disciples of Moses that are going to cause the biggest problems here for these early Christians of both Jew and Gentile descent. But Paul makes this declaration, I am dead to the law, and he said some other things here, Galatians 216, the first point is that no one is saved, justified, or pleasing to God based on law. There's a lot of reasons for that, but one of the main reasons is that you can't keep the law, no one's ever kept the law. And even if they tried to or succeeded partially in keeping the law, it only helped to encourage a hypocritical, holier-than-thal spirit, which is what Jesus was confronting by the time he arrived in Jerusalem. Paul and Galatians 216, what we just read, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. Now he knows that, and they should know that, but he says even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified, no flesh. That includes Jews, that includes Gentiles, that includes everybody, by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified. Well, that word justified is kind of a deep word, but when you hear people or when you think to yourself, I'm not trying to be to earn my salvation. I'm not saying that I have to keep these Old Testament commandments because I think I can earn my salvation. But, okay, fill in the blank. Everything you say after but, that's you trying to justify why you're doing what you're doing. How do you justify it? Well, I justify it. Are you trying to, do you believe that you'll be saved by keeping those things? Well, no, I know, most people are smart enough by now to realize that they can't earn their salvation. And yet, they justify themselves. How? Well, it is part of the Bible. That's how they justify it. Or, I don't do it to earn my salvation. I keep these 613 commandments. But they always say 10 commandments. But, you see, we're keeping these Old Testament commands. Because it really makes God happy. Well, I'm not so sure that it does. Actually, I think it displeases the Lord for us to try and justify ourselves on some basis other than Christ. When the new covenant is based on justification by faith. And that means more than just saying God is satisfied, it means that we're satisfied. Somebody say hallelujah, because that's important. Just listen, justification by faith, we could do a whole series on what that means. But, and I've never heard anyone else put it this way. And thank you Jesus for helping me to express this in a way hopefully that makes sense to people. Justification by faith. And the whole concept of justification, it's not just that it is satisfying to God. But that we are satisfied with it as well. That we are satisfied and we no longer try to justify what we're doing based on any other thing other than faith in Christ and grace being sufficient. That's it. I don't try to justify anything else apart from faith in Christ. See, if God is satisfied with Christ alone, we should be satisfied with Christ alone. Who do we think we are that we can imagine God is satisfied with nothing more and nothing less than Christ. And yet we come along and say that might be good enough for God, but it's not good enough for me. Here's some other things. I need to keep the Sabbath. I need to be circumcised. I need to stop eating pork. I need to start paying tithes on and on and on and on. So justification by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law. Justification is not just God being satisfied, it's us being satisfied. And if we'll stop trying to add to God's requirement and add what we require and what Moses required and what the denomination requires and what everybody else expects, if we'll stop trying to justify everything and just release all of that, we can embrace the simplicity of Christ so that not only is God satisfied, with our justification by faith in Christ alone, but we are satisfied with that as well. Because the fact is no one has saved and no one can justify their righteousness or being pleasing to God based on the law. The next important point that he makes is to be crucified with Christ is to be dead to the law. (mouse clicking) See, I would argue that Gentiles are not under the law to begin with because God never made a covenant with the Gentiles, he made a covenant with the Jews. But Paul is basing and extrapolating this fact. God did make a covenant with the Jews, he made a covenant with me personally with Paul as a Jewish person, and so it was important for him to understand that he and by extension, all the Jews are dead to the law now because Christ is the fulfilling of the law. And then that made it all the more important to be able to then extrapolate from there and say, if God considers us dead to the law, we can't go to the Gentiles who don't even have a covenant and try to bring them and bondage to the law that we're not even alive to anymore. Paul said, and we just read it, Galatians 2, 19, and 20, through the law, I died to the law that I might live to God. Now, where in the world did all of that happen, Paul? Well, it happened here. I have been crucified with Christ. No one had ever talked about that before. This whole concept of identification with Christ, I mean, Jesus talked about it in the vine and the branches, but no one in the book of Acts is talking along those lines. No one is teaching along those lines. Paul is going deeper, he's going farther. He is moving into a realm of the spirit that Jesus was discussing in John 15 with the vine and the branches. And if this is true, then Paul says, I've been crucified with Christ. When the vine was crucified, I was crucified. And it is no longer I who live, he says, but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So he says to be crucified with Christ is to be dead to the law. If you're dead to the law, as a Jew, you're not obligated to that anymore. And if you are a Gentile, you certainly can't put yourself under the burden of something that is no longer enforceable. Now, he will expand upon this idea of being dead to the law in the book of Romans, which we will look at and consider when we get to that point. But this is just the very, very beginnings of this wonderful revelation of the gospel of grace. The next thing he points out to them and will not read these scriptures because they are too many and I encourage you to read the entire thing on your own. It will only take a few minutes. But here are some of the points relevant to our discussion of law versus grace. Galatians three, verses two and three. Paul makes the point that the spirit was poured out based on faith, not based on law. This is the same point that Peter understood in the moment and kind of forgot and had to be reminded by Paul. But he says, this only I want to learn from you. Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Well, you know, that assumes that they did receive the spirit. Many people today have not received the spirit and they're just flopping around in the depth of a religious delusion. So they haven't received the spirit to begin with. They got hold of a doctrine, got hold of a teaching, got hold of some book, got hold of some group on the internet. And now they are considering themselves Torah, observant, messianic, whatever. And they haven't even received the spirit. So what would they know in the first place? I'm not trying to be arrogant about that. I'm just saying, you're in a whole different dimension if you've not received the Holy Spirit. I mean, whatever else we can say about the need for growth and maturity in the early ecclesia and the fact that they still had the residue of religion and everything out, they had this advantage. They were being governed by the spirit. They had the spirit. When they prayed, the place was shaken. They exercise the gifts of the spirit. Were they 100% spiritually mature? No, they didn't need to be, but they were growing. That's the point. They had the spirit. And so long as they had the spirit, they would eventually come around right. They would be, they were able to be led in the right direction. If you don't have the Holy Spirit, you're just flopping around. If you didn't receive the spirit in Acts, chapter two, and you're just trying to keep up with what's going on, you're at a tremendous disadvantage. So this was the thing that Paul, he would go, I think it's Acts 19 or it may be farther out than that. I don't know. Acts, they came across believers. I bet it is 19. Yeah, Acts, chapter 19. It happened when Apollos was at Corinth that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus and finding some disciples. He didn't just say, oh, great. We have some disciples of Jesus. Let's start teaching. Let's start discussing doctrine. Now, the first thing he said when he found some disciples is did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Because that makes every difference. And what do they say? We have not so much has heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. And so Paul says, well, then into what were you baptized? And they said, well, we're baptized with John's baptism. And so he baptized them in the name of the Lord Jesus and then Paul laid his hands on them and the Holy Spirit came upon them and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. Now, there were about 12 men and all. That was the beginning of a brand new dimension, a brand new experience. They're genuine believers. They love the Lord. They believe in Jesus. And that's great. But Paul says, have you been filled with the Spirit or not? Did you receive the Spirit when you believed? And they said, what spirit? Didn't even know there was a Holy Spirit. I mean, that's the beginning. Everything else, you're just flamming around. In these endless religious and doctrinal debates, you don't even have the spirit. What do you know? You haven't been there. You haven't seen anything. You haven't heard anything. You're just regurgitating the same stupid religious arguments that everyone else does. Well, Paul asked the Galatians, did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? So, see, all that work of the law stuff only came afterwards. That's all the extras and the additions of religion trying to come and add to the simplicity of Christ. But see, these 12 men in Acts, chapter 19, they were genuine, but they didn't know anything. They didn't know that there was a Holy Spirit. And yet, Paul laid hands on them. The Holy Spirit came upon them, just as he did in the house of Cornelius and on everyone else. Through faith, not through works of the law, he didn't tell them they needed to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses and then be baptized in the name of Jesus. And then I lay hands on you and then you'll receive the Holy Spirit. No, he didn't do all of that. So he asked the Galatians, you've received the Spirit. How did you receive the Spirit? Did you do it because you were circumcised and kept the law of Moses? Or was it by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish having begun in the Spirit? Are you now being made perfect by the flesh? That's what religion is trying to do is make you perfect by the flesh. To finish in the flesh what God began in the Spirit, that's just stupid. It makes no sense. It only makes sense in the context of a religious addiction. Now, right along with that, here's a secondary point, Galatians 3, 5, and 6. He says, "He who supplies the Spirit to you "and works miracles among you, "does he do it by the works of the law "or by the hearing of faith?" So God poured out his Spirit on them through faith and God continues to work miracles among them and other spiritual gifts and other things to encourage their faith and to strengthen them in a Christ-centered faith. So is that ongoing? Is God doing all of that because they're keeping the law of Moses or because they're continuing to walk by faith in Christ? And then he makes a comparison to Abraham who believed God and it was a counter to him for righteousness. Circumcision was a sign that Abraham believed God and that God had already justified him based on his heart, not based on what he did later on, especially when you reduce circumcision or baptism or christening or any other act of religious ordinance to the level of a ceremony, of a ritualistic behavior. John the Baptist says, "Don't deceive yourselves "into thinking we have Abraham as our Father "so everything's fine." He says, "God can take these stones "and raise up children of Abraham." We can't rely upon these external religious ceremonies anymore. The spirit works among them. The spirit works among us based on faith, not based on the law. Another point, Christ became cursed for us to redeem us from the curse of the law. And this is blasphemy for the Jews. You understand why the Jews reject Paul? Even, listen, even the messianic Jews reject Paul because they think Paul is the antichrist. They think Paul is preaching another gospel. They are adamant that Jesus is still telling us we have to live under the law. They're doing the same thing today that they did 2,000 years ago. Well, Paul says as many of the works of the law are under the curse for it is written, cursed as everyone who does not continue in all the things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But then he says, "Christ has redeemed us "from the curse of the law, "having become a curse for us for it is written, "cursed as everyone who hangs on a tree." We're going through these points very quickly because I want to complete this before my time is up. The law was fulfilled. He says, "When it led us to Christ." You might wonder, well, what's the point of the law if we couldn't keep it? Well, the law was intended to show us that we couldn't keep it so that it would prepare us and lead us to Christ. Before faith came, he says in Galatians 3, 23, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore, the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. Once you've graduated with a master's degree, you don't go back to kindergarten. Hello, everybody hearing me. Okay, once you have come to Christ on the basis of faith, justified by faith means God is satisfied and you are satisfied. Both are equally satisfied with the other and that Christ is enough and that Jesus is enough and his grace is sufficient. That's a master's degree in faith. Well, you don't go back to kindergarten and start trying to earn your salvation. You wouldn't do that. So the law was a tutor, a teacher, to bring us to Christ, a guardian. To give us some guidelines and some guard rails, but to ultimately bring us into faith in Christ and to appreciate exactly how wonderful this new covenant is. Well, Paul says, "Now, if you try to be justified by the law, if you try to justify yourself or defend yourself before God based on the law, then that law is incompatible with grace. Galatians 5.2, indeed Paul, I Paul say to you, if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised, he is a debtor to keep the whole law." See, these false brothers sneaking in, trying to bring everybody into bondage, they never told them that they are a debtor to the whole law. They just said, "It'll really make God happy if you're circumcised." And along with that, there's the Sabbath day and along with that, there's tithing, but see, they didn't tell them there's 613 commandments that you're gonna have to keep or you are considered a law-breaker. Paul says, "Listen, every one of you who becomes circumcised and tries to justify themselves on this one point of the law, you are obligated to the entire law." But more importantly, he says, "You have become estranged or separated from Christ. You who attempt to be justified by law, you have fallen from grace." It's easy to follow from grace. All you have to do is start trying to please God on the basis of some religious ideology. You who attempt to be justified by law, see, this is so tremendous. God will never justify anyone according to the law, only you can do that. You who attempt to please God on the basis of law, and it could be the mosaic law, it could be the fundamental truths of the assemblies of God, it could be the canons of the Catholic church, it doesn't make any difference. You've become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law, by rules, by regulations, by traditions of men, you have fallen from grace. He goes on to say that faith-working by love is more important than circumcision. Galatians 5, 6, "In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision, nor uncircumcision to veils anything but faith-working in love." (laughs) He's just leveling up the discussion to a completely different dimension. In Christ, it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is faith-working through love and that's what makes the faith possible, is the fact that it is grounded in love, not in legalism. Now, it is at this point that many of the law-abiding, Torah-observant believers, and maybe some of the people listening to me right now, brings out their big objection, objection to grace, and they might say something like this, okay, Paul, perhaps the Gentiles don't need to be circumcised or keep the law of Moses to be saved. But surely, they need some moral code, they need some standard of conduct. At least they need the Ten Commandments to keep them from sin. How are they going to be holy if you're saying that there's no law for them to follow? And when you say we are dead to the law, are you saying it is okay to commit murder, adultery, and blasphemy, how can you say we are dead to the law? Why, without the law, it will just be a free-for-all. People will say and do whatever they please, we need law to keep sin in check. Well, that's a common objection. Let's look at it as we close, I've got just a few seconds remaining, and then we'll continue next time. Does the law keep sin in check? Does the law keep people from sinning? The answer is no. It tells you what God wants. It gives you the consequences for disobedience and the blessing for obedience, but it doesn't give you the power to fulfill it. Does the law keep sin in check? Let's ask a question. Does a speed limit prevent anyone from speeding? See, we have the laws for a reason. We have a speed limit, depending on where you are, the road conditions and so forth. There's usually a speed limit. There's a few exceptions out in the middle of nowhere, where it's safe or on the Audubon in Germany, maybe a few other places. But for most parts of the world, there's some kind of a speed limit to keep people in check because speeding is dangerous. It can hurt someone, you can cause an accident. Well, does a speed limit prevent anyone from speeding? No, it doesn't. People still speed. Does the threat of punishment prevent anyone from speeding? Well, that might keep some people from speeding, but some people don't care. So just having a law doesn't prevent anyone from breaking the law. You can apply that to any situation you want to. Here's a follow-up question. Did the law of Moses with its 613 mitzvaht or commands? Did that keep Israel from sin? Did it prevent Israel from rebelling against God? Did it prevent Israel from their rejection of Christ as Messiah? Did the law of Moses keep sin and check? Of course not. Well, doesn't that demonstrate what Paul just said? That no one is justified by keeping the law? Well, having the law isn't enough and trying to keep the law doesn't work later on, he's going to say, none of you keep the law. None of the ones trying to bring you under the law actually keep the law. And here's why. The reason is tablets of stone cannot change hearts of stone. Tablets of stone cannot change hearts of stone. Laws will not prevent sin, only a new heart and a new spirit. So we can issue commands, we can create laws, we can make rules and regulations, we can create doctrinal statements and we can try to set up this system that keeps sin and check or another way to put it to keep error and check. People are so afraid that they're going to make an error, that something is going to be said and done that is wrong and rather than just learn as you go, they want to create all this system to make sure that we don't have any doctrinal impurity. In other words, make sure that we're not saying or doing anything that contradicts the religious leadership who created the document. All of these things are done because we don't trust people to be led by the spirit and to be governed by the law of love. But the reality is that tablets of stone cannot change hearts of stone. We need a new heart and a new spirit and that is precisely what God said when he planted the seed of the new covenant in the old, one of those places is Ezekiel 36, one of those seeds of the new planted within the old and he said straight out, you broke the covenant and so I'm going to do something new and it's not going to be the way it was with your fathers. It's not going to be another law of Moses round two or second chance. We're going to do something new. He says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh or a living flesh or a living heart. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them. That is the heart of the new covenant recorded in the New Testament because tablets of stone and we've seen it demonstrated and there's another purpose for the law. A divine experiment. Well, it wasn't God who failed, it was the people who failed. Tablets of stone cannot change hearts of stone. Commandments written in stone cannot change a stony heart. We need a new heart and a new spirit and that is what this new covenant celebrates and walks in. If you'd like to get additional teachings, audio recordings, books and other Christ-centered resources to help you grow spiritually, visit us online at theschoolofChrist.org.