[0:00] Please take out your copy of God's Word and turn with me to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 5 and verse 17.
[0:10] ! I have to tell you I was really nervous about doing that without dropping everything.! This morning will be our second consideration of verses 17 through 20 of chapter 5 of Matthew's Gospel.
[0:30] Last week I focused our attention on the first half of verse 17 predominantly where Jesus says, Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
[0:43] And we established together that Jesus has a high view of the Scripture and that the Scripture has a high view of Him.
[0:53] We learned that the Jews of Jesus' day referred to the law in four different ways. Let me remind you of those quickly.
[1:03] First, they referred to the law as the Ten Commandments. It was the law of Moses found in Exodus 20. They also used this term to refer to the Pentateuch.
[1:14] The first five books of the Old Testament said to have been authored by Moses. Thirdly, they used this term to refer to the entirety of the Old Testament.
[1:28] And then fourth, to refer to the rabbinical traditions. Those laws that had been added to on top of God's Word revealed in the Old Testament.
[1:42] This is the teaching that Jesus is referring to in Matthew 15 and verse 6 when He says, For the sake of your tradition, you have made void the Word of God.
[1:53] And so there was one erroneous use of this term, right? Referring to the rabbinical traditions. And then there are three that we pay attention to and need to understand as we read through the New Testament.
[2:07] Jesus says, Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. And this phrase in its variance, the law or the prophets here, found in most places, the law and the prophets, is used 15 times in the New Testament, always to refer to the entirety of the Old Testament.
[2:37] So as Jesus says this, Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. This is what He's referring to, right? All of the teaching of the Old Testament.
[2:48] This is the Scripture that Jesus had a high view of. His Bible in His day, which we now consider the Old Testament.
[2:58] And it is this that Jesus says He did not come to abolish. Now in verse 17, Jesus goes on to say, I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
[3:16] Which presses the question, What is the place of the law in the life of the Christian? What do we, the New Testament church, do with the commands and precepts of the Old Testament?
[3:33] Join me in reading today's text, and I'm going to make every effort this morning to answer that question for our benefit to the glory of God. So Matthew 5, verse 17 through 20.
[3:46] It reminds you, beloved, that this is God's Word to us. It was written for His glory and our good, and we would all do well to listen to it in order to believe its promises and obey its commands.
[3:59] Jesus said, Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished.
[4:18] Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
[4:32] For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Now then, if you have been with us for some time, you will remember that we have found ourselves studying the Sermon on the Mount because I set out to begin a study through Exodus chapter 20, where we read of the law of Moses, most commonly called the Ten Commandments.
[5:02] In my preparation, I was surprised to find a broad disagreement concerning the place of the Ten Commandments in the life of the Christian. And today's text was referenced often by every author I read, no matter what position they held.
[5:21] The crux of the disagreement concerns really what Jesus meant by, I have not come to abolish, but to fulfill. So we made a very last-minute change to our preaching schedule on a Friday before that Sunday, which bought me ten weeks to sort through the complexity of the issue.
[5:44] We went to the beginning of Matthew chapter 5, and knowing full well we would arrive at Matthew chapter 5, verses 17 through 20. Here we are today. I'm sure that you have been patiently waiting to know why in the world I brought this stack of a dozen or so, I think it's a baker's dozen of books, and placed them to my left on a stool.
[6:08] I promised that I did not do so to reference each of them this morning. I'm not reading any quotations from any of these books this morning, but rather to show you the level of work it has taken to arrive at the position I will present to you today.
[6:24] Now, to be clear, just because I've used these books doesn't necessarily make me right. None of the authors of these books are infallible. I am certainly not infallible.
[6:38] And we all, like Jesus, ought to have a high view of the Scripture to carefully weigh out what it says and give it careful application to our living.
[6:51] I hope I've navigated that well and will continue to do so in the coming weeks. So this is the complexity of the issue stack, right?
[7:02] So when you're scratching your head, look here and go, yeah, there's a lot, a lot happening here. We may not always agree on all of the Bible's teaching or its application, but make no mistake, beloved, this church agrees that God's Word is the infallible, inerrant, authoritative guide for our lives.
[7:25] I've spent the last decade hanging all that I am on this book. I would be nothing without it, and to be more accurate, without the God of it.
[7:37] It is by this Word that God has established and built this church, and it will be only by neglect of it or uncharitable disagreements about it that this church will be torn apart.
[7:56] So as we pick up matters on which many disagree, let's agree that we will do so as partners. People who love the Bible and the God of it.
[8:10] Let us agree to work together through difficult doctrine and hard matters as God is glorified in our unity in the truth.
[8:21] So, to begin, and to give you a place to start your thinking and mine for what I believe about the place of the law and the gospel, I want to read to you from our statement of faith.
[8:40] So if you're a member of this church, you've agreed to this. This is what our church believes, of the harmony of the law and the gospel. And this is from our statement of faith that is largely based on the New Hampshire Confession of 1833.
[8:55] And it reads as follows. We believe that the law of God is the eternal and unchangeable rule of His moral government. That it is holy, just, and good.
[9:08] And that the inability which the Scriptures ascribe to fallen men to fulfill its precepts arise entirely from their love of sin.
[9:19] To deliver them from which and to restore them through a mediator to unfeigned obedience to the holy law is one great end of the gospel and of the means of grace connected with the establishment of the visible church.
[9:34] I'm going to give that to you in my translation so you understand. We believe that God's word is the eternal, unchangeable rule of His moral government.
[9:46] So we believe in a moral law, and we'll talk more about that later. And that is unchanging. It's holy. It's just. It's good. It's given to us for our good.
[9:58] That our inability to keep it, that the Scriptures say we're unable to keep it as fallen men, comes from our love of sin.
[10:10] And that the gospel of Jesus Christ seeks to deliver us from that, right? From our love of sin to a love of this moral law. And that it is one great end, one of the great ends of the gospel and the grace of the church, that we would do that very thing.
[10:27] Keep this law. This is what the New Hampshire Confession and our statement of faith says about the harmony of the law and the gospel. So that gives us a starting point.
[10:38] As people who believe that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, I assert to you that we have to be so careful to not become antinomians.
[10:55] So there's your big word for today. Antinomians. We believe that the gospel is offered freely to mankind. That there is no work that will ever gain us God's satisfaction.
[11:10] We must be found in Christ's perfect work. And being people who believe this, this is the gospel of Jesus Christ, we must be careful that we don't become antinomians.
[11:22] Antinomians. Antinomians. Antinomian. Antinomian. Antinomian. Antinomian. which is law, so without the law, is one who takes the principle of salvation by faith and divine grace to the point of asserting that the saved are not bound to follow the Ten Commandments.
[11:46] This seems to me to be inconsistent with what Jesus is saying in verses 17 and following. He says, I have not come to abolish them, but rather, but to fulfill them.
[12:04] Now to understand a bit more about this word fulfill, we must take a careful look at what Matthew has done with this word so far. He's established a theme of fulfillment in his gospel account to this point in chapter 5.
[12:21] Now as we begun our study at the beginning of chapter 5, we need to be sure not to miss this. Maybe you picked it up from your Bible reading from this past week as we were at the beginning of Matthew.
[12:35] So to give you an example, Matthew chapter 1, verses 22 and 23. Matthew speaking of the birth of Christ says, All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.
[12:51] Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. So this happened, the way in which Christ was born happened to fulfill, to make God's promise complete that had been spoken by the prophet.
[13:13] We see this also in chapter 2 and verse 15. Chapter 2 and verse 17. Chapter 2 and verse 23. And chapter 4 and verse 14.
[13:27] We see this repetition leading to where we are. And this theme carries throughout the Gospel of Matthew as well beyond today's text. Jesus fulfilled, didn't abolish, but fulfilled the Old Testament by being its fulfillment.
[13:43] The promise kept. All of the Old Testament points to the person and work of Jesus Christ. All of the roads of the Old Testament lead to Him.
[13:59] Jesus also points back to the obedience required by God. So I skipped over one of them as I was reading you these fulfillment verses in Matthew.
[14:12] Matthew 3, verse 14 and 15. When Jesus requests that John the Baptist baptize Him, Matthew records for us, John would have prevented Him saying, so John says to Him, I need to be baptized by You.
[14:30] And do You come to Me? But Jesus answered Him, Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.
[14:43] Then He, being John, consented. So Jesus kept the law perfectly and He is our perfect righteousness.
[14:55] He also means this when He talks about fulfilling the Old Testament. However, Jesus intends for us to grow in righteousness.
[15:10] Isn't that the here and not yet of the Christian faith? We are found righteous in Christ and yet we are growing in righteousness. This is the doctrine of sanctification.
[15:24] God's law is the train tracks on which our life in Christ is meant to run. Jesus, having been raised from the dead and ascended to be seated at the right hand of the Father, gave to us the Holy Spirit who works as the engine that drives us down those tracks.
[15:49] In Ezekiel 36, verse 27, Ezekiel says, on behalf of God, and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules.
[16:07] The prophet Ezekiel does not say, God says, I will put My Spirit within you and you may follow the whim that you feel the Spirit is leading you to.
[16:18] No. He says there will be tracks and I will drive you down those tracks. My statutes and My rules. Further in today's text, Jesus goes on to say, and this will be a sweeping summary of the rest of it, for truly I say to you until heaven and earth pass away, so this apocryphic language when all things are brought to an end, not an iota, not a dot, the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet, the smallest mark in the Hebrew alphabet, none of that will pass from the law until it's all accomplished.
[16:55] All things will be accomplished. And then He goes on in verse 19, and this is the most stark case for me. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
[17:15] Whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. We are meant to pay attention to, to obey, and to teach others to do the same, these commandments of God.
[17:32] And then, as Jesus is doing all throughout the Sermon on the Mount, verse 20, for I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
[17:47] The scribes and the Pharisees were those who were viewed as most holy in this day. We're very good at keeping the outward appearance of holiness, of keeping all of those laws just so-so.
[17:59] But Jesus declares woes upon them, calls them whitewashed tombs, right? Pretty on the outside, but full of dead people's bones. These men were not righteous before God, but they gave the appearance of it.
[18:13] And Jesus, thematically throughout the Sermon on the Mount, is calling us to a greater understanding of the law of God of their day, and hopefully for us as well, that we would see that what God requires of us is whole person righteousness, and that we see that we need the righteousness of Christ for this demand to be met.
[18:38] At the end of Matthew chapter 5, Jesus says, you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.
[18:50] So we find our righteousness in Christ, and then because we are righteous in Christ, we pursue righteousness by the law. So, I am anti-antinomian.
[19:04] I am anti-antinomian. As an interesting aside, many of you are aware of the Great Awakening, the First Great Awakening in North America was sparked off from a church that a man named Jonathan Edwards pastored, and it began with two sermons which were preached back to back, and they were both anti-sermons.
[19:27] The first was an anti-Arminianism sermon. He made big the God of our salvation, and the second was an anti-antinomianism sermon.
[19:40] And what happened as a work of the Spirit through Jonathan Edwards' preaching is that young people got a big picture of their salvation, this God that has saved them, their wretched self saved in God, and they saw their need for obedience to the law, and they went out from these church meetings, and they continued to meet together and to consider the text of the sermon and the sermon itself, to talk about it, and to pursue holiness together.
[20:09] And people in their town said, what is the weirdness that's happening with these young people? They have a huge God, and they are devoting their lives to Him, and they wanted to know about this God.
[20:22] And the Great Awakening was kicked off by young people who had a high view of God and of His law. Now, Sinclair Ferguson once said, words that end in IST and ISM can be dangerous because they pigeonhole people, and people are not pigeons.
[20:44] So, and if you want, sometime I'll actually show you the place that he said it because he says it with a Scottish accent, and it's much more wonderful than that. But they pigeonhole people, and people are not pigeons.
[20:59] So we have to be careful, right, when we set labels on belief systems in this way. Antinomianism comes in different varieties and shapes.
[21:09] I want to share at least three. I'm going to share three. There's at least three with you quickly before we get back to the Scripture. First, there's theological antinomianism.
[21:25] Most every one that I read that took an antinomian stance seemed to fall into this category, this theological or doctrinal category.
[21:37] These antinomians are lovers of the gospel of grace. As they should be. As they absolutely should be. That we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
[21:51] They rightly have seen and experienced the law of God as the thing that drove them to Christ. And the law is used in this way, right?
[22:02] To expose our sinfulness. To show us how far we've fallen short of the holy standard of God. Paul writes about this in Galatians 3, verses 24-26, when he says, So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
[22:28] But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith.
[22:38] When Paul talks of this guardian, and the guardian would have been like a tutor. Somebody that the father would have hired to keep their son in line. And typically this man was given the privilege, the ability to discipline the son.
[22:53] So, you can imagine a young man being taken to school who doesn't want to go to school. And the guardian walks along behind him with a stick and smacks him every time he tries to divert off the road.
[23:06] This is the picture of a guardian, right? That we would be brought to Christ. So the theological antinomian says, look, it's accomplished this task.
[23:18] Now that we're in Christ, we're no longer, as Paul says here, under the law. We've been set free from the law. And they desire to be consistent in that way.
[23:31] I can appreciate that. I can appreciate that they're saying, wait, wait, wait. Right? We want to be very clear not to lay any burden on anybody except to give them the free offer of the gospel.
[23:43] This can be found also in Bunyan's writing in Hogan's Progress. And I don't think Bunyan was an antinomian, but he expresses this. If you stick around here long enough, I'm going to read this entire book to you in little bits and pieces.
[23:57] He expresses this in the story of Faithful. As Faithful has joined Christian on his journey, and they have both gone up this hill called Difficult.
[24:08] This hill called Difficult. He's recounting what happened to him when he went up this hill. And Faithful says, but good brother, hear me out. So soon as the man overtook me, he was but a word and a blow, for down he knocked me and laid me for dead.
[24:26] But when I was a little come to myself again, I asked him wherefore he served me so. Why? Why did he serve me so? He said, because of my secret inclining to Adam the first.
[24:41] Because I think that I can be justified by work. Because of my secret inclining to Adam the first. And with that he struck me another deadly blow on the breast and beat me down backward.
[24:54] So I lay at his feet as dead as before. So when I came to myself again, I cried him mercy. But he said, I know not how to show mercy. And with that, he knocked me down again.
[25:07] He had doubtless made me, made an end of me. But that one came by and bid him forbear, bid him to stop. Christian says, who was that that bid him forbear?
[25:22] And Faithful says, I did not know him at first, but as he went by, I perceived the holes in his hands and his side. Then I concluded that he was our Lord.
[25:33] So I went up the hill. Christian says, that man that overtook you was Moses. He spareth none, neither knoweth he how to show mercy to those that transgress the law.
[25:48] So these antinomians rightly celebrate the fact that those who are in Christ Jesus have his righteousness and are no longer slaves to the law.
[26:02] No longer under the oppression of the law that only condemns. The great preacher, Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, once said, if your presentation of the gospel does not expose it to the charge of antinomianism, you are probably not putting it correctly.
[26:21] And he's saying, there must be this free offer. There must be this come with your wretchedness and receive the righteousness of Christ by faith in Him.
[26:32] But, these antinomians fail to see that having brought us to Christ, the law becomes our friend.
[26:43] Having once served as our enemy to show us our great need of Christ, once found in Him, it becomes our friend.
[26:55] Listen to the way that Paul does this very thing with the law in Ephesians 6, verse 1 and 2, where he instructs children in the church to obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right.
[27:10] He says, honor, citing Exodus 20, honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise. So, he employs it to help us know how it is we should walk in the light of the gospel and that the two are harmonious together.
[27:32] So, that's the first type of antinomian that I would encourage you not to be. Secondly, there's an exegetical antinomian. These antinomians make the law a single page.
[27:45] They want to simplify the law as the law that must be dealt with all together. Right? So, if we are no longer under the law, if the law has been fulfilled, then it is altogether done away with.
[27:58] They fail, I assert humbly to you, to make distinctions in types of law. Civil, ceremonial, and moral.
[28:09] We'll talk about a bit more soon. They fail to do this and they take the law collectively and they sweep it away now that we're found in Christ. And thirdly, there is the experimental antinomian or experiential.
[28:24] I don't know if that's really a word though. Experimental antinomian. This is the one I am most concerned about. This is why we wanted to pick up and preach through Exodus 20 to be sure that we don't err in this way.
[28:41] This antinomian says, I have the grace of God, therefore, I can live however I please. Romans 6, verse 1 and 2, Paul says, what shall we say then?
[28:57] Having been set free from the law, are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? And then he says, in a Greek expletive, by no means.
[29:11] May it never be. This is a response to that. How can we who died to sin still live in it? And how did Paul and the Roman church know whether or not they were living in sin?
[29:30] The law. God's moral law contained in their Scripture. The problem with both antinomianism and on the other side of the coin legalism is that they both divorce the law of God from the character of God.
[29:51] The one fails to see the law as a means to bring us to the loving kindness of God. That'd be the legalist. The other fails to see the law as God's loving instruction for His people.
[30:08] We very quickly could play a game and I won't but if I were to throw a word out to you you could quickly come up with the opposite of the word up down inside outside many who understand this word if I were to say antinomian they would say legalist but the truth of it is that the opposite of antinomianism is gospel and the opposite of legalism is gospel so we work as God's people to walk very carefully down the middle now you turn over your bulletin this is chapter 19 this text of the London Baptist Confession of 1689 for the sake of time I'm going to spare you the history of the London Baptist Confession but I want you to be aware
[31:13] I read to you previously the New Hampshire Confession statement this is much longer statement the Westminster Confession also chapter 19 speaks on this the Westminster Divines spent more pages and more time working through the harmony of the law and the gospel than any other part of their work this isn't quite the longest chapter in the London Baptist Confession but it's very close to it because these divines wanted to be very careful now just because something is old doesn't make it right amen but it can be helpful it can be helpful that when we look back across history and see see the way that churches and councils have ordered themselves looked at the scriptures and arrived at things it can inform us if we're way off it could be that we've wandered away from orthodoxy altogether so let me run through these statements with a few comments and some scripture referencing for them and this is kind of the outline for the case the case against antinomianism so number one
[32:25] God gave to Adam a law of universal obedience written in his heart they base this off Genesis 127 so God created man in his own image so God himself being holy in the image of God he created him male and female he created them God himself obedient to himself right so Adam's created in that very same image and a particular precept of not eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil Genesis chapter 2 verse 16 and 17 by which he bound him in all his posterity to personal entire exact and perpetual obedience promised life upon the fulfilling and threatened death upon the breach of it and endued him with power and ability to keep it so this is the place we find Adam and Eve coming in chapter 2 into the beginning of chapter 3 the command not to eat of this particular and
[33:35] Satan comes along brings deception they give into it want to be like gods and transgress this particular command given to them point number two the same law that was first written in the heart of man continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness after the fall and was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai in ten commandments and written in two tablets the four first containing our duty towards God and the other six our duty to man in the coming weeks we'll look at those and we'll look at them categorically in that way so this second point in chapter 19 of London Baptist confession is saying this very same law has been written on the hearts of man we have been given this knowledge of how it is we are meant to go and God in his mercy wrote it down etched it in stone his people did still not quite get it and he said here
[34:40] I'll write it down for you that you might take it up and read it and obey it Paul speaks! of the Gentiles those who would have been outside of this law in Romans chapter 2 verse 14 and into the first half of 15 for when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires they are a law to themselves they are giving us evidencing that they have it in them even though they do not have the law they show that the work of the law besides this law commonly called moral so here you get the distinction the ten commandments work for us as a framework and we're going to look at these at length in the coming weeks right for God's moral law besides this law commonly called moral God was pleased to give to the people of
[35:43] Israel ceremonial laws containing several typical ordinances partly of worship prefiguring Christ his graces actions sufferings and benefits and partly holding forth diverse instructions of moral duties all which ceremonial laws being appointed only to the time of reformation talking about the time of Christ are by Jesus Christ the true Messiah and only law giver who was furnished with power from the father for that end abrogated which means cancelled and taken away so what that statement is saying that all of these ceremonial laws the sacrificial system was meant to point us to the greater requirement of the perfect sacrifice that is Christ so that sacrifice having been made those ceremonial laws are no longer necessary so when we read the old testament and we read the ceremonial laws it should cause us to praise
[36:52] God for Christ we don't have to continually offer sacrifice we have that final and completed sacrifice in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 1 for since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities it can never by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year make perfect those who draw near and the case he's making is that Christ can accomplish what the law could not okay fourth to them also he gave sundry various judicial or civil laws which expire together with the state of that people not obliging any now by virtue of that institution their general equity only being of moral use so what's he saying right these these people living in a theocracy were given these civil laws and now that that theocracy does not exist anymore those laws also are not of use other than to point us to some moral guideline to help us to think and to be careful and to look at the way
[38:18] God would have us proceed in particular matters let me show you an example of how Paul does this in 1st Corinthians chapter 9 verses 8 through 10 Paul says do I say these things on human authority what's he been talking about he's been talking about the fact that he deserves he could be paid for the work he's doing but he's decided not to be so but he's making the case that he could be paid for the work that he's doing so he says do I say these things on human authority does not the law say the same right so here's one of those uses of law what's he talking you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain so he references what we believe is a civil law and they would have obeyed this law they wouldn't muzzle the ox as it treads out the grain they let the ox eat grain as it treaded it out but then he says and this is verse 9 is it for oxen that
[39:22] God is concerned does he not certainly speak! for our sake it was written for our sake because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop you see how Paul does that very thing he takes this sundry judicial law he says we're not really too concerned actually about the ox being able to eat when it wants to eat as it treading out the grain God speaking this so that we would have some example and be concerned about those who serve in gospel efforts okay fifth here's where that language gets so fun the moral law dof forever bind all does forever bind all as well justified persons as others to the obedience thereof and that not only in regard of the matter contained in it but also in respect of the authority of
[40:29] God the creator who gave it neither doth Christ in the gospel any way dissolve but much strengthen this obligation this is what I've been saying to you right that we are meant to be keepers of the moral law and Christ gives adds to that right he doesn't take away from it but he actually raises our understanding of the law and the way in which we're meant to keep it as God's redeemed people two places in scripture here James 2 8 through 11 James says if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture you shall love your neighbor as yourself you are doing well but if you show partiality you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors so he's saying to the church this is a law you should keep and if you don't you are sinning for whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it for he who said he's referencing the law do not commit adultery also said do not murder if you do not commit adultery but do murder you have become a transgressor of the law so
[41:43] James upholds its value and its place in the Christian life Paul wrote in Romans 3 31 do we! overthrow the is that the question we're asking I believe that it is do we then overthrow the law by this faith and he says again with an expletive by no means on the contrary we uphold the law right sixth this is the long one for good reason although true believers be not under the law as a covenant of works so so these divines are saying to us and we don't keep the law to be saved to be thereby justified or condemned yet it is of great use to them as well as to others in that as a rule of life informing them of the will of
[42:50] God and their duty it directs and binds them to walk accordingly discovering also the sinful pollutions of their natures hearts and lives so as examining themselves thereby they may come to further conviction of humiliation for and hatred against sin so so God is saying there right this is how the law helps us right shows us how to go and then shows us when we're not going when we have jumped the tracks it helps us we get back on the tracks it is likewise of use to the regenerate to restrain their corruptions in that it forbids sin and the threatenings of it serve to show what even their sins deserve and what afflictions in this life they may expect for them although freed from the curse and unallayed rigor of unsatisfied undone away with rigor thereof of the curse right so it helps us to see the temporary consequence for sin we know that our eternal state if we're in christ is sure and secure but what about the between it helps us to see the challenges found in transgressing the law the promise of it likewise show them god's approbation of obedience and what blessings they may expect upon the performance thereof though not as due them by the law as a covenant of works so as man's doing good and refraining from evil because the law encourages to the one and deterrent from the other is no evidence of his being under the law and not under grace and that last part of it
[44:39] I'm pretty sure what they're saying is if a man is doing well or if a man is doing poorly it is not necessarily the evidence of whether or not he's in the faith right that was an anti prosperity gospel statement there at the end right so Galatians chapter 2 in verse 16 Paul says we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ so we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law because by works of the law no one will be justified so we will not be declared accepted by being keepers of the law but as those who have been accepted we will want we will desire to be keepers of the law and Romans 8 1 Paul says there's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus seventh and lastly neither are the aforementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the gospel but do sweetly comply with it the spirit of
[45:52] Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely and cheerfully which the will of God revealed in the law requireth to be done so the spirit of Christ stops us from sinning and enables us presses us to what the law requires of us again Paul Galatians 3 and verse 21 is the law then contrary to the promises of God certainly not for if a law had been given that could give life then righteousness would indeed be by the law and Romans 8 verses 3 and 4 so so this for me puts the nail in the coffin of antinomianism those who would say I just want to follow the whim of the spirit the spirit doesn't function this way but they believe that he does Paul here said for God is done with the law weakened by the flesh!
[47:00] in the flesh right so he's talking about how the law can't bring us righteousness but we find righteousness in Christ verse 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us being in Christ who there's activity who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit so what is this work that the Spirit is doing!
[47:29] right fulfilling the righteous requirement of the law right causing us to walk in its way so because I believe that we ought not be antinomians we will spend the coming weeks in Exodus 20 learning from the commandments that God etched in the two tablets given to Moses on Mount Sinai we will look at what each of those good commandments!
[47:58] ask that we do perform and what each of them forbid and we will be reminded all along that we are not accepted by God because of our keeping of the commandments praise God rather we are accepted by God because Jesus kept the commandments and because Jesus was punished for our failure to keep the commandments!
[48:19] beloved if you are in Christ you have been adopted by a loving father who does not love you just as you are but loves you in spite of who you are and because he loves you he desires to see you changed for his glory on the front of your bulletin in conclusion a Puritan preacher named Thomas Goodwin said the law is delightful because obedience is delightful and we do not understand that as we should let's pray together